Transcript Czech Cinema

Czech Feature Film since 1989:
The Context:
■ The 1960s: "Czech
New Wave"
■ Post-1968 Russian
invasion clampdown:
purge of filmmakers:
■ 1970-1989:
propaganda,
escapism, films for
children
After the fall of communism
■ Czech film industry denationalised
■ First, "primitive" commercial films made
■ Later, more artistically ambitious projects
■ Banned film-makers from the 1960s did not
gain prominence again in the 1990s
■ New generation of thirty-year-olds
■ Some 280 features made in 1989-2007
■ Maybe 40 will survive as works of art
■ Dvořák: "Czech cinema is manipulative".
Contemporary Czech Cinema
■ Useful to study it as material culture
■ Czech film transmits a unified value system
■ Is this a mythology or does it reflect reality?
■ What do the sociologists say?
What is contemporary Czech
society like?
Sociologists:
■ No fair principles of remuneration yet
■ Low salaries for highly educated
professionals in the state sector
■ Subjective euforic feeling after fall of
communism not matched by reality
■ No substantial middle class yet
■ Czech society as a plebeian community
What the Czechs believe
Sociologists:
■ Large personal wealth is the result of theft
■ Rich people are criminals
■ If you are poor, it is entirely your own fault
■ Defensive and wary vis-a-vis "the other"
What the Czechs believe
Sociologists:
■ Czechs are most happy within the privacy of
their families
■ Like under communism, they still regard the
public sphere as hostile
■ State services are unreliable and hostile
■ Politicians are fraudulent
■ The state of the economy is "dire"
What the Czechs are like
■ Educational level of Czech women is similar
to that in Scandinavia
■ Social and economic position of Czech
women: subjugation
■ Most Czechs have secondary education
■ There is little research and development
■ There is alienation at work
■ Czechs identify themselves with their local
village, town, the countryside (=place of
healing, refuge before "otherness")
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Early post 1990
films exorcised the
trauma of
communism
■ Antonín Máša´s
Was this really us?
(1990) highlights
alienation which
became the norm
after 1990
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Traumatic periods
from history
■ Petr Hvižďs The
Order (1994):
helpless position of
individual under
totalitarian pressure;
hero forced to do
what he hates
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Karel Kachyňa, The
Last Butterfly (1990):
■ Central European
belief that art will
prevail over
oppression
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Children as hope for the future
■ (A Kingdom for a Guitar, made 1989,
released 1990):
■ Metaphor of openness, freedom and
inquisitiveness
■ "I don´t want influential friends, I want good
friends."
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Jan Švankmajer´s
Little Otík (2000):
■ Warning against
human attempts "to
change what has
been fixed by natural
forces"
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Jan Švankmajer´s
The Mad (2005),
based on Marquis
de Sade:
■ "Democracy is a
lunatic asylum, but
return to dictatorship
would be worse"
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Early, optimistic
commercial
comedies:
■ The Sun, Hay, Sex
(1991):
■ "Everybody will
become rich."
Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Jan Kraus, The Little
Town (2003)
■ The benefits of the
fall of communism:
young girls are
forced to dance on
tables before old
men in the local pub
Czech Cinema: The Themes
Destitution:
■ Bohdan Sláma´s
The Wild Bees
(2001)
■ Nothing will ever
change
■ "Work, women, this
is capitalism, for
fuck´s sake!"
Relations between men and
women
■ Czech film:
Statements in
defence of
subjugated women
■ Weak, aggressive
males
■ Jan Hřebejk´s Cosy
Dens (1999)
Relations between men and
women
■ Man the fantasist,
chcípák, the
intellectual vagrantoutsider
●
Tomáš Vorel´s The
Stone Bridge (1996)
Relations between men and
women
■ Czech men are
unnecessarily violent
■ Men look for sex,
not a relationship
■ Young attractive
women strike
relationships with
men who are
decades older
Kameňák: (A Really Cruel Joke)
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Vulgar popular
comedy
Highly successful
Three parts
(Kameňák 1, 2, 3,
2003 – 2005)
Verbal humour,
ostranenie, puns
Kameňák
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Deeply familiar small town
environment
Cosy atmosphere: everyone
knows everyone
Kameňák
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Family life
Archetypal
“Everyman” police chief
Josef Novák,
wife, son Joey
Kameňák
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The logic of the narrative
sacrificed to verbal gags
Insulting old people
Insulting women
Kameňák
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Wife rushes about at breakfast, husband
reads newspaper
School is a place of torment – children bring
home only bad marks
Corporal punishment at home
Kameňák:
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Town environment:
Home
School
Hospital
Fake monastery
Castle
Kameňák:
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The police (i.e. official authorities) are
ineffectual
The politicians are corrupt
Serior criminals go unpunished, only minor
criminals are caught
Business consortium is made up of crooks
Business is always corrupt
No morals: the opening of a brothel is highly
celebrated
Kameňák: Men and Women
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Young women seen only as sex objects
Older women are subject of ridicule/source of
horror
Men are feeble:
In youth, they chase skirts,
in old age are interested in football, beer
Kameňák: Men and Women
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Men don´t understand the female psychology
Men of all ages are obsessed with the young
female body
Everything must be on man´s terms: There
are no ideal men
Gender stereotypes rule
Kameňák: The Czechs and the
Romanies
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The Romanies seen as an alien element in
Czech society
The close-knit Czech community “doesn’t
need” foreign influences: “Italian chianti is
sour”
Presence of guns in Czech society
Racist stereotypes of the Romanies
Czech self-irony
Kameňák´s success leads to
preaching
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Low quality of Czech newspapers:
“You don’t like Klaus, you don’t like the United
States, you don’t like naked girls, you don’t
like murders. I just don’t know why we take
that paper.”
Kameňák: Values
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Schadenfreude
What leads to success is the correct thing to
do – regardless of morals
“Would it not be better to bribe the Romanies?
It is more honest and, after all, these days, it
is fashionable.”
Which are the best films?
Jan Švankmajer:
Lekce Faust (The Faust Lesson, 1994)
Otesánek (Little Otík, 2000)
Šílení (The Mad, 2005)
Which are the best films?
Karel Kachyňa:
Poslední motýl (The Last Butterfly, 1990)