CHAPTER TWO

Jan Svankmajer: A Mannerist Surrealist

Michael O'Pray

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Jan Svankmajer joined the Prague-based Surrealist Group in 1970 after meeting itsmost prorninent Czech theoretícian, Vratislav Effenberger, who had assumed theleadership of rhe Czech surrealist movement on Karel Teige's death in 1951. Duringthe 1950s the movernent had lost many of its members to abstract 01' non-figurativeart, bur it revived in the next decade when a new group, UDS, was set up aroundEffenberger.' Svankmajer's decision to join this group brought to an end a briefbutimportant period of 'innocence' in his work. 1he coincidence of his conversion toSurrealism with the momentous political events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 can onlybe a source of debate for commentators, and it would seem fair to say that the eventswere a major factor in his loss of innocence. Svankmajer has stared, since the 'VelvciRevolution', that ali his work has been politica!.

1here is little doubt that Czech Surrealism's critical and subversive role must b 'perceivedas a response to rhe crushing of the Dubéek government by the Soviet Unionin 1968, ~fter which there was a period of silencing of 'difiiculc' voices in Czechoslovakia. 1his silencing included Svankmajer who was 'forced to rest from the cin mn'because of his unauthorised post-production changes to Leonardúo deník (Leonardo;Diary, 1972), which involved pointed references to the sornbrc rcaliry of Czc h dnlllir,· :lrlCr 196R. II did nor mnkc his 11' I filll1 urn il rhc 1:11('I()~()s, sp 'l1dil1g Ih

uucrvening years producing sculprures and tactile objects.? and working on Otrantskj I,II/Iek (lhe Castle ofOtranto), begun in 1973 and eventually completed in 1979. J

The fact that Czechoslovakia, like other Eastern bloc countries, was severed fromd u: European and North American modernist path in the late 1930s explains to some,I. 'gree Svankmajer's frame of reference. A first viewing of his films by Westerners ind u: carly 1980s often shocked sensibilities which had been reared on visual arts dorni-1I.IIcd by the modern in its most narrow sense. Importanrly, those shocked included aI' '1II1ger generation who had not wirnessed rhe upsurge of Eastern European cinema111lhe 1960s, especially the animation work of the postwar period. Many of theseIdlils had been unavailable for some years and had become unfashionable in dorni-'1.11118ritish inrellectual film circles. Serious discussion of animation barely existed in\\""Icm film theory until the late 1980s.

,~vankmajer, however, had been recognised as a major film animation talent in th11I ')(,()s by writers such as Ralph Stephenson (1967). Like others in Czechoslovakia, I'

'iv.mkmajer seemed to turn inwards to Czech traditions - Mannerism, marionetteti,. '.11rc, graphics and of course Surrealism, a survivor of Stalinism. 1he surrealist spiritI, ,', .ilways been closely associated with Eastem European art, and particularly paiming. ,111Ii1111,the great Czech animator Jifí Trnkàs Ruka (lhe Hand, 1965) has been descri dI', ',111absurd tale bordering on surrealism' (Holloway 1983: 235), and the entire CzechII,IV Wave betrays a surrealist sensibility, not least in its often eccentric black humour11,,1s.rrdonic wit. Juraj Herz's black comedy Spalouaãmrtvol (lhe Cremator, 1968) and111,1111iI Jird's surrealist Valeriea tjden divu (Valerieand Her Week ofWonders, 1970) are, ,,""ples of work imbued with surrealist properties that have seeped imo Czech culture.li. -wcver, it should be poinred out that Svankmajer felt this New Wave 'Surrealism' was rI"" rcpid and fatally infected by the psychologism and existentialist ideas endemic to111.11film movement as a whole (see Král 1987: 23), even though Zahrada (lhe Garden,II')I,X) visually and thematically suggests some form of kinship.

,'ivankmajer was not unique in his influences. Trnka, who died in 1969, was also~ed with a varied an~ ingenious use of techniques and sophisticated art refer-1111n. His landmark film, Spalíeek'(lhe Czech Year, 1947), was 'influenced by CzechI IIIdlic paimings and inspired by folk traditions and songs' (Holloway 1983: 232).I ltllt'r importam Czech animators who were precursors of Svankrnajer include Karel

I 1I1.11~and Hermina Tyrlová: rhe former experirnenred with mixing animation and1111',11Iion, and Tyrlová explored the use of differem materiais for puppets. What-

I -1\. I rhcir similarities, however, Svankmajer has always felt distanced from these Czech11I111J.lIors,remarking thar he has tried to separate himselffrom this school by'refusing111Ilillil myself to animation' (quored in Král 1987: 22). Furtherrnore, he believestI,," ;,l'lllan and Trnka dealt primarily with 'representational illusion', whereas he isIIIII'II',sl ·Li in 'brute real ity' (ibid.). Nevertheless, lhe Hand, Trnka's most successfuluul IIIOSt political film, would seem to suggest some connections with Svankmajer's,,,IIt, ,ISdo 'S Ihc Polish fiImrnaker Walerian Borowczyk's Renaissance (1963), in which

,..!--IIIIIIIIr 'COI1Slru ts ilS ,Ir.

("1'1 h .urim.u ion is rar ,Iy discuss -d ouisi I th fram work of puppetry and toI11111I'XII'III SV,Ilt!\IIJ.I)'I' 11{'~fil'llll wit hin 111(,IWO 1I1:1Í1Isrrnndx o('lhl' (:zt'l'h .mimu

tion tradition (the other being the graphic rradition), as St .phcnsou notcd as earlyas 1967 (1967: 124). Svankmajer's membership of rhe Surrealist Croup and his ownexperimems with a form of ractile materialiry have made him a uni que figure withinthat tradition. Interestingly, it is a Polish filmmaker, Jan Lenica, who most resemblesSvankmajer. Ronald Holloway has claimed Svankmajer as the 'true successor of JanLenicas experimental animated films' (1983: 246).

Svankmajer's repuration was firmly established in the West in the 1980s at the sarnetime as rhe burgeoning of postmodernism. A superficial resemblance exists betweenhis work and this developmem in the visual arts: they share a zest for rhe manipula-

, tion of historical visual elemems in a bricolage fashíon, and the general disruptionof historical and aesthetic coherence and continuity. But, unlike many purveyors ofpostmodernisrn, Svankmajer does not embrace its inveterate impotence in the face

i of humanist thernes. On the contrary, his stance is essentially radical, always facing~ outwards towards the world and eschewing self-reflexivity for its own sake.

Postmodernism has been seen by some as haumed by the spectre of Surrealism,"which for years had been viewed as a dead language of art, imeresting only toacademics and the advertising and movie industries. 1he massive attack on subjectmatter in Western art after 1945 in the narne of Abstract Expressionism, Minirnalisrn,Conceptual art and so on seemed to have extinguished Surrealism as a living and vitalmovernent, even though ali these movements in varying degrees took from Surrealism.Abstract Expressionism had the automatic gesture at its core; Conceptual Art took itslead from Marcel Duchamp: images in Minimalism could be found in Man Ray andother surrealists. However, in the last decade of the rwentieth cemury - in the jin desiêcle, we might say - it is a differem questiono Once more Surrealism seems to matterto artists and not just to art historians. Equally, issues around surrealist ideas havemoved to the centre of debates about art theory, For exarnple, the infarnous L'Amourfou photography and Surrealism exhibition (see Krauss & Livingston 19'86) in themid-1980s has now become a landmark show in terms of its higWighting of notionsof the body, sexuality, sexual difference and psychoanalysis through the medium ofphotography, which itself has beco me influential in the postmodern period, as seen inthe works of Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Jeff Koons and others,

- Svankmajer's own work has a very different trajectory. Ir flows out of a surre-

I

alist movement proper - the Czech movernent, which has existed in one 'form oranother since its inception in the early 1930s. Western Surrealism is different to itsEastern European counterparts in that most brands of Surrealism are responsive totheir cultural contexrs. Nevertheless, there is, among other characteristics, the shared

I concern wirh rhe body and with bricolage.To complicate this picture further, Svankmajer has remarked that his films have

I been influenced by rwo broad aestheric modes - Mannerism and Surrealism. Hisearly work is commonly identified with the rather elusive style of Mannerism, whilethe work beginning with rhe so-called watershed film, lhe Garden, is surrealist inits aspirations. Problems arise from this demarcation between rhe rnann .ris: and thesurrealist films. For exarnple, the 'rnannerist' Rakvickárna (Til" (.'(I((ill !lllI/lr!'!//(' (-)lrhHoti e/Punch flndJudy, J 966) d cs not s em that diffi rCIlI iJ1 I Ir 11111\ 111111'11110 rhc

111ll·.dist' Don Sajn tDon fna«. 1')70). Sil1lilarly, Kostnice (7he Ossuary, .197~) could as \"',11' hc rcad as mannerisr as surrcalist. Pan of rhe problem, of course, IS fixmg a clear

'"" 11111of what comprises Surrealisrn (or, for that rnatter, Mannerism). We have onlyI" •«usider rhe differences between, say, André Breton, Georges Bataille and WalterlI. uj.unin to understand the issues involved." Furthermore, so much of surrealist artI I'. 'lound' by the early surrealists in pre-surrealist history ~ Giuseppe Arcimboldo,

111,l"llymus Bosch, the. M~rquis de Sade, ~fred Jarry- that to make judgemems as tj1111.11is or is not surrealist ISalways precarlOus.

'w.mkmajer has admitted that Mannerism has lingered on in his work, despite hisII1(,llIptS to expunge it (see Král1987). However, it could jusdy be said rhat in his early1,1,,1\ hc was as much a surrealist as he was a mannerist. As I have already remarked,"" , loscr exarnination the distinction between the rwo approaches is dífficult to make.I "l\ory attention to the films might suggest that ir resides in the films' thernes. For I, .unple, rhe surrealist films seem to offer a more social and political message than the1,I.Ivlully hermetic mannerist films. I believe that this is much too simple; not only do'rv.uik majers films exemplify a shading ofMannerism into Surrealism, and vice versa,111,I .ilso rheir formal aspects are as telling as their themes. In recognition of this I shallui.rkc use of Arnold Hauser's writings on Mannerism (1986), in which he has argued1," .1strong connection between Mannerism and Surrealism. 1his essay takes one very I

1'.1IIicular route in trying to undersrand Svankmajer's films. Many orhers are possible11111.it is hoped, will be raken by furure critics.?

