Society for Cinema & Media Studies

Cinema in Eastern Europe Author(s): Jerzy Toeplitz Source: Cinema Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Autumn, 1968), pp. 2-11 Published by: University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225222 . Accessed: 05/03/2014 04:31

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This content downloaded from 193.49.37.77 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 04:31:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cinemain EasternEurope

Jerzy Toeplits

The cinema world of 1938-39 was a very small world. There were really only six centers of production which were known-France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. In most of the countries of the world even those six centers were reduced to four. There were very few sound Soviet films being shown outside the Soviet Union in the period 1934 till the beginning of the war; for political reasons, nobody wanted to show them. There were very few German films being shown for different political reasons. And so the average spectator in the United States, Poland, Hungary, Great Britain, or France would see mostly American films and sometimes French or Italian films. We knew that there were far-away centers of film production in Japan and India but they were totally unknown. Japanese films were shown to people of Japanese origin but not to the general public. That was the situation in 1939. The film world of today is a very large world. There are not six but several dozen centers of production and the average spectator is able to see films from many countries including eastern Europe. There were two instruments working toward popularization of exotic or unknown national cinemas. First, there was the development of the institution of the film festival. Before the war there was only one international film festival, in Venice, and this festival was very largely, especially at the end of the 1930's, a political festival, serving the cause of the axis powers, of Germany and Italy. Today we have around the world more than a hundred festivals and at least twenty important ones. The four most important in Europe are at Venice, Cannes, Berlin, and Moscow alternating with Karlovy-Vary. Among the twenty are those which do not give awards, as in London, New York, and Acapulco. Then there are the specialized film festivals: documentaries in Oberhausen and Mannheim, films in Annecy and Mamaia and so on. These festivals, which are very often criticized as being commercial enter- prises, are in fact extremely useful because they popularize the unknown cinema. Every year in many places the films of all nations are shown despite political differences. Even in the cold war days these festivals were in a certain sense

This content downloaded from 193.49.37.77 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 04:31:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CINEMAJOURNAL / 3 neutralist because in those years at the Karlovy-Vary festival there were films from the west and at Cannes and Venice there were films from the Soviet Union and eastern European countries. There is another instrument which plays a very important role, especially in the United States of America-the art theaters. They existed before 1939, but if one is to believe the statistics (and I think in this case the statistics tell the truth) the number of art theaters before 1939 varied from 30 to 40, whereas today there are well over 1000 theaters in the United States showing foreign films. So we see that the notion of a large film world is not a theoretical proposition but a reality. It varies from place to place. In larger centers it is most evident. But also in smaller places, thanks to the institution of the film society or film club, foreign films are being seen. This is especially true in universities. For these reasons, eastern European cinema is no longer exotic or unknown.

BASICTRADITIONS

What do I mean by east European cinema? First there is the political distinc- tion-we are thinking of the countries belonging to the socialist, or if you prefer, the communist group of nations. These countries have similar, though not identi- cal, political systems, and this is felt also in the field of motion picture production. Historical factors, too, are similar. All these countries were liberated by the red army with the help of the local partisans. In Yugoslavia certainly the partisans played a much greater role than the red army itself but very definitely in all these countries at the end of the war the arrival of the Russian army changed very greatly the political situation. Then, in all these countries the leading role in political life is played by the communist party, although the communist parties are different nowadays and we cannot speak about any uniform model of the communist party all over the world. A third historical factor is the development of cinema in the Soviet Union. The Russian experience was well known and served as an example and model. The films themselves, however, were known more from hearsay or from film periodicals than from projection until 1945. With the exception of Czechoslovakia, the censors in east European countries did not allow Soviet films to be shown in cinemas. After 1945, the situation changed radically; old and new Soviet films were widely shown. There are three elements which seem to me characteristic and really decisive for the character of east European cinema in all the countries I am speaking of- the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugo- slavia. First, they are all state owned cinemas. The state takes on the task of financing film production, running the theaters, and also controlling distribu- tion of films in foreign counties and the importation of foreign films into these countries. The change from private to national ownership did not come at the same time in all these countries. In 1945, only three countries had a nationalized cinema: Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. In Bulgaria, Rumania, and Hungary the nationalization came three years later. I should mention here as a

