Josef Skvorecky PN 1993.5 srsonal history of the Czech cinema . C9 S513 1971 NUNC COGNOSCO EX PARTE Q*y TRENT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PRESENTED BY JIM FORRESTER All the Bright Young Men and Women A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE CZECH CINEMA S N\ 1 Peter Martin Associates Ltd. In Association with ‘Take One’ Magazine All the Bright Young Men and Women A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE CZECH CINEMA Josef Skvorecky Translated by Michael Schonberg Canadian Shared Cataloguing in Publication Data Škvorecký, Josef. e All the bright young men and women : a personal history of the Czech cinema / Josef Skvorecky; translated by Michael Schonberg. - (Take one film book series; 1) 1. Moving-pictures — Czechoslovak Republic — History. 1. Title. II. Series. PN 1993.5.C9S513 1975 791.43’09437 1SBN:0-B8778-110-1 Translated and published with the assistance of the Province of Ontario Council for the Arts and the Canada Council. We would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for stills and information: Barrandov Film Studios, Canadian Film Institute, Pat Harris, International Film Distributors, Seth Willenson, New Line Cinema, New Cinema of Canada, Kent Carroll, Grove Press Films, r. Jerry Breicha, CBC Picture Service, Mrs. Olga Dimitrov, Forman-Crown- Hausman Productions, Mrs. Marie Haas, Muky, Mr. Antonin Prazak, Mr. Alfred Radok, Mr. George Voskovec, Mr. Závis Zeman, Film Canada, United Artists, and several people in Czechoslovakia whose names we thought better to withhold for reasons only too obvious. © 1971 Josef Skvorecky ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, electro¬ static copying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing trom the publisher, except tor the quotation of passages by a reviewer in print or through the electronic mass media. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-174568 ISBN: 0-88778-110-1 Printed in Canada by John Deyell Limited Designed by Pat Dacey, assisted by Susan Fothergill The Take One Film Book Series is published by Peter Martin Associates Limited, 35 Britain Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 1R7, in association with Take One magazine, Post Office Box 1778, Station B, Montreal 2, Quebec. General Editors: Peter Lebensold Joe Medjuck Acknowledgement This book is a product of nostalgia: for the country which I left when others entered, and for the friends I had there who have made so many fine films, sometimes due to, and sometimes in spite of, the local conditions. It began in a course I gave at the University of Toronto in 1969-70. Then, Joe Medjuck of Innis College asked me to write an article for Take One; after which he and Peter Leben- sold decided to begin their film book series with a book on the Czech New Wave, and Peter Martin liked the idea. So I wrote the book, in the hope that it might help a little to keep the memory of certain things alive, in this fast forgetting world. It is not a scholarly work, just a personal remembrance, and therefore I have not referred to sources. Nevertheless, I would like to thank all those brilliant, and often courageous, Czech film critics and historians without whose work, as it appeared in the sixties in Filmové Noviny weekly, in Film & Doba magazine and elsewhere, the historical sections of this book could not have been written, and whose analyses helped me greatly to see many things I would not have otherwise understood. My thanks go also to Dr. C. T. Bissell, President of the University of Toronto and to the Board of Governors of that University, whose understanding enabled me to write this book during my year as writer in residence. Josef Skvorecky Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT/v 1/GRANDFATHERS AND FATHERS/1 2