Kari Uusitalo (ed.),
Suomen kansallisfilmografia (The Finnish National Filmography). Volumes 1-8.
Helsinki: Finnish Film Archive. Edita 1989-1999.
ISBN 951 860 973 X (whole series)
437FIM (each volume)
Uploaded 30 June 2000
All major film-producing countries of the world have their own filmographies that provide a solid basis for research on national film production. However, in countries like the United States, France, and Italy the volume of production is simply too large for any detailed surveys to be possible. The situation is quite different in the Nordic countries, where the number of films is so small that the entire production can be fitted into one volume for an in-depth discussion instead of just references to credits.
The Finnish National Filmography, in the words of its editors, aims to be “the best filmography in the world”. Once completed, the 10-volume series will provide filmographic information on over one thousand full-length feature films produced in Finland between 1907 and 1990. To date, volumes 1-8 have been published, covering the period from 1907 to 1980. Volume 9 (1981-85) will be published in autumn 2000.
The Finnish Filmography is clearly modelled on its eight-volume Swedish counterpart, the Svensk filmografi 1897-1979. The Swedish project started up in 1973, and the first book (volume 6) was published in 1977. The work was brought to a successful conclusion in the 1980s.
The idea to compile a similar work was first raised in Finland in the early 1980s, but owing to financing problems the project had to be postponed until the end of the decade. As its Swedish counterpart, the Finnish Filmography contains the complete credits, abstracts, reviews and a host of essays on important films, their makers and genres. In addition, there is a separate section of notes uncovered during the data collection and that serve as the hard research core of the study. Finally, at the end of each entry, there is a list of source materials (audiovisual material, manuscripts, photographs, posters, newspaper articles, reviews, scrapbooks, etc.) in the possession of the Finnish Film Archive.
The thing that makes the National Filmography such a great read is the fact that new details turn up on virtually every page. Indeed as far as I can see the book is important not only as an excellent work of reference; more essentially, the writing of the series has required an in-depth exploration of the archives. Although only those sources are mentioned that are held by the Film Archive, this provides a solid basis for further research. If one wants to single out any omissions, then it would have to be statistics on the number of existing manuscripts of a given film, on the films commented upon, and on who has written these comments.
As far as researchers are concerned, it seems that the most important contribution of the National Filmography is contained under the heading “Notes”, which record the major discoveries made in the course of the research process. What was Michael Powell’s role in Jack Witikkas’s film Aila – Pohjolan tytär (Arctic Fury, 1951)? How were applications for tax exemptions justified by reference to cultural or ethnological values (e.g. the cases of Läpi usvan (Through the Fog, 1948) and Sadan miekanmies (The Man of a Hundred Swords, 1951))? What was it in Suomalaistyttöjä Tukholmassa (Finnish Girls in Stockholm, 1952) that concerned J.K. Paasikivi, the President of Finland? Written in a very plain, matter-of-fact style, the chapter sticks closely to known facts, carefully avoiding any conclusions that cannot be supported.
The blurb on the jacket describes the Finnish National Filmography as a series that “record the history of the Finnish full-length feature film from Salaviinanpolttajat (The Moonshiners, 1907), the first fiction film, to the present day”. This is a somewhat unfortunate statement in that it is not quite true: that is, the history of Finnish feature film does not begin with Salaviinanpolttajat, even though it was the first “cinematographic play” produced in Finland. The film was not more than 20 minutes in length and, according to the fashion of the time, it was presented in Helsinki as part of a one-hour programme that also included four other films of foreign origin. In other words, this was not a full-length feature film, albeit an important step towards longer stories. The first actual full-length feature film was Teuvo Puro’s Sylvi (1913) which was also advertised as “the first Finnish one-hour art film”. The inclusion of Salaviinanpolttajat is of course fully justified for historical reasons, but there are other entries that do raise some eyebrows. In the volume covering 1948-52, for instance, there is the 20-minute short film Joulupukin työpaja (Santa’s Workshop,1948) by Holger Harrivirta – which admittedly was a laborious film marketed much in the same way as a full-length feature (with a trailer).
The reason why the editors have not wanted to call the work a “filmography of fiction films” is apparently that they have wanted to include in it long documentaries as well. Between 1948 and 1961, a total of 12 feature documentaries were produced; one of them is about a boxing match in which Elis Ask won the European Championship. But if the work contains both long and (a selection of) short fiction films, then why include long documentaries but not short ones?
This, of course, is a rhetorical question. Short documentaries were produced by the thousands, and a detailed survey would simply not make sense in this context. However, I do feel that the filmography should expound its criteria for selecting the films it has and provide some conceptual definitions. In practice it hardly makes much difference if a few short films have slipped in among the corpus of full-length feature films. What matters is that information is provided on as many films as possible and that the “secrets of the past” are uncovered.
Hannu Salmi