Swedish Film: Arne Mattson, Vilgot Sjoman, Joseph Sarno, Mac Ahlberg

Scott Lord Preface: Modern Swedish Film In order to return to the subject of Scandinavian film it was necessary to revisit a completed blog entry during a film starring Marie Liljedahl, which is easy to type if using the Blog This feature while the film is in progress. The Lunascape browser has a split screen feature while watching films on Veoh.com and Veehd.com.The film has so far had two beautiful scenes, one where Marie Liljedahl is show in a bathtub before a scene where the two women are suntanning nude and applying lotion before they begin to kiss- the other a scene filmed entire in red and silhouette, more haunting than Bergman's Cries and Whispers, where Marie Liljedahl is on her bed before she is seduced, the use of showing her pubic hair, as in the tub again an erotic effect, but far more sensual with the contrast in atmosphere in the two scenes. I donnot as of yet know what's going to happen in the film and apologize for the difficulty of its availability in the United States. And yet, since revising this page, I discovered from the Scandinavian Film Periodical Film International, that another Swedish Film actress, one central to my points of departure on the seminal work of the time period has since passed away. In the film Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie (Ingmar Bergman gor en film, 1963), Vilgot Sjöman begins with a brief synopsis of the film Winter Light before his interviewing director Ingmar Bergman. Bergman discusses his use of complete silence in the film, a silence that has fallen upon the character. He explains the use of the actors' eyes in the film. Edited into the film is behind the scenes footage, including numerous shots of Ingrid Thulin trying on various pairs of glasses. Sjöman shows Bergman filming and his methods of blocking, 'The faces and the dialogue are to tell the whole story.' Sjöman's camera films Bergman's tightly enough to fill half the screen with the same shot as Bergman's from a different angle. Sjöman then interviews Bergman during the postproduction of the film, 'You always cut during movement. That way the flow isn't interrupted.' The director Ake Falk filmed Swedish Wedding Night (Brollopsbevsvar) in 1964 and in 1966 filmed The Princess (Princessan), based on a novel by Gunnar Mattsson, starring Grynet Molvig and Monica Nielsen. The film was photographed by Mac Ahlberg. In 1968, Falk directed Vindingvals with Diana Kjaer.The film is based on the novel by Arthur Lundkvist and photographed by Mac Ahlberg. In 1959 the director Olle Hellblom had brought Christina Schollin to the screen in Blackjakets (Raggare). Hans Abramson directed actress Christina Schollin with Harriet Andersson in Ormen-Berattelsen om Irene (1966), photographed by Mac Ahlberg for Minervafilm. Torgny Anderberg in directed her in the film Tofflan (1967). Torgny Anderberg in 1968 directed Anita Bjök in the film Comedy in Hagerskogp (Komedi i Hagerskog). Based on a novel by Arthur Lunkvist, the film stars Ulf Brunnberg and Monica Nordqvist. Marianne Nilsson and Yvonne Norrman both starred in their first film in 1966, Den odesdigra klocken, as did Carina Malmqvist, daughter of the director Bertil Malmqvist. 1966 also brought Christer Banck to the screen in the title role of Peter Kyllberg's film Jag. Also in the film are Tove Waltenburg, Agneta Anjou-Scram and Magaretha Bergström. The screenplay to the film was written by its director. As a precursor to the fast moving rise of sexual-relationship/sexploitation on screen, erotic literature in 1965 and 1966 brought the publication of novels like Forvildad Ungdom by Leif Lindgren, Atra i Mote by Sten Jonson and Syndagogan by Alban Osterlund. Twilight Woman around the World, written by Leighton Hasselrot, had been published two years earlier in 1963 and Termac, if seemingly only to add titles to its catolog or not, reprinted the volume Mitt liv lust, written earlier in the century, bu Frank Harris. In his book I Was Curious, diary of the making of a film, (Jag Var Nyfiken), Vilgot Sjoman offers daily entries during the shooting of a film that he hoped would ' draw on the actors' own lives and ways of life for material.' The girl in the film, portrayed by Lena Nyman, is 'curious, lively, cute, with an extraordinary appetite for reality. She wants to know everything.' Sjoman begins the diary with an account of a discussion he had had with Swedish film director Keene Fant, two scripts he had been writing, The Hotel Room and The Art of Breaking it Up and a script written by Kristina Hassrlgren that he had hoped to film, Bessie, and then continues to a dinner conversation with Ingmar Bergman ,during 1966,where the two had discussed Sjoman's wanting to film with Lena Nyman. Bergman reminded Sjoman of his despair before his having filmed Persona. Sjoman wrote in his diary that he was also interested in bringing actress Maria Emmanuelsson-Scherer to the film, "She did a very fine screentest for The Dress." While considering, he thought highly of a screentest from actress Gunilla Ohlsson for her being cast instead the same character. Yngve Gamlin had originally loaned Sjoman the use of a summercottage on which to shoot location scenes with Gudron Brost, to which Brost had consented. During filming,Sjoman was privaleged to Lena Nyman's diary, where she begins to illustrate the character she was about to create in the first scene of the film, which the reader is immediately reminded of from her description. About the film, author Tytti Soila notes, 'Most of its content was improvised and put together with the help of those who participated in the film,' her calling it a 'metafilm where the different planes of reality flow in and out of each other.' Before filming, Kristen Berg is added as scriptgirl and Lena's diary includes the entry, "Vilgot wants us all to make suggestions. vilgot wants me to write down and send him all sorts of episodes of things that have happenned to me. Everything I've already told him and anything more I can find in my diaries." There is a patch of grass in Djurgarden that hopefully still belongs to the director Vilgot Sjoman and scriptgirl Kerstin Berg. He writes