"Let's go to bed, before you say something REAL.
Let’s go to bed, before you say how you FEEL..."
Influence of the Italian neorealism.
The DEFEATED Realism established by Zhdanov.
New tendencies in Czechoslovakia and Poland. ie. Wajda, Polanski, Passer, Forman.
Cinema Verité in Hungary, ie. Mészáros Márta.
New Film in Yugoslavia.
Raw realism of Krzysztof Kieślowski.
UMBETO D.
Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece follows Umberto D., an elderly pensioner, as he struggles to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic boom. Alone except for his dog, Flike, Umberto strives to maintain his dignity while trying to survive in a city where traditional human kindness seems to have lost out to the forces of modernization.
THE CRANES ARE FLYING
Veronica and Boris are blissfully in love, until the eruption of World War II tears them apart. Boris is sent to the front lines…and then communication stops. Meanwhile, Veronica tries to ward off spiritual numbness while Boris’s draft-dodging cousin makes increasingly forceful overtures. The Cranes Are Flying is a superbly crafted drama, bolstered by stunning cinematography and impassioned performances.
ASHES AND DIAMOND
On the last day of World War Two in a small town somewhere in Poland, Polish exiles of war and the occupying Soviet forces confront the beginning of a new day and a new Poland. In this incendiary environment we find Home Army soldier Maciek Chelmicki, who has been ordered to assassinate an incoming commissar. But a mistake stalls his progress and leads him to Krystyna, a beautiful barmaid who gives him a glimpse of what his life could be. Gorgeously photographed and brilliantly performed, Ashes and Diamonds masterfully interweaves the fate of a nation with that of one man, resulting in one of the most important Polish films of all time.
THE RATS WOKE UP
Velimir Bamberg lives a very lonely life. The only contact he has with the outside world is through the choral society to which he belongs. Bamberg has a sister who is ill. He would like to send her to the seaside, but he can’t afford it, and he doesn’t want to do anything illegal.
TWILIGHT by Feher Gyorgy, based on a screenplay written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. In this grim story, three murders of young girls are committed in a similar manner, and their bodies are all found in the woods. The only suspect, a young man assumed to be a pedophile, commits suicide during the investigation. A policeman becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of this serial killer and he continues to investigate even after he has been taken off the case.
SATANTANGO
Set in a struggling Hungarian agricultural collective, a group of lost souls reeling from the collapse of their Communist utopia face an uncertain future, until the arrival of a charismatic stranger in whom they believe lies their salvation.
RENGETEG
Hungarian director Benedek Fliegauf makes his feature-length debut with Rengeteg (Forest). Shot on digital video, the episodic film is composed of a series of seven different intimate parts book ended by footage of the same people in a large public space. These characters aren’t given an introduction, context, or even character names. Cinematographer Zoltan Lovasi shoots the ensemble cast of non-actors exclusively in close-ups, so the larger situation is never made completely clear. Each segment involves a small group of people in some kind of intense and possibly disturbing conversation.
STORY STYLE RECEPTION
IMPORT/EXPORT
A nurse from the Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason. Astonishing fact of modern society by Ulrich Siedl.
TILVA ROŠ
Bor, Serbia, once the largest copper mine, now just the biggest hole in Europe. Small union protests are going on. Toda and Stefan are best friends, skaters, who spend their first summer after finishing high school. Stefan's going to Belgrade to the University in fall. Toda says he wouldn't apply to the University even if he had the money. They spend time shooting "Jackass-like" videos and hanging out with Dunja, who came back from France for her holidays, and get into a quiet battle for her attention. In that strange relationship of dying friendship and rivalry they try to get ahead of each other. But when small union protest evolves into a huge riot their destructiveness will tie them together.
REALISM IN ROMANIA
Niki Ardelean, colonel în rezerva by Lucian Pintilie (2003).
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu by Cristi Puiu (2005).
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 days by Cristian Mungiu (2007). Palme D’or in Cannes.
Police, Adj. by Corneliu Poromboiu (2009).
REALISM IN TURKEY
Distant, Climates, Three Monkeys, etc by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2002-2008).
Times and Wind by Reha Erdem (2006).
Egg, Milk, Honey by Samih Kaplanoglu (2007-2010).
