“The Idea of Eternal Return”: Palimpsests and National Narratives in Czechoslovak New Wave Literary Adaptations Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Elizabeth Ellen Julia Angerman, M.A. Graduate Program in Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Yana Hashamova, Advisor Helena Goscilo Jessie Labov Andrew Spencer Copyright by Elizabeth Ellen Julia Angerman 2010 Abstract The Czechoslovak New Wave (1963-1968) has often been referred to as a film “miracle” because of the high volume of very high-quality films produced in such a short amount of time, and – one suspects – also because of its country of origin. Although contemporary critics in the West were taken by surprise by this “sudden” prominence of these films, Czechoslovakia’s film industry in the 1960s was not particularly surprising or even miraculous: it was, instead, the logical evolution of a robust and long-standing tradition of socially engaged public art. The films of the Czechoslovak New Wave emerged from a perfect alignment of circumstances. The State funded all aspects of production, but had relaxed its political control. When freed of both commercial and ideological constraints, filmmakers in Czechoslovakia created the films that they had always wanted to make: sensitive and often experimental pieces that challenged viewers to revisit their values and their ways of thinking about the world. In fact, the films of the New Wave – especially the considerable number of literary adaptations – can ultimately be viewed as palimpsests: layers upon layers of inter-/sub-/con-text, artistic media, cultural values, and social commentary. This dissertation looks specifically at literary adaptations of the New Wave and how they – together with their source and supporting texts – attempt nothing less than the construction of alternative national narratives. These narratives were offered up as substitutes for and supplements to the official narratives of the socialist realist State. ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, my Oma and my Tante, and my Grandmother Worrall, who have never tired of hearing my book reports. iii Acknowledgments This dissertation could not have been completed without the unstinting support of my advisor, Yana Hashamova, my supervisor, Grace Johnson, my husband, Karl Angerman, and my friend, Rachel Sanabria. They have, each in their own different ways, contributed to every page of this project and been unfailingly supportive throughout the entire process. I am also very much indebted to the excellent feedback and tireless editing provided by the rest of my dissertation committee – Helena Goscilo, Andy Spencer, and Jessie Labov. iv Vita June 1995…………………………………….Jacksonville High School 1999………………………………………….B.A. Russian, Comparative Literature, Beloit College 2002…………………………………………M.A. Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures v Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………..…………………… ii Dedication……………………………………………………………..…………… iii Acknowledgments………………………………………………………..…………iv Vita……………………………………………………………………….………… v List of Figures…………………………………………………………..………….. vi Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 1: History and Context…………………...……………………………….. 22 Chapter 2: Pearls of the Deep (1966)………………………………………...……. 53 Chapter 3: The Joke (1968) and All My Good Countrymen (1968)……………...… 105 Chapter 4: The Cremator (1968)………………………………………….………. 140 Chapter 5: Valérie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)………………………….…. 171 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...…….. 198 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..… 205 Appendix A: Film Stills and Photographs………………………………….……… 212 Appendix B: Filmography………………………...……………….………………. 217 vi List of Figures Figure 1. The famous Gottwald-Clementis photograph……………...…………… 44 Figure 2. Mother and the beloved Škoda 430 convertible……….…..……………. 65 Figure 3. Becoming part of the spectacle…………………………………………..67 Figure 4. Journalist regales Singer with stories of his exploits……………………. 73 Figure 5. Singer performs from his repertoire…………………………………….. 75 Figure 6. The opening tableau in House of Joy ……………………...……………. 81 Figure 7. The two insurance agents………..……………………………………… 83 Figure 8. The not-so doubting Thomas…………...……………………………….. 86 Figure 9. Crowds are drawn to the spectacle……………………….………………90 Figure 10. A disorienting edit………………...…………………………………….94 Figure 11. Gaston first glimpses the Gypsy Girl………………………………….. 98 Figure 12. Gaston attempting to measure up……………………………………… 100 Figure 13. The Gypsy Girl explains how marriage works………..………………. 101 Figure 14. Jireš illustrates the broad appeal of communism………………………..110 Figure 15. Alexei forced to read the letter that expels him from the Party…….