Work

Towards sophistication: Exploring the 1930s Finnish cinema’s ‘French style’

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: During the second half of the 1930s, a particularly weighty aesthetic, called the ‘French style’, emerged in the Finnish film studios. With its expressionist lighting, in-depth staging and Dutch tilts, this style, inspired by French films, became one of the most characteristic and popular features of Finland’s classical cinema. Drawing from existing scholarship on Finnish film studios, this article explores the conditions of transfer of this specific aesthetic from France to Finland and its impacts, highlighting the economic and technical conditions underpinning this aesthetic circulation. To do so, it examines the critical reception of French cinema in Finland and compares the sociocultural issues of the two countries in order to show that, more than a style, such influences are evidence of a production model that circulates from France to Finland.

Source: Journal of Scandinavian Cinema

DOI: 10.1386/jsca_00117_1

Author: Aymeric Pantet

Institution: University of Turku

Language: English

Topic: Cinema History and Criticism

Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,001

Funders: European Commission, HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme, H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions