Evolution and Crisis: Development of Film Industry in Yugoslavia After World War II Oleg Parenta BA (Hons.)
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Evolution and Crisis: Development of Film Industry in Yugoslavia after World War II Oleg Parenta BA (Hons.) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2015 School of Political Science and International Relations Abstract At its (re)establishment in 1944-45, the Yugoslav film industry was announced and planned as a (single) state-controlled and centralised field of activity driven by Socialist political, educational and cultural, rather than commercial motives. It was to be modelled on the Soviet film aesthetics, film education, and centralised industrial organization. Soviet-style cinefication policy would provide citizens with an egalitarian access to the cinema and the new Socialist state with a vehicle for Socialist filmmaking and its values. Soviet films were expected to dominate the box office until such time as local production was ready to take over from it, while films that promoted bourgeois values were to be avoided. By the mid-1950s most of these policy ends had been abandoned. The industry was dominated by commercialism; the box office consisted largely of Hollywood and other commercial Western films. Filmmaking as a vehicle for the dissemination of Socialist values had been relegated to a less important policy principle. The national government was playing only a limited role and a de-centralised industrial system based on the Republics had emerged. Film production, distribution and exhibition enterprises and agencies were now socially-owned organizations under Republican or local government. Centralised import monopoly was eroded. In addition, film production companies outside of direct State control had emerged. The research question this thesis asks is this: how and why did the Yugoslav post-war film industry evolve in a manner so different to its original plans? Most historians of Yugoslav film have explained this dramatic change as owing itself to the Crisis in Soviet-Yugoslav relations in the late 1940s. They then divide the Yugoslav post-war film history into two distinct and stable periods: the period preceding the Crisis, with a strictly centralised, Stalinist-style and modelled film industry and the period subsequent upon the Crisis, in which there was a ‗turn‘ to de-centralisation, liberalisation and ‗Westernisation‘ at both the box office and in film production alike. Rather than take the consequences of the Crisis for granted as a starting point, this thesis investigates the formation of the Yugoslav film industry prior to, during and after the Crisis. In order to consider the developments, tensions and contradictions involved, I have combined recent perspectives in both film history and institutional analysis in political science. The former involves applying contemporary film studies and media political 2 economy perspectives stressing structural conditions internal to the film industry, film markets, audience preferences, and the contingent decisions of policy actors. The latter involves the application to the film industry of new institutional perspectives drawn from political theory stressing path-dependent contingencies in institutional formations. This new institutional perspective sees institutions as constantly evolving, characterized by the balance of often competing or contradictory ‗logics of action‘. The combination of revisionist film history and the new institutionalism enables this thesis to show that the Yugoslav film policy in the pre-Crisis period was in a process of constant evolution and change. Consequently, the Crisis did not constitute the complete break or new beginning commonly ascribed to it. Rather it accentuated and provided a stimulus for developments and emerging tendencies that were already in train and substantially preceded the Crisis. The Crisis, rather than changing matters dramatically, contributed to the existing gradual de-centralisation and commercialisation processes in Yugoslav film policy. The Crisis also shaped the future evolution of the film industry through contingent events resulting from the responses governmental actors instigated in response to it. The thesis draws two related conclusions important to the conduct of both cinema studies and political science scholarship. First, in terms of film studies, there needs to be a thorough-going re-examination of Eastern European cinema in the Socialist period with a view to its normalisation as specifically film industry developments cognate with similar developments happening at the same time in Western countries. Regardless of the public rhetoric of a Socialist administration and the conventional accounts of its activity which cut too closely to State rhetoric, there is a good chance that these film industries are dealing with similar issues of competition, conflict and compromise as any other film industry. Therefore, the development of a film policy in a Socialist State may well be best characterised as the same kind of complex, gradual and transformative process historians of national cinemas in the West have been finding for the past two decades of scholarship. This thesis thus argues for the normalisation of Eastern European filmmaking. The lessons I draw from institutional theory are threefold. First, even when conventional wisdom describes a period in the life of an institutional system as simple and stable, its actual condition is probably characterized by complexity and evolutionary change. Second, a ‗grand transformation‘ or crisis typically triggers some power manoeuvring and 3 speeds up or slows down existing processes. Third, the intensity and scope of changes in conditions associated with crisis easily leads to contingency and further evolutionary but transformative change of institutional systems. The Yugoslav film industry provides a powerful example of the value of new institutionalism‘s re-consideration of institutional systems. 4 Declaration by author This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis. I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award. I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the General Award Rules of The University of Queensland, immediately made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis. 5 Publications during candidature No publications. Publications included in this thesis No publications included. 6 Contributions by others to the thesis No contributions by others Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree None. 7 Acknowledgements This thesis has been primarily conducted and developed within the context of political science as its first discipline and film studies as its secondary discipline. More precisely, it has been set up to use the film industry as a case study to generate new insights into and inaugurate a new approach to the governance of Socialist countries of the Eastern Bloc. It is an approach based on the new institutionalism. This standpoint is in contrast to film studies, which is generally interested in film making and the film industry in its own right and for itself. The thesis has therefore been conducted within a political science and international relations school - with Geoff Dow as the principal advisor. Geoff‘s help with the approaches in political economy that have framed my thinking about the Yugoslav film industry was crucial. He was always insightful and positively ambitious about the nature of research and theoretical implications of the work I have presented. The thesis was also set up to have a film studies/media studies aspect to it with Tom O'Regan as an associate advisor from the School of English, Media Studies and Art History. However, as the thesis took on a more developed character the film studies/media studies became more important and the balance between the two shifted from film studies making a more minimal contribution to it becoming an important contributing influence alongside the still dominant political science aspects of the project. Towards the crucial part of the project, with Geoff Dow's retirement Tom O'Regan took over the principal supervision. This has enabled the thesis to better address and speak to film studies concerns while remaining anchored within political science. O'Regan's concerns for and interest in institutional perspectives when coupled with his longstanding engagement with politics through his media and cultural policy