in his diary about having dinner with her, "Train as a scriptgirl? She'd make a good one. I'm suren of that." and adds, "She is twenty-three and goes to drama school (Royal Dramatic Theater). I am forty and direct films-in such a situation there's enough latent explosive material as it is." When Kerstin decided she wanted to be a scriptgirl, Sjoman visited Janne Halldoff and asked if she could become an unpaid assistant on his film Life is Just Great (Livet ar stenkul, 1967) I Am Curious Blue begins with there being actresesses interviewed by a film director, and then cuts to a group of women filmed in alternate close ups during a discussion on sex. There is a shot of two women in near profile in closeshot, one in the foreground of the shot, the other also in profile behind her within the same frame. Sjoman zooms on one of the women during a group shot of the women together. Intercut are scenes of him in a theater watching the rushes with Lena Nyman, who is then seen with him behind the camera. She begins being filmed in Stockholm's Tidninggen, near the water, wearing a tight skirt in profile, it almost being a mini-skirt. As to foreshadow, Sjoman, who often appears on the screen as an actor playing the director of the film, says, 'A love scene without consequences would be pointless.' The film almost cuts too quickly to a scene where Nyman is seen in bed with her lover before their both orgasming and quietly on a pillow in the darkened room with him in a post coital moment. The two wait to get dressed during their conversation, their being nude together as they talk possibly seeming prolonged compared to the legnth of the previous scene where they were in bed. The next scene begins with exterior shots of her kept in an introspective voice-over narrative, the scene itself being filmed mostly in a church and during a discussion on marriage, particularly in the churches of Sweden. It may seem as though the character is encountering what she sees as complacency within a culture then aspiring toward being moderately liberal, and yet this itself is for character interest, almost to where the actress in the film is kept too far from her sexual fantasies during the story line, and kept from disclosing them in as much as the plotline keeps it to the periphery. The story line is often kept minimal during the film, as though condensed as it follows Lena throughout its locations and yet the nudity is not entirely placed as being gratuituous be the film's being cenetered around her. Later, Lena Nyman is filmed at a lake in a nude swimming scene, her getting out of the water in full shot, in profile, the camera stationary as she moves in front of it. The camera is again stationary as she sits indian style by the waters edge. The scenes by the water are almost seperate from the scenes where she is making a film with Sjostrom. She is then filmed at what seems to be near dusk, watching two women making love, which ends abruptly as Lena leaves. During the revising of this webpage, the lovely, erotic fleshy sexually experienced Lena Nyman, passed away on February 4,2011. Hakan Bergstrom had directed Lena Nyman in her first film, Fargligt lofte (1955), that year her also appearring in the film Luffaren och Rasmus. Ms. Nyman appeared in the film Skenbart (2003), directed by Peter Dalle and starring Gosta Ekman, Anna Bjork and Kristina Tornquist, its screenplay having had been being penned by Lars Noren. She has also recently filmed under the direction of Colin Nutley. The films of Vilot Sjoman were screened of at the Festival du Cinema Nordique during the second week in March, 2004. Having directed Gia Petre The Doll (Vaxdockan) with Per Oscarsson in 1962, Arne Mattsson also that year directed Eva Dahlbeck, Christina Schollin and Sigge Furst in Ticket to Paradise (Biljet till paradiset) and Anita Bjork and Lena Granhagen in Lady in White (Vita frun) . In 1963 he directed The Yellow Car (Den Gula bilen), starring Barbro Kollberg and Ulla Stromstedt and Yes He Has Been With Me (Det ar hos mig han har varit). Actress Elsa Prawitz wrote three screenplays that were filmed in Sweden, all directed by Arne Mattsson, this the first, scripted under the name Pia Elitz based on a novel by Eva Seeberg. Produced by Nordisk Tonefilm, it is a film in which Eva Sjostrom, Lena Nyman and Britt Ekland appear on the screen, as do Elsa Prawitz, Inga Landre, Britta Petterson and Viveka Linder. Prawitz also wrote the screenplay to Mattsson's 1967 film Den Onda cirkeln. Swedish Film director Arne Mattsson followed in 1964 with Blue Boys. Arne Mattsson his then directing Morianera (I the Body, 1965), a film which starred Eva Dahlbeck and Elsa Prawitz. Gunnell Lindblom was in front of the camera for two films directed by Mattsson ,A Woman of Darkness (Yngsjomordet, 1966) and Den Onda Cirkeln (1967). The latter also stars Gio Petre, Marie-Louise Hakansson and Eva Larsson. Also that year Mattsson directedMordaren-en helt vanlig person (1967) with Allan Edwall. Before Hon Dansade en Sommar had been adapted to the screen by the director Arne Mattsson, the Swedish author of erotic literature, Per Olof Ekstrom had published his first novel, En Ensamme, in 1947. Mattsson was later to pair the actor and actress of the film together for a second film. Ulla Jacobsson and Folke Sundquist, along with Gio Petre, starred together in The Teddy Bear(Bamse, 1968). Bergman has said, possibly only softly, 'Take a look at any of Arne Mattsson's films and you'll see how camera movmement replaces everything. What I call technique is knowing how to affect the viewer. And that's why its a wrong use of words to say that Arne Mattsson and Torbjorn Axelman are clever technicians.' And yet it is particularly this that in the art film can be combined with narrative; especially beautiful is the scene where harpsicord is being played in Ann and Eve (Ann och Eve, 1971); especially beautiful is Marie Liljedhal, varying camera positions keeping her on the screen. One of the opening scenes to the film is an interior dialouge scene where she says, 'All I know is that I love him and that's enough for me.' and 'I'm sure marriage isn't easy.'