ENERGY FOR THE WINGS
FREEDOM of the AUTHOR…
Expressing thoughts, inventive style, imitation of life, full judgement on human kind.
FREEDOM of the SPECTATOR…
Feeling similar, or even equal with the author.
Ready (Open) to enjoy, to learn, to be inspired… whatever one will do for a feeling of personal freedom!
PERSPECTIVE OF CINEMA
• Freedom of the creative AUTHOR.
• Law budget of the PRODUCTION, and possibilities of co-production in the region.
• Network of DISTRIBUTION at furious development,
• Movies EVERYWHERE and EVERYTIME…
• Expressing the talent is the most valuable offer at the MARKET today…
Because…
Because, millions of SCREENS are SWITCHED ON every morning, but only a few brilliant IDEAS for a GOOD film story.
O filmovima, knjigama, modernom dobu, ali najviše o filmovima!
28 September 2012
REVOLUTIONIZERS AT WORK, or Rebels of the East European Cinema
Explanation of the term REVOLUTIONIZER.
In context of today’s lectures it will be someone who put some advantage, one who speed up development of the society. Someone do it consciously, deliberately, and someone incidentally, haphazardly. Probably the second one has more chance to succeed, then the first one.
Hamvas Béla (1897-1968), writer, historian, essayist, and one of the most significant rebel of the 20th Century.
Some of his thoughts on literature and arts, and ideas about human society can help in intention to explain the crisis and false cults of modern times.
Literature was the leading criticizer of life, since the beginning of the 19. Century. For the last two hundred years literature have been just another service of marketing and prosperity of highly ranked individuals.
From it's early days, film is the fastest way to reach human’s heart! – as someone used to said.
So, in intent to deal with Hamvas’ opinion – we can get a film as the strong critic of everyday life of modern society, and don’t forget that Miloš Kundera, at the Congres of Czechoslovakian writers in 1971 said that modern cinema had very important role in national literature.
Character of East European Cinema during 60's and 70's will be analyzed in two aspects: stories and styles.
Great film on post-war reconciliation is PASAŽERKA “The Passenger” by Andrzey Munk (1961). A German woman on a ship coming back to Europe notices another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she has been an SS commander in Auschwitz during the War, but she has actually saved a young woman's life. And then starts her horrifying story from the past.
COLD DAYS by Kovacs Andras (1968), based on the novel written by Cseres Tibor. Repentance and remorse of imprisoned Hungarian officers at the aftermath of the three-day killings in Novi Sad in winter 1942.
Very complex story flows parallel in present and past time, the style is simple, and dominant color is white. The walls of the prison are white, faces of imprisoned soldiers are pale, and the river banks where victims were executed are covered by snow. Very theatrical atmosphere, and lot of close-ups, realistic style, without any music..
In Czechoslovakia Jiri Menzl shot CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS (1966), based on Bohumil Hrabal's novel and year earlier Kadar and Klos made THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET (1965). Stories of both films were setled in occupied Czechoslovakia. Both movies won an Oscar in the best forreing language feature category, but another movie is more interesting for us here.
THE JOKE (1969) Jaromil Jireš’s brilliant adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel tells the fragmentary tale of a man expelled from the Communist Party because of a political joke. After “rehabilitation” in the mines and a stint in prison, he hatches a revenge plot against the former friend who betrayed him.
... and in the joke he wrote: "Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!"
In Yugoslavia Aleksandar Saša Petrović finished his film THREE (1965), based on stories written by ex-partisan fighter Antonije Isaković. Miloš is a warrior who faces three death cases. 1st time at the railway station in the Serbian province, 2nd time after he escapes German’s raid, and his commrade did not. 3rd time when he is on a winning side in the War, and need to bring the important decission over the faith of accused young woman.
Unveiling the FORMULA: Complex story + simple style!
Jancso Miklos
In the brutal Civil War which took place, Hungarian volunteers supported the ‘Red’ revolutionaries in a war of attrition against the ‘White’ counter-revolutionaries who were seeking to restore the old Czarist order.
Leftist are shown as a motley, ill-equiped and loosely organized gathering of brave civilians and army deserters, while the Right are always represented by officers, elegant in their frogged uniforms, and indulging their autocratic whims between bouts of killing.