This content downloaded from 193.49.37.77 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 04:31:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 4 / CINEMAJOURNAL curiosity that in Hungary in 1946 cinema production was divided among four political parties-each one had its own producing company, cinemas, and distri- bution office. Nowadays in each of these countries nationalization is fully accepted; there are no exceptions. The second thing common to all these countries is that the rank of the cinema in the hierarchy of the arts is much higher than in the states. There is a feeling that it is the duty of the state to take care of cinema, that the cinema is an important part of art-not entertainment, not industry, but art. The reason is quite clear. All the Marxists in all these countries have read the famous statement by Lenin that "of all the arts the cinema is the most important for us." He recognized the enormous propaganda value of the film, its influence on the masses. I must add that his statement is of enormous use in our countries. If we have any kind of financial difficulties with our authorities it is always very helpful to remind them of what Lenin said about the cinema, and then they must deal with us seriously. We do not allow them to forget what Lenin said. Still, it is a fact that the artists of the cinema in these countries are treated the same as any other artists-writers, musicians, painters. They belong to the same group of people; they have the same rights, the same privileges, and they are considered important. The third common denominator in all these countries is the idea of the film school as nursery for future film makers. I think this is of the greatest im- portance because there is a natural influx of new people with fresh ideas coming out of the schools into film production. Production could hardly exist without the schools. Producers do not have to search for people who might be useful to them. There is a regular channel for young people interested in film and seeing film as a career leading them from school into the profession. These elements are common in all those cinemas. Let me now speak about the differences. The first difference is that all these cinemas have their own national and artistic heritage-in literature, painting, theater, all the arts which collaborate with the cinema. Going back again to 1939, all the cinemas had different paths and different starting points. The strongest cinema existed in Czechoslovakia. It is very old, starting almost at the same time as cinema in other countries. In 1934 Czechoslovakia got the first prize for the best national selection at the Venice film festival. Czech films were known all over Europe, if not all over the world, for artistic achievements. They had also a very well organized eco- nomic and technical basis for production and very good studios. Hungary and Poland had production before the war but the artistic and technical level was poor. From time to time there was a work standing out above the average commercial level but such films were exceptional; they were producing strictly for the home market. Finally Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Rumania practically did not exist. The number of Rumanian films produced before 1939, from the very beginning, were ten or twelve. The same goes for Bulgaria, producing perhaps one every second year in foreign studios. In those countries it was necessary to start from scratch.

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You may ask why I do not mention East Germany. It is a special case. First of all, my sense of geography revolts when I include East Germany in eastern European cinema because to me it is very much central Europe. Secondly, in Germany there was total destruction of everything of any value during the Hitler era. We cannot speak of any tradition from 1933 on. The people were made to forget about anything that happened before Hitler. Certainly the young people did not know anything. In the Hitler era-quite different from the situa- tion in Italy-there was no one using the cinema against the main current of political thought. In Czechoslovakia it was easier. Perhaps I am a little jealous, because not only were their facilities not destroyed during the war but they inherited a much better situation after the war than before. The Germans, not being able to produce in Berlin under the heavy bombardment of the allied air force, went to Prague and enlarged the film studios there. Prague was called in those days the ideal air raid shelter. The production of Czech films during the occupation was not considered any national treason or act of collaboration; Czech films were made for the Czech public and all the people worked. In Poland there was not one Polish film produced during the war. The Germans completely forbade the production of Polish films. Now how are we to look at the period 1945 to 1967? I think we can divide it into three distinct periods. The first goes from 1945 to 1948-49; the second, 1948-49 to about 1953-55; and the third from 1955-56 on. Until 1948 production followed the old pattern of prewar cinema in Czechoslovakia and Poland. There was no uniformity, but rather many different approaches to film, and many were produced by older film makers. The method of , already accepted and adopted in the Soviet Union, was not yet officially accepted in these countries.