. In the scene there is almost a dramatic use of space that carries their conversation and lends added significance to each line as it is delivered. To conclude the scene, Mattsson tightly films her in medium close shot from a low angle, her then pivoting during the shot to walk away from the camera in over the shoulder shot, it then cutting abruptly, almost before she is in medium shot. Marie Liljedahl has not yet been seen nude or semi-nude in the film. While in the opening scene the camera zooms into close shot on each character as they are looking at each other in two adjacents shots, one instance of an approximation of the feminine gaze later in the film is where both female characters in the scene are looking off camera toward another character as they discuss how much they might happen to know about him, Marie Liljedahl listening to Gio Petre without her eyes changing the direction in which she is looking. One of the most beautiful films to be shot in Sweden, although filmed with black and white stock, Inga (Jag en oskuld, 1967) introduced Marie Liljedahl to audiences in the United States. During the film, there is a dialouge scene that takes place in a suana during which the is a beautiful shot of her that dollies back before she comes toward the camera. During an early scene of the film, characters are kept at a diagnal to each other, one in the foreground of the shot, the other in the background, during their conversation. There is then a cut to a scene during which Greta is sunbathing and reintroduced to a former lover. Marie Liljedahl enters the film by entering a living room from what appears to have been her bedroom, as though already dressed for bed, she had returned to say good night; in the film she is about to leave to meet Greta, who is her aunt. Characters during the early scenes often deliver lines at a diagnal to each other, but in close shot, one behind the other at their shoulders, almost off to the side, as they both face the camera. In a scene where she is showering she begins by balleticly holding her soap over her head before she lathers herself. Before getting out of the shower to towel herself and brush her hair, whether or not it is the work of a young actress who had been a ballerina and a way for her to play the scene easier, she again reaches into the air with the grace and timing of ballet, which when filmed brings an eroticism to her solitude and makes her seem not only less aware of the camera but less subject to its inhibitions as her movements are allowed an unseen freedom of beauty. I included the actress Marie Liljedahl in the internetcopy of the novel that I'm writing, not only hoping that a theme that could complementarily complement what I am now writing, but hoping that the actress Marie Liljedahl's interpretation of Inga in the film and its sequel, Inga Two,The Seduction of Inga would deepen the character as a sex-symbol, as a desired object and interpellate the reader into a deeper identification with the character that I am still at the moment creating and developing. Whether or not my created character is a ballerina, or actress, or university student, I would like there to be facets attributed to Ms. Liljedahl onscreen, much like the feeling of one gets with Vadim's Barbarella, or Bardot in Viva Zapata (Malle). Marie Liljedahl also appeared in the film Inga Two/The Seduction of Inga (Nagon att alska, 1971). Nearly titled Inga and Greta, the film was shot in part on location in Stockholm. The title sequence of the film opens with the camera dollying back on Marie Liljedahl about to get out of bed and then cuts to a shot of the camera panning up to film her in the shower in close shot, slowly beginning with a close shot of her feet, the water sliding downward on her skin and in front of the lens, it keeping her in near profile as it pans up to her nude hips and above them untill the actress is in close up. The camera then cuts to a shot of her dressing, as she puts on a pair of blue underwear and a flowered blouse as she is introduced by a voice over narrative. She is almost more beautiful filmed in color on the screen than in Inga during the first scens of the film, her long hair upon her shoulders framing her face, much as in the film Anna and Eve, which opens with a similar scene of the actress in a bedroom before getting dressed. She is demure with something reticient about her feminity as in the earlier film, there being a sensuality of her looking almost near the camera with her lips tightly closed and all expression left to her eyes. In an early scen she is shown in a retrospective narrative on her bed in a thin pink nightgown whith shots from the earlier Inga intercut, again with the use of a voiceover narrative, her questioning herself about her needing to be in love. She becomes the secretary for a writer of erotic novels, with whom she begins a romatic intrigue. She is exceptionally beautiful, quite possibly sultry shown making love, although only briefly on the screen, the curve of her hip and thigh in close shot. In a later scene she is again brought to the screen while making love, shown in close shot horizontally from only her shoulders to her knees. The director cuts to a post-coital scene to reveal her body more fully as she outs on a coat nude, in profile full shot, her shoulders pivoted so that the contour of her shoulder and outline of her breasts is within the frame, but the outline of her hips in three quarter profile is shot near over the shoulder, the back of her thigh toward the camera and her knees facing away from it as though hidden, the back of her calves toward it. In a later scene she is again filmed nude over the shoulder while dressing, her bending her knees to bring the camera and the beauty of movement into relationship, the actress silently graceful as the position of the camera waits during a stationary shot that ends a series of shots. The plotline of the film tightens as Inga is reunited with the novelist, who in turn is reunited with Greta, portrayed by Inger Sundh. It is brought to a near resolution with the line of dialougue, 'Inga, I don't know what to say.' She again dresses silently in front of the camera before Greta and Inga make love, their beginning noth on their knees, facing each other.