'I he mannerist artisr most associared wirh Svankmajer's films is Giuseppe Arcirn-I" ,Ido, An Italian artist who spenr many years in Vienna and Prague in rhe service of"I\' sixreenrh-century courrs ofFerdinand 1, Maximilian II and RudolfII, his repura-111111rests on the composire heads he rnade, mosdy in the court of Rudolf 11. 1hesel'I',lds, represeming abstract entiries such as the seasons, are composed of objects such" Irces, vegetables and flowers. Arcimboldo is another artisr deemed a precursor of the

',)11 rcalists - a surrealisr avant la lettre. His inclusion in thefarnous exhibition, FantasticIr'. Dada and Surrealism, organised by Alfred H. 'Barr at the Museum of Modern

~l New York in 1936, placed him fir~IY,in ~he surreal,ist canon. Arcim~o,l~o'sIl'plltarion has grown in this century, culmmanng m the Arcimboldo Effect exhibition,'I Palazzo Grasso in Venice in 1987 (see Hulten et al. 1987). His influence can be'l'Cll clearly in Svankmajer's early films, Spiel mit Steinen (Game with Stones, 1965), Et( 'rtera (1966) and Historia naturae (suita) (Historia naturae (suite), 1967), as well as inl.ucr lilms such as Moênosti dialogu (Dimensiom o/Dialogue, 1982) and Flora (1989).11is collage-like forms ~an also be traced in Svankmajer's marionette films Zvahlav aneb1,11iéky Slaméného Huberta (fabberwockyljabberwocky, or Straw Hubert's Clotbes, 1971),l'uncb andJudy and the feature film Lekce Faust (Faustllhe Lesson o/Faust, 1994).

Svankmajer is equally interested in Arcimboldo as a figure in the bizarre court ofRudolf II - the Arcimboldian 111mHistoria naturae (suite) is dedicated to the Bohe-mi.m ruler. Alrhough madc in 1967, ir has many of rhe hallmarks of Svankmajer'l.ucr work - rhythrni . and rapid 'dilillg; swirt arnera movernent; the juxraposition o

, ...JiVl' ncrion nnd nnimat lou: ~11I,,1'I~ \lI' I'l'p xu xl horizontal arncra 1l10VC1l1cnrs;and

,1111IUIl' h,l\l'd 011Nl'l '~ IId V dlhlll'c\ \I dlflt'!l'Ill L11l'11l'~.

In exploring the paimer's methods and visual conceits Roland Banhes' fascinatingessay (1991) on Arcimboldo also provides insights applicable to Svankmajer's work.ChieRy, there is the relationship between differem levels of meanings - the images ofvegetables that suggest a face, which in rum is an image of a season, which relates backto the primary level of vegetables. 1his almost linguistic or conceptual relationship inthe paintings is an aspect of Arcimboldo's work that Barthes has remarked on:

Let us once again rum to the question of meaning - for, after ali, this iswhat inreresrs, what fascinates and disturbs us in Arcimboldo. 1he 'units'of a language are here on the canvas; unlike the phonemes of articulatedlanguage, they already have a meanlng: they are namable things: fruir, Rowers,branches, fish, sheaves, books, babies, etc.; combined, these units produce aunitary meaning; but this second meaning, as a matter of fact, doubles: onthe one hand, I read a human head ... but on the other hand, I also and at thesame time read an altogether differem meaning which comes from a differemregion of the lexicon: 'Summer', 'Winter' ... 'Cook', 'Calvin' ... now I carr-conceive thís stricrly allegorical meaning only by referring to the meaning ofthe first units ... Here already, then, are three meanings in one and the sameimage.(l99l: 143-4)

A similar layering of meaning occurs in Historia naturae (suite) where the wholeof animal life is represemed by ancient scienrífic categories, for instance Aquatilia,Reptilia, Mammalia. 1hese are correlated in rum to diflerenr categories of music, such

.1\ hlucs, bolero, foxtrot, waltz. 1he images of me animal categories are themselves

.hvidcd between live-action images of the animals and their representation in litho-1'.l.lphs, stuffed specimens from museums, old drawings, and so forth. 1he unifyingIIll'aning, however, is one of the destruction of nature by rnankind, represenred ar rhe, IId of each secrion by a mourh in close-up devouring what we have just seen. 1his11"<hnique of constructing caregories which in rum are divided imo other caregories,which in rum ... and so on, is typically Arcimboldian. Similarly, in the film's series,uouically disrancedfrom their original scientific function, we are reminded of rhe'0111rcalist fascinarion with forms of scienrífic caregorisarion. In this obsessive carego-I"illg, Sade's horrific sysrematisarion of sexual perversions, conveyed by seriality and"'g.lI1ised enactrnents in Les 120 Journées de Sodome (lhe 120 Days of Sodom, 1784), isI vcri rable precursor of Surrealism and a descendan r of Rudolf II's own bizarre collec-11,II1Sof 'art' objecrs.

'1he earlier film Et Cetera, using drawn animation, contains the same srrucruringIIIIIIIS of repetition and serialiry, alrhough much less convincingly rhan in Historiau.tt urae (suite). Ir comprises rhree main episodes - 'Wings', '1he Whip' and "Ihe House'.11,i, t ripartite formar is repeared years later in Dimensions o/ Dialogue, one of rhe,\ I, iIIIboldian films par excellence. Similarly,Jabberwocky is divided by the sequences ofI'" Ime building bricks, which evolve imo rhe maze-game toppled over by rhe rnalevo-I, 111car, C::peraring in rhis sequencing is rhe reperition found in children's games. 1h1;1I. l.ucs to Svankmajer's persistem use of childhood, especially his own, as a source forI", work, a subjecr I shall discuss larer. Sigmund Freud showed how reperirion in early Iml.uu ile games (rhe infamous 'fort-da') expressed a need to derive pleasure in rhe face"I underlying fears and anxieries (see 1974). 1his repetitive device is less prorninent in ,111<"lilms after rhe early 1970s, when rhe influences ofLewis Carroll and Edgar Allan II', t,' come to rhe fore.

!\rnold Hauser makes a disrincrion between Mannerism as an historical art11"-vcrnent and rhe mannerisric wh ich ofren appears ar the end of a particular move-111<"111.when a style becomes self-conscious, degenerare and mannered. In rhe case of

~l1lajer ir is rhe historical movernent which mos r interests him; nevertheless, rhereli I" onnections to be made berween that movement and a modem form ofMannerism.I would like to argue that in films such as Game with Stones ir is rhe comem - and• "I'l'cially an Arcimboldian one - that is srressed, as we have seen, whilsr in Punch andjl/f/Y ;lnd Jabberwocky, for example, formal Mannerisric properries are prorninent. Toli", cxtent Arcimboldo does not evoke or express ali rhe mannerist characreristics of

I'w.urkrnajer's films, but only some of thern. Arcimboldo's collapse imo rhe groresgue is'"lly ,I very small part of what Mannerism represenred. As for rhe relarionship between'w.rukmajer's Mannerism and his Surrealism, I will argue, like Hauser, rhar what rhey1',IIl' has as much to do wirh an attitude expressed in the work - namely of alienarion

,111,]01' an aggressive narcissism - a wirh formal rechniques.Manncrisrn has had many diflcrcnt inrcrpretations. For Max Dvofák ir was assoei-

111',]wiih ihc cxpr .ssiou 01' t hc spiriru.rl, whilxt ror Walrer Friedlaender ir was largely,-"'1 III1lV'11\'Ill 01' .uu i d.I"il ivru, ,I ll"l\ ,ioll ,Ig,liml t hc .onvcnt ional and absolutist

Inlhl'li" of t lu: I li"," H('11, I ",1111" ("'( 11.111\1'1l'lH(, 11 ). On lhe orhcr hund,

Hauser believes that Mannerism essentially expresses a tension between the dassicaland rhe anti-classical, and not simply a reaction againsr it. In other words, ir is a moreposirively defined movernent. For Hauser, rhe problem was that Mannerism possesseddassical elements itself and was not a form sysremarically different to ir, but incor-

~

orared many of its characreristics. He remarks that Mannerism was 'a product of,tension between dassicism and anti-classicism, naturalisrn and formalism, rationalisrnand irrationalisrn, sensualism and spiritualisrn, traditionalism and innovation, conven-tionalism and revolr againsr conformism' (1986: 12).

These, game tensions are apyarc:.gt in S~ankmaje!'s films. Dvoiák, recognising aspiritual aspecr to Mannerism, also understood that ir had a profound sensuous aspecr.If mannerist art expressed higher spiritual values, ir often did so using very sensuousimagery thar tied ir firmly to the materiality of the world irself as comprehendedrhrough the senses. Arcimboldo's composite portraits of naruralistic flowers, plants,trees, books and so on highlighr this ideal, although 'spiritual' is perhaps an inappro-priate description for work that is largely imbued with wit and a strong'lsense of the

, groresque. What is worth emphasising is the constant tension in Svankmajer's work! between certain ideas of freedom and human desire, and his means of expressing rhem.l He achieves this only by means of an animated artificial world using film tricks and a

distorted depiction of the real. Like Arcimboldo, images of the real must be broughtinto service to create imaginary beings and objecrs. Insofar as it cannot represent hisideas, naturalism is thus refused as inadequate and failing, being too conventional inits acceprance of the world as it stands. Nevertheless, it is the real material world whichprovides the very sruff of which those animations or transformations are comprised.Hauser speaks of the Mannerisrs who took fully into account the inadequacy of rarionalthoughr and appreciated that ordinary, everyday reality was inexhaustible and defied

\ rational synthesis (1986: 15).- In Svankmajer's film work these characteristics are quite easily discernible asmannerist. For example, whilst j 5 Bach: Fantasia g-moll (J. S. Bach: Fantasy in GMinor, 1965) is comprised largely of images of natural phenomena (stone surfaces)and relatively ordinary artefacts (old doors and locks), ir is through an isolation ofthese phenomena in terrns of their ractility - using the close-up and zoom shots - thathe constructs a film track to accompany the Baroque richness of Bach's music. Herefuses the usual device of showing Baroque architecture using images of opulent,osrentatious splendour, and instead finds a film language thar counterpoinrs the music,thus achieving a fresh interpretation of Bach with a film of visual integrity thar resiststhe music.

