ReFocus: The Films of Susanne Bier

The award-winning Danish director Susanne Bier has become increasingly known for her generic innovations and industrial fluidity, moving confidently between cinema and television at a time where the scarcity of women directors has become a subject of major critical and popular attention. Refocus: The Films of Susanne Bier is a dynamic, scholarly engagement with Bier's work, and a timely consideration of her impressive authorial achievements. Featuring essays from both recognized and up-and-coming scholars in Scandinavian, transnational and feminist film and media studies, this book also includes an original interview with Bier, addressing some of the provocative readings of her films advanced by the volume's contributors.

Missy Molloy is a Lecturer in the Film Programme at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand).

Mimi Nielsen is a Ph. D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Meryl Shriver-Rice is the Director of Environmental Media at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami, where she directs and teaches for the Abess Center's Master's in Environment, Culture & Media.

Foreword Andrew Nestingen
Introduction Missy Molloy, Mimi Nielsen and Meryl Shriver-Rice

PART 1: GENERIC & INDUSTRIAL FLUIDITY
1. Birger Langkjær - Storytelling Schemes, Realism, and Ambiguity: Susanne Bier's Danish Dramas
2. Gunhild Agger - Negotiating Special Relationships: Susanne Bier's Comedies
3. Missy Molloy - Susanne Bier's Hollywood Experiments: Things We Lost in the Fire and Serena

PART II: NEGOTIATING IDENTITY
4. Maureen Turim - Beginning with Jewish Survival: Freud's Leaving Home
5. Anders Marklund - Stories with Queer Identities
6. Pétur Valsson - The Case of Lars von Trier vs. Susanne Bier
7. Mette Hjort - Gender Equity in Screen Culture: On Susanne Bier, the Celluloid Ceiling, and the Growing Appeal of TV Production

PART III: AUTHORSHIP & AESTHETICS
8. Mimi Nielsen - Tracing Affect in Susanne Bier's Dramas
9. Danica Van De Velde - Vision and Ethics in A Second Chance (En chance til)
10. Eva Novrup Redvall - The Truth is in the Eyes: Bringing Art Cinema Glimpses to the High-end Television Drama Series The Night Manager

PART IV: TRANSNATIONAL REACH
11. Belinda Smaill - Cinema of the World and Women's Film Culture: Susanne Bier's Transnational Cinema
12. Cath Moore - From Local to Global: The Bier-Jensen Screenwriting Collaboration
13. Meryl Shriver-Rice - First World Guilt, Danish Privilege and Responsibility in the Work of Susanne Bier

POSTSCRIPT: A CONVERSATION WITH SUSANNE BIER
Interview with Susanne Bier conducted by volume editors, Missy Molloy, Mimi Nielsen and Meryl Shriver-Rice
Filmography