Stockholm 750 years - War and Peace

Chopped part of Vädersoltavlan ("The Sun Dog Painting")

(Storkyrkan/The Cathedral, Stockholm)

Stockholm City Museum again!

'A Journey in Time - Stockholm's 750th anniversary' - an exhibition guiding the visitors through the history of Stockholm.

The journey starts in 1252 (when Stockholm first was mentioned as a town) on the small island sited between Lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea where Birger Jarl (a jarl were at the time the second most important person in a region or in the country after the king. Jarl and the English earl have similar etymological background) built a small citadel.
Then the exhibition continues through the winding alleys of the little town to the fine streets and splendid palaces of Sweden's European prosperity.

Stockholm during the Middle Ages

Different tableaus depict the different centuries and decades with important events illuminated.

The city of industry where trams, buses and motor-cars demanded space and new roads to travel on.

In the 1950s one can take to the air from Bromma; Stockholm had become part of a wider world with the subway, after international patterns but much later than in other big cities, in Stockholm being built step by step.

FILM:

After this: 'War and Peace' by King Vidor with among others Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn and Anita Ekberg.
A costume-film with a somewhat theatrical way of acting. It is as if the director Vidor thought that people in the upper-classes in those days spoke and acted as if they were actors in a play.
Another 'problem' in the movies of the time is that all people speak English, both the Russian general and Napoleon Bonaparte but of course with a small accent indicating from where they originate.

In the end, a quite fascinating movie in spite of all my critic remarks. A classic 'grand-film'.

(Bild på Jubileumsmynten i guld kopierat från: http://www.falcoin.se/media/Moderna%20jubileumsmynt/2000%20KR%202002%20Stockholm%20750%20%C3%A5r%20%283%29.jpg)
(Photo 'Vädersolstavlan'/'The Sun Dog Painting' taken from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/V%C3%A4dersoltavlan_cropped.JPG)
(Picture medieval Stockholm taken from:http://www.jernkontoret.se/globalassets/stalindustrin/stalindustrins-historia/stockholm-1574b.jpg/HugeThumbnailh)
(Bild på 'Staden på vattnet' kopierat från: http://img.tradera.net/images/154/251740154_46597dc1-2882-4b09-a5da-5d43d2814282.jpg)

Stockholm 1956

The Stockholm City Museum:

Photo exhibition about Stockholm in the year 1956.
The museum displays photos from one of the big newspapers in Sweden - Svenska Dagbladet - taken by their photographers during their work in the capital.

Hamngatan

Many similarities with the current situation: A great number of unemployed people, the winter of 1956 was unusually cold and the ice was so thick that, sometimes, boat traffic in Stockholm came to a standstill.

Stureplan

Motor traffic was one of the big questions. Forecasts suggested that traffic in Stockholm would increase almost astronomically. There were serious parking problems and a municipal tax on cars was discussed!
The housing queue comprised 280.000 people (today 250 000?), with priority given to families with children.


After this:

'Svensk Form' and the exhibition 'Design S'.
The Advertising Association of Sweden, the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation and Svensk Form (the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design) have jointly created Swedish Design Award to reward Sweden's best design solutions with a 'Design S'.

Swedish Design Award aims to demonstrate that good design can lead to better communication, better business, better functionality and better sustainability.

Some of it interesting, some of it makes you wonder why they have been rewarded. But this is natural when the concern is not always the best design but the designer you know and like.

After this a lecture about design in different areas and how one shall protect it - the question about immaterial rights, copyrights and so forth.

Interesting and a good lecturing from Albihns International IP & Law Offices - Sara Pers-Krause.




(Photo 1956 taken from: https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se/skblobs/bb/bb3c5d09-8d2a-4a3e-9821-9de8455e741a.jpg?preset=pp-432)
(Photo, Hamngatan taken from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Hamngatan_1956a.jpg/360px-Hamngatan_1956a.jpg)
(Photo Stureplan taken from: http://www.fastighetsvarlden.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/sturekvarteren-old.jpg)

A Handful of Love and Bled number one

"A Handful of Love" (En handfull kärlek) by Vilgot Sjöman is a movie about the problems with poverty and unemployment in Sweden during the initial years of the 1900:s and especially 1909 with the big General Strike in Sweden.
Allt this happened during the years of consolidation of the Social Democratic Party prior to the times when they became really influential.

We are also displayed the great conflicts between the military and the workers and how wealthy businessmen became even richer thanks to these social problems.
Gradually we become aware of a change in the workers loyalties and the development of political pragmatism:
They become more and more 'bourgeois' and connections between the 'upper class' and the working class on individual level was legio, though not officially recognized of course, as this would perturb the official historical writing as both 'sides' have depicted it.

I liked the movie and especially the acting with no exaggerations making it quite realistic. IMDb only gives it 5,2 out of 10 but I rank it higher.

CineFrançais and the movie Bled number One by Rabah Ameur Zaïmeche.

A film about Algeria and the conflicts between old traditions, culturally, religiously and socially as they are exposed in the life in a little village and the 'modern' way of life without the historical connotations.

A man and a woman living in Paris for many years for different reasons individually and with no special connection between them, one day turns back to their home village.
There they confront the problems with narrowmindedness and intolerance.
The man having spent some years in prison in France and the woman having left her husband with whom she lives without loving him.

The movie tries to tell the story in a more documentary way with long parts with no dialogue and 'small talk' between people.
A group of young men depicting themselves as 'true muslims' have created a civil citizen movement group teaching the 'right understanding' of the Koran and punishing them who do not live after the rules they have decided is the correct teaching.

The movie lacks originality - a fresh approach. We have seen this way of making a movie before and the theme is dated.

Bled number one - Bande Annonce - Vost FR
envoyé par _Caprice_. - Les dernières bandes annonces en ligne.

(Photo poster 'En handfull kärlek' taken from: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AVPrLnybL.jpg)

Vera Cruz

At Cinema Sture they show Vera Cruz by Robert Aldrich.

A classical western movie with strong, tough, fast shooting men and beautiful and shrewd women.

Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster in the male leading roles and Denise Darcel and Sara Montiel as their female counterparts.

What is there to say?
An old school western with "bad guys" and "good guys"' and likewise gals.

Entertaining if one disregard all the clichés.

Nordic landscape painting 1840-1910

We started out with Nordic landscape painting 1840-1910 at the National Museum of Art (in Stockholm), an exhibition with painters from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Island.

Some of the paintings from the museum's own collections, some from other museums in Scandinavia.

The paintings were organised in five different themes, 'mood'/'atmospheric'-painting, 'the inner landscape' and so forth.

From this exhibition we went on to Kulturhuset ("the Cultural Center"/"The Culture House") to see the artist Jin-Sook So, a textile-artist working in different materials and forms. She was born in South Korea but lives in Sweden since 1978, having studying both in Sweden and in her native country.

'The first at Moderna' is the recurring exhibitions the first day of every month at Moderna museet (Museum of Modern Art) where a new artist is introduced, showing some of the works in the presence of the artist her- or himself.

This time it is the Canadian artist Janice Kerbel. For a description of her work, take a look at the link to the museum above.

(Photo painting at the top taken from: http://www.artsmia.org/mirror-of-nature/images/e/cat_024_cd.jpg)

(Photo piece of art, Jin-Sook So, right above taken from: http://www.browngrotta.com/Media/30jss.jpg)

(Photo piece of art Janice Kerbel above taken from: http://www.canadianart.ca/online/see-it/2008/09/25/kerbel2_448.jpg)