Parajanov
Made in 1964 after a decade spent laboring in socialist realism, Paradjanov's lysergic fever-dream of a movie is a tragic love story set in the Carpathian mountains of the Ukraine. His symbol-laded films, and especially his 1968 masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates, are a designer's gift: a parade of meticulously composed, gorgeously hued graphic images.
ELEMENTS OF NEW FILM
• To increase the latitude for individual and collective artistic expression and to free film from dogmatism and bureaucratic control.
• To promote stylistic experimentation in film form and film language
• To involve film in the expression of contemporary themes, including the right to critique the darker, ironic, alienated, and gloomier side of human, societal, and political existence, and
• To do all of these things within the context and premises of a Marxist-socialist state.
KNIFE IN THE WATER by Roman Polanski. When a young hitchhiker joins a couple on a weekend yacht trip, psychological warfare breaks out as the two men compete for the woman’s attention. A storm forces the small crew below deck, and tension builds to a violent climax.
LOVES OF A BLONDE by Miloš Forman. A factory manager in rural Czechoslovakia bargains with the army to send men to the area, to boost the morale of his young female workers. The army sends reservists, mostly married middle-aged men - and the local beauty Andula, spurns those bold enough to try to win her, for the jazz pianist, newly come from Prague to perform. He seduces her and impresses her, telling her "most women are round, like guitars but you are a guitar by Picasso". Staying the night with him causes a lecture on a young woman's honor at her hostel so she throws over her other suitors and makes her way to Prague to find the young man. His protective Mamma and weary Pappa are not pleased when she arrives on the doorstep with her suitcase.
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator by Dušan Makavejev. After many adventures, young female switchboard operator Izabela starts a love relationship with a serious young man Meho Bušatlija. But while he's away on business, she gets lonely and succumbs to her colleague's passes. When the boyfriend returns, he gets into fight with his pregnant girl that ends up tragically. Makavejev made brilliant mixture of documentary shots with fiction, where he used parts of lectures about criminal acts, disinfection, cooking, etc.
LOVE (Szerelem) by Makk Karoly, based on Dery Tibor short story (1971).
The wife of a political prisoner tends to her mother-in-law and keeps from the old woman the truth about her son, whom she believes is in New York making a film.
Style of the movie is astonishing in it’s dynamic, with plenty short shots, a lot of them as old photographs. This is powerful way to express reminiscence from the life of old lady.
Witness by Bacso Peter
Everybody knows Pelikan Jozsef, the dike keeper who accidentally burnt his own house because of hard thinking on the enigma: "Suspicious things are those that are not suspicious."
NEW FILM AND REAL REALITY
In its initial development, new film was practically synonymous with personal films, films that claimed the right to subjective interpretation of the lives of individuals and society, the right to open metaphors, leaving room for viewers to think and feel for themselves.
Who’s Singin' Over There? By Slobodan Šijan. On April 5, 1941, a date Serbs will recognize, men on a country road board Krstic’s bus for Belgrade: two Gypsies who occasionally sing about misery, an aging war vet, a Nazi sympathizer, a dapper singer, a consumptive, and a man with a shotgun. Krstic is a world-weary cynic, out for a buck; the driver is his son, the simple, cheerful Misko. En route they pick up a priest and young newlyweds going to the seaside. Along the way, mis-adventure strikes: a flat tire, a rickety bridge, a farmer who’s plowed the road, a funeral, two feuding families, an army detail, and a lost wallet slow the bus and expose rifts among the travelers. On April 6, amid rumors of war, they reach Belgrade…
Narcisus and Psyche was the largest-scale Hungarian production of its era. This epic based on Sándor Weöres's poetic work Psyché is visual journey in which the spectator finds images of surprising originality and beauty.
Body Gabor says that he has tried to make Narcissus and Psyche a myth, a myth of antagonism born of European culture, according to which men and women can only find their physical and intellectual liberty at the expense of others.
“And in spite of 35 years of socialism, my generation is still living in this antagonism."
BLIND CHANCE by Krzystof Kieslowsky. Twenty-something Witek is desperately trying to catch a train leaving the station. Employing a narrative style later aped by Tom Tykwer in Run Lola Run, the three changing outcomes of his chase begin three different stories of his life: oppositionist, activist in a socialist organisation, and physician shunning politics.