There is in this film, as in others, a mannerist tension between the materiality andractiliry of images of subject matter - albeit stone, day, cloth or whatever material -srressing the sensuous, and the higher moral concerns of thefilm, cmb dded in thisinsrance in Bach's music. In many cases the films' rational suuctu« I()!· -xarnple,the already rnentioned division into parts of jflllbf'rl/If}('Á:y, /I/'//lr/II "li/li/rir (suitr) nndf)il/ll'lIJiol/.I' olOill/ogl/l' is in I .nsc r 'Ialionshlp (O dH' !11111111111111111IIIC'I' ,~lIhj' 'I

111.111'1',ol'dlt' jlll,ll""~ 'olHuln 'ti wit hln lhos!' ,~111111111d 1111111111 I' 1111111'1II1/irlll~dH' llilll~('dllil 1111(''1"('1,111111111M 1IIIIl'I 111I I Itllld 11\1111li 1.11 11111111\\'1'1'11IIld('I,

morality and rationality on rhe one hand, and brute realism, the grotesque, sensuality,and innovation on the other, Svankmajer's revolt is always ser againsr the sheer implacable 'thereness' of the material world. lhis resistance is always juxtaposed with themalleability and infinite flux of the imagination. A key image is the passage betweenthese two levels of human experience. For example, the mush of pulverised objects inthe first section of Dimensions ofDialogue is transformed into the impeccably modelledday heads which then spew out more mush. In jabberwocky the photograph of thenineteenth-century father is penetrated by a real rongue, and then that same tommouth spews images of a prerty young woman. Authority and order and their repre- Isentation are ser againsr a vulgar tongue. lhe same 'dassical' authoriry is underminedhy this condensed image of 'perverse' sexual play - that is, oral sex, as rhe wornan's headj'repeatedly pops out of the man's mouth.

Ir would be a mistake at this point not to mention the formal qualities of,~vankmajer's films. As in the mannerist tradition, the most basic elemeru: is a forrn ofIllontage or editing, a fragmentation of the image, and at the same time a cornposi-Iional mo de that contains the energies of that very fragmentarion of the frame. On thispoint, Linda Murray's view of Mannerism is enlighrening, for she understands it as:

subject rnatter either deliberately obscure, or treared so that ir becomes difficultto understand - the main incident pushed into the background or swamped inirrelevant figures serving as excuses for displays of virtuosity ... wirh extremesof perspective, dístorted proportions or scale - figures jammed into too smalla space so rhat one has the impression that any movement would burst theconfines of the picture space; with vivid colour schemes, employing discordantcontrasts, effecrs of 'shot' colour, and the use of colour, not for descriptive ornaturalistic purposes, but as a powerful adjunct to the emotional irnpact of apicture. (1967: 30-31)

~ese _Manneristic painterly characreristics have rheir filmic equivalence. For-(cxarnple, Svankmajer's 'displays of virtuosity' almost swamp the main therne and I

ri14ures of his earlier films. lhe crowded film frame of jabberwocky and Punch and/I/(ly at times corresponds to the 'figures jammed into too small a space' of mannerist Ip.iinting. Extreme camera angle and movement and the use of dolls, puppets and effi-gics in general often disturb proportion, perspective and scale. lhis manic, overwrought I

.lcnsi ty of image is less visible in the later works such as Dimensions of Dialogue, where1"I(;kgrounds to the day figures are minimal. Svankmajer's mixing of differenr visual Ivlcmcnts is a further aspecr of this heighrened style. To add to this mannerist atmos-1'11'1" of discordancy are Svankmajer's rapid editing and camera movement, accompa-ni xl by the swirling and ar rimes highly-strung music (especially of Zdenék Liska). In I111h 'I' words, th formal prop rti S of the films are in thernselves distinctly mannerist.

I'I hl'y rcappcar in lar 'r works, su ·h as /'dl/ik dornu Ushrrú (7he Fall ofthe House ofUsher,

,..-'~I)H()) nnd 1(11/1'1',I'/,i/I"/fll/l/ " (':rdlllr!J CII,,· l>t'l//IJ o/S/rtlilli 11I in Boliemin, 1990). InIh1.~W,I , le)!' 111,111vi 'W('I',~,11H'II101I ',~01 lIa' (illll,~,11'1'01'1\'11111',li 'Sl' virt \lOSiL'p:lSS:I~'S I.IIIr! IHII 01 rlu- 1 r1Ii'III('N,

A Iurther elernent that Hauser connects with Mannerism is alicnation and, in itspsychological form, narcissism. He discusses alienation as a 'key' to Mannerism. Theloss of the object of love, substituted by love of the self, is the basic motivation fornarcissism, whereby some recompense and alleviation is achieved for the damagedpsyche. For Hauser, narcissism is rooted in historical and social determinants, whichhe feels were at play in the mannerist period and in our own. Narcissism entails analienation from both realiry and others, a sense of not firting in; for this reason heassociares ir with 'asocial inclinations', a state which he feels arose first in the mannerist

UperiOd and has been with us since. These are large claims and seem to give historical

Mannerism an importam role in our understanding of post-Renaissance art and also,by implication, of modern ano Interestingly, most ofHauser's examples are from litera-ture, especially, in modern times, Proust and Kafka. In both writers, but in Kafkaparticularly, he pinpoints an unwillingness to resolve the tension in their work betweencompeting views of the world which are not ironed our by some overriding device.Reality in this sense is a series of fragmems, each with equal status and underlyingwhich is nothing. Ali that speaks is the world - and then in a disjointed voice.;r Alie~ation pervades Svankmajer's films. Ir can be found in his very first film,Posledni trzk pana Schwarcewalldea a pana Edgara (lhe Last Trick of Mr Schwarzwald

(and Mr Edgar, 1964), with its warring rnechanical marionettes, and in his secondfilm, as the unified classicism of Bach's music is juxtaposed against the fragmentarionI of the i~~ge-track ~irh its peeling walls, fissuring stone, empty desolated windowsand verugll10us corndors and streets, Film afrer film reiterates this picture of alienated

I being. The fashion in which Svankmajer has rnade the marionette, puppet, doll and

dligy the proragonisrs 01"his fill1l~ is lhe most obvious way in which he has depicte.1 'soulless' being reduced to a passive victim of a 'brute realiry'. Don Juan, thwarted111love, must find his end in a deep grave after his actions, which have all the inevi-i.rhiliry of the tragic hero. The man in Byt (lhe Flat, 1968) comes from nowhere and!~oes nowhere; his life is reduced to a brief time spent in a room in which the world,.r objects and animais attacks and menaces him. His alienation is both omological(.1 human being against the natural world) and historical (a political and social being Iicpressed by forces he cannot fathom or resist, except through sheer determinationof"spirit). 1n lhe Death of Stalinism in Bohemia even the r~pressors a:e r~presented ~s',\clIlptural busts, and when a man is operated on, a mechanical clock IS seized from his ~exposed bloody entrails. The idea of man as a mechanical systern disordered by a wilfulhcing is encapsulated by the beetle in lhe Last Trick ofMr Schwarzwald andMr Edgar, .ihc snail in the stone skull's ~ye in lhe Ossuary and the un~uly cat ~n jabberwocky.,I rrnmarically and brilliantly, Svankmajer makes a film of Poe s srory, The Fali of thel louse of Usher' (1845), which contains neither human figure nor even a representa- ~Iion of one through an effigy. Instead, 'actions' are performed by tree roots fi.ghting in 1IIIC mud, a coffin moving of its own accord through the house, and the basic stuff of

rlrc world - a viscous mud - struggling desperately to find a shape.Hauser understands Mannerism as the first cultural representation of this aliena':-

Iion that has not ceased since the late l óth century. 1nstitutionalisation through capi-r.ilist expansion is one cause: the age of Mannerism was the first to be threarened by.1 rising tide of institutionalisation similar to our own (see 1986: 109). Svankmajer'sc onsistent theme of rigid structures - whether abstract ideas, artefacts or natural mate-Ii.ils, broken down imo parts, often rhrough aggressive arrack, and then being recon-\1ructed - is a veritable image of his own caustic views on institutionalisation. The\1ructures he confronts are both political- the bureaucracies of Stalinism - and onto-logical _ the brute reality of the external world. How far can such ideas be related to~vankmajer, given his cornmitment to Surrealism and rejection ofMannerism? Quitevuhstantially, one would feel, insofar as he has made claims to both Mannerism andSUrlfalism. When discussing one of the rnost importam characrerisri~s of Surre.alism,

I1'ãi'iser interestingly makes his own connection berween the surrealist aesthetic andl incrna by 'its film-like structure, which is associated with the abandonrnent of the'pace and timeof ordinary experience and of most artistic sryles' (1986: 378).

If Hauser believes that film in general abandons ordinary spatio-temporal quali-Iics, Svankmajer's anti-classical narrative work represents an even more extrerne form,)r abandonment. Ma(nstream film with its classical rules of construction has aspired toI!tCcondition of naturalism. These rules are based on principies by which some kinship1\ made with time and space - the 1800 rule, eyeline marches, types of editing and solorth. In Svankmajer, the surrealist cinema found one ofits few postwar perpetrators. In.1 lIuÍlllclian spirit vankrnajcr has appropriared the often irrational montage of Surre-.ilivm and its Iragm .nuu ion as d -rivcd [rorn lhe unconscious. For example, in jabber-1I1f/l'ky lhe cqual Slalll\ piVl'll \() dll' difl' .rcnt 1yp 'S of i111ages is exernplary of Hauser's

,/.,II,II':KI -risnt inn ol"Surn',IIl'III, 111IId" fi",t \'1\(011111\'1'Wil!t l.ewis ,~l'roll, vankrnajcr"tilll" 11l1'\'11t'I llvc ,1\ í luu, dl.IWIIlI\~,I)"II·'1 11.11111.rl 011', ,lIld .lrt\'I:l IS .rnd n wot'ld

!-distOrted and constructed through filmic special effects. 1he building bricks, shufRingimo position through animation devices until they form an image, are knocked over byan impish black cato 1hus, their status as animated objects is juxtaposed with their exist-

Ience as real objects obeying the naturallaws of graviry. Similarly, as already mentioned,the nineteenth-cenrury phorograph of a bearded gentleman (resonances of Max Ernst

~

and René Magritte) is tom at the mouth and a real tongue appears through the hole.And again, the knife impossibly spinning through the air comes to rest when its bladesticks imo the table cloth, and then proceeds to bleed profusely.