For anyone who has seen her in film, particularly of interest is her brief inclusion in a dialouge scene in Eva-den uttstotta. Shown in the United States as Swedish and Underage(1973), the film stars Solveig Andersson. During the film there is a dialouge scene where Ms. Andersson, in an attic, is trying on a hat in a mirror shot. The line delivered by Marie Liljedahl is 'But I don't see a connection between them.' In between the films Inga and The Seduction of Inga, ballerina-actress Marie Liljedahl appeared onscreen as Snow White in West Germany, during the film Grimms Marchen von lusternen Paichen (1969), written and directed by Rolf Thiele and starring Ingrid van Bergen, Eva V. Rueber, Kitty Gschgof, gaby Fuchs, Evelyn Putree and Isolde Stiegler. More stirring is her appearance in Eugenie (Franco,1970). It is a horror film with Christopher Lee, but the scenes are intercut, so that the film, like Veil of Blood, with Swedish actress Marie Forsa, is listed under sexploitation, and filmed in Liechestien centers around a plot near to the film Anna och Eva, it opening on an island and moving quuickly to a bedroom interior, there being included a panning shot of Marie Liljedahl while she is on her bed that equally shows how provacative the miniskirt is that she is wearing. The scene later is rearticulated with Liljedahl in her underwear. In that there is an earlier scene of Maria, the older lesbian, nude on a table during a cult worship, the shot within the context of the film may be used as contrast, one actress being positioned nude on her back, whereas the other is on her stomach; if so, it is atmospheric in regard to the dramatic, and discloses no plot event, merely depicting both characters in their contrasting and not yet conflicting circumstances. The red miniskirt fits accurately, snuggly, upon Liljedahl's breasts while she is in profile, and, she bends her knees to show the glamour of its hemline. The lesbian activity begins with a mirror shot with a direct cut to a scene where she is taking a bath, the mirror as surface and and the water as surface within which she is immersed only atmosphericlly dramatic and not overtly symbolic of a narcissism within lebianism, and yet there is a beautiful early use of showing her pubic hair within the adjacent shots that connects the mirror with her being a loved object and object of desire- her pubic hair being included in the shots seems like freedom and gratification have been both released, although the scene is queit and subdued in its excitement. The scene is continuous, leading to a nude sunbathing scene where the two apply lotion before they kiss. Following it is seduction scene belong to the horror plot proper filmed entirely in red, the entire interior bright crimson as she is in bed, the shift of scene converging two dramtic tones, both erotic and cinematic syntax bringing the different mood into play. She is seen by the vampire-occult figure as vouyer and is filmed in close shot making love, her nipples prominent on the screen.The film returns to a beautiful mirror shot filmed in her bedroom before the plot is resolved and he can have her without the others, pleasure, and inevitably the pleasure of their seperating-it is almost his effort to save her, which includes how the film ends, with a temporal loop. I also include with my novel, trailers to the film in which actress Essy Persson appears. For the one, I like her and secondly, they are early pre-sexplotation films that weave plots of erotic romance. Torjborn Axelman directed Essy Persson and Margareta Sjodin in Vibration (Lejonsommar, 1968), photographer by Swedish cinematographer Hans Dittmer. Like the film Inga, Therese and Isabelle is a film that can be cherished very much, it being the film that may have introduced her to most audiences in the United States. There is a scene where the Swedish actress is in bed alone begininng to orgasm that is particularly beautiful, filmed much like the scene in Gustav Mutachy's film Ectasy (1933) with Hedy Lamarr. There is also a later scene of the two women in bed together with a voice over poem included. Silently staring after having undressed before the two are in bed together and after, Anna Gael is stunning in the film, Essy Persson is hauntingly beautiful. Writing about the film, author Joan Mellen describes it as being a film in which, suprisingly, both female characters are sexually fulfilled. Writing well into the second half of the last century, shI'm e views the onscreen subject positioning of femininity more as the difficulty of creating the image of the liberated woman. She cautions that in regard to the films of director Ingmar Bergman in particular, this is represented by a presenting of female characters as principally being a biological entity in that their sexuality may be dependent upon a fraility, a fraility which then becomes the object of a voyeurism for the spectator, one film in which this curiousity on the part of the audience is sought being The Silence.

In 1966, Essy Persson had starred with Gunnar Bjornstrand in Trafracken, directed by Lars-Magnus Lindgren (the film was shown in the United States under the title Her Only Desire in 1969). In 1965, Ms. Persson appeared in the films Flygpan saknas and Operation Lovebirds(Sla forst, Frede!). Torbjorn Axelman directed Margareta Sjodin and Grynet Molvig in the film Hot Snow (Het sno, 1968), photographed by Hans Dittmer. By 1974 Mac Ahlberg, who had directed Ms. Persson in I, a Woman (Jag en kvinna), was directing in Sweden under the name of Bert Torn with the films Swedish Sex Kitten (Flossie) and The Second Coming of Eva (Porr i Skandalskolan). Absolutely gorgeous, her face kept in medium close shot while she is orgasming under the direction of Joseph W. Sarno, Marie Forsa appeared in films that are nearly seminal to contemporary film-making, among those she appeared in being Ahlberg's film Molly (1977). Anne Magle (Anee von Lindberger) also appears in the film. Christa Linder and Marie Forsa both appeared in the film Bel Ami. Before having directed Marie Liljedahl and Mariep Forsa, Joseph W. Sarno directed the films Sin in the Suburbs, The Love Merchant (1966), Come Ride the Wild Pink Horse (1967), The Love Rebellion (1967) and Scarf of the Mist, Thigh of Satin (1967).

In Finland, Kristina Halkola and Kristi Wallasvaara had been fiming under the direction of Mikko Niskanen with Under Your Skin (Kapy Selan alla), their both appearing the following year in the director's film Girl of Finland (Lapualaismorsian). Based on a novel by Gustaf Sandgren, ...som havet nakna vind, starring Lilemor Ohlson and Gio Petre, was directed by Gunnar Hoglund. In 1969, Claes Fellbom wrote and directed The Shot (Skottet, starring Diana Kjaer, his also that year directing Den vilda jakten pa linkbilen. The previous year Fellbom had directed Monica Nordqvist, Erik Hell, Ollegard Wellton and Lissi Alandh in the film Swedish Love Play (Carmilla), photographed by Ake Dahlqvist. Both Stellan Olsson and Jonas Cornell directed films in 1969, It's Up to You and Hugs and Kisses respectively. Cornell also directed Agneta Ekmanner and Gosta Ekman in Like Night and Day (Som natt och dag). Stellan Olsson directed and co-wrote with Per Oscarsson the 1969 film Close to the Wind (Oss Emellan) starring Per Oscarsson, Barbel Oscarsson and Beppe Wolgers. Astrid Henning Jensen directed and co-wrote with David Richardson the 1969 film Me and You (Mej och Dej/Mig och Dig) starring Sven-Bertil Taube and Lone Hertz. Swedish film director Jan Halldoff appears on screen in the film. Torgny Wickman in 1969 directed the film The Language of Love (Ur Karlekens Sprak) with Maj-Briht Bergstrom-Walen, Solveig Andersson and Inge Hegeler. Inge Ivarson produced the film for Filmproduction Investment. Torbjorn Axelman that year directed Kameleonterna with Ulf Brunnberg, Mona Hakan and Monica Stenbeck. Behind the camera for the film was photographer Hans Dittmer. Goran Gentele in 1969 teamed Jarl Kulle and Gunn Wallgren, along with Meg Westergren, Per Oscarsson and Margareta Sjodin in the film Miss and Mrs. Sweden, scripted by Lars Forssell. Stig Lasseby in 1969 directed King Adil's Necklace (Sveagris), following it in 1970 with the film For sakerhets skull. Jarl Kulle wrote and directed the both the 1969 film The Bookseller Who Gave Up Bathing (Bokhandlaren som slutade bara) and the 1970 film Ministern, the Swedish actress Helena Brodin having appeared in both. In 1969 Gun Falck and Gunilla Iwanson appeared in a fairly beautiful film, Yes (Kvinnolek), shown in the United States as To Lisa My Love Ingrid, photographed by Ake Dahlqvist, his almost studying the contour of the nude bodies of the two women while they are together, in bed. The screenplay was written by Chris Tonner.

