My Pet Peeves with Swedish Film - Part One

Swedish film is really a mixed bag for me. While there's no question that there are great, creative and highly skilled professionals working in swedish film, for some reason the sum of the parts often don't add up to something greater and the flaws I perceive are strangely consistent. This has to a certain degree turned me off swedish films, which I think is a great shame. All in all, everything adds up to a general feeling of skepticism regarding swedish cinema, and this is something I would like to explain further and structurize, for my own benefit. Perhaps you will get something out of this too - or you might think I'm way off!

For this article I've chosen to use the swedish films about literary figure Arn Magnusson as an example, namely Arn: The Knight Templar (2007) and Arn: The Kingdom at Road's End (2008). The reason why I've chosen these is that they contain most of the mistakes and quirks that generally bug me about swedish film. Also, they are big budget films, and as such they really shouldn't have these problems at all - but they do. So, here we go!

Pet Peeve 1: Theatrical Acting - My limbs are flailing wildly

This is one of my major problems with swedish film. For you non-swedes out there: In Sweden we have a theatrical institution called Dramaten, which to some extenct has functioned as an haven and breeding ground for most of the big-name actors in Sweden - be they involved in film, theatre or both. Dramaten, being a theatre, naturally has encouraged traditional, theatrical, acting with all that it entails. You know what I mean. Dramatic pauses, exhaggerated intonations, articulations and emotional displays, wild gestures and body movements. This has had a huge influence on the way swedish film actors act. Actors often deliver their lines in a very stilted, theatrical manner. I'm not sure whether non-swedes pick up on this as much as I do, but it does get tedious and melodramatic. Granted, not every actor in Sweden goes through Dramaten, but it has in some ways set a standard for acting in the country.

The following clip is from Arn - The Knight Templar, and illustrates some of the points I'm trying to make.

I'm sure that this is a type of scene we've all seen to death at this point. The lovers-to-be frolicking in the grass. The calm before the storm. Playfully pretending to be dead. Okay, perhaps not that last one. Never has affection looked as contrived as in this scene. Is this love or fear we see in her eyes? I swear I can see the reflection of director Peter Flinth in her eyes, gesturing wildly to the couple, frothingly mouthing "MORE CHEESE". That could explain the fear. The dialogue, naturally, is beyond forced and, to be fair, I can't see any actor doing that much better with the source material than these two did. But still, it could've been delivered with more grace. Instead, we get wild flailing, grimacing, dramatic pauses and line delivery more reminescent of an amateur poetry reading than a big-budget movie. Very disappointing.

Pet Peeve 2: Sloppy Dubbing - Unintentional ventriloquism in the echoless cave

Not all Swedish films have issues with sound and dubbing, but I dare to say that most do, in one form or another and the two films about Arn have a surprising amount of these issues considering its big budget and the amount of care that went into, say, the cinematogrophy, costumes, etc. The usual problems Swedish films have with dubbing and dialogue sound is synching and reverb/EQ. These problems aren't always apparent to the non-sound-geek, but at times they can be glaringly obvious to say the least, and bring you out of the experience.

Synchronisation issues usually come from not using the recorded dialogue sound from the actual recording of a scene, but rather to dub it over in a studio at a later date, and the result can be that the sound from the spoken dialogue isn't in synch wuth the lip movements of the actors. To an actor it can be an immense challenge to deliver a line in the exact same way as you did on the actual shoot, and to dub an entire movie is understandably time consuming and demands patience and high precision. Putting that extra effort into it is, however, worth it. I'm just sad to see that so many Swedish film makers obviously disagree with me on this.

The second issues that usually arises from dubbing dialogue is problems with reverb and EQ. Most people realize that a line spoken in an abandoned quarry will sound different from a line spoken in a confined bathroom. Most sound designers, even in Sweden, will realise this and try to adjust the reverb accordingly but not always successfully. EQ, the audio frequencies of the the recorded sound, however, is not always as apparent. A line recorded in a sealed studio, with a directional condenser microphone at close range, will sound very different to the same line recorded out in the open and at a distance. This is due to the proximity effect, an audio phenomenon which makes a closely recorded voice sound bassier and fuller. It feels as if the person speaking is right next to you. It is critical to compensate for this if your scene has someone screaming, far away on an open field. You usually cut the low frequencies responsible for this. Failure to do so will make the scene seem a bit odd - visually, the character is far, far away, but the sound tells you he's right next to you. This is also something certain sound designers in Sweden struggle with, especially so in Arn for some reason. This is exacerbated by poor blending of background ambience with the dialogue, making it really stand out and scream "studio recording" at you, naturally bringing you out of the moment. Combined with sloppy synchronisation, this occasionally turns Arn from the epic, big budget competitor to American cinema that it aspires to be to a generally awkward, pretentious and poorly executed cash-sinkhole-manifestation of a Swedish cinematographic inferiority complex.


