Book: Avant-Garde To New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism And The Sixties
Release date: 14th March 2011
Author: Jonathan L. Owen
Publisher: Berghahn
Although less famous than the French Nouvelle Vague, the cinema of the Czechoslovak New Wave boasts some of the most attractive and intelligent films produced anywhere in 1960s Europe. Jonathan L. Owen’s Avant-Garde To New Wave explores the influence of the avant-garde upon the Czechoslovak New Wave and the political implications of that influence.
Tracing the influence of the avant-garde in art and literature throughout the 20th century, Owen’s book examines the films of the Czechoslovak New Wave within the socio-political context of 1960s Czechoslovakia.
Divided into seven chapters, the first chapter provides an overview of the social and cultural context of the period, before taking a more in-depth analysis of some of the key films of the movement: Pavel Juráček’s Josef Kilián (1963) and A Case For The Young Hangman (1969), Jiří Menzel’s Closely Observed Trains (1966), Věra Chytilová’s Daisies (1966), Juraj Jakubisko’s The Deserter And The Nomads (1968) and Birds, Orphans And Fools (1969), Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders (1970), and Jan Švankmajer’s short films…
It is difficult to make a generalisation about the Czechoslovak New Wave; there was no manifesto or theoretical writings underpinning the group - which was never ever a formal one in any case - and it’s hard to pin the movement down to a particular style. The main thing the Czechoslovak filmmakers of the ‘60s shared in common was that their films had been shaped by the cultural and political reforms the country had undergone since 1962. Known as ‘the Golden Age’ of Czechoslovak cinema, directors enjoyed state support of the film industry, a receptive audience both home and abroad (especially in the US, where two Czech films gained academy awards in 1966), and relative artistic freedom. The films of the Czechoslovak New Wave formed a movement, then, not because they shared stylistic concerns, but rather because they were a response to the historical and political reality of 1960s Czechoslovakia. The culmination of this period came during the Prague Spring of 1968 when Czechoslovakia’s leader Alexander Dubcek declared the emergence of “socialism with a human face.” By the summer of 1968, though, it was all over: the Soviets rolled into Prague, unseated Dubcek and imposed the most draconian social and political regulations since the Stalin era, effectively ending the Czechoslovak New Wave.
With the exception of Menzel’s film, Owen is less interested in more obviously political New Wave films - works which drew on real historical events such as the Holocaust in Elmar Klos and Ján Kádar's The Shop On Main Street (1965), or post-WWII Czech-German tension in František Vláčil’s Adelheid (1969) - and more concerned with those films which were politicised through their engagement with avant-garde traditions. Particular attention is given to the Surrealism movement, synonymous with the country ever since André Breton first identified the capital Prague as “the magical capital of old Europe” and “one of those cities that electively pin down poetic thought,” leading to the founding of a Czech Surrealist group.
Of the directors studied in the book, only Švankmajer actually belonged to the group, but Owen argues convincingly that all the directors were shaped by the same undercurrent of Surrealist/avant-garde tradition. Some of the most interesting chapters cover the influence of Kafka on Juráček’s Josef Kilián, the blending of avant-garde with folk tradition in the films of Jakubisko, and the relationship between Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week Of Wonders and the bohemian surrealism of Vitězslav Nezval’s source novel.
The more abstract films associated with the movement were accused by (mainly Western) critics and filmmakers of being mystifying, exemplified in Jean-Luc Godard's censure of Vera Chytilova's Daisies as apolitical and cartoonish, even bourgeois. Yet, to imply that the films are apolitical is to fail to take into account the context of the Czechoslovak state and socialist realist aesthetics. Socialist realism was predominantly a Stalin-era aesthetic that employed a highly figurative method of realist depiction, and had been adopted as a prevalent aesthetic in Czechoslovakia following World War II. Czechoslovakia had basically been rendered a Soviet satellite state following the war and would remain so until the relinquishing of Soviet control and an impulse toward self-determination in the early 1960s.
In the 1960s, Czechoslovak art, film, and literature were working against this tradition, while also emerging from the same notion that propelled socialist realism: the notion that art was immediate and political. This context meant that art appearing to be devoid of political content (in the West) only appeared so because, unlike in the West, art itself was intrinsically politicised in its Eastern European context. It is difficult for Western audiences to fully grasp this element and the book’s main achievement is in placing the works in a comprehensible social and cultural background, describing the milieu and ideas which helped shape the works. Owen also convincingly argues that the avant-garde was in itself political, in that it offered a different viewpoint and interpretation of reality in opposition to state-defined realism. Thus, the feminism of Chytilova’s Daisies, the Otherness of Jakubisko’s films, the deviant sexuality of Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week Of Wonders all offered alternative interpretations of reality at odds with that put forward by the powers that be.
If there are some shortcomings in Owen’s book, it would be that there isn’t much sense of how the films feel. The Czechoslovak New Wave could be surprisingly moving and involving on a more visceral and emotional level, and Owen’s focus on the intellectual import of the films might give the impression Czechoslovakian cinema was more head than heart. Neither can the book be recommended to those looking for a way into the Czechoslovak New Wave; its focus being specifically on those films Owen feels best illustrate his main thesis. The overall tone - not to mention the £50 price tag - suggests Avant-Garde To New Wave isn’t really intended for a general readership, and it’s probably aimed at dedicated students of film. Many of these films have only recently been reissued through BFI or Second Run (whose design coincidently or otherwise is mirrored in this book’s cover), and, to be frank, you could probably buy most of the films covered here for the price of the book itself. That said, Avant-Garde To New Wave is a welcome addition to a far from overcrowded field of study.
Meticulously researched and filled with interesting insights, Avant-Garde To New Wave is an impressive work of film scholarship. The definitive book on the subject, for the time being, remains Peter Hames’s The Czechoslovak New Wave; but if you already have an interest in this corner of world cinema and wish to delve deeper into the fascinating world of Czechoslovak film then Owen’s book comes recommended. GJK
No comments:
Post a Comment