Abstract
Orions belte (Orion’s Belt), directed by Ola Solum in 1985 and based on Jon Michelet’s novel of the same name from 1977, is a film that is generally regarded as marking a watershed in Norwegian film history. However, some contemporary critics worried about its remarkably explicit description of the political situation in the Svalbard Archipelago during the Cold War. This essay will contextualize the film by drawing attention to the background of Michelet’s novel—the emergence of the Norwegian Maoist party AKP (m-l) and its ideology. Furthermore, the movie adaptation of the novel eight years later will be discussed in view of the change in the political situation during this period, utilizing Justin Wyatt’s term “high-concept cinema” in a national context.
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Sørenssen, B. (2019). Orions Belte: The Birth of the Norwegian “High-Concept” Movie in the Shadow of the Second Cold War. In: Bastiansen, H.G., Klimke, M., Werenskjold, R. (eds) Media and the Cold War in the 1980s. Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98382-0_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98382-0_10
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