FILM AS A MIRROR OF COMMUNIST AND POSTCOMMUNIST DEVELOPMENT Undergraduate Program in Central European Studies (UPCES)

Professor: Tereza Brdečková E-mail: [email protected]

COURSE OUTLINE This lively and original course is open to students who have an interest to study the social and political transition in through an understanding of its original cinema. The main goal is to unveil the complexity that is hidden behind the usual clichés of communist and post-communist society. In our course, students with backgrounds in political science, ethnography, sociology, and literature will discuss these themes together. This is not a traditional film course: we will not analyze films purely as works of art. What interests us will be the social, political and historical context of films. The films produced behind the Iron curtain were not considered pure products. They were instrument of artistic expression, of ideology, but also of protest and testimony. The story of Czech, Slovak, Polish or Hungarian film industry, the fate and the moral dilemma of its most talented personalities and its specific strong film language before and after the political change in Europe of 1989, may become the discovery for those who will meet it for the first time, but also for connoisseurs who need to enlarge their knowledge. Many of the films in this course are classic features of the “Czech New Wave” cinema. We will also discuss thrilling art documentaries that witness the transition of gender and family questions in last 30 years, from communist society to post-communist society. We will analyze the questions of national and cultural identity of inhabitants in multicultural Central Europe. Furthermore, we will explore the specific conditions of film production in “state owned” film industries under communist rule. Finally, we will consider the moral and artistic dilemmas of artists working in unfree societies, as well as the general position of intellectuals in the post-communist development. All of our films – fiction or documentary – are mainly used as instruments of knowledge. By actively viewing a film as a product of another culture, we open the window to otherness in general. It makes us understand other worlds, their inhabitants and their reasoning. In this course, we will learn about as a “laboratory of Central Europe.”

GRADING

The goal of the course is to better understand communist reality and post-communist development through the individual eyes of the best filmmakers. Our students come from different backgrounds, therefore the activities during class and during personal research are important. The grading is as follows:

30% - Student participation and activity during and between classes

30% - Midterm Exam

40% - Final Paper. The final paper is the most important outcome of this course. The guidance of the research to write the paper is personalized.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

Week 1

Confidents and Their Heirs: The legacy of secret political police and confidents in post- communist society

Film: Kawasaki ´s Rose by Jan Hřebejk, 2010 (Kawasakiho růže)

Related films: Ties (Radim Spacek CZ, 2010),

Life of the Others (Florian Donnesmarck, Germany 2006)

In communist countries, hundreds of thousands of citizens were captured in the web of dangerous political police. They became confidents. They denounced their friends, their lovers, their neighbors. Were these collaborators more victims or criminals? What does it mean for the next generations? This most painful post-communist legacy is explored through the eyes of a modern Czech filmmaker.

Week 2 The State in the Role of Producer – The nationalization of film industries in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II.

Examples (show reels) – Emperor’s Baker by Martin Frič

Siréna or Anna Proletářka by Karel Steklý

Intimate lighting by or Daisies by Vera Chytilova

“The most important of arts for us is film”, said V.I. Lenin before taking over the film industry in the and making out of it the basic instrument of communist ideology. But in , the “nationalization” of the flourishing film industry in 1945 was not simply a political act of . It was in the beginning a non- ideological economic project shaped by film professionals. Could such a project function at that time. Or later? Nevertheless, the ideological rule killed all creativity for years. In the beginning of the 1960s, fascinating new trends emerged. The famous “” directors found themselves in a full paradox: They were criticizing the system and state that paid them.

Reading: Peter Hames, - Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition, Peter Hames – Czechoslovak new wave

Optional: Popiol I diamante (Ashes and diamond) – by Andrzej Wajda or

Man of Marble by Andrzej Wajda

Week 3

USA, the Dream Land - The role of memory

Sample of 10 min: “Lemonade Joe” by Oldrich Lipsky

“See you in Denver” by Jan Sikl. From the project “Private Centuries.”

During the cold war, the relations between and Eastern Europeans were diminished. But relations between “easterners” and US citizens were practically annihilated and forbidden. Many people developed a picture of the US as a “Dream land,” the mythical kingdom of freedom and justice. Wild west films became symbolic of escape and victory.

The documentarian Jan Šikl explores this topic through family film archives. His original documentary film about an ordinary Prague family of cinema owners who become victims of the regime depicts how even the twisted symbols of the US were important.

