[SOUND] And The Winner Is, is the intriguing title of Peter Scheppelern chapter in 100 years of Danish cinema where he deals with the decade between 1980 and 1990. What the title indicates is the international breakthrough of especially Danish cinema in 1988. A breakthrough which would continue in the following two decades and also lead to a stronger transnationalization of Scandinavian cinema in general. The breakthrough came first with one of the veterans in Danish cinema and television, Gabriel Axel, born in 1918. With a long career in not just Denmark but also France, Gabriel Axel had some success with popular Danish genre films in his earlier career and some of his French TV series. For instance, Heavens Columns from 1984, which showed a strong talent for historical drama. But nobody could have predicted that Babette's Feast from 1987 would be an international bestseller, and in 1988 win both an Oscar and a BAFTA as best foreign film. Gabriel Axel had dreamed of making this film for 14 years, but nobody believed in the film and nobody would finance it until he finally got support from both Denmark and France. The film is based on the story by one of the internationally most recognized Danish writers known as Isak Dinesen in abroad and Karen Blixen in Denmark. The French actress, Stephane Audran, has a main role as a French master chef forced to leave France and take up a humble job as a housekeeper for two very religious sisters in a remote Norwegian fishing town. Babette's Feast is a fine example of Scandinavian heritage cinema. It's based on a literary classic, it depicts life and conflicting norms and cultures in a national past, and it fully uses the national past and the national landscape to create a visual and narrative feeling of national culture and identity. >> Can it be? I've won the lottery. 10,000 francs. >> You've won the lottery, congratulations. >> Congratulations, Babette. >> Thank you. >> But even though Heritage Zimmer is strongly connected to national history, such films often reach a huge international audience. This was certainly proven beyond doubt when another Danish film, also from 1987, Billie August, Pelle the Conqueror won both the Golden Palms in Cannes in 1988, and 1989 also an Oscar. Pelle the Conqueror is also a heritage film, based on the novel by the world famous Danish author Martin Andersen Nexø. It is set in the late 19th century Denmark, the island of Bornholm and has a stunning epic and visual portrait of landscapes, buildings, and people of that time. But compared to Babette's Feast, this is a broader historical drama focusing on the historical class struggle and the battle between the upper classes and working classes in Denmark. Billie August managed to combine an intense psychological story between Pelle, the boy, and his father, played by Swedish Max von Sydow. And he managed to combine this with a broader historical theme. >> [SOUND] [FOREIGN] [SOUND] [FOREIGN] [SOUND] >> [FOREIGN] [SOUND] [MUSIC] >> Now Scandinavian heritage cinema has a long tradition, often based on literary classics, or connected to stories of historical characters, the so called biopics. In Norway, Liv Ullman in 1995 made a Scandinavian medieval heritage film, Christine Laurenstatter, based on a book by Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Unset. A strong story of women, religion, and family conflicts. Bille August made a similar film, Jerusalem, which was a co production between Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland based on the novel by the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlof and taking place in in Sweden around 1900. The film focuses on social and religious conflicts between families. The film has a Scandinavian cast just as Billie August latest film, from 2012, a Danish Swedish co production. This film is a biopic, a portrait of one of the female painters belonging to the famous group of Skagen painters, an iconic group of artists in Danish and Scandinavian art history. Both characters, paintings, the landscape, and everyday life in this historical period are given strong life. >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> A broader heritage biopic, a group print or portrait of the Skagen artists is Swedish Kjell Grede, Hip Hip Hurray. The film was a Scandinavian co production and also had a Scandinavian cost. Grede has indicated that the film wanted to tell a story about something that was truly a Scandinavian heritage culture. Something loved and treasured by all the Scandinavian cultures. A biopic with a strong national dimension is Erick Clausen's Danish, My Childhood Symphony, a story about the world famous Danish composer, Carl Nielsen. The film has a very symbolic visual character and uses the music of Nielsen to recreate of his idea of making music that would somehow combine an authentic Danish expression, culture, and feeling with something more universal. [MUSIC] Heritage films have been made in all the Scandinavian countries, often based on national literature, all portraying historic figures. Swedish director, Jan Troell, has been very active in this genre. Already, in 1982, he made the biopic, The Flight of the Eagle, a Scandinavian co production based on a novel by Per Olof Sundman about the first Swedish pioneer Andrées, trying to reach the North Pole in balloon. A film, in other words, about a tragic hero. His film Hamsun, on the other hand, from 1996, about the famous controversial Norwegian writer, Kurt Hamsun, had a stronger Scandinavian and international resonance. The portrait of the old Hamsun, played by Max von Sydow, whose nationalism brought him to support Hitler, is the portrait of a national, literary icon's fall from grace. The New York critic Stephen Holden wrote, and I quote, Max von Sydow gives a career crowning performance as the cranky, hearing impaired writer who marched to a different political drum from most of his countrymen. >> [FOREIGN] >> But Yantrel has also made the historical drama everlasting moments about a working class woman around 1900. Here the life of other classes are brought into historical focus with strong realism. The diversity of historical films in Scandinavia is obvious, and they take up both more prolific historical conflicts and the more quiet dimensions of every day life. In 1985, Lasse Hallstrom, the Swede, made charming and poetic period film My Life as a Dog, a film that won a Golden Globe and was nominated for two Oscars. The film is a portrait of a boy and of life in Swedish provinces in the 1950s, seen through his eyes. It's based on the popular autobiographic novel by and the film beautifully combines the boy's world with broader aspects of the period. >> [SOUND] [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] >> [FOREIGN] >> Soon went on to become a Hollywood director. In contrast to this kind of every day period realism, the many films on World War II point in another direction. They represent the form of historical film dealing with highly conflicting and dramatic events in national history. [MUSIC]