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This concludes part one of my rant on Swedish film. This text should in no way be interpreted as contempt toward the tons of talented and hard working professionals involved in Swedish cinema, but rather a humorous angle on things I think we could improve on. The Arn films are by no means exceptionally bad films in themselves. They do, however, lend themselves well to criticism, and as examples of things that can universally be improved upon.

Part two will follow.

The very first post

Hey there! Welcome to the first post in this blog.

I'd like to touch upon a subject that most people have come across in one form or another, and is very close to my heart - music in film. I think most of us have, at some point, gotten the chills from a scene in a movie.  That reaction can come from a variety of different types of scenes and emotions, but what usually pushes you over the edge is the cinematic score. Just try to imagine that emotionally intense cinematic moment without the score to back it up and you're usually left with a rather flat experience. I know this isn't always the case, but it usually is.

One examples of a scene where the music really takes everything over the top is this one, that you probably recognize:

This is a great example of what I'm getting at, and the music really does go over the top to make us feel that this is epic. The musical piece builds upon the Rohan Fanfare and starts out slow with brass and drums before the charge, then changes to a solo violin playing during the initial charge. It eventually leads to an awesomely epic crescendo, with the brass section playing triumphant fanfares as the rohirrim clash into the orc army, and we're in shiver country.

There are many examples like this that really speak of the importance and capacity of music when it comes to conveying emotions in film. And naturally, this phenomenon isn't restricted to the shivers you might get from an epic battle on screen, but also more subtle and tender emotions you might get from a lone piano playing in the distance as a loved on is lost.

This is all well and good, but why am I writing this?

During my work with film scoring and film work altogether I've come across a growing contempt and skepticism regarding conventional film scoring, which I find troubling. Fine, there is a lot of overplayed tropes within film music and I will admit that certain clichés are played out beyond the point of tedium - however this can be said about all the other aspects of a film, from writing to acting.

Film music is a powerful tool in that it lets us manipulate a viewers feelings. It lets the film maker dictate what emotional response he should get. In that regard it is a much more powerful tool than the the actual images are. I was made very aware of this when, in class, we were shown a video clip - which was the intro sequence from Emmerdale Farm - where the original, pastoral theme was replaced with suspenseful strings, conveying a sense of menace and dread rather than the peace and harmony of a rural english village.

But with power comes responsibility, and it's up to us who compose music for films to act responsibly when scoring. I've also come across the temptation of really laying it on thick in my compositions, because I want the audience to have an intense experience. The problem with this,  however, is twofold. 

Firstly, we get an emotional inflation. This is generally discovered and avoided in all other areas of film making. If the main characters entire family dies, one at a time, we just cannot maintain an appropriate emotional state throughout all the calamity. If that mournful string section or lone flute just tries to yank at your heart strings at every opportunity it ends up getting less and less effective.

Secondly, we get a buildup of familiarity and a general sense of cliché about the entire phenomenon of film music. The audience knows that the composer wants you to feel dread, or delight, or sadness and it just takes them out of the moment.

So, with most things, moderation is key. Moderation and the courage to break free from the tropes and the clichés that we've built around film music. Twenty years from now, we still want to be able to feel that tingle down our backs when mounted riders are charging their enemies - not just go "hum, again with the horns?". We must at all times avoid to be too on the nose, so to speak. We must dare to go against what people immediately expect, musically. An example of this from the Return of the King is when Gandalf rides out to save Faramir from the attacking Nazgûl, musically accompanied by the gentle singing of a young child.

So, either if you're a film maker, film music composer or a film fan - be aware of and treasure the moments in film when the music is done just right, and adds to the experience without coming off as cheesy. There is a lot of artistry as well as self control and holding back that makes those moments come alive.