Early Scandinavian SIlent Film,: FIlmed Theater and the Cinema of Attractions

Before Charles Magnusson, who became manager of Svenska Bio during 1909, had initiated the beginning of the classic period of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film, while Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller were involved with acting and theater production on the stages of Sweden, Sweden was not far behind other nations in producing one reel news footage and actualities. Documentary like news footage of royalty, Presidents and poltical personages was not uncommon during the transnational cinema of attractions and, notably, while under N.E. Sterner of Svenska Kinematograf, Charles Magnusson had photographed "Konung Haakongs mottanging i Kristiana" (1906), a short film on the King of Norway's visit to Kristiania, almost as though to presage that it would be there rather in the later Rasunda that the groundwork of his beginning the Swedish film industry would be laid, his also having directed the films "Gosta Berlingsland Bilder fran Frysdan" (1907), "Gota elf katastafen" (1908) and Resa Stockholm-Goteborg genom Gota och Trollhatte kanalor" (1908). Peter Cowie notes that despite the weather conditions of thick fog, Magnusson had shot the most professional footage of the event when compared to other Swedish cameramen of the time. Photographer Robert Olsson is listed as having worked on the filming of King Oscar in Kristianstad, his having filmed several of the earliest films photographed in Scandinavia before working with Carl Engdahl, among them "Pictures of Laplanders" (Lappbilder, 1906), "Herring Fishing in Bohuslan" (Sillfiske i Bohuslan, 1906) and "Equal to Equal" (Lika mot lika, 1906), directed by Knut Lambert and starring Tollie Zelman.

During 1897, Ernest Florman photographed Oscar II, King of Sweden, in a one minute film, "Landing of the King of Siam at the Logardtrappen", featuring the Crown Prince Gustaf. Author Peter Cowie, in his volume Scandinavian Cinema, credits Ernest Oliver Florman with having directed Sweden's first fiction film, "The Village Barber".

William Rothman writes that only one sixth of the silent film shot before 1907 had storyline. This can apparently refer to Sweden as well. Scholar Sandra Walker, University of Zurich writes, "At the time of Svenska Bio's first operations approximately 75% of the film produced in Sweden were nature films and journalistic reportage films. The journalistic films, such as the funeraof King Oscar II, in 1907, have been mentioned inconnection with the development of narrative techniques." It would be interesting to as if from the choice of these subjects we could infer a need or desire to view narrative on the screen or if the subjects were suggestive of real life stories that might be expanded into fictional fantasy, a deigesis that might be exotic or with which we were ordinarily familiar, causing us to wonder what would happen later, identifying with the subject for that reason.

Silent Film

Swedish Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

The film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's account of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde directed by F.W. Murnau during 1920 is presumed lost, with no known existing copies of the film. "The Head of Janus" (Der Janus Kopf, Love's Mockery) had starred Conrad Veidt amd Bela Lugosi and is credited with having been one of the first films to include the use of the moving-camera shot. F.W. Murnau made 21 feature films, 8 of which are presumed lost, with no surviving copies. Included among them is the 1920 horror film "The Hunchback and the Dancer" (Der Bucklige und die Tanzerin) photographed by Karl Freund.

Lotte H. Eisner, in his biography titled Murnau, looks at a scene change to the shooting script of "Nosferatu" written by Henrik Galeen made by the director, F.W. Murnau, but adds that few additons and revisions to the original script were made by Murnau. "Sometimes the film is different than the scenario though Murnau had not indicated any change in the script...But there is a suprising sequence in which nearly twelve pages (thirteen sequences) have been rewritten by Murnau."

Lotte H. Eisner analyzes the film "Nosferatu" in his companion volume to his biography of Murnau, The Haunted Screen. "Nature participates in the action. Sensitive editing makes the bounding waves foretell the approach of the vampire." Eisner later adds, "Murnau was one of the few German film-directors to have the innate love of the landscape more typical of the Swedes (Arthur von Gerlach, creator of Die Chronik von Grieshums, was another) and hes was always reluctant to resort to artifice." Murnau had visited Sweden where the cameras being used were made of metal rather than wood, which aquainted him with techniques that were in fact more modern. Author Lotte H Eisner, in his volume Murnau writes of F.W. Murnau viewing the films of Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller "when he made 'Nosferatu', the idea of using negative for the phantom forest came from Sjostrom's 'Phantom Carriage', which had been made in 1920. Above all, he had a love-hatred for Mauritz Stiller, whose 'Herre Arne's Treasure' he couldn't stop admiring." Interestingly enough, "Nosferatu" was by all accounts banned from exhibition in Sweden untill 1972 due to its having what was thought to be graphic content.