CUTTING IT SHORT by Jiri Menzel. The film is an evocation of the childhood memories of Bohumil Hrabal in his provincial town of Nymburk, dominated by the local brewery. The main actors of the film, uncle Pepin and Maryška, are based on real family members of Hrabal: Maryška on his mother and uncle Pepin on his real uncle, who came to stay two weeks in the town but remained for four years. His spontaneous stories influenced a lot Hrabal's literary work.
In context of today’s lectures it will be someone who put some advantage, one who speed up development of the society. Someone do it consciously, deliberately, and someone incidentally, haphazardly. Probably the second one has more chance to succeed, then the first one.
Hamvas Béla (1897-1968), writer, historian, essayist, and one of the most significant rebel of the 20th Century.
Some of his thoughts on literature and arts, and ideas about human society can help in intention to explain the crisis and false cults of modern times.
Literature was the leading criticizer of life, since the beginning of the 19. Century. For the last two hundred years literature have been just another service of marketing and prosperity of highly ranked individuals.
From it's early days, film is the fastest way to reach human’s heart! – as someone used to said.
So, in intent to deal with Hamvas’ opinion – we can get a film as the strong critic of everyday life of modern society, and don’t forget that Miloš Kundera, at the Congres of Czechoslovakian writers in 1971 said that modern cinema had very important role in national literature.
Character of East European Cinema during 60's and 70's will be analyzed in two aspects: stories and styles.
Great film on post-war reconciliation is PASAŽERKA “The Passenger” by Andrzey Munk (1961). A German woman on a ship coming back to Europe notices another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she has been an SS commander in Auschwitz during the War, but she has actually saved a young woman's life. And then starts her horrifying story from the past.
COLD DAYS by Kovacs Andras (1968), based on the novel written by Cseres Tibor. Repentance and remorse of imprisoned Hungarian officers at the aftermath of the three-day killings in Novi Sad in winter 1942.
Very complex story flows parallel in present and past time, the style is simple, and dominant color is white. The walls of the prison are white, faces of imprisoned soldiers are pale, and the river banks where victims were executed are covered by snow. Very theatrical atmosphere, and lot of close-ups, realistic style, without any music..
In Czechoslovakia Jiri Menzl shot CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS (1966), based on Bohumil Hrabal's novel and year earlier Kadar and Klos made THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET (1965). Stories of both films were setled in occupied Czechoslovakia. Both movies won an Oscar in the best forreing language feature category, but another movie is more interesting for us here.
THE JOKE (1969) Jaromil Jireš’s brilliant adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel tells the fragmentary tale of a man expelled from the Communist Party because of a political joke. After “rehabilitation” in the mines and a stint in prison, he hatches a revenge plot against the former friend who betrayed him.
... and in the joke he wrote: "Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!"
In Yugoslavia Aleksandar Saša Petrović finished his film THREE (1965), based on stories written by ex-partisan fighter Antonije Isaković. Miloš is a warrior who faces three death cases. 1st time at the railway station in the Serbian province, 2nd time after he escapes German’s raid, and his commrade did not. 3rd time when he is on a winning side in the War, and need to bring the important decission over the faith of accused young woman.
Unveiling the FORMULA: Complex story + simple style!
Jancso Miklos
In the brutal Civil War which took place, Hungarian volunteers supported the ‘Red’ revolutionaries in a war of attrition against the ‘White’ counter-revolutionaries who were seeking to restore the old Czarist order.
Leftist are shown as a motley, ill-equiped and loosely organized gathering of brave civilians and army deserters, while the Right are always represented by officers, elegant in their frogged uniforms, and indulging their autocratic whims between bouts of killing.
Parajanov
Made in 1964 after a decade spent laboring in socialist realism, Paradjanov's lysergic fever-dream of a movie is a tragic love story set in the Carpathian mountains of the Ukraine. His symbol-laded films, and especially his 1968 masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates, are a designer's gift: a parade of meticulously composed, gorgeously hued graphic images.
ELEMENTS OF NEW FILM
• To increase the latitude for individual and collective artistic expression and to free film from dogmatism and bureaucratic control.