Week 4

Victory or Lost? Remembering Germans

“Adelheid” by František Vláčil, 1969,

Related films: „King of Velichovky“ and „Dad and Lilli Marlen“ by Jan Šikl, 2005, from the project Private century

Optional: Haberman´s Mill by , 2009

Marketa Lazarova and Valley of the Beas by Františsek Vláčil

Reading: Peter Hames: The cinema of Eastern Europe

Was it an ethnic cleaning or the only way to guarantee peace in Europe? An act of justice or violent vengeance? In 1945, a total of 10 million ethnic Germans were forced to leave their homes in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania. This changed the ethnic map and many cultural conditions. The forced resettlement of Germans was sometimes accompanied by atrocities executed by bewildered local people. However, the German settlement in Central Europe was not identical with the Nazi occupation: in some cases, settlements were more than 1000 years old. In fact, most of Central European cultures naturally developed on a broad German background.

The director František Vláčil dedicated his lifework to many aspects of the lost antagonism and conviviality between and Germans. His film Adelheid is also the picture of the postwar atmosphere in Central Europe.

Week 5

Krzystof Kieszlowski,: Mediating East and West in the Beautiful Nineties

“Double life of Veronique” by Krzystof Kieszlowski (1991)

Related films: Red, Blue, White – Kieszlowski

When the cold war ended in 1989, the joy, optimism and new spiritual trends invaded most of the European countries. Many “westerners” and “easterners” considered “the other” to be their long lost siblings. But the gap between the mentality and life experience of two parts of divided Europe was larger than we thought. Krzystof Kieslowski was one of the rare filmmakers who reflected the new situation in his late films, mainly in “Veronique.” His observation is a part of reality that can never enter in schoolbooks – the artistic truth.

Optional: Promised land by Andrzej Wajda, 1978

Knife in Water by Roman Polanski. 1965

(Savior’s Square) by Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze 2006

Reading: Stok, Danusia: Kieślowski on Kieślowski. London Faber 1995

Week 6

Animation - Spiritual Rescue, Handcraft, and Play: Trnka, Švankmajer, Lenica and others “Perak and SS” by Jiri Trnka 1946 ,

“Documentary about Jiri Trnka.”

“The Hand” by Jiri Trnka, 1969

Ways of Dialogues by Jan Švankmajer

Something from Alice by Jan Švankmajer

Modern Czech and Slovak

Polish animation by Jan Lenica

Hungarian animation

The state ownership of the film industry enabled one of the most fascinating and yet almost lost cultural values: the generously-funded hand animation for children and festival audiences. Between legendary eastern studios, the Prague Bratři v triku had a symbolic history: It was found by Nazi Germans, later flourished under communist rule, and in the end collapsed in freedom under the dictate of capitalist free markets and developments in technology. The names of the leading figures –Trnka, Švankmajer and Lenica – are the keys to understanding the specifics of this art trend, and also the only way these world famous studios functioned.

Reading. Giannalberto Bendazzi – The History of animation

Week 7

Family and Freedom: Family and Gender Roles in Post-Communist Europe

Matrimomonial Pieces (Manželské etudy) by Helena Třeštíková, 2005

Match Making Mayor (2010) by Erika Hníková Related films - show reels , Panel Story by Vera Chytilova, 1978

The social status of the woman and family values in communist Europe were different from the rest of Europe: All women were working or studying. After the Soviet Occupation in 1968, the government in Czechoslovakia started to execute a generous family policy, in order to keep citizens away from political rebellion. Despite the housing crisis, it was never before or after so easy to become a mother and a professional at the same time. Helena Třeštíková was following five couples and families for 20 years. Her film is a fascinating testimony of everyday life “before” and “after” the fall of communism.

“Match Making Mayor” is a tragicomic documentary about a Slovak village, where people surprisingly prefer to stay single. The phenomenon of “singles” – is it in fact the proof of a successfully functioning society? Or is this proof of a collapse of family values?