Game with Stones is an early mino r work in the mannerist sryle. In many ways itis an experiment, albeit a charming one, in effects and ideas that Svankmajer will usemore successfully in later films such as lhe FlatandJabberwocky. Its opening sequenceof extreme close-up shots moving over the surface of stone walls is rerniniscent of JS. Bach: Fantasy in G Minor. Likewise, the animated sequences of stones patrerned ingroups - of lines, circles, squares and triangles - and repeared and ordered, accordingto size and shape, echo the similar patterning in the film on Bach. When the stonesare eventually cracked and broken up, the destructive intent can be recognised asone thar suffuses his films. Ir also contains the first Arcimboldian head, comprisedof stones. In this use of stories, Svankmajer is consolidating the role of this naturalmaterial found in J s. Bach: Fantasy in G Minor. Imerestingly, the latter film isin many ways much more mannerist and to that extent more surrealist than Gamewith Stones. 1he Bach work is remarkably accomplished for a second film and onevery differem from its predecessor, lhe Last Trick of Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar, lhe Ossuary, in its almost systematic and overwrought filming of architectural formswhich uses players dressed as marionettes acting out a rivalry berween two magicians. made of human bones, is visually mannerist and, with its original soundtrack of theJ S. Bach: Fantasy in G Minor is also a celebration of Prague, but of its fragmems ossuary guide's voice, becomes acurely ironic and subversive in the surrealist manner._ doors, their locks, windows, walls and surfaces - not its recognisable parts. It uses Svankmajer describes this [uxtaposirion of sound and image-track as a 'condensationSvankmajerian rechniques, such as holes and fissures appearing in stone surfaces, a of black humour in its puresr form' (quoted in Král1987: 29). 1he film 'documems'visual rnotif which runs through the films from lhe Flat to lhe Fali of the House of lhe unique sculptures and decorations of the church in Sedlec, made from rhousandsUsher.1he Mannerism of lhe Last Trick of Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar is fairly of human bones and skulls of victims of the Black Death and the Hussite wars. Onlow-key and could be .argued to be non-existent, more evident is the film's use of the Jdvel lhe Ossuary is a perfect example of the surrealist objet trouvé, the marvellousmarionette image and tradition for black-humorous ends. 1he Mannerism, if at ali, object stumbled across. Ir is also quinressentially surrealíst in its innocent, uncannylies in the close-ups of the heads and their mechanical inners besieged by a beetle, an qualities. Ir can be read as an image symbolising a Czech state inhabited by the deadimage both grotesque and ironic. who can be transformed imo life only by the imagination. For Svankmajer art is always

- One of the most imeresting and enigmatic films of the earlier period is Tichj tjden .1rransforrnation of the real, the mundane and the banal imo the 'reality' of the imagi-v dome (A Quiet WeekIn a House, 1969), where the series structure is central, but with narion. His surrealist notion of the imagination - in which freedom is always renderedI t~e added ~urrealist element.of the sec~et agem figure, who spies through the door to in both personal and social terms - is truly Romamic. On a more omological andwitness a bizarre world of anirnated objects. 1he newsreel-like shots of the II!-anhiding witty level the film Sllggests that, even when faced with death, the human spirit canin the hostile landscape suggesr a parody of a New Wave scenario. A Quiet Week In a l reate with the very materialiry of death, its detritus - the skeleton.House is clearly political in its allegorical motif of surveillance. 1he horror witnessed In some ways lhe Ossuary can be seen as a companion piece to lhe Flat (and alsoin the various rooms - screws mixed up wirh sweets; a tongue rransforrn ·d rhrough a 10 A Quiet Week /n a House), where a character trapped in a room asserts his freedommill imo strips of newspaper; and the multiplying, shudd ril1g Ohjl' I' ll1ovil1f\ ihrough hy rhc mo t minimal of acts - signing his name on a door filled with other victim!..a dislocated spacc and time - suggcst thosc of ih uncou« iOIl\ 1I1111d11\1,1/cvpicd by "I" hisiory, A~ :.111'-ady Mal xl, , vankrnajcr's work afcer 1968 is undoubtedly POliriCal'lIh ' ~1I1horit i '~,Equ:llly, thcy .ould b ' syl11boi ir 01'di ' hl1ll 01 111til! ( I I li ~I.II(' 11udcr ""'1 II, SUl'!'',liism i~ WI Y 11111li pnn 01' Iluu pol ir i ':11SI:111. , to I h, 'Xl '111ih.u man 11 riSISovl'l dOlllÍlI,iliol1, dI(' (illll 1)('1°1'11I,ld('111I"r 1'111dll I tllI 11 I 11111111111)''"PPI('N l'II'I1I('III~11l('III~,IV\', 1I11'111'1('IIII,III,lilllll'd 11110polltl .rl ,1I1dMII'I'(,;III~Irl'prl'~('llI:ili()lIs.,11111011"1,1111'1.11('/1'(" 1',IIVI'1111I1I'1I1. 111 111li ,I W.I v 1111111.11'1' li"\' 11' 111 11("(1li 1111'1/ 111", 1110111111'1\1 'I 1(,1.111IH'----~--------------------------~~------

I1Quiet Week in a House

~

een in a much more positive light. Thar is to say, it is a form which he managed totransform into a progressive facet of his work. Ir would seem that, under the irnpact ofpolitics, Mannerism and Surrealism became of the sarne piece.

lhe opening sequence ofIabberwocky epitomises further his fragmenting of reality.Ir begins with a pixilated sequence of a wardrobe in a forest, juxtaposed with a modernurban landscape, and then cuts to a theatrical tableau. lhe movernents berweendifferent types of space and reality, in which neither seems to achieve any status overthe other, exernplifies the tension, and at the same time signals the alienared andnarcissistic aspects of the filmo Svankmajer depicrs a world which we cannot occupyand have never occupied, except perhaps in drearn states. But this is not asserted bysimple fantasy, for otherwise many films would qualify for such a judgement. Ratherit is through the mix of the sensuous, the very materiality of the world and its theat-ricality. In lhe CastleofOtranto Svankmajer intercurs footage shot in black and whitedocumentary mode with highly srylísed colourful cut-out Gothic figures taken from astorybook. Ar the beginning of each sequence he shifts the camera slightly ;'0 reveal thewritten text below each picture. lhe clash here is berween genres - fantasy and doeu-mentary - and berween different materialities - live-action actors and cut-out puppetfigures. He also moves berween voice and written texto lhe displacement of time andspace is subtly achieved.

In Don Juan Svankmajer pushes this project in a different and perhaps purer direc-tion. lhe rale is taken from the high period of marionette theatre when plays wereculled from Shakespeare, the Bible and orher classical myths. Don Juan, a garnbler inlove with a woman who is to marry his brother, kills his own father (who refuses him

money), his loved one's father and eventually his own brother. His loved one's fatherreturns to haunt him and promises that by midnight he will descend into Hell. lhemarionettes are life-size and, in fact, actors dressed as marionettes. lhe relationshipbcrween the space of the film and that of the theatre, and subsequently that of thercality constructed by the film, is used quite shockingly. lhe characters move from theSIage to the streets and then to constructed tableaux without the assertion of any reality.IS dominant. None of the spaces is supreme to the other: each has as much reality, so10 speak, as the other. In fact, the power of rhe film relies on this movement berween'paces.

Similarly, and mosr disrurbingly, rhe marionettes are actors and marionettesvimultaneously. lhe ironic relarionship ser up berween animated beings qua woodenobjects and disguised actors is a device which speaks intensely of alienation and comic11;lgedy. Emotional investment is irrelevant to the actions of man; things are as they are.uid represent norhing else. Speaking of Kafka, Hauser remarks: 'his aim is to give an.u count of life as it is lived in full wakefulness, however inscrutable, inexplicable, andunreasonable it may be' (1986: 390).

Svankmajer barely awards status to any particular event or character over any other\\ ti hin the story. Even though Don Juan is ar centre-stage, the film is as much aboutIlll' inexorable chain of events which derermines the space and the nature of the char-" urs. Ir is a poerics in which coherence is attained, paradoxically, by the very inexpli-, rliility and unreasonableness of the story.

lcderico Fellini, much admired by Svankmajer and a surrealist of sorts, has remarkedtI!.11his films are dreams in which he, the filmmaker, takes part, thus allowing him to1\1"-urprised by the very world which he has in fact created. This paradox of beinguul.unilíar with one's own creation seems peculiar to dream and to forms of psychopa-tll"logy, where the subject finds him or herself as a part of their own phantasy produc-11,111.Fellini's own films, such as La dolce vita (1960) and Otto e mezzo (80, 1963),I" .11rcfreshing witness to this phenornenon, so that the drearnlike quality is not literal

~ther the opening up of a sensibiliry, a view of a world whose logic is not mechan-I, ti. instead it creates a cinematic and imaginary space in which rhe filmmaker is a1I.ivcllcr as well as a specrator, In Fellini's films the use of a male protagonist who takesI [uurney signals Fellini himself; in rhe rwo films mentioned Marcello Mastroianni is1, IllIli in thar sim pie identificatory sense. Perplexed, lost and almost abandoned inli! IHTsistent failure t9 recognise love through his own narcissism and egoism, he is1I '"l"1lulrimately by the restoration oflove through a residual humanism, so that theIdlll' ncver collapse into sentimentality or false tragedy.