….. 116 Figure 16. Markéta’s betrayal………………………………………………………125 Figure 17. The village and the church recur often as an establishing shot…………129 Figure 18. Early camaraderie……………………………………………………….130 Figure 19. “It wasn’t you I wanted to beat up.”……………………………………136 vii Figure 20. The Kopfrkingl Family………………………………………………… 146 Figure 21. Karel Teige: Collage No 55 and Collage No 293………………………150 Figure 22. Rudolf Hrušinský……………………………………….………………158 Figure 23. Kopfrkingl’s developing delusion………………………………………163 Figure 24. Kopfrkingl stages his wife’s “suicide” with calm precision…………….165 Figure 25. Valérie’s purity, innocence, and virginity are constantly played up…….184 Figure 26. Spilled wine and wilted daisies…………….………………………….. 187 Figure 27. The martyred Hedvika…………………...…………………………….. 188 Figure 28. Valérie prepared for the stake………………………………………….. 190 Figure 29. Valérie concludes her week…………………...……………………….. 193 viii Introduction The Soviet leader, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), has been credited by the Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatolii Lunacharskii (1875-1933), with the famous observation that, “for us, the cinema is the most important of all the arts.” From the vantage point of almost one hundred years later, one can easily see how his statement – whether he actually said it or not – has reverberated around artistic circles in both the former Soviet Union as well as in its former satellites within the Eastern bloc. For those early Communist filmmakers, the appeal was immediate: the new medium was visual (important in those areas with low literacy rates), it harnessed the technology and modernism so dear to their hearts, it was immutable (no well-meaning but poorly trained proselytizers could garble the message), it was reasonably portable, and – best of all – it drew a crowd (Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin 27-28). As the industry grew and developed, new virtues were discovered: unlike many of the other arts, films could not be made outside of the studios or without studio support, nor could they be distributed and shown outside of those few places equipped to screen them. Once the government assumed control of both, it effectively assumed control of film, in a way that it could never completely control the other arts. No one understood this better than Lenin’s successor, Josef Stalin (1878-1953), whose love of cinema and belief in its ability to shape reality prompted him to “consider[] the control of 1 films to be one of the main goals of the party and state apparatus,” a goal that ultimately “bordered on an obsession” (Shlapentokh 75). In the Eastern bloc, those countries that came willingly or unwillingly to communism in the aftermath of World War II, it is this matter of complete ideological and aesthetic control that became such a crucial fact of life for filmmakers in those studios for roughly fifty years. On the one hand, the state-run studio could be a benevolent patron: funding was not an issue, and films were guaranteed an extensive (if captive) audience. On the other hand, the government so completely controlled who made which films on what topics that artistic freedom was often a challenge, as Stalin’s centralized system of studio control – often with the General Secretary himself acting as final critic and arbiter – became the norm in the communist bloc. In the years that followed Stalin’s death, however, many of the ideological restrictions that had shaped so much of the region’s everyday life – both aesthetic and otherwise – were loosened, but the basic structure of the nationalized, socialist cinema remained. Under such extraordinary circumstances, the question became: what could socialist cinema achieve? And, perhaps more provocatively, what would it look like? The Czechoslovak New Wave, which spanned only a short time (1963-1968), offers the most compelling and the most enduring answer to these questions, and the reason for this lies entirely in the New Wave’s perfect alignment of cultural, political and historical circumstances. As this dissertation will show, the Czechoslovak New Wave could only have been achieved at that time and in that place, although this alignment weaves itself around the more central argument that Czechoslovak cinema – more so than any other art-form – became the medium of cultural discourse, no small assertion for a 2 nation so replete with fine theater, provocative visual art, and socially engaged literature. Cinema’s ascendance stems partly from the nature of the medium – some of the very qualities that Lenin and Stalin instinctively recognized