Optional: Pupendo by Jan Hrebejk, CZ 2003

Heitlinger, Alena. “Women’s Equality, Work, and Family in the .” Family, Women, and Employment in Central and Eastern Europe. Ed. Barbara Lobodzinska. pp. 86-96. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1995

Week 8

Inner Freedom: Dilemma of an Artist in a Totalitarian System:

“” by Jan Nemec, 1965

“Firemen’s Ball” by Milos Forman, 1967

Two masterpieces of Czech new wave became world classics. Behind the dreamlike beauty of the firs and the sharp black humor of the other remains the key dilemma of freedom of artistic expression: How can an authentic personality get along with the sophisticated system of bans, limitations and hypocrisy? Can art be free while financed by a dictator? And how about the border between success and corruption? Both artists – Nemec and Forman – chose life in exile in the US. Related films: Isztván Szabó, Mefisto, 1981

About the Party and the Guests, Jan Nemec 1967

Reading: Peter Hames: The Cinema of Eastern Europe

Week 9

Outsiders and Losers in the Role of Heroes

Larks on the string (Skřivánci na niti ) – Jiri Menzel, 1969

Based on the stories of , this film is a hyperbolic comic picture of a society of prisoners. Under bitter and funny stories of people working in a communist forced labor camp in 1951, we can read important moral messages: Those who are on the top, those who win, are not always the heroes of their times. But the film also depicts the models of behavior of people who must learn how to carry their freedom inside. The role of the humor is not always to entertain: it can be the way to survive.

Reading: Bohumil Hrabal TBD, Jaroslav Hasek: Good Soldier Shweik (or related literature)

Week 10

“All My Good Countrymen” by Vojtech Jasny (1969)

There are two extreme definitions of home: “Home is where you hang your hat” and “Blut und Boden” (blood and soil). The Central European definition of identity is closely related to the deep love and respect to landscape that was shaped and cultivated by ancestors and the tradition of the farmer’s countryside. The piece of land, where the family is farming for centuries and never moves away, can become the supreme value. In communist countries, the state was taking away the farms and lands from their owners. Those who did not want to farm “collectively” were often sent to jail. This masterpiece by Vojtech Jasny is also a poem on nature and on people, whose fates are moved by forces of history and more. Optional films: Wild Beas, by Bohdan Slama A Thousand Year-Old Bea by

Week 11

So Called Gypsy Question: The Postwar Tragedy of Roma People

“Marian“ by Petr Václav (1995)

“The Gypsy” by Martin Sulik (2012)

The fate of Roma (“Gypsy”) communities in Central and Eastern Europe is the most sensible point in the transition from totalitarianism to democracy. Hundreds of thousands of central and eastern European Romas in different living conditions are all children of those who were integrated by force to majority societies. Old systems have taken over from Romas their language, home, and dignity. In the same time, the great film “Marian” by Petr Vaclav is an existential study of one mistreated person who is no longer able to be social, and therefore becomes a bewildered animal. Today’s animosity between Roma communities and majority society can be understood as a heritage of this past.

Related films: Brats (Smradi) by Zdenek Tyc, 2005

Week 12

Jewishness as a Symbol: Paradoxes of the pre-war Jewish assimilation

Film: “Distant Journey” by Alfred Radok, 1949

In the beginning of the 20th century, most German and Czech Jews became totally assimilated with majority society. Regardless of their language (Czech or German), Jews in the modern Czechoslovak state voluntarily become Czechoslovak citizens with no mention of their religion in their documents. Many children learned their otherness only when they were forced to wear yellow stars after Nazi occupation. Radok´s film is the very first postwar movie about the holocaust in a global context. It tells the story of the mixed families that fell to the Nazi trap – the famous Terezin ghetto on one side, resistance movement on the other. Because of the anti-Semitism of communist Czechoslovakia, the film was banned during almost 40 years.

Optional ““ by Kadar and Klos, 1965

Reading: Jacob Edelstein by Ruth Bondy

Week 13

Official Film Entertainment Behind the Iron curtain and Post-Communist Consumer Societies

Samples: Starci na chmelu, Ladislav Rychman 1965

Světáci (Men about Town), Zdeněk Podskalský 1969

Related film: “Czech Dream” by Klusák, Remunda (2002)

This session is dedicated to both the longings and the fulfilling of the needs of consumer culture. The first Czechoslovak musical about students on their mandatory summer work-stay in the fields became not only a hit, but a perennial for viewers who were missing Western commercial style. “Men About Town” is an ironic comedy of three working class guys who long after the “big world.” And, while the culture of hypermarkets started in post-Communist countries, their citizens played involuntarily in this “reality show” of two courageous filmmakers. What was the result of this long effort of ancient regimes “to make people better?”