I' IÍl Rhode has pointed to the use of Baroque effects in Fellini's work, particularlyti" pmt-neo-realist work. Rhode cites I vitelloni (lhe Spivs, 1953), where BaroquetllI IIIl'r cs with the neo-realisi, 311I states that in La dolce vita Fellini 'had already

1I11I1'ldioward a mobility 0(" 111111i111'rh.u rcscrnblcs Rornan baroque' (1979: 575). Forl'lt"tll, Ft'llini's 'instin .tivc ~ylllp,lIhy' 101 111' n,ll'Oll'l' nllowcd him an insight in rhat

r' I" 11I oglli" 'S Ih:lI rhc Ou(w,lld"n 01 h,IIIHI"I' J"" ti\(" olltl';l(li lory ,(f, t of rcniingI I ml 111llly,\1 'I'iou,' pOli '111'( h ti) 1I 11,I f'.11I1",tI 11.lIlIqU' IIIOVl'Il1l'1l101"F '1lilli's

"ti 111til!' II)(\()~ Ih.1111111I1I I llli 1"111111111111 v IId 11"1/'" Wlt 1'1 til!' 11,1111'1"1'i,

quite distincr from Mannerism, rhey do share an overwroughr sensibilíry and a flam-boyant flourishing of technique, crearing an aesrheric of excess and dense or contrivedvisual composirion.

I" In sumrnary, the mannerisr sensibility so crucial to Svankmajer's filmmakinginvolves an entire ser of interrelated ideas and images. ln rerms of the visual aspecrs ofhis films, Mannerism means an eclecric, disconcerting density of elements wirhin meimage. Ir also means mar emphasis is given to me sheer virtuosity of rhe filmmaking,in borh its images and its consrrucrion or formo Subjecr matter is ofren dicrared byrhe desire for particular exhilararing effecrs; Svankmajer's move afrer 1968 to moreacerbic social criricism in his work tesrifies to that shift from filmmaking dominaredby special effecrs and dense aesthetic composirion, to a srripped-down visual sryle inwhich the rheme is never a peg for ostentatious visuality. More profoundly, Mannerismin Hauser's account also deals implicitly wirh a form of alienation expressed preciselyrhrough rhose overwroughr and manic visual rendencies. Parallel wirh this alienarionis Hauser's second main ascriprion to Mannerism - narcissism, which is expressed inan egotistical attack on the orher and an aggrandisemenr of the self. None of rhesecharacrerisrics is alien to Surrealism irself, for rhe latter movemenr is afIiliared in many

I ways to irs historical precursor rhrough irs sharing of rhese very fearures.l-

* * *

In order to attain aurhentic Iyrical exisrence rhe poerry of cinema demands,more rhan any orher, a traumaric and violent disequilibrium veering towardsconcrere irrarionality. (Dalí 1991: 70)

In discussing Mannerism I have drawn freely from art hisrorians, especially Hauser,in order to give flesh to rhe bones of rhe claims made abour Svankmajer'in relarion to

fMannerism. Unlike Surrealism, Mannerism was nor a self-conscious movemenr wirhofficial members, regular purges, manifestos and dedicared journals. Its hisrorical

\ configurarion is much more conjecrural rhan is rhe case wirh Surrealism, which,wharever ir is, seems to lie in part in rhe surrealisr movemenr irself. Mannerism wasnot a movemenr but a sryle of a particular economic and intellectual period identi-fied mainly post facto.

To a large exrent, rhe aspecrs of Surrealism now under discussion do nor overlapwirh those covered in the above remarks on Mannerism. Whar follows is much moreconcerned wirh rhe relationship between quire specific surrealisr concerns, of whichSvankmajer, as a pracrising surrealisr artist, is largely aware. Hauser's views on Surre-alism are more broad-sweeping and placed wirhin a much larger hisrorical context, onespanning o~er rhree centuries. I believe rhar many of the aspecrs of Surrealism broughrto bear on Svankrnajer's work refiect Hauser's views, especially rh id ':1of urrealismexpressing a modern form of alienation and fragment:1liol1,

vankmaj r has alled hirnseif a 'militaru surr '~liNI' 1111111\11/111wh,11 plll i~t tradi-t ion of nr '1011'SofTi 'i:d IlH1V'111'/lI, nhhonuh hb OWI1.dl'/'. ,11111 111111dll' ',II~,"1ll ofIII-"j,11I1I11P(\II'I 1,1111'1111,11110111('10"','I di .tl SlIIlt'd 1111I 1'11 I,I! 11111,11"0/1\1' o(

rhe concerns that Svankmajer shares wirh rhat tradirion. For example, rhere is his use ofcffigies (dolls, puppers, marionettes): a dedicarion to the associarive power of tactilityin objects; his animarion of inanimare objecrs, and vice versa; his sado-masochisricviolence, which contains elements akin to Salvador Dalí's paranoiac-crirical method:his black sarcasm, sremming from Pérer; and his obsessive exploration of childhoodvia fantasy-memory and dream. Ir should be said, however, that rhese thernes do notconstitute a ser of defining characreristics of Surrealism. The wide variety of workwhich Surrealism embraces, togerher with Breton's own continual revision of its prin-

cipies, make it extremely difficult and perhaps foolhardy ro articulare any such definin~lcatures. Svankmajer's own films are rhemselves irreducible to a ser of principies. In rhelighr of recent wriring on Surrealism by Hal Fosrer and Rosalind Krauss, I would alsolike to discuss ideas pertaining to the marvellous and the outmoded as rhey are foundin Svankmajer's films.

Many years afrer Breton's famous visir to Prague in rhe company ofPaul Eluard in1934, he wrote the following abour Svankmajer's city in an essay on rhe Czech artisrToyen:

Prague, sung by Apollinaire; Prague, wirh rhe magnificenr bridge flankedby srarues, leading out of yesrerday into forever; rhe signboards, lir up fromwirhin - ar rhe Black Sun, ar rhe Golden Tree, and a hosr of orhers; the clockwhose hands, cast in the metal of desire, turn ever backwards; rhe streer of rheAlchemisrs; and above all, the fermenr of ideas and hopes, more intense rherethan anywhere else, the passionate atrempr to forge poerry and revolutioninto one same ideal; Prague, where rhe gulls used to churn the warers of rheMoldava [sic] [Virava] to bring forth srars from irs deprhs. (I978: 287)

li was Prague rhar the proro-surrealisr Apollinaire described as the 'magical capital' ofI':lIrope after a visir in 1902, situating it in rhe topography of modernism in his poem'/.onl (1912). Svankmajer has always regarded Prague as one ofhis most importanr

líiTTi:f'ences. Ir is the Prague steeped in rhe Mannerism of Rudolf lI, haunted by the( .olcm and redolent of the alchemists and the larer excesses of the Baroque sculptors.llld architects, that resonares rhroughour his films. For Svankmajer, Prague is irself av ondensarion of Mannerism and Surrealism. For rhis reason ir embodies one of theI cutral ideas of Surrealism - rhe marvellous.

As Fosrer points out, Breton celebrared two prime examples of rhe inanimare andtI,t· animare as rhey are juxraposed and even merged togerher - rhe mannequin ofIwcntierh-century consumerism and the 'rornantic ruin', Foster remarks that rhese areIDp .crively 'firsr a crossing of the human and rhe non human, rhe second a mixing111lI. ' historical and the natural' (2000: 21). Breron offers rhese two phenomena as«x.unpl s f thc rnarvcllous. Thcy borh provoke a disturbing relarionship. Narure,IIVl'I!-\I"OWnand unruly, is in .orp rat d into ihc edif e f an hi torical object - rhat

,..)" IlIt' 'rornnrn ic ruiu'. )11 ihc olh 'I' hand, rhc mnnn .quin, ror FOSl '1', is thc hurnan

',1,1111t'lld 'I 'd ,I (1I1l1ll1ldll "llOldll1l' 101,'1 Il,dbl <l1'm,IIH"- 111~v;lnkm:\j '1'\ a't~di , ,dl('/I,llIolI 01 dll' hlllll,llI IiJlIII' v nu: '~(,1lI1'1li ,li h til<' 1II,IIIII('qll 1i ,I' '" I. !tlll ~

by other effigies - the doll, the plaster bust, the day figure and, most irnportantly,the puppet and the marionette. In the use of anrique-Iookíng marionettes frorn theeighteemh cemury, Svankmajer merges the characteristics of Breton's 'mannequins'with the marvel of the 'rornanric ruin'. But Svankmajer does incorporate imo his workliteral 'rornantic ruins', especially those of the old city of Prague where, for example,the lengthy sword fight takes place in Don [uan. Further examples of the 'rornanticruin' reside in his early films with their air of decay and dilapidation, as in the poverty-stricken interiors of lhe Flat. If these are examl?les of the 'rnarvellous', it is prima-rily through their negation of the real, where thé latter term is synonymous with therationa!.

r Svankmajer's persistem reference to the role of the 'concrete irrational' in his workmarks both his antagonism towards the real per se, and the importance he gives to the'role of the surrealist imagination in revealing comradictions in the real- the Hegelian-curn-Marxist principie that dominated much ofBreton's thinking. This is quite dearlyrelated to the role of the irrational in Mannerism, as already discussed. But this nega-tion is achieved in Svankmajer's work by what seems a paradoxical act of acceptance ofrhe contingencies of the world of objects and simple events - the sheer 'thereness' ofthings, which, nevertheless, are 'perceived' so intensely by the camera that they makerhe leap imo the marvellous. As Dick Hebdige has remarked in relation to AndréBazin and photography, 'the mystery and the joy of phorography consisted in its abilitysimultaneously to disdose reality and to puncture our pretensions to know exactlywhat it is that's been disdosed' (1988: 13; emphasis in original).

r The intensity of Svankmajer's perception of this often ruinous reality is part of hispersistem exploration of tactiliry in his films, most consciously since the mid-1970s,

Ialthough ali ofhis films embody this tactile quality, He has remarked: 'I am becomingmore aware of the fact that, to revive the general impoverishrnent of sensibiliry inour civilisation, the sense of touch may play a very importam part." This critiqueof the dominance of the visual in our culture is then supplernenred by somethingdifferent: 'Since our birth emotional security has always been associated with touchingour mothers' bodies. That was the very first emotional contact wirh the outside world,even before we were able to see, smell, hear or taste ir' (1992: 45).

