Coursera.org

Did you know about this amazing website? Soon after the Ingmar Bergman revelation I plunked his name and “Courses” into Google. Up comes Coursera—an amazing intellectual dreamland of courses from universities around the world. And wouldn’t you know, there’s a course on Ingmar, or more specifically, Scandinavian Film and Television at the University of Copenhagen. Online learning is a new animal for me. I’m literally “old school” and love desks, pens, and paper. But wow, this was cool. We’d watch “Week 1” videos and take the 2-3 multiple choice questions and do some spelling, and practice some keyboarding. It was awesome. Each “module” had a certain amount of videos, basically an instructor talking / walking us through the course material, complete with clips from famous and historical Scandinavian films and tv shows as they evolved/progressed over the years. Pretty fascinating, especially their forte—the crime genre. You might remember the “Millennium Trilogy” Steig Larsson books from the early 2000s. That whole vibe/style seems to be the Scandinavian “thing”. Realistic, incredible angles / videography, and odd / off characters (often a socially dysfunctional main character). So that led me to search the tv channels for the shows referred to in the course. We found and devoured “The Killing”—morbid, yet fresh and oh so different, with believable characters. I could tell Luke loved it all. He showed up for the lessons, and insisted on binge-watching the episodes until the series was done. We’ve since moved on the “The Bridge”—equally captivating. When the Scandinavian course was complete after a few months, I had an opportunity to ask him “What’s next?” He mentioned “Spanish”. “People or culture?” His reply: “Film.” 😊