• To promote stylistic experimentation in film form and film language
• To involve film in the expression of contemporary themes, including the right to critique the darker, ironic, alienated, and gloomier side of human, societal, and political existence, and
• To do all of these things within the context and premises of a Marxist-socialist state.
KNIFE IN THE WATER by Roman Polanski. When a young hitchhiker joins a couple on a weekend yacht trip, psychological warfare breaks out as the two men compete for the woman’s attention. A storm forces the small crew below deck, and tension builds to a violent climax.
LOVES OF A BLONDE by Miloš Forman. A factory manager in rural Czechoslovakia bargains with the army to send men to the area, to boost the morale of his young female workers. The army sends reservists, mostly married middle-aged men - and the local beauty Andula, spurns those bold enough to try to win her, for the jazz pianist, newly come from Prague to perform. He seduces her and impresses her, telling her "most women are round, like guitars but you are a guitar by Picasso". Staying the night with him causes a lecture on a young woman's honor at her hostel so she throws over her other suitors and makes her way to Prague to find the young man. His protective Mamma and weary Pappa are not pleased when she arrives on the doorstep with her suitcase.
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator by Dušan Makavejev. After many adventures, young female switchboard operator Izabela starts a love relationship with a serious young man Meho Bušatlija. But while he's away on business, she gets lonely and succumbs to her colleague's passes. When the boyfriend returns, he gets into fight with his pregnant girl that ends up tragically. Makavejev made brilliant mixture of documentary shots with fiction, where he used parts of lectures about criminal acts, disinfection, cooking, etc.
LOVE (Szerelem) by Makk Karoly, based on Dery Tibor short story (1971).
The wife of a political prisoner tends to her mother-in-law and keeps from the old woman the truth about her son, whom she believes is in New York making a film.
Style of the movie is astonishing in it’s dynamic, with plenty short shots, a lot of them as old photographs. This is powerful way to express reminiscence from the life of old lady.
Witness by Bacso Peter
Everybody knows Pelikan Jozsef, the dike keeper who accidentally burnt his own house because of hard thinking on the enigma: "Suspicious things are those that are not suspicious."
NEW FILM AND REAL REALITY
In its initial development, new film was practically synonymous with personal films, films that claimed the right to subjective interpretation of the lives of individuals and society, the right to open metaphors, leaving room for viewers to think and feel for themselves.
Who’s Singin' Over There? By Slobodan Šijan. On April 5, 1941, a date Serbs will recognize, men on a country road board Krstic’s bus for Belgrade: two Gypsies who occasionally sing about misery, an aging war vet, a Nazi sympathizer, a dapper singer, a consumptive, and a man with a shotgun. Krstic is a world-weary cynic, out for a buck; the driver is his son, the simple, cheerful Misko. En route they pick up a priest and young newlyweds going to the seaside. Along the way, mis-adventure strikes: a flat tire, a rickety bridge, a farmer who’s plowed the road, a funeral, two feuding families, an army detail, and a lost wallet slow the bus and expose rifts among the travelers. On April 6, amid rumors of war, they reach Belgrade…
Narcisus and Psyche was the largest-scale Hungarian production of its era. This epic based on Sándor Weöres's poetic work Psyché is visual journey in which the spectator finds images of surprising originality and beauty.
Body Gabor says that he has tried to make Narcissus and Psyche a myth, a myth of antagonism born of European culture, according to which men and women can only find their physical and intellectual liberty at the expense of others.
“And in spite of 35 years of socialism, my generation is still living in this antagonism."
BLIND CHANCE by Krzystof Kieslowsky. Twenty-something Witek is desperately trying to catch a train leaving the station. Employing a narrative style later aped by Tom Tykwer in Run Lola Run, the three changing outcomes of his chase begin three different stories of his life: oppositionist, activist in a socialist organisation, and physician shunning politics.
CUTTING IT SHORT by Jiri Menzel. The film is an evocation of the childhood memories of Bohumil Hrabal in his provincial town of Nymburk, dominated by the local brewery. The main actors of the film, uncle Pepin and Maryška, are based on real family members of Hrabal: Maryška on his mother and uncle Pepin on his real uncle, who came to stay two weeks in the town but remained for four years. His spontaneous stories influenced a lot Hrabal's literary work.
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