1969 also saw the publication of Den som ar utan synd, writtten by per Olaf Ekstrom.

Although they include the film Anita (Anita- ur en tonrasflikas dagbok, 1973), which, directed by Torgny Wickman and photographed by Hans Dittmer for Swedish Filmproductions, starring Stellan Skarsgard, is in fact stunning mostly after its first fourty minutes, it including a bedroom scene between the two women characters and between the two lovers, the films of Christina Lindberg show an attempt to bring the complexities of erotic relationships to the screen, the erotic narrative within the development of character. Among them are Maid in Sweden which has a scene during which she is taking a shower filmed in slow motion in which she is exquisite. Nude in front of the camera, only the camera is in the room with her as the water flows down on to her bare shoulders; only the camera is watching her and it is only to the camera that her subjectivity is imparted. Young Playthings, with Christina Lindberg, Eva Portnoff and Margareta Hellstrom, is fairly imaginative and alothough not metaphorical, within the context of its storyline, it connects the characters as well as bringing them into fantasy. Its opening shots are of a dialougue scene as the two women are sunbathing nude, there then being a cut to an interior mirror shot of Ms. Lindberg combing her hair that is beautifully photographed; the dialougue scene is continued as the beginning of the film particular is photographed for glamour, a glamour that is only achieved by Ms. Lindberg's being in front of the camera and the look given by her eyes. The film begins a series of scenes that are fantasy interwoven into the story of the three women, their putting on erotic stage plays in between indivdual scenes of the film. In Jan Halldoff's film Dog Days (Rotmanad, 1970) Christina Lindberg is also photographed for glamour, her being more frequently kept in close shot, including a close shot that cutting with the camera tightly pans down to end the film by cutting to a brief mirror shot. There are scenes in the film where she is in full shot and long shot where if she is not only being filmed for glamour, then she is being photographed for nude glamour. In more than one of her films, she is given a character that is voyeuristic, held in close-up near a doorway. Spectatorship- a second looking through the viewfinder at the details that appear in the frame, the director having selected what the attention of the viewer will be brought to by allowing the camera to be authorial as it records the scene unseen- would include the look of the character as a metaphor for the camera, a character that as a voyeur would be intradiegetic. In that the erotic object is gazed at voyeuristicly, as the desire for pleasure, there nears an objectification of the erotic by the character on the screen, the spectator in the audience an observer of the emotion brought by the erotic. The temporal structure of the shots, the camera cutting back and forth between voyeur and erotic object as both experience pleasure and ectasy offer an immediacy, an instantaneity to the spectator, an event that is taking place within female subjectivity-the fantasies of the character, the fantasies of the character as they are fulfilled. Christina Lindberg also appeared with Ulrike Butz in the film Secrets of Sweet Sixteen (What Schoolgirls don't tell, Was Schulmadchen verschwigen, 1973) directed by Ernst Hofbauer. Ms. Lindberg enters the film midway through during an exterior follow shot of the three women, the camera tracking with the womenn and their conversation as they walk. There is later a shot of her on a bed on her knees as she is in profile with an accompanying shot of her nude stomach. Editing is used in the film to connect similar scenes, the body of an actress at a near dialgnal to the camera in the foreground of the shot, tightly framed on her back in only her underwear, later there being a scene where an actress is positioned nude, on her stomach, the camera cutting back and forth between close shots of her face and a close shot of her hips and below her waist. Although ostensibly a comedy by the time the film reaches its end, there are early scenes that seem indistinguishable from the narrative of a drama, or erotic drama, which are used to establish its black humor, its acting carrying the narrative: early fin the film a retrospective voice over narrative of Cornelia riding in a train is used to photograph the glamour, near haunting glamour, of her motionless face.Christina Lindberg wrote and directed the film Christinas svampskola. The copy of Exposed (Exponerad, Gustav Wiklund 1971), starring Christina Lindberg and the actress Siv Ericks, seen by the present writer was in Swedish and had no subtitles. Livet at stenkul (1967), directed by Jan Halldoff, was the first of only two films in which the actress Mai Neilsen appeared, it also having included the actor Keve Hjelm. Bengt Forslund and Bengt Ekerot both appear on screen in the film, as does Halldoff. Jan Halldoff's Korridoren (1968) was co-scripted by Bengt Forslund with Bengt Bratt, it having starred Mona Andersson, Agneta Ekmanner and Pia Rydwall and having been photogrpahed by Inge Roos, who that year co-directed the film Mujina with Goran Strindberg. Bengt Forslund also appears briefly in in the film Portratt av en stad (Halldoff, 1969), which starred Monica Strommerstedt and Lars Hansson. Jan Halldoff directed The Office Party in 1971 and The Last Adventure (Det Sista Aventyret) in 1975. Happenings: First introduced to the present author by a televised broadcast of the film Hammerhead with Judy Geeson, a sequel to the Boisie Oakes spy film The Liquidator, Happenings in the United States and the accompanying underground cinema were well documented by Harvard University- during 1967 they were recorded as having originated not so much as from the inspiration of filmmaker Stan Brackage (Metaphors on Vision), who deemed himself to be among "aesthetic revolutionaries", but by Jonas Mekas, editor of Film Culture, and, much like the small group of Swedish writers in the 1940's, their influence was felt as Abstract Expressionists. If it seems that there is a lack of Modernism in the Swedish film of the late 1960's, early 1970's, I am Curious Blue and Yellow, certainly addresses the freethinking that was quickly becoming popular in the United States, the country in