Description
SWEDISH SENSATIONSFILMS: A Clandestine History of Sex, Thrillers, and Kicker Cinema, by Daniel Ekeroth
Sweden’s prominent and secure film legacy is associated internationally with Ingmar Bergman’s successful and high-quality works. However, even the greatest Swedish director could not resist another breed of Swedish film—notorious for laissez-faire nudity, relaxed sexuality, drugs, and shocking violence—the sensationsfilm.
In 1911, Sweden enacted the world’s first government board of film censors, provoking a century-long war against filmmakers that outlived two World Wars, communism, and the sexual revolution. In 2011, the censors finally surrendered—and SWEDISH SENSATIONSFILMS declares victory with a fiery retrospective of over 200 often banned and cut films produced during the golden age of Swedish sin. PLUS: First-hand accounts by starlet Christina Lindberg (Thriller: En Grym Film, Maid in Sweden); scores of rare exhibition posters and images, a glossary of curious Swedish customs; and an uninhibited cast of thousands, including: Stellan Skarsgård, Pernilla August, Lee Hazlewood, Dennis Hopper, Max von Sydow, David Carradine, Heinz Hopf, Harry Reems, Noomi Rapace, Marie Forså, Troy Donahue, Zinny Zan, and Ludde the dog.
Produced in the backyard of the Swedish film industry, these sexually daring films form a canon of countless sensational movies dealing with shocking or taboo subjects—street punks, sadistic mobsters, space aliens, unruly housewives, ruthless drug pushers, bloodthirsty ninjas, teen temptresses, lingonberry cowboys, bearded perverts, and drunken vikings—all simply too strange to ignore.
Once again, Swedish Death Metal author Daniel Ekeroth delves into the arcane culture and contradictions of his homeland, returning with the first comprehensive overview of Swedish Sensationsfilms—the Scandinavian scourge of the world’s exploitation cinema.
“I look back with genuine joy. I am so very happy I could be a part of the seventies, it was so incredibly interesting. I carry it with me; it is a part of me. I would never deny being in those movies. I know that a lot of people do so, but I just had a blast.”— Christina Lindberg
“Into this rising whirlwind of madness, I was born. As the ‘70s came along, all limits were forgotten. Sweden was flooded with sexually explicit and violent films of every kind…and all morals were gone.”—Daniel Ekeroth