FROM STALINIZATIONTO DECENTRALIZATION

Then came the second or Stalinist period, after 1948, including political events like the blockade of Berlin, the crisis with Tito in Yugoslavia, and processes against many political leaders in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Then started the tendency to make cinema in all these countries like the Soviet pattern and extremely uniform in character. There was a joke with more than a grain of truth told by one of my colleagues in the Polish film school. He said that if you entered a projection room during these years and saw a film on the screen but could not hear the dialog (perhaps there was something wrong with the sound) you could never tell whether the film you were seeing was Hungarian, Bulgarian, Czech, Rumanian, or Polish. They were exactly alike: the same kind of stories, the same kind of heroes, the same kind of enemies. There were cer- tainly exceptions, but generally speaking during this period we saw this very depressing kind of uniformity and lack of national differences. During this time which we have called "the cult of personality" many film makers were following the lead of Mikhail Chiaurelli, one of the main directors in the Soviet Union,

This content downloaded from 193.49.37.77 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 04:31:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6 / CINEMA JOURNAL who made The Fall of Berlin (1950) and other very pompous, very monumental Stalinist pictures. Then came the death of Stalin, the Twentieth Congress, the thaw in the Soviet Union and in other countries. Then came the birth of national, anti- dogmatic cinema and really different cinemas in the different countries. This change was not an immediate change. In some countries it was earlier, in some, later. I think the first was Poland, as early as 1954-55. There were two other factors which helped Poland make this change, later followed by other countries. The first was the new model of production of films which was introduced in Poland, the decentralization of production. Before 1954 in all these countries films were commanded to be made from one central administrative agency: the Ministry of Culture had the general direc- tion of the cinema. There was an established plan of production-not only the number of films to be produced, but the character of the films: so many films about the Caucasus, so many films about the life of the workers, so many about the imperialist danger, and so on. Then they picked the directors for each film. Sometimes they didn't like to make such films but they agreed to make them. The autonomy of the film makers was very greatly limited by this centralized system. Decentralization meant that the initiative of making the films passed from the functionaries, from the ministries, from the offices of the central committee of the party, to the film makers themselves. They were to suggest the films they would like to make. People having the same kind of artistic interests and ideas joined forces and organized film units or companies. Some liked to make his- torical films; others wanted to do comedies. Films were still state owned but the task of making films was no longer the task of the ministry but of the separate groups or film units. After Poland did this, Czechoslovakia and Hungary accepted a similar model, and now I have heard, even before I left Poland for my visit here in the United States, the Soviet Union is also introducing the idea of the film group. Bulgaria, Rumania, and East Germany are still keeping the old model. Yugoslavia has gone far ahead and given not only autonomy but also complete independence to the regional companies. Yugoslavia is a federal republic and each republic has a different film studio which not only produces the films but sends them abroad, buys foreign films, and enters into co-production arrangements. This decentralization has helped the growth of national cinemas. In Poland, when film makers got the initiative, they got a new path. They abandoned rigid dogmatic formulas. They had a different spirit and they started to make films they liked to produce, the films they thought were necessary. The second thing of great importance was that this was the period when the graduates of the film schools entered film production. It is a long process. It is not automatic that one day somebody starts a film school and in three or four years there are new geniuses, new film makers ready to show the world how clever they are. The Polish film school was started in 1947. The debut of

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Andrzej Wajda was in 1954. The minimum period for the ripening of a new college and the system of a film school is at least five to seven years. The new wave in the Polish cinema was due to the graduates of the film school-Wajda and Munk. The new wave in Czech films-Nemec, Forman, Chytilova-came a little later but again they were graduates of the film school. In the Soviet Union we have had a great renaissance in the republican studios in various Soviet republics like Lithuania, Moldavia, and Georgia where again the young generation of film makers coming out of the film schools found work in the studios. Finally, in Hungary there is a special institution, the Bdla Balizs film studio, named after the famous theoretician of film in the 1930's. Film students, after finishing at school, can go and experiment in this studio at Budapest where they have special facilities. Many of the shorts shown all over the world were produced in the Bela Balizs studio.