which the film was banned from being screened. During 1965, Ken Kelman wrote, "Mekas makes a good try at expressing the defeats and triumphs of the human spirit in a dehumanized society, through episodes connected by meaning rather than dramatic causality." Interestingly, in regard to the male-authored cinema and the relation between female spectatorship and the female subject within discourse, it was not until 1972 that the the periodical Women and Film appeared, it for the most part having become the magazine Camera Obscura by 1977. It was not until 1973 that the British Film Institute published Notes on Women's Cinema, Jump Cut magazine only then following in 1974. There is currently study at Stockholm University concerned with "embodied spectatorship", its point of departure being a look at "spectatorial processes at the intersection of film, body, time and place". To bring the separate arts into convergence, Stockholm is presently offering photographic exhibitions under the title Another Story. It uses the expression "post-medium condition" to describe, if not to question, the relationship between spectator and spectacle and whether these multiple relationships have been put into a "temporary and strategic mode of existence". As a sentry, if not as an everwatchful curator, a lighthouse keeper after the liquid swirls of Pollack, a copyrighted Monogram (Robert Rauschenberg 1955-59) stares back , much like The Syndics of the Clothmakers Guild (Rembrandt van Rijn, 1662) at those anticipating a Swedish Art involved in the modern period, the metaphor elusively evading it being a symbol for the photographer, or the cameraman, mythopoetic that the painting causes its effect without the use of a lens, or shutter. In Sweden, poet Tomas Transtrommer published the volume Night Vision (Morkserseende, 1970), while poet Robert Bly published a translation of earlier poems written by Transtromer in the collection Twenty Poems. Ingmar Bergman during 1970 directed the play Dromspelet (Ett Dromspel, A Dream Play) for the Royal Dramtic Theater in Stockholm. Thought to be a pessimistic play, it is grouped with Spoksonaten (The Spook Sonata), which Ingmar bergman directed for the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm during 1973. In 1970, Torgny Wickman directed Kim Anderzon in The Lustful Vicar (Kyrokherden), based on the novel Nar det gick for kyrkoherdan by Bengt Anderberg. Anderzon also starred in the film Midsommardansen (1971), directed by Arne Stivall. Her daughter, Tintin Anderzon, appeared in Den attonde dagen (1979). Arne Stivall had directed Monica Eckman in Pappa Varfor ar du arg (1968).Skracken har 1000 ogon, was in directed by Torgny Wickman 1971.The Birdcall (Lockfageln) with Louise Edlind, Gunnar Bjornstrand and both includes the first onscreen appearances of actresses Marie Ekorre and Christine Gyhagen. Love 3 (Karlekens XYZ, 1971) had also starred Inge Hegeler and Maj-Briht Bergstrom-Walan. Ms. Bergstrom-Walan appearred with Kim Anderszon in the film Karlekens Sprak 2004, starring Regina Lund with Emma Torstensdotter Aberg, Helena Lindblom and Julia Klingener and directed by Anders Lennberg. Maj-Brit Bergstrom-Walan directed the film Att vara ta in 1972. Gunnar Hoglund in 1970 brought Diana Kjaer, Sune Mangs, Lissi Alandh and Cia Lowgren to the screen in the film Do you believe in Swedish Sin? (Som hon baddar far han ligga). Vivian Gude would direct her first film in 1970, Longina, starring silent film actress Linnea Hillberg, Gret Crafoord and Lena Brundin. Gude also that year directed actress Kerstin Osterlin in her first film Den stora Salongen. That year Jeanette Swensson starred with Gudron Brost in De manga sangarna, written and directed by Bertil Malqvist. The film was based on the 1966 novel by Lucille Borgier and photographed by Arne Brandhild. Norwegian audiences in 1970 were viewing the film Shall we play Hide and Seek (Ska Vi Lege Gemsel?) filmed by Tom Hedegaard and photographed by Claus Loof. The film stars Eva Bergh, Helga Backer, Sisse Reingaard and Lykke Nielsen. In Denmark, director John Hilbard brought actress Birte Tove to the screen in the first of a series of film based on a novel by C. E Soyas, Mazurka pa Sengekanten, photographed by Erik Wittrup Willumsen. Also in the film are Anne Grete Nissen, Susanne Jagd and Jeanette Swenson. Birte Tove continued with the director in 1971 for the film Tandlaege pa sekanten and again in 1972 for the film Rektor pa sengekanten, both starring Anne Birgit Garde. In 1967, John Hilbard had directed Ghita Norby in the film Min Kones Ferie, photographed by Aage Wiltrup. Garbriel Axel during 1971 directed the actress in the film Love Me Darling/With Love (Med Kaerlig Hilsen) with Grethe Holmer, Lily Broberg and Ann Birgit Garde. Although the film Komed i Hagerskog (Comedy in Hagerskog), starring Ulf Brunnberg may not have been the particular influence upon films that were to be made later, quite apart from erotic drama, and erotic romance that may have been honestly filmed as erotica but deemed to be an exploitation of the dramatic film in having been filmed for commercial screenings, the erotic comedy also quickly appeared more often in Sweden, Denmark and Germany, particularly glamourous actresses showcased on the screen within the erotic comedy. Although more of a film that would seem the exploitation of nude glamour than an erotic comedy, Love in 3D (Liebe in drei, Boos) brought Swedish erotic film actress Christina Lindberg together on the screen with actress Ingrid Steeger. Christina Lindberg is particulalry alluring in the film, which, filmed in Germany, was in fact screened to audiences in 3-D. Along with Ingrid Steeger, the actresses Rena Bergen and Evelyne Traeger can be included in the actresses that appeared in erotic comedies filmed in Germany. In Germany, actress Christine Schuberth appeared in two films during 1970, Das Glocklein unterm Himmelbett, directed Hans Heinrich, and Abarten der Korperlichen Liebe, directed by Franz Marischka. The films of Ernst Hofbauer are centered around actresses that are among the most intriguing and sensuous of nude glamour, including Elke Deuringer, Sonja Embriz and Marisa FeldyMarissa Feldy. Hofbauer directed the 1973 Fruhreilen Report. Among the films screened in Sweden during 1972 was the film Provocation (Du gamla, du fria) produced by Pro Film AB and directed by Oyvind Falström. The films stars