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A European in Hollywood – Name the Man and the Shift of Production Systems 29
Consequently, a central theme in Swedish debates from 1923 onwards concerned
the classification of Sjöström’s – as well as Stiller’s – Hollywood productions:
should they be considered Swedish or American? Were they national or
international? According to Kristin Thompson, the European film industry in
the late 1920s had developed a kind of pan-European style, represented not
least by quality German films. She sees the fall of Film Europa mainly in relation
to the recruitment of European talent by Hollywood, and later on to the
national trends that followed the breakthrough of sound. 5 However, I would
like to point out another important aspect, which during the 1920s accompanies
Hollywood’s increasing dominance of the world market, namely, strongly national
debates. Here, pan-European ideas seem to have vanished completely
and the nation state in isolation is once again contrasted against the main competitor,
the United States.
In a chronicle in Biografbladet 1923 under the headline “What Is Meant by
Swedish Film?”, the author “Romulus” discusses whether Sjöström’s American
films should be called Swedish or not. 6 He quotes an article arguing that Swedish
film industry should have entire disposal of the three films that Victor Sjöström
was supposed to direct in America. Such a formulation seemed reasonable
from a Swedish point of view as the contract signed two months earlier specified
the aim of Sjöström’s Hollywood trip as being “for purposes of study”, and
furthermore granted him full freedom to make his own agreements with production
companies. The sole right for Swedish Film Industry to distribute the
productions in Sweden was the only restriction. 7 But the columnist chose to
widen his scope: according to him, the basic question concerns whether a film
should be considered a commodity or a cultural product. He ends up with the
rhetorical question whether cinema had already left “the era of nationalism” in
favour of “internationally valid ideas”, which to him at the same time equalled
superficiality. 8
Four years later, however, the writer Sven Stolpe didn’t hesitate in defining
the national character of the films:
Sweden thus reappears among the leading film-producing countries of the world.
Because we have the right to call both “The Scarlet Letter” and “Hotel Imperial”
[Mauritz Stiller, 1927] Swedish films. It must be said that, to the credit of our country,
our directors have brilliantly defended their artistic integrity in America. 9
The same question was debated in the German film press. “Colony or competition?”
–a rhetorical question posed by Robert Ramin in Der Kinematograph in
1927 which provided its own answer. 10 To him, what might look like a German
colony in Hollywood was in fact part of the American production system and,
therefore, a threat to the German film industry. With the dichotomy introduced
by the Swedish chronicler between commodity or cultural product, however,