LOOKING AT WAR AND INDIVIDUALISM

Meanwhile in each country, writers and directors were reevaluating recent history, the war and the resistance. Why? Because in the day of the dogmatic cinema everything was treated in an extremely superficial way. Nazis were arch criminals and the resistance fighters were arch heroes. The actual situation was much more complex and difficult, and this was well known. The resistance politically was not united during the war. It was united in the sense that it was fighting against the Germans, but there were conflicting tendencies. To say that all the resistance were at the same time communists was very far from the truth, especially in Poland, where the organization directed from London was really powerful and effective. Then there were the human factors. It was not an easy thing for a young man to join the resistance. There were family problems, problems of personal happiness, even of very human cowardice. Not all the people were born heroes. Some were taking part in the fighting but were frightened at the same time. Some were hesitating. There were not many but there were some who were traitors who couldn't resist the fear of persecution by the secret German police. So it was absolutely natural after a series of heroic films to look again at the recent past and to say something different, something more personal, more psychologically and sociologically true. The great contribution of the Polish film school-and I'm not speaking of it in terms of an educational center but of the style of such men as Wajda and Munk and Kawalerowicz-was the fact that the new directors looked with newly opened eyes at the past. One of the best examples is Ashes and Diamonds. It shows the very difficult position of a young man who has been fighting against the Germans and is now asked to fight against the Communists. He is a good Pole and a good patriot but he sees that there is a different concept of the future of Poland as brought by the people coming with the Russian army, by the Polish communists, and by the Polish nationalists. There were hundreds of such tragic conflicts and all this was waiting to be shown on the screen. It was the

This content downloaded from 193.49.37.77 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 04:31:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 8 / CINEMAJOURNAL same with the insurrection in Warsaw and the destruction of our capital, when 300,000 people were killed. The very fact that Poland lost during the war 7,000,000 people, twenty per cent of the population, made it necessary morally and psychologically to make films about the war. It was something very deep inside us because almost every family lost someone in the war. Our capital was totally rebuilt with great effort and many sacrifices. We had to make films about that. There was also the problem of the individual and society. In the Stalinist dogmatic period there were many slogans which were very popular but meaning- less. We knew they were not true-not that the intentions were not good, but the reality was different. One of these slogans claimed there was no such thing as loneliness in a socialist society, that the socialist society is always helping the individual. But there were many conflicts between the concept of individual happiness and the welfare of the state or community. The words which were very much in fashion in the west had also been known in the east: "alienation," "frustration." These words were coming into the Polish, Czech, Yugoslav, Hungarian cinema because they refer to a problem not easily solved. Certainly the socialist society has ways to solve this problem which are different from those in the capitalist society, but it would be a blind attitude not to see that this problem exists everywhere. I think this was a great change. It was brought first of all by the Polish cinema. Then we saw the same change in the Russian cinema: in The Cranes Are Flying we saw for the first time the nonheroic side of the war, the attitudes of some people who were war profiteers. As a result of all these things the cinema regained something absolutely necessary in art-sincerity in approach, sincerity in treatment, and courage. You may ask me now: is the method of socialist realism dead? What has happened to this official theory of art, so firmly prescribed during the 1940's and the beginning of the 1950's?

SOCIALIST REALISM DEFINED Socialist realism is a term much used and much misunderstood. It is a very precise term historically. In the beginning it was a literary method, but then it was accepted by the theater and by other arts. It was defined and proclaimed as the official method in socialist literature in the Soviet Union in 1932, by means of a statute in the book of rules of the union of Soviet writers. Then during the first congress of Soviet writers in August, 1934, in speeches by the theoretician of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, Andrei Zhdanov, and by Maxim Gorky, the great Soviet writer, additional aspects of the definition of socialist realism were given. From these sources we can understand that socialist realism is applied simultaneously to three different levels of creative work. First, it was said both in the rule book and in the speeches that socialist realism means the historical approach to reality-that reality should be seen as a his- torical process having roots in the past and perspective in the future. This was nothing more than a reminder of the principle of Marxist historical materialism which teaches us to consider history as a process. If you ask me whether this