Marie-Louise Geer, Ann Charlotte Hult, Lena Svendber and Anki Rahlskog. Jorn Donner that year film Hellyys (Tenderness), with Kristi Wallasvaara. Not entirely history in the making, it was often that the cameramen of the silent film era, much like the onscreen cameos of director Alfred Hitchcock, would appear as actors for one film. Danish silent cameraman Einar Olsen circled to appear in front of the camera in 1973 directed by Svend Wam in the Norwegian film Five days in August (Fem Dogn i August, starring Margaret Robsahm, Kjersti Dovigen and Elianne Linnestad. Nor is it far from being out of place that Bengt Forslund in 1973 wrote and directed the film Luftburen, which starred Olof Lunstrom, Margaretha Bystrom and Solveig Ternstrom. Forslund appearred briefly on screen in the film Keep All Doors Open (Halla alla dorar oppna, 1973), directed by Per-Arne Ehlin and starring Kisa Magnusson. Per Oscarsson in 1973 directed and starred in the title role of the film Ebon Lundin with Gudron Brost and Sonya Hedenbrett and Marie-Louise Fors. Jorn Donner in 1973 directed the film Baksmalla, starring Diana Kjaer, Lisbeth Vestergaard and Birgitta Molin. It was the first film in the which Swedish actresses Anita Ericsson, Christine Hagan and Irina Lindholm were to appear. Peter Cowie writes that in the film A Handfull of Love (En handfull karlek, 1974), 'She is indeed the character who matures throughout the film, and Anita Ekstrom's performance is a perfect blend of mindfullness and tenacity. Directed by Vilgot Sjoman and photographed by Jorgen Persson, the film also stars Ingrid Thulin and Eva-Britt Strandberg. In 1975 Vilgot Sjöman brought Agneta Ekmanner and Christina Schollin to the screen in the film Garagert, which also starred actresses Lil Terselius, Kerstin Hanström and Annika Tertow. Theater audiences in Denmark in 1974 were to view the film I Tgrens tegn, directed by Werner Hedman and starring actreeses Sigrid Horne-Rasmussen and Susanne Breuning. In 1975 Svenska Filmindustri produced the film The White Wall (Den Vita vaggen) starring actresses Harriet Andersson and Lena Nyman. Lasse Hallström that year directed the film A Lover and his Lass (En kille och en tjej) with Mariann Rudeberg and Catarina Larsson. Vilgot Sjoman during 1975 brought Agneta Ekmanner, Christina Schollin, Lil Terselius and Kerstin Hamstrom to the screen for the film Garaget, to which he also penned the screenplay, In 1975, Solveig Andersson starred in the first film directed by Mats Helge Olsson, I dod mans spar, with Isabella Kaliff. 1975 also brought Wide Open (Sangkamrater) to the screen, starring Solveig Andersson, Christina Lindberg and Gunnilla Ohlsson. The film was directed by Gustav Wickland. Solveig Andersson and Christina Lindberg both appear with Cia Lowgren in the film Swedish Wildcats (Every Afternoon, Nardet Skymmer), and on the one hand it is beautifully filmed with a plotline that develops changes in the characters as much as it does storyline; on the other hand there are short gratuitous scenes which should be edited from the film for viewing. Particularly beautiful is Cia Lowgren and there is a softness in the glamour of Solveig Andersson that is remarkable when compared to her earlier film roles. In the opening sequences there is a mirror shot during which the mirror is angled obliquely as the two women are brushing on eye shadow. There is then an instance of the female gaze as the camera cuts back and forth to show one actress looking at another as she is dressing. later in the film the two actress are shown in the same room in a series of alternating close shots in a scene during which the mirror is only seen toward its end. The glamour of both actresses is then balanced on the screen in medium close shot during their dialouge as the two actress in profile medium close shot are facing each other, the space between both characters being the center of the screen, both actress wearing a nightgown seen at their shoulders. The director Egil Holmsen, who directed his first film, Kampen om kaffet, in 1947, appears in the film Swedish Wildcats. Mac Ahlberg, directing Marie Forsa as Bert Torn, combines voyeurism and spectatorship as he positions as subject her and her lover in a darkened room where there is what is apparently a 16mm film projector. After he threads the film, the camera cuts back and forth between shots of Marie Forsa facing the camera with the projector behind her, it backlighting her while a film is running, and shots of the erotic film being shown on the screen in which a couple are near a bed, undressing and beginning to make love. As the film runs her lover is behind her also watching and begins to seduce her, their making love during the film as they both face the screen, him behind her and the camera filming her being in front of him between him and the camera as she is begining to orgasm. Justine and Juliette begins with two women walking down a country road, the sequence accompanied by a voice over narrative. Justine returns to her apartment, the two women having seperated. Ahlberg cuts back and forth between a near photographic essay of Forsa, on the screen under the name of Marie Lynn, nude in profile, alone in her apartment and shots of Justine making love being subject and the audience intentifying with it being that she is on the screen by herself and alone within the narrative as opposed to the couple together making love in the nearly juxtaposed complementary shots, in most instances it being that although reception within the theater takes places within the public sphere, movie viewing is individualistic; there is a visual representation of the first person narrative used in the novel in her being alone in her apartment being intercut with the couple making love, particularly in as much as it is an instance of foreshadowing. The tone of the voice over is accordingly introspective, there being a seriousness, one that is morose or doleful, that contrasts with Juliette's playfulness and frolicking. There then begins a transformation in Justine's character that is not allowed to retrun to showing her as being pensive. The two women reunite at an orgy where Juliette and another woman are making love. Justine is asked by someone there if she can be brought to bed in a sequence that was shot for the glamour of the nude and for its depiction of the erotic as romance. Her now in love, the camera superimposes close