It is only a short but perhaps invalid step to understanding Svankmajer's associa-tion of the tactile often with the ruinous, the decaying and the abandoned as a sign ofan unconscious relationship to the mother that is not entirely benign but depressive.It is as if those surfaces, once damaged, now need to be restored and attended to withlove. This restorative act is very much at the centre of what Breton and Louis Aragon

'I understood by the 'outmoded', although with rhern, and perhaps to some extent withII Svankmajer, there is a political aspect to this restoration of objects that have been\ marginalised and rendered useless by consumerist capitalism (and cornmunisrn). In

\

other words, Svankmajer's tactiliry, linked to the ruinous, rcfcrs LO boih the psychi airestoration of the 'good' object and 'the rcstoration of a sl'nsihilily' which h· (" 'Is islost in onrernp rary ivilisation. SlI h objc 'IS hnvc losl lIll'h' /'llm'lio!) :llId survivcnwkwnrdly :111<1rnurvcllously in 'Olllt'll1POI'UI'y 1111111'1'.So I (di' 11Sv.lld IIHlj,'1'n'1l1illdslI' 01' dll' 1:111111.11IH' I, 111,ddlll',lihl1\ ln 1111IIlIIII~ld,tl ,li 1111111111111111'1111'IWI'IIt!rll,

century. For example, cars, household goods, and rhe domestic life of urban Prague ar~hy and large absent from his work prior to the 'Velvet Revolution'. His film Faust, onlhe other hand, opens in the busy streets of contemporary Prague. Muiné hry (VirileGames, 1988) also has sequences from football matches and seems more connected to1he 'real' world than his previous work.

The seventeenth-century marionettes of Punch and Judy and the níneteenth-cen-Imy illustrations, toys and newspaper fragmems of Jabberwocky are also suggestive\lI" this concept of the 'outmoded'. As already mentioned, Svankmajer's marionettes,mcriculously copied from the seventeenth-century originais, as found in Don Juan andl'unch and Judy, are the equivalem of 'rornantic ruins'. Chipped and worn away to.1ppear as if they have survived the period in which they were made, they fulfil rhe sameluuction as ruins, evoking the ravages of time. Such objects are projections of a restora-Iivc nature through which psychical space is constructed. Aragon's interprerations ofII'l' Parisian arcades is suggestive of such a recovery, what he called the 'mythology of11Ic medem' (quoted in Watson Taylor 1987: 14).

Foster connects the use of the surrealist 'outrnoded' to various psychoanalytical, Illlcepts - namely, the uncanny and psychical compulsion. The uncanny looms in/ )"" Juan and Punch and Judy. Svankmajer evokes the 'magically old' in these rwoIli" IS, again through his authentic reproduction of the marionettes and puppets and11li !llIgh the props he uses. In Don [uan, for exarnple, he breaks the film's narrative flow1,\, iuserting images of the original scripts of the plays. Typically, the words shown are"IICII exclamations and not particularly meaningful moments of the dialogue. AgainIli l'unch and Judy the coffin's interior is decorated with early photographs, adverts andIII'w'paper fragments. In lhe Flat are found battered utensils, old photographs, a man111ninereenth-century clothes, and a general state of ruinous poverty. Like Breton'l'w.mkmajer is celebrating the uselessness of these old objects. Discussing his obsession\\111, lhe flea markets of Paris in his novel Nadja (1928), Breton reveals his fascina-""" I()r what he finds there (all of which could find and have found their place in a~rnajer filrn):

«ld-fashioned, broken, useless, almost incomprehensible, even perverse ...ycllowed nineteenth century photographs, worthless books, and iron spoons.(1~60: 52-5)

I •111h i, lhe. detritus of a civilisation. Svankmajer recuperates and, in a Kleinian sense," oIlIl\,Srhese rejected objects into a system of meaning in which they can have some1111111(lI" life. Ir is also, as Foster argues (see 2000: 159-62), a critique of modern'"lIlIlllIdification, whether capitalist or communist. Rejecting contemporary forms1111IIIIIIllOdity production, Svankmajer recoups the marginal, the useless and theli ~I'I.I\nl - in other words, the past - in a rnood of cultural pessimism and black

IIIII~III, 'I hcse objects havc both a historical and psychical role in his films.,/ 1'1111lu-rrnor " I h, old m:lgi ·:,1 ohjc 'IS of his 'nnrrativcs' are obje ts that speak.

1111'"1.1j 'I' hus r -murk 'ti 011111('wn i11wh i ·h nhjn'ls im hi h ' I h ' 'mOI ions :lIld moods11/11111',1'wlrh WIIOIIIli\(' ,111' 11111111111.III~ I111 ',IIIIII',III~ 111I'!'I'''" I"1', !110M'('1I1(1I11l1Í~

'lhe Fali 01 the House 01 Usher

and moods. Animarion, he claims, should exisr 'to ler objecrs speak for rhemselves'(quored in Sváb 1987: 33). This idea informs much of his work, bur parricularly afilm such as TheFali of the House of Usher,where he has stripped rhe original srory ofany characters and instead, raking Poe's lead, allowed the very materiality of objecrsand natural rnatter ro express the torrnent and horror of Roderick Usher. Svankmajerhas described the film as being abour 'a swamp in morion and rhe life of srones. Andof course horror, unmotivated horror' (ibid.), The same minimalisr treatrnent of asrory is found in Kyvadlo, jáma a nadéje (The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope, 1983).There is a distinction to be made in rhe types of rhings thar Svankmajer is fascinatedby - cultural arrefacts; old dolls; tin soldiers; phorographs; ourmoded graphics, suchas rhose used largely in Jabberwocky; and narural marerials, such as srone, wood andmudo Breton shows a parallel concern wirh arrefacts he finds in the Paris Hea marketsand such natural objecrs as crystals (autornatisrn in irs puresr form, he claimed) andplanrs. His famous image of the old, abandoned locomotive overgrown wirh vinesand foliage condenses this marvellous juxtaposition of rhe 'outmoded' arrefacr withnature. In Dimensions of Dialogue rhe artefacts are Iirerally pulverised into primevalmud which Svankmajer can manipulate imo funher figures and objecrs.

Svankmajer does not deal with the animare and the inanimare by mcans of rhemannequin, which in Surrealism is usually of a woman's body ;Ind 1I1lIs .xcmplaryof irs commodificarion. He does deal, howcvcr, wit h a p.1I1ic ul.u 1 1'1' 01 in.inirnatercndcring or rhc animal' narncly, wiih IIw JlIIJl!, ·t. 111.11111111111.\IId IIdll'l IlIn h.mi-t.dly 0prl.llnl dJi~il'"which .uv olil'll vnll'd willl .1 1'11\I1 I" \11111/tll.1I 1I001l1.dlyII/llvidl'd 11, 1I11'1i11l.llIll'ld.1I01. 'II\(, 1''''11ti " 1111111111i li IJII" 11 1\ \ 11111I1.lj I" 1/1('

l.nst Trick of Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar. In a fascinating way his first rwo filmscncompass nearly alI of his subsequenr rhemes and visual styles. It is perhaps worth-while ar rhis point just to see how far this is the case.

For example, his first film, TheLast Trick ofMr Schwarzwald andMr Edgar, containsvarious elemenrs - marionettes who are actually acrors dressed as marionertes (see Don[unn); the rheme of communication breakdown (most of his films, bur particularlyDimensions of Dialogue); the tenrative optimism of the finale (The Flat; Do pivnice(/)0 sklepa) (Down to the Ceifar, 1982»; rhe role of a natural being in a mechanical<ystem (Jabberwocky);violem aggression (rnost of his films), the fragmenration of thehody (Jabberwocky;Don Juan; Dimensions of Dialogue); and, lastly, the rechniques ofIlIontage and use of music, which are common ro most of his work.

In his second film,] S. Bach:Fantasy in C Minor, there are the themes of animating11:Il11ralmateriais, particularly srone (Came with Stones; TbeFlat; The Fali of the House!Ir Usher;Dimensions of Dialogue); the categorising of the world (Et Cetera; Historiaiutt urae (suite); rhe use of entrances and doors (The Flat; The Fali of the House ofI lslrer; A Quiet Week In a House; The Ossuary;Don Juan); and the hand-held subjectiveI'0illt-of-view shot (Don Juan; The Ossuary; The Flat; The Fali of the House of Usher).Ilolh films srrongly suggesr rhe pasr - through the use of marionettes and music in/11/' Last Trick of.Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar, and through the ancienr dilapidated 'w.rlls, doors and locks which form rhe main images of] S. Bach: Fantasy in C Minor.vv.inkrnajer stamped his arristic aurhority and personality on these films, making rhemIlIlegral ro his work and nor simply early experiments with a new medium.

Ihere is here the strong sense of the uncanny which Freud also detected in the Romanticmovernent's marionettes, dolls and autornara, when he discusses E. T. A. Hoffmannin his famous essay 'Das Unheimliche' ('1he Uncanny', 1919).7 However, in The Lastlric]:of Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar the uncanny is not at all prominent; in fact it" in Don Juan rhar the marionette as uncanny is used by Svankmajer. The Last Trick«[Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar was made using techniques from rhe Black 1heatre.111many ways it is a homage to that theatre bur impresses for its cinematic qualities.Whilst the long and medi um shots are frontal ones retaining a theatrical point ofvicw, as he has done in most of his films (eschewing the diagonalline of shot/reverse,11()t), the film contains the characteristic Svankmajerian techniques of extreme close-IIp, fast camera movements and heavy editing. Svankmajer has stated thar his style«manates from montage and not composition. He owes nothing to painting in that',I'llse, but more ro scenography, graphics and cinema itself. His earliest influence wasIht: montage cinema of Sergei Eisenstein. It is also worth recalling that rhe mannerist1(',hniques discussed earlier relied very much on this fragmentary, disjointed sryle. .J

r n Tbe Last Trick of Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar there are also shots which stress1'.11icrns and shapes achieved by using intense close-up and rapid staccato montage,'I hoing Eisenstein's famous machine gun shot in Oktyabr' (October, 1928) where the,.I iIing is so fast that it results in superimposition of the rwo images. 1his could beuucrpreted as one of the Manneristic properties of the early work. 1he sheer energy1n- 1wcen and within the shot or frame underlines the filrn's mannerist qualities. Ir alsoI',digures the concerns and form of Dimensions of Dialogue with its two protagonistsIml rhe violence each enacts upon the other. However, there is less tendency in the, .u licr film to over-universalise the theme. Surrealism seems to be ernbedded in The/ ,/,/ Trice ofMrSchwarzwaldandMr Edgar in the use of old newspapers and images ofumctcenth-cenrury idealised women, upon which at one point the cockroach crawls.l hcsc Ernst-like images (also owing much to the Gothic) recur in his work - the.u.iil in the stone skull in The Ossuary, for example. 1he use of sound is fascinating:',,~majer uses the collage effect of mixing an old phonograph of a dance song with~ic sounds, plus exaggerated theatrical sounds. At one point towards the end of11,(·lilm, the record sticks and a phrase is repeated.

