2014 Essays

Alva Lundin

Bull, Sofia

The practice of rendering inter-title cards more decorative and expressive by means of creative typography, ornate borders or other types of illustrative artwork was first picked up by the Swedish film industry around 1919, a few years after it had become established in Hollywood. Swedish audiences were already familiar with so-called “art titles” from imported American films, and the incorporation of this feature into domestic productions partly answered more general calls for Swedish cinema to reinvent itself according to international standards. Furthermore, as had previously been the case across the Atlantic, the emergence of this practice followed debates about the artistic value and usefulness of title cards. Claire Dupré la Tour has argued that art titles along with the success of the “Loos-style” title writing—a reference to the inventive writer Anita Loos—granted the inter-title a more “privileged status vis-à-vis the image” and helped popularize the idea that inter-titles could make a significant contribution to a film’s success. This is as true for the Swedish context as for the American (329).