shots of her orgasming, her head dangling in mid air over the side of the bed in close shot as she arches her back, the scene followed by her lover photographing a scrapbook of her nude on the beach. A later scene cuts from close shots of her orgasming to her nude in bed the next morning. From this her character again begins a transformation, toward becoming libertine, with Juliette entering the orgy as it is about to begin, Ahlberg depicting female gratification as Marie Forsa is present while another couple is making love, her beside them taking to them. In earlier scenes Alberg had cut back and forth between interspersed shots, near reaction shots, of a couple present at an orgy watching it take place, female desire now occuring by Justine centering on the couple during dialouge. During 1974, Joseph Sarno had directed Marie Forsa in Butterfly, Bibi- sundig und suss and in Veil of Blood (Den pornografiska jungfrun). Among two or three films that I love and watch regularly is Abagail Lesley Is back in Town and Laura's Toys, both written and directed by Joseph Sarno in 1975. The former begins with a vertical division of sand sea and sky b efore it cuts in a shot of a wharf. It stars Rebecaa Brooke and the beautiful Jennifer Wells. The film features early uses of pubic hair on screen, particularly during a scene where two women are in bed together. Ocean, sky and sand divide the screen as the actress runs toward the camera. Laura's Toy's stars Catithja Graff, Rebecca Brooke, Anita Eriksson, Anita Redling and Anita Haarla. It was filmed on an island near Stockholm, with scenes filmed in the Old Town; the location belonged to Swedish cameraman Gunnar Westfelt. If not one of the most sensual and erotic films ever made, the nude glamour photography is stunning. There is a vibrator scene with heavy breathing which is later repeated as lesbian orgy. Threre is a cut in of a vouyer listening behind the door. It is repeated again, spliced to alternate shots with a lesbian lovemaking scene. Leena Hiltonen appeared in two films under the direction of Joseph W. Sarno, Love Island (Karlekson, 1977) and Come Blow Your Horn (Fabodjantan), in which she starred with Marie Bergman. Ewa Froling's first film, We Have Many Names (Vi har manga namn, 1976) was written and directed by the Swedish actress-director Mai Zetterling. The film was photographed by Rune Ericson. Jan Halldoff in 1976 brought Anik Linden to the screen in her first film Polare, starring Kisa Magnusson, Anne Nord, Inger Ellmann, Maj Nielsen-Blom, Ingela Sjostrom, Gunnel Wadner and Marrit Ohlsson. Andrei Feher in 1977 wrote and directed the film Swedish Love Story (Karleksvirveln), with Ann Magle (Anne von Lindberg),Sonja Rivera, Mona Larsson and Eve Strand. Swedish actress Lena Olin, daughter of actor Stig Olin, in 1977 appearred with Tintin Anderzon in Viglot Sjoman's film Tabu. A showcase for Swedish film stars Gunnar Bjornstrand and Viveca Lindfors, the film also stars Anita Ekstrom, Gudron Brost and Mona Andersson. Written and directed by Sjoman, the cinematographer to the film is Lasse Bjorne. Lena Olin appeared with Kristina Tonqvist and Irene Lindh in the film Hebriana directed by Bo Widerberg. Finland, in 1977, saw The Year of the Hare (Janiksen vuosi), directed by Risto Jarva and based on the novel by Arto Paasilinna. The previous year Jarva had directed the film Holiday (Lorna). Bo Widerberg in 1979 adapted the 1898 novel Victoria, written by Knut Hamsunm for the screen, the film starring Pia Skagermark, Christiane Horbiger and Amelie von Essen. Liv Ullmann would return to Norway for the filming of Autumn Sonata (Hostsonat/Herbstonat,1978. It was there that she had been in front of the camera in 1964 for the film De Kalte ham Skarven, which seems to be the only work of director Eric Folke Gustavson. Swedish film maker Ingmar Bergman writes, "As it turned out, I felt perfectly content to work in the primitive studious on the outskirts of Oslo. Built in 1913 or 1914, the building have left just as they were...Everything we needed was there, even though the place was dilapitated and had not been had not been kept up." Peter Cowie notes that he had rehearsed the film for two weeks at the Swedish Film Institute and filmed within a month and a half, his then arriving back in Stockholm to direct Strindberg's Dance of Death. Please note that Katinka Farago was Production Manager for the film. Ullmann teamed with, played against, Lena Nyman. It could be that Nyman's character is a symbolic character in the film; with Bergman's knowledge of the Swedish avante guarde of the 1940's and Lagerkvist, it may be put in place to represent a subdued relovolution of the intellectual, the forefront of a subculture that has fizzled- I'm from the United States and was an existentialist, with a little of Tristan Tzara, Dadaist added at the time of Bergman's filming and was reading The Tragic Finale by Wilfred Desan, an encapsulation of Being and Nothingness. It could also be a substitute for a child of divorce and Bergman mourning over the unlimited possiblities of having a daughter and as a a character, only a symbolic of what could be in the future, so as to disappear as only a potentiality, were the story to be continued in the epic novel and Bergman to pull the strings of the Magic Lantern away theatrically. It has been written that there is a lack of plot in the film Autumn Sonata, that the core of its narrative is the resurfacing of what is retrospective, which is to say it leads back to the proscenium arc theory of silent film being a form of filmed theater. Novelist Linn Ullman, the daughter of director and actress, appears in the film. Liv Ullmann, first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award given at the Copenhagen Internation Film festival, toward the end of September 2003 was made honorary president of the European Association. Still on my desk, looking for a wonderful new home, is a book which reads: Of the first edition of CHANGING three hundred copies have printed on special paper and specially bound. Each copy is signed by the author and numbered." I have had no autograph added to it, as I first thought that I would, in that it would be the best volume so far to casually add any autography to; you can only estimate the future, it itself an imaginary concept. I'm scottlord Scott Lord Swedish Film

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