Hollywood tulee Suomeen : Yhdysvaltalaisten elokuvien maahantuonti ja vastaanotto kaksikymmentäluvun Suomessa

Hollywood Comes to Finland: The Import and Reception of American Films in Finland in the 1920s Every year more American films are screened in Finland than all other films combined. This has not always been the case. Hollywood studios began the extensive export of their products to all corners of the world when the First World War nearly halted European film industries. The analytical focus of this thesis is on the public discussions related to American films imported to Finland in the 1920s, and the changes that took place in the nature of these discussions. This leads to an evaluation of the extent to which Finnish film culture was Americanised during this period. The annual import statistics of Hollywood films have been counted on the basis of film censorship records. The annual figures of Hollywood films inspected by film censors have been compared to the total annual numbers of all films inspected. This forms the basis for estimating the changes that took place in the market share of American films. In this thesis imported Hollywood films are analysed in the context of contemporary magazine and newspaper articles related to them. These discussions produced interpretations that encouraged contemporary audiences to view Hollywood films from certain perspectives and to associate certain meanings to them. The analysis of these discussions leads to an examination about the types of interpretations that were possible and likely amongst contemporaries and what kinds of meanings they related to Hollywood films. Finnish film culture became Americanised in the 1920s in many respects. Hollywood films were granted a prominent position in film programmes and film-related discussions. The increasing number of Hollywood films screened, a decrease in their import delay and the changes that took place in film discussions related to them resulted in American films becoming universal films in relation to which Finnish and European films seemed to be special cases. When it comes to the Finnish film industry in the early 1920s, ...