Negotiating Special Relationships: Susanne Bier's Comedies

From the beginning, Susanne Bier’ films were simultaneously domestically and transnationally orientated. Producing at home and abroad, she has made ‘Hollywood’ films as well as ‘Danish’ and transnational films, genre films as well as art films, appreciated by domestic and international audiences. Bier is often considered a director with a special preference for the melodramatic imagination. However, as time goes by, her interest in exploring a diversity of genres has become more and more evident, as she has expanded to historical film and spy thriller. The broad scope of Bier’s relationship to genre development stems from her persistent interest in combining different film traditions and cultures, mainly Danish/Swedish, British and American. This chapter focuses on Bier’s two most successful comedies—Den eneste ene (The One and Only) and Den skaldede frisør (Love Is All You Need). I argue that The One and Only is a screwball comedy that innovates Danish film comedy traditions, whereas Love Is All You Need is a markedly transnational, mainstream take on romantic comedy conventions associated with American and British traditions, aspects that contributed to its international distribution.