August Blom - Career

Career

Blom began his acting career in 1893 in Kolding, and was employed as a company actor for the Folketeatret from 1907 to 1910. During that period, Blom also began performing in films for the Nordisk Film Kompangni. He debuted there as a director in 1910 with his film Livets Storme (Storms of Life). That same year he was made the Head of Production for Nordisk Film and given the title of Director. Blom was a prolific filmmmaker and during the golden age of Danish silent films, 1910 to 1914, he directed 78 movies. Before he retired from Nordisk Film and filmmaking in 1925, Blom directed more than 100 titles. Blom's volume of work is the largest of any Danish film director.

Blom is credited as a pioneer in silent filmmaking. In 1911, Blom was instrumental in the development of the erotic melodrama with his film Ved Faengslets Port, the story of a young man in debt to a moneylender while in love with the moneylender's daughter. Blom refined this genre during the following years, and this became the most profitable trademark for Nordisk company films. Blom also is credited with developing the use of cross-cutting as well as using mirrors to expand the drama. In 1913, Blom made his most ambitious effort: the film Atlantis based on the 1912 novel by Gerhart Hauptmann. The film, which depicted the sinking of an ocean liner only one year after the sinking the RMS Titanic, drew an enormous public response. With a complicated plot and several main characters, Atlantis became the first multi-reel feature film from Denmark. Harald Engberg of the Politiken newspaper later wrote in an obituary that Blom "knew that he wasn't some directorial genius, but he proved that he was the cleverest and most tasteful scene creator of his day."

Blom retired from filmmaking in 1924. He opened the Kinografen movie theater (later renamed the Bristol Theater) and managed the theater from 1934 to 1947.