In his next marionette film, Punch and Judy, Svankmajer takes on a traditionalI"1J1P<;!story, one which still survives in Europe in open-air puppet theatre. Typically,''lV,111krnajer embraces the theatrical space of the original play and, as in TheLast Trick

I"fll/r Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar, where he shows the actors donning their costumes,111'1('rcveals knowingly the hands of the puppeteer putting on the puppet gloves. Atli,,· cnd of the film we see the hands leave the gloves and the guinea-pig, alone, leaves1111'\1age. His disclosure of theatrical mechanics is also found in Don Juan and has the, IIn I ofironically distancing rhc play itself. Ir allows the film to be the arena ofillusion11) lI\lIrping its ihcatri .al subjcci rnaucr,

Ihcrc are iwo SL rikillg nsp x ts o( Ihis fllm, as in 'file L{1St Trick of Mr chwarzwald,... 1/11 11 Ir /:'r<Ci,IIr. ih ' II,W01' ,I live (I ',llIlIr ,11l10ng rh ' in.minuu . pllppCIS and rhc .hnr-

11lI'Ii\li\ \'ditillf' ,IIHI \ ,IIlH'I,IWCII1 '111111111\"til\' (,11111'1,1SV,lllklll,lj'l' ,,'.11" incm.u k'[1.111 .lIld dllH', 1111,1[1,1"1' til w til .uul, ,111111'\.11111111111',11IIdl'lIll1 111"1'. IIH',II~----------------------------------~--------

Two different and fundamental conceptions of animation are active in these rwofilms. Firstly, there is rhe ancient art of marionettes, where the impression of person-ality, with its attendant desires, beliefs and actions, is achieved through the rnanipu-lation of wooden figures. 1he role of puppet theatre in Czech history is well known(see Malík 1948; Malík & Kolár 1970; von Boehn 1972: 56; Holloway 1983: 229).This tradition dates back to rhe seventeenth century when it was a form of protest andrevolt in Bohemia against the Habsburg Empire. Marionette and puppet rheatre hasperformed a unique historical role throughout the tormented history of Bohemia andwhat became Czechoslovakia, even until the rwentieth century (see Holloway 1983)when puppets became national heroes wirh a monument built to thern in Plzeà, Inthis light, the domination of Czech anirnation by puppetry is of polírical irnportance.The first Czech puppet film, Spejblovojilmové opojení (Spejbl on the Spree)was rnade in1931 by Josef Skupa. Svankmajer's protest, as well as that of orher Czech filmmakerssuch as Trnka, has been in this puppet tradition. In j. S. Bach: Fantasy in G Minor,on the other hand, unnatural activities and properties of the natural are attained bystop-frarne carnera techniques together with the manipulation of real ity. These are therwo basic techniques used by Svankmajer throughout his career and rhey suggest quitedifferent ideas. A discussion of the use of marionettes and other forms of efligy in hiswork is significant here.

The marionette and puppet films are characteristic of his early career and compriseThe Last Trick of Mr Schwarzwald and Mr Edgar, Punch and Judy and Don [uan,although in rhe more recent film Faust, he returned to the marionette formo Unlike themanipulation of objects and materials to produce figures as in Dimensions of Dialogueand Jabberwocky, marionettes have a historical dimension and introduce a sense ofthearricality as a form of representation outside film írself To this extent, the rnari-onette/puppet films are imbued with the surrealist 'ourmoded', Puppets appear alsoin the later work, Nêco z Alenky (Alice/Somethingfrom Alice, 1987). Their use is notpeculiarly surrealist, although Jarry, a surrealist precursor, wrote for the puppet thearre.As Henryk Jurkowski points our, the puppet was recognised as part of the theatre bythe 'classical mimes, Greek, Roman and Byzantine, the members of the Craft Guilds,the priests who organised the Mystery Plays, Com media dell'Arte players, the Englishcomedians touring the Continent in the seventeenrh century' (1988: 1). In morerecent times, Federico García Lorca and Michel de Ghelderode wrote for the puppettheatre. In Germany in the nineteenth century the Romantic movement, and JohannWolfgang von Goethe in particular, were decisive in reviving interest in the puppettheatre, For Goethe, the puppet theatre was a metaphor for an alienation which wasboth social and ontological. In Die Leiden desjungen Werthers (The Sorrows of YoungWerther, 1774) are the following lines:

I stand as before a peepshow, a magic box. I see srnall p opl . nnd liu l horsespassing in front of me and ofcen a k my c1f if il is nOI ,111oJlli ,ri illusion.I play with rh n , or rarh r rh y play wit h m " Iil t' .1 1ll,IIII1II1'III':IHlW nndIh '11 I l,rI . ,I Iwighhollr h hi\ wood '11h.1I111.uul I 1111 II 111111111( )lIolnl11111II10w\l\ II)HH: I)

rical space and time. 1he camerawork and editing are striking and decidedly visible.Similarly, the soundtrack mixes a musical chorus of sighs and exclamations with actualsounds emanating from the blows struck by the protagonists. Atmospherically, thetone is much more akin to the uncanny, pardy because the violence at times is crueller- a nail is driven through the coffin, piercing the mouth of a woman in a picturepasted to the inside lid and then through rhe puppet's mouth. 1his oral aggression andsadistic eroticism also surfaces repeatedly in the films - The Flat, jabberwocky, Dimen-sions of Dialogue.

1he relationship between this violence and tacriliry is a fascinating one. Forexample, Luis Bufi.uel's infamous eye-slicing scene in the surrealist c1assic, Un chienandalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1928), derives much of its force from the tactile qualityof the eye - its vulnerability is physically determined as a viscous jelly-like opening ofthe body. Svankmajer's stress on tactile values in materials is explored funher by him inhis tactile structures. Tactile shock and exposure relates to the surrealist notion of therational concrete. Dalí's development of material tactility is obvious in his paintingswhere hard materials beco me soft and the academic sryle of the paintings gives softthings a hard edge. However, the intrinsic photographic quality of film represents thistactiliry in a less contrived way than in Dalí's work.

1he violence that meshes with the tactile draws us back to the idea of restoration,for it would seem that a powerful aspect of Svankmajer's films is the fact that the tactilerarely succumbs to being a gesture of nostalgia; this is achieved largely by the aggres-sive violence of the editing and camera movements. Svankmajer comments on the

eaning of such images:

1he whole process of eating can thus be made intensely erotic. Or it can betranslated into a cannibalistic and aggressive act through which accumulatedmisanthropy can be released. In any case such activity can become ludic, and assuch is no longer perceived merely as an act of filling the belly. (1992: 47)

In Jídlo (Food, 1992) this cannibalistic quality is achieved through fast editing andclose-up shots used associatively. In earlier films the cannibalistic-eating and spewing-out sequences always involve dolls (Jabberwocky) or animated figures (Dimensions ofDialogue). Petr Král has commented on this oral aggression in his article on LarrySemon (1991: 180). But it is not simply the cannibalism, bur rather its presence in anirrational systern that makes it a surrealist characteristic.

Dalí states that there is 'a desire for systematic and concrete irrationality latentin alI comedy films' (1991: 74). Ir is in comic films of concrete irrationaliry that the'delirious, pessimistic aspiration towards gratuitousness' is fulfilled for Dalí (1991: 73).1his systematising of the real through the perversity of rhe imagination is close toDalí's ide~ of paranoiac-critical activity as a rnethod in m:lking :11'1.Owing much tothe idea of objects 01' even parts of objcct b ing tal .n as difll'l' '111IlIil1~~, Dalí a$50 i-ates ir wiih 'th d liriurn of int .rprctut ion' :1I1d 'ill,ltioll,i1 III0wll'dl\I", '111, mct ho Iwus :11'1i .ulnt ,d dlll'illg Ih ' Y 'ars whcn );1 qll" I ,li ,111WIi IIVlIlVI'd 111111'MII'I'l':dbl11IIIVI'III('III ,llId 111, p,lI.1I101.1I\ "til ,ti 1III'Iltll.lllWI' '11111111111dll '1" li til" 111111·l\l.tI

11011 [unn

'.I.lIl·Sof psychosis (see Ades 1988: 119-49). For Dalí the method was advantageous1111us active character where the mind, as in the paranoid, perceives reality accordingI" mental states and associations. Dalí wanted rhe method to be used to 'systematize, tlllrllsion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of realiry' (quoted in,\,b 1988: 121). Such a method used in painting was difficult; through film, wirh11' .uiirnation rnethods and ability to speedily mesh images through fast edíring, the1',II,lIlOiac-critical method can achieve much, as shown by Svankmajer's films, with~rapid accumulation of objects, connected through the most arbitrary means.111.uldition, the dissolving of one object inro another, as in Arcimboldian collage, is''(Iollgly connected to Dalí's rnethod and indirecdy to Mannerism.

