czech feature film since 1989: the context:
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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 - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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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
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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".
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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?
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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
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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"
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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"
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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")
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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
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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
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Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Karel Kachyňa, The Last Butterfly (1990):
■ Central European belief that art will prevail over oppression
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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."
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Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Jan Švankmajer´s Little Otík (2000):
■ Warning against human attempts "to change what has been fixed by natural forces"
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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"
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Czech Cinema: The Themes
■ Early, optimistic commercial comedies:
■ The Sun, Hay, Sex (1991):
■ "Everybody will become rich."
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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
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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!"
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Relations between men and women
■ Czech film: Statements in defence of subjugated women
■ Weak, aggressive males
■ Jan Hřebejk´s Cosy Dens (1999)
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Relations between men and women
■ Man the fantasist, chcípák, the intellectual vagrant-outsider
● Tomáš Vorel´s The Stone Bridge (1996)
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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
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Kameňák: (A Really Cruel Joke)
● Vulgar popular comedy
● Highly successful● Three parts
(Kameňák 1, 2, 3, 2003 – 2005)
● Verbal humour, ostranenie, puns
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Kameňák
● Deeply familiar small town environment
● Cosy atmosphere: everyone knows everyone
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Kameňák
● Family life● Archetypal
“Everyman” - police chief Josef Novák, wife, son Joey
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Kameňák
● The logic of the narrative sacrificed to verbal gags
● Insulting old people● Insulting women
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Kameňák
● Wife rushes about at breakfast, husband reads newspaper
● School is a place of torment – children bring home only bad marks
● Corporal punishment at home
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Kameňák:
● Town environment:● Home● School● Hospital● Fake monastery● Castle
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Kameňák:
● 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
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Kameňák: Men and Women
● 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
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Kameňák: Men and Women
● 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
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Kameňák: The Czechs and the Romanies
● 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
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Kameňák´s success leads to preaching
● 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.”
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Kameňák: Values
● 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.”
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Which are the best films?
Jan Švankmajer:
Lekce Faust (The Faust Lesson, 1994)
Otesánek (Little Otík, 2000)
Šílení (The Mad, 2005)
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Which are the best films?
Karel Kachyňa:
Poslední motýl (The Last Butterfly, 1990)