Swedish, Norwegian, Danish Lit and Ingmar Bergman

Today, a smorgasbord of Norse culture. For those of you who are not completely exhausted from learning, you may find these resources here helpful in setting your fiction, poetry, plays, and essays in a Norse setting. Since we are running out of time to cover the entire world in this course, we will only briefly glimpse at a very rich and extensive culture. For your benefit (although not our focus) this unit misses Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Iceland. Click on their links and learn about them on your own time. Some of their literature can be found in the packets this week.

Our focus today will briefly be on:

• Swedish Culture
• Norwegian Culture
• Danish Culture

For those of you interested in Norse mythology (or mythology) and Vikings, here are a few interesting links:

• The Creation of the World (Norse Mythology)
• The Vikings

Look here to read about some of the following famous authors. Both Lagerlof and Lagerkvist won Nobel Prizes for their work (not too shabby):

• Selma Lagerlof
• Par Lagerkvist
• Friedrich Durrenmatt
• Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

Perhaps the most important and influential filmmaker in Sweden is Ingmar Bergman. His films are artistic masterpieces and generally regarded as excellent the world over.

Here's a few clips of various famous films:

• The Seventh Seal (1957)
• Wild Strawberries (1957) Italian dubbing.
• Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
• The Silence (1963)
• Persona (1966)
• Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
• The Magic Flute (1975)
• Autumn Sonata (1978)
• Fanny & Alexander (1982)
• Saraband (2002)

Ingmar Bergman interview (part 1 of 6) You can view the other parts on the sidebar if interested.

Woody Allen on Ingmar Bergman (part 1 of 2); again, if interested check out the second part. The interviews have some great clips from Bergman's films.

We will screen The Seventh Seal today and complete the film on Thursday. His work will be extremely important to those of you going into film. Your classmates will think you're cool if you can talk intelligently about this film maker. You will also impress adults who will see you as educated and cultured, as opposed to a silly, addle-brained teenager.
New Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish film blockbusters:

Recently, filmmakers such as the Danish: Niels Arden Oplev:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and the Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest  based on the novels of the late Stieg Larsson
and the Director: Tomas Alfredson/Writer: John Ajvide Lindqvist: Let the Right One In;
Patrick Age 1.5 by Ella Lemhagen
and Troll Hunter (entire film, albeit dubbed) by André Øvredal
have become worldwide box-office successes. Here's a short, cute Danish film: Little Man for those of you who are enjoying your work with film and film writing.

HOMEWORK: Reading: Please read the short stories and the rest of the poetry in the packet. After our viewing of The Seventh Seal, we will briefly touch upon Italy and its literature. The rest of the material covers a good cursory glance at Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and other literature. Zoom, zoom, zoom. Coming up: Italy, Poland, Germany, Russia.