A Cinematic Battle: Three Yugoslav War Films from the 1960S
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A Cinematic Battle: Three Yugoslav War Films from the 1960s By Dragan Batanĉev Submitted to Central European University History Department In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Thesis Supervisor: Professor Balázs Trencsényi Second Reader: Professor Marsha Siefert CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2012 Statement of Copyright Copyright in the text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or part, may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author. CEU eTD Collection i Abstract The content of my thesis will present the analysis of three Yugoslav war films from the 1960s that they offer different views on World War II as a moment of creation of the state that aimed towards supranationalism and classlessness. I will analyse the films in terms of their production, iconography and reception as to show that although the Yugoslav government, led by a great cinephile Josip Broz Tito, demonstrated interest in the war film genre, there were opposing filmmakers‟ views on what WWII should represent in the Yugoslav history and collective mythology. By using the concept of historiophoty I will demonstrate that the war films represented the failure of Yugoslav government in integrating different nations into a supranational Yugoslav society in which conflicts between different social agents (the state, workers and peasants) will finally be resolved. CEU eTD Collection ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Prof. Balázs Trencsényi, for his insightful advices and inspiring discussions about intellectual history, which helped me finding a new approach to film analysis. I would also like to thank my second reader, Prof. Marsha Siefert, for the careful reading of my text and all of her suggestions for its improvement. Without the valuable help of my teaching assistant Zsófia Lóránd I would not have been able to acquire some very important sources. Finally, I thank Miranda Jakiša, Peter Stanković, and Tanja Zimmermann for the articles that they were kind enough to provide me with, as well as Nikica Gilić for his yet-to-be-printed article. This thesis is dedicated to my brother, Jovan. CEU eTD Collection iii Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 2 1. Theoretical Framework...................................................................................................... 7 1.1. Film and History............................................................................................................. 7 1.2. War Film as a (State) Genre ......................................................................................... 11 1.2.1. War/Partisan/Revolutionary Film? ........................................................................ 14 2. Kapetan Leši (Captain Leshi, 1960) by Ţivorad Mitrović: A Censored War Film........ 16 2.1. Political and Cultural Context of the Yugoslav Cinematography in the 1950s ........... 16 2.2. Creation of a Private Hollywood .................................................................................. 20 2.3. Being Kosovar Albanian: The Origin of Captain Leshi and His Enemies ................... 22 2.4. Captain Leshi as a Kosovar Western ........................................................................... 25 2.5. Public and Critical Reception of Captain Leshi ........................................................... 31 2.6. Censoring Captain Leshi .............................................................................................. 33 3. Bitka na Neretvi (The Battle of Neretva, 1969): A State-Supported War Film ............... 49 3.1. Political and Cultural Context of the Yugoslav Cinematography in the 1960s ........... 49 3.2. 10,000 Soldiers, 75 Armed Vehicles, 22 Airplanes: Making a War Spectacle ............ 52 3.3. Partisans and the Yugoslav National Identity .............................................................. 55 3.4. War Spectacle as a Performance of Political Religion ................................................. 60 3.5. The Biggest, not the Best: Reception of The Battle of Neretva ................................... 66 4. Zaseda (The Ambush) by Ţivojin Pavlović: A Banned Film........................................... 68 4.1. New Man for the New Film ......................................................................................... 69 CEU eTD Collection 4.2. Pavlović‟s Road to War (Film) .................................................................................... 73 iv 4.3. Echo of 1968 Student Protests ..................................................................................... 76 4.4. Camera as a Weapon .................................................................................................... 80 4.5. The Director in the Ambush ......................................................................................... 85 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 92 Filmography ............................................................................................................................ 99 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 101 Primary Sources ................................................................................................................ 101 Archival Material ........................................................................................................... 101 Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 101 Secondary Literature ......................................................................................................... 101 CEU eTD Collection v List of Abbreviations AGITPROP - Odeljenje za agitaciju i propagandu (Department for agitation and propaganda) FPRY (FNRJ) – Federative People‟s Republic of Yugoslavia (Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija) LCY (SKJ) – League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije) OZNA – Odeljenje za zaštitu naroda (The Department of National Security) UFUS – Udruţenje filmskih umetnika Srbije (Association of Film Artists of Serbia) YPA (JNA) – Yugoslav People‟s Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija) YCLY (SKOJ) – Young Communist League of Yugoslavia (Savez komunistiĉke omladine Jugoslavije) CEU eTD Collection 1 Introduction When all episodes of the partisan TV series Otpisani, based on the plot of the 1974 partisan film of the same title by Aleksandar Djordjević, were broadcast on Serbian television a few years ago, Natalija Bašić at the Hamburg Institute of Social Research was inspired to review Yugoslavia‟s memory of the partisan past. Evidently this past was in many ways returning to the present – including some digitally re-mastered versions of former Yugoslavia‟s partisan films. From three- generation-interviews Bašić found out that that the historical memory of most Yugoslavians was not dominated by information generated in schoolbooks but rather determined by the knowledge of partisan films.1 The above quote highlights that three generations of Yugoslavs have been watching the history of their country from the perspective of a fiction film, and not from academic books which are the usual source of historical information. It is interesting that World War II was not mentioned even once as a concrete historical event which inspired the emergence of the Yugoslav war/partisan film. Instead of “war”, the keyword is “partisan;” used as a synonym for the victor that can write the history. Naturally, the victorious history is unimaginable without the grandiose moment of liberation and Yugoslav communists coming into power. Carried by the wave of their glorious fight, they believed in building a better and fairer society. After the end of WWII, the Yugoslav War of Liberation “was the central founding myth upon which the new Tito-led postwar government was built.”2 Antic Greek playwrights wrote tragedies with mythological background to show, in an indirect way, the political scene of their time; Hollywood director turned Westerns into metaphors about modern conservatism and liberalism; in like manner, Yugoslav film directors made films 1 Natalija Bašić, “Der Zweite Weltkrieg im Fernsehen. Filmpartisanen im kroatischen und serbischen Familiengedachtnis,” Ethnologia balkanica, vol. 8(2004): 57-77, quoted in Miranda Jakiša, “Down to Earth CEU eTD Collection Partisans: Fashioning of YU-Space in Partisan Film,” KINO! 10 (2010): 54. 2 Daniel J. Goulding, Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience, 1945-2001 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 11. 2 about WWII, or films about the past in order to outline the problems of the period in which those films were made. In this thesis I will analyze three Yugoslav war films from the 1960s as I believe that they offer different views on World War II as a moment of creation of the state that