'I hc third marionette film is Don [uan, an ambitious rendering of a typical eighr-, '111h-cenrury marionette play as performed by the troupes of players who toured',1<11i 'S fram Shakespeare and the Bible. Ir is perhaps one of Svankmajer's great films.11, h.umring opening seqllence is established by his own idiosyncratic use of a hand-IlI'ltI .nrnera, establishing a rather giddy and nervous subjective viewpoint as the spec-1,IIor cnters a building through the bushes and main gateway and proceeds through01,11kcncd orridors into the underbelly of the stage. He uses the same type of shot111 /11/' Ossunry anel lhe Fall of the House of Usher. Such a shot is strongly suggestive1111'111'l'ing :1I101h r world, anoihcr rcaliry - one suflused with anxiety and probable1\1101,MI·h as Allc ,'s 'IIII'Y t!lI'ollf1,h t!ll'lookil1f1, glass and in this way doorways are

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not quite controlled by him; what happens is as likely ro surprise, shock and disturbhim as uso The film is a tour de force of subtle manipulation of space and narrativelevels without ever losing control of rhe story.

Svankmajer has explained how he researched the particular diction used by theoriginal puppeteers for their characters and instructed his actors to use it in order tomake the play, on one level, as dose to the traditional practice as possible. Similarly,the marionettes are copies of original eighteenrh- and nineteenrh-century heads andcostumes. This meticulous _accuracy in replicating the original at once pays homageto a tradition admired by Svankmajer, and also reflects the surrealist obsession withthe 'outmoded', Ir would be simplistic, for example, to treat these marionettes purelyas symbols of cultural alienation and psychological estrangement from others in themodern world. Rather, the film can also be seen as a critique of the modern, especiallythe facile psychologism of much contemporary Western art and film and its cornrnodi-fication. Artífice, for Svankmajer, is a means ofboth denying the dead naturalism andvacuous modernism of much art, and establishing what surrealists called the 'irrationalconcreto'.

Don [uan is a film of horror and tragedy shot through wirh humour. The murderscenes, in which swords slice the wooden heads to reveal plain wood surfaces and DonJuan's sword pierces his brother Philip's head to release theatrical spouting blood, arecomic in a grim, black way, much like real murder and death. Equally, the distancecreated by such artificial means holds its force and meaning within the language of themarionette theatre. This perfect pitch of feeling is characteristic of Svankmajer's films.The pronounced aggression and violence can be compared with that found in rhe earlysilent comic cinema of Hollywood.

The systernatic and cruel logic of such actions also recalls Sade, Jacobean theatreand nursery rales, where such bloody violence is given the safety net of formo Weshould be reminded at this point of how Hans Bellmer's poupées and dolls are usedto portray bizarre scenarios of violent death and sexual attack. The fragmentation andsado-masochistic themes of such work are underpinned by rhe use of inanimate effi-gies which relentlessly problematise their subject matter, for in dearh we are doll-like,inanimare. Equally, the use of dolls sets up an ironic disrance berween spectator andsubject matter. To such an extent, efligies provide a formal element that allows thedepicrion of horror in rhe same way in which the rhyme of nursery tales helps todisrance their horror.

Svankmajer has consistently returned to the therne of childhood, especially inJabberwocky, Down to the Cellar and Alice. His obsession with marionettes, puppetsand primitive folk tales also relates to childhood and its forms of representation - ralesof the imagination which often use fear, horror and anxiety. He has remarked that'I have never viewed my childhood as something that I have left behind me' (1987:52). Whilst Surrealism is not renowned for its conccrn wit h .hildhood as such, it isnevertheless interested in a ser ofideas thar rclai 10 .hildhood iul.uu ilixm, primirivcrn .nral statcs, su h as paranóia, and or oursc dll' inno, '11 . ,1111111111'llI '"nl im:lgin:l~ioll which i, lypiCll or~':lI'lyhildl1()od ,llld \\'11,1111I 11\'\01 o, ,ti 11'"I'dlldliw ,111.POI

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\\ lurcby his own highly person~1 associ~tions stemming from c~ildho~d and wha~ hel, " .IS its natural ally - dream lífe - actively construct the films 111 which such pro)ej

I " "" are given shape.( )ne of rhe most important of Svankmajer's surrealist films is Down to tbe Cellar

\\11" its political allegory and exploration of childhood psychology from a young girl's1,,,,"1 of view. In many ways ir is a precursor of Alice. As in many of his films, the" 1111n begins wi th a door being opened and a descent down a staircase by the youngI" r oirte, during which she encounters an old man who offers her a sweet, and a sour,,1.1 woman scrubbing the communal floors; both figures takE on even more sadisticl.u mx in her fantasies in the cellar, where the potatoes she ill«ns to collect are kept.I l.uural materiais - coal, rnost memorably - have a place in this strange world, as doI" H'~ with flapping, mouth-like soles that scurry around like rats, and a giant cat. Atli••cnd of this waking nightmare the girl rests at the top of the stairs with the cat and1111"11íollows it back down the stairs, a deliberate act of bravery, of facing up to her"\\'11 projected fears. Like the hero of lhe Flat, she does not lose her determination,I" 'I, \In like the man in the menacing apartment, the girl does not seem cut off from a""" . optimistic future. The films are quite distinct in mood. lhe Flat is anarchic and"" l.uicholic, whilst Doum to the Cellar is tense and menacing, and has a dísrurbíng• u.i] undercurrent, due partially to the association made in our culture with any

\ "'" I!:!, girl under threat. Svankmajer has made the nature of this threat more explicit,11I1\V<'vcr,in the character of the old man with the sweets who returns to haunt her11IIhc cellar _ bribing her, it seems, for sexual ends. It is as if Svankmajer had rooted""1 lhe sexual subtexts of stories such as Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865) with

/111//'/1111 1/1 t rll.«

their barely veiled eroticism. Childhood is, according to Svankmajer, his 'alrer-ego'and Down to the Cellar his most 'subjective and autobiographical' film (quoted in Král1987: 28). Ir relates to what he describes as 'mental morphology' (see Král1987: 24),being partly the result of discussions within the Czech Surrealist Group with whomhe explored other themes - such as fear (associated with Tbe Fall ofthe House ofUsher)and drearn (with A Quiet Wéek In a House).

Svankmajer'sAlice is an interpretation ofCarroll's tale 'fermented by my own child-hood, with ali its particular obsessions and anxieties' (1987: 52).In the filmmaker'sintensely visual rendition ir is a story of a child under threat by her own fantasies,peopled by creatures in an impossible 'irracional' world. Ir is Svankmajer's commit-ment to that world of the imagination, of dreams and fantasies, a world which shapesand forms his own experiences, rhoughts and feelings, that explains the irnportancehe ascribes to childhood. If art is gained rhrough an access to the unconscious and thelatter is formed by childhood, ir is natural he should explicitly acknowledge its influ-ence. More importantly, he remarks:

Dream, that natural well for the imaginarion, is being systematically filled inand absurdiry asserts irself in its place; an absurdiry produced in quantiry byour 'scientific', 'rarional' systems. (1987: 53)

Svankmajer's Surrealism is a cornplex matter, and the lack of a srrong surrealisr film1 tradition means that comparisons and contrasts are difliculr to make. The historical

I conti~gency of a su.rrealis~ """?"?'. survi~ing in Czechoslovakia, cut off froma rnamstream based in Pans and America which has long since lost its force, lendsSvankmajer's workan individualiry where ir is impossible to sirnply read off the Surre-I~lism. His commitment to the.Czech tradirio~s of Mannerism, design and puppetryIS a further factor that feeds resistance to easy interpretations. What is fascinaring andulrirnately enriching in terrns of his films is his audacious and persistent rapping of his

'I own intemallife. In this Svankmajer has given fresh evidence of the power of Dalí'sneglected paranoiac-critical method which performs rhe function, among others, ofresisting the collapse of Surrealism into no more rhan sryle. Much of rnodern-daySurrealism, or whar passes for it, is simply the adoprion of a sryle then traded as surre-alist, when strictly it is not.

The crucial role of the 'outmoded' in terms of the subject matter - or should wesay objecr rnatter - of his films, tactility, aggressive fragmemation and distortion, anda fascinarion wirh rhe unconscious as revealed in dream and childhood memory, areali part of a merhod of approach and processo Mannerism, as we have seen, does notstand against such a merhod; on the contrary, it somehow meshes with ir. Its ownsense of fragmentation, explosive tension and overwrought sensualiry fits well with thesurrealist characteristics and spirit to such an extent that rhey are in practice of onepiece. In the case of Svankmajer, an analysis such as this only seerns possibl at thc costlof t aring apart what his art has trearcd brillianrly as a whol .

CHAPTER THREE

)

Thinking Through Things: The Presence O/Objects in the Early Films O/Jan Suanlemajer

Reger Cardinal

111 proposing a new etiquetre for seeing, Surrealism often harks back to Romantic,H1(1occultist cosmologies which posit a latent harmony benearh the discontinuities

~e world's surface. Always eager to startle and often to mysrify, Surrealism rypi-I .tll)' postulares bewildermem as a precondirion of insighr. Irs approach to creativiry1"lId~ to grapple with "jagged elemems of dispariry, of prolixiry, of sheer unprocessedI XI css, in the hope of eliciting a more rhrilling - because delayed - vision of equilib-IIHIll-..'1ndclariry. A surrealist rypically distrusts any revelation which lacks a comple-IH('lIlary aura of enigma: the naked truth cannot be embraced withour its veils.

'I hc carly films ofJan Svankmajer, steeped in a mixture ofSurrealism and Mannerism,I" Iivc on the paradox of graming insight only to those viewers prepared to submir toVI'IIigo and bewilderment. The visual artist's cornrnitmenr to non-verbal presemation1111.1,h TC, as a seemingly necessary corollary, an almost perverse compliciry wirh the

1.1\I()r~ or haotic proliferation and optical confusion.I\y rhc Ii111, hc IUrt1 d lO making films, Svankmajer had long been adept ar

'011.'1" making, and lhis pra li 'l' orn inucs 10 inforrn hi. art i iic stratcgies. The'-/loll.lJ',(' is illd . ·d ,I p,II".ldil\lI101' .ill IIlOd 'S 01 SlIl'l' ',disl cr ':1Iiviry. FoI' ir, hy d ·finilion,

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