FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

30 Transition and Transformation
answers become more varied. The economic loss is, of course, evident, but culturally,
the conclusion is not as obvious. Thomas Saunders wrote that most of
the assessments concerning the loss for Berlin and the gain for Hollywood were
based on classifications of specific German traits in respect to the American
traits in the films made by the emigrants. The general question, just as in the
Swedish context, was whether the Germans had preserved artistic links to their
native country and “in this regard act as apostles of German film abroad”. 11
Production Cultures
In her book reporting from Hollywood 1924, Swedish film critic Märta Lindqvist
interviewed, among others, Ernst Lubitsch and Victor Sjöström. 12 These interviews
give interesting glimpses of how European directors regarded the
American production culture. Not least interesting is the emphasis in their respective
answers, where Lubitsch quickly abandons the differences in production
culture in favour of a discussion of differences in public preferences. Answering
a question on film production in Europe and in the United States,
Lubitsch states:
Technically, there is, of course, no difference, but the diversity lies in the choice of film
ideas, in the very content of the films. Public taste here differs completely from that in
Europe. In America, one wishes to see gay and entertaining films, in Europe one is
more interested in those which address the subject more heavily, in a more psychological
manner. 13
In conclusion, he notes that he is determined to pick only subjects with a happy
end for his future films, in order not to be forced to “construe an artistically
irrelevant ending for a film”. 14 Sjöström, too, had – as previously mentioned –
experienced this kind of retouching with The Outlaw and His Wife (1918).
This film had been distributed in the United States with the title You and I,
with the addition of a prologue and an epilogue providing the original film
with a frame which made it appear as a film within the film. In Lindqvist’s interview,
Sjöström, just like Lubitsch, talks about the enormous difference separating
the American view of cinema from the Swedish one, and he also points to
the meaninglessness in producing “Swedish” film for the American market.
Sjöström characterizes the taste of the American film industry as “basically naive
and simple. They are always afraid of accepting anything that isn’t already
tested and approved of as leading to box office success”. 15
Sjöström, in contrast to Lubitsch, concentrated on a detailed account of different
production conditions in Sweden and the United States, a theme that also