This content downloaded from 193.49.37.77 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 04:31:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CINEMAJOURNAL / 9 first part of the definition of socialist realism is being forgotten in the eastern countries in the cinema my answer would be "no." I think the overwhelming majority of film makers do attempt to see reality as a historical process, never forgetting that this process has a past and some kind of future. Nor is it neces- sary to be a Marxist or a member of the Communist Party to have this approach. The second part of the definition was that the artist should always have in view the educational purpose of the work of art-that art should shape the recipient, reader, or spectator to accept the spirit of socialism. This was then followed in a very rigid way. Socialist realism ceased to be a method and became a rigid formula, like some of the formulas accepted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which insisted there was only one way to create a work of art. The spirit of socialism, a very general thing, was nevertheless interpreted as the execution of certain party commands. There were interpretations or guidance or advices about works of art, sometimes with disastrous results. Some of the goals and actions of the party, perhaps fully understandable and logical in terms of economics, cannot automatically be translated into a work of art because then the art becomes a poster, a slogan, and ceases to be a work of art. I think this part of the definition has been rejected in the sense of a narrow, rigid formula. But certainly an overwhelming number of film makers are trying to the best of their understanding to present to the public certain messages which would help the socialist cause. It isn't an order of the party any longer, but for many people it is an internal desire. The third part of the definition stressed the importance of using only those artistic styles and instruments which would be evident, understandable, clear, and very easily acceptable by the public. One such instrument was the positive hero-somebody giving the example. Again, it was believed that to make the content of the film absolutely clear, one should stress the dialogue. Words seemed less ambiguous than images. Therefore in the 1950's most of the films were very talkative. Beauty of image was looked upon with suspicion, as formal- istic deviation. This part of socialist realism is certainly absolutely rejected all over the world, the Soviet Union included. I think the idea of the "positive hero" as the only kind of hero is no longer valid. Everybody who knows any- thing about art knows that sometimes the "negative hero" has a very positive influence upon the public and serves much better the purposes of the artist because he seems real and believable. To the question, then, "Is Socialist realism dead?" we must answer both "no" and "yes." In discussions of this subject, seldom does anyone go enough into history to examine the meaning of socialist realism and ask what remains and what is rejected. Certainly there is no longer any instruction given as to what kind of artistic works should be produced or in what form, or what kind of artistic instruments are to be used. All kinds of artistic forms and precedents now have their influence on the east European cinema-Italian at the very beginning of the Polish film school, then in Czech cinema certainly the and cinema vWrite. There is also the influence of British and the new realistic

This content downloaded from 193.49.37.77 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 04:31:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 10 / CINEMAJOURNAL features made in Britain and in recent years Antonioni and Fellini. I think that the large cinema world is not a closed world any longer. The continuous inter- change of films influences people and thus it is possible for a man to find the style most appropriate for himself. I wouldn't say this to encourage imitation, but I think that the exchange of ideas and of examples is a very good thing. Let me say a few words about what has happened to Polish cinema. Many people ask me this: Why do we not have any longer films like Joan of the Angels or Ashes and Diamonds and why did Czech films become better than Polish films? Now if we speak about a certain gap in the Polish cinema, a weakening in the creative power of Polish cinema, I don't find the explanation to be simple or easy. I believe first of all that concern about the war had to reach its end. It was necessary, this reevaluation of the war, and everything that was to be said was said. Then there is a certain fatigue in film making both for individuals and for countries. It is very rare that a film maker can continue for many years having the same creative power. Sometimes he needs a respite, a change of style or of field. Nobody expected Kawalerowicz to produce a great historical film like Pharoah; probably he wanted to venture something he never tried before. Then there are the young people who were born after the war or were small children after the war and do not care about the war any longer. They are not interested in old wars but are more concerned about a future war. Young people have something to say on the screen and young people must say it. An older man cannot speak for them in a convincing way. Jerzy Skolimowski, a new young graduate of the Polish Film School, I think is the first in the group of young film makers who come now and say what young people want to say. In Czechoslovakia, too, they have a group of young men speaking for youth. I think it is good for different countries to come forward. I count very much on the Hungarian cinema. Some interesting things they have lately made indi- cate that they will produce excellent films. Perhaps there will soon be a moment of fatigue in the Czech cinema and they will have to give the priority to other nations. The processes of art are not under some iron rule that somebody who started well should continue always in the same way. People change and fashions change and ideas are changing. It is a fact very well known to me as a film historian, when I look at the past, and not only in Europe, that the existence of a definite school or a definite trend in the cinema never lasts longer than five or six years. The classic Soviet cinema started with Potemkin in 1925 and ended with Earth of Dovjenko in 1930. The first great Swedish cinema flourished from 1917-23. The neorealist cinema starting around 1943 in Italy reached its end by 1950. I think the rhythm of development of cinema is absolutely different from that in other fields, for the very simple reason that the cinema is closest to reality, in closest union with changes in the world. We are very far from the time when fashions lasted for centuries or decades. Changes happen quickly today and they have almost immediate reflections in the cinema. Therefore creative periods in film-making must be expected to be intense, exciting, close to con- temporary feelings-and brief.

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The Cranes Are Flying

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