Not only can we look at Murnau's film to compare and contrast its use of landscape and location to that of Swedish Silent Films, but the Wisconsin Film Society during 1960 pointed out that its narrative was situated in a different century. "Murnau probably felt that by transferring the action to the year 1838 he would have an atmosphere more condusive to the supernatural. Because of the distance in time, an audience is perhaps more willing to employ its 'suspension of disbelief'." The Film Society mentions F.W. Murnau having filmed the Vampire's carriage in fast-motion for effect, an effect which it felt had been lost on the audiences of 1960. It conceded that shooting on location brought the film "far from the studio atmosphere", but hesitated, "Although frequently careless in technical details (camerwork, exposure, lighting, composition, and actor direction) it had variety and pace."

Interestingly, as scholar Janet Bergstrom, UCLA, surveys the work of F.W. Murnau she concerns us with evaluating how "conventions relating to sexual identity, the spectator and modes of abstraction do or do not carry over from one highly conventionalized national cinema to another. She allows that the emigre directors from Germany were less of a school of literaure than perhaps Sjostrom and Stiller were. She alludes to the women in Murnau's films as appearing one-dimensional mostly during a "morbid fascination with the female body"- "sensuality in death".


Lotte H. Eisner, in her volume Murnau, writes, "As always, Murnau found visual means of suggesting unreality". Professor David Thorburn, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, expresses aprreciation and gratitude for the author's writings pointing out that "her arguments in The Haunted Screen are still widely accepted." In regard to the expression of unreality, David Thorburn sees Expressionism as having been typified by "distortion and surreal exaggation" as well as having been "interested in finding equivalents for he inner life, dramatizing not the external world, but the world within us." If not the first horror film, Thorburn delegates "Nosferatu" to being an "origin film" and as "the film in which we can see Murnau freeing the camera.....no one had ever used the camera outdoors more effectively up to this time than Murnau". Lotte H Eisner, in The Haunted Screen writes, "The landscape and views of the little town and the castle in Nosferatu were filmed on location...Murnau, however, making Nosferatu with a minimum of resourses saw all that nature had to offer in the way of fine images...Nature participates in the action."

In Expressionist Film: New Perspectives, author Deitrich Scheunemann looks at the dismissal of Lotte Eisner's expressionist name tag as genre called for by authors Werner Sudendorf and Barry Salt. Salt excludes Murnau's film "Nosferatu" from German Expressionist Film, the criteria being an affinity with expressionist painting and drama. Scheunemann continues later, "Because of the uncanny nature of the protagonist, Nosferatu has often been compared to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. However, the uncanny and its various embodiments in the form of doubles,vampires and artificial creatures are not in itself motifs of the expressionist movement." Author Lotte H. Eisner can still be seen comparing Nosferatu with other German Silent Cinema from 1919-1924 and the camera technique used in depicting setting and mood, "When Nosferatu is preparing a departure in the courtyard, the use of unexpected angles gives the vampire's castle a sinister appearance. What could be more expressive than a narrow street, hemmed in between monotonous brick facades, seen from a high window, the bar of which crosses the image?"

Author George A. Huaco, in his volume The Sociology of Film Art, points out that the novel and film differ in plot resolution, "In contrast to the novel Dracula, the plot of Nosferatu deemphasizes the role of Professor VAn Helsing; the final duel is between the heroic bourgeois housewife Nina and the evil aristocratic vampire. Hoaco goes so far as to venture that this reflects the growing economic crisis of the period."

Close-up magazine during 1929 reviewed the film, unaware that the Wisconsin Film Society would later favor the 1931 Tod Browning version, "The film opens with beautifully composed shots typical of Murnau (one spotlight on the hair, now turn the face slightly, and another spotlight)....It is unquestionably a faithful transcription of the book.

During 1926, when Murnau was readying to come to American, the periodical Moving Picture World interviewed his assistant, Hermann Bing, "Murnau's intention is to try to make pictures which will please the American theatre patrons- commercial successes because of their artistry....Murnau's object will be not to describe but to depict the relentless march of realities not for the objective, but from a subjective viewpoint." This almost seems like a nod to Carl Th. Dreyer's later film "Vampyr", other than that Dreyer's film had been made during the advent of sound film while Murnau was in America, shortly before Murnau's death. Fox Film publicity happenned to announce F.W. Murnau's coming to America by withholding the title of his debut American fim, giving the name of the dramatist that wrote its photoplay as Dr. Karl Mayer. "Theater Audiences Everywhere Are Waiting For This Creation".

Silent Film

In regard to the extratextual discourse of movie magazines of the time period, during 1929 the periodical Motion Picture News subtitled their review of "Nosferatu" with "Morbid and Depressing". It deemed Murnau's adaptation of the novel by Bram Stoker to be "a vague yarn hard to follow with several sequences that have a tremendous part to do with the plot introduced most haphazardly." The opinion of the periodical was that "The picture itself is a most morbid and depressing affair without entertainment value. It will not be acceptable anywhere except in the 'arty' houses."

Silent Horror Film



Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926)


Silent Film


Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Sally of the Sawdust (D.W. Griffith, 1925)

Edward Wagenkneckt, in his volume The Films of D.W. Griffith, points out that "Sally of the Sawdust" (1925) ,photographed by Harry Fischback and Hal Sintzernich and starring W.C. FIelds and actress Carol Dempster , was made by D.W. Griffith at Paramount but , at Griffith's behest, released through United Artists. Wagerneckt notes that the film features several sight gags involving W.C. Fields that are worth watching.

D.W. Griffith D.W. Griffith D.W. Griffith

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: The Phantom Carriage (Korkarlen,Victor Sjostrom, 1920)

With the subtitles Sweden Strikes a Lyrical Note, Garbo is Lost and Found, and Sweden Studio is Re-Born, in 1947 author Leslie Wood, in her book Miracle of the Movies, note the contribution of Victor Sjostrom and his Film “The Phantom Carriage” to the aesthetic of silent filmmaking at a time when both he and Mauritz Stiller saw film mostly as an artistic expression rather than a money-making machine consisting of “angles” and formulas. “Made In 1920, the film was instrumental ink making countries outside of Sweden aware of the artistic scope of the Svenska Biograph organization. Their screen work was particularly brilliant. Natural light, even on interior settings was far ahead of the work achieved on open air stages elsewhere. Their technicians had the happy thought of building the sets on locations which would provide fine vistas of natural scenery when glimpses through open doors and windows and the shafts of sunlight falling into a room would be the real thing. With motes and breathtakingly beautiful because of its naturalness. Seastrom’s direction sometimes strained a little too much to include the beautifully simple and the simply beautiful- slow sheep toddling away at the approach of lovers, or the graceful movements making a servant in performing the everyday, ordinary rites of preparing breakfast in a sunlit kitchen.” Wood provides a thematic synopsis of the film with, "with an eerie forcefulness and an abscence of the macabre, an unconscious man sees the misery he has wrought".
The Victor Sjostrom film “The Phantom Carriage” was the first movie made at the Filmstaden studios at Rasunda, Sweden and it is evident that the Studio was designed for filming; the Little Studio, newly renovated and open to the public for tours, was comprised of rehearsal rooms and filmstudios, one on the top floor having a roof and walls made of glass to use daylight when filming, as well as a rotatating stage. A small cinema on the bottom floor has been named after Ingmar Bergman and has been kept as a screening room. Leslie Wood notes, "The Svensk studio, beside a lake at Rasunda and twenty minutes by train from Stockholm, was a large but simply arranged wooden building set amongst pine trees,,,its cloistered atmosphere."
Filmstaden was used by director Ingmar Bergman to make the images of silent film, and their extratextual context, come to life while filming “The Imagemakers” (“Bildmarkarna”) for Swedish Television during 2000. Also included within the play is a screening of “The Phantom Carriage”, it being an adaption of the writing of Per Olaf Enquist that transpires as interaction between Victor Sjostrom, novelist Selma Lagerlof, cameraman Julius Jaenzon and actress Tora Teje during the making of the film. One theme of the film is artistic authenticity, a theme well articulated by Ingmar Bergman during his films of the 1950’s. Actress Anita Bjork starred as Selma Lagerlof and actress Elin Klinga starred as Swedish Silent Film actress Tora Teje.
Anthony Battalgia recently for Film Comment explained the spatio-temporal structure of the film directed by Victor Sjostrom ,”It is hard to overstate the storytelling sophistication at work here: flashbacks fork off from stories in the act of being told, mixing tenses untill all Time seems in The here and now.”, which is fitting for the re-enactment of what he labels to be “nominally, a ghost story”.
Author Forsyth Hardy compliments director Victor Sjostrom own onscreen acting, its having been less historionic than in other films. “The exaggerated guestures of some of the early films had gone, but the intensity of feeling was still there.” Hardy characterizes the film as being "memorable".
The film stars actresses Hilda Borgstrom, whom had appeared in the films “Ingeborg Holm” (1913) and ”Domen Icke” (1914), both directed by Victor Sjostrom, Concordia Selander, who appeared in the film “Torsen Fran Stormyrtorpet” (1917), directed by Victor Sjostrom, Lisa Lundholm and actress Astrid Holm. Charles Magnusson produced the film. The multiple or layered double exposures were developed by cameraman Julius Jaenzon. Author Lars Gronkvist notes that after taking eight days to finish the script, Director Victor Sjostrom delivered, read and performed the script for two hours in front of novelist Selma Lagerlof before the two of them had dinner.


The film having being remade twice, first by Julien Duvivier in 1939, and by Swedish Film director Arne Mattson in 1958, author Aleksander Kwiatkoski, in his volume Swedish Film Classics, compares the subsequent versions to Victor Sjostrom's original adaptation of "Korkarlen", "None of the subsequent screen versions of Selma Lagerlof's novel has reached the power of expression of this one. Sjostrom's film is not as inventive in its psychological stratum but his social and moral interests are curiously interwoven with his personal experiences."

Greta Garbo and Victor Seastrom


Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller

Victor Sjostrom Playlist

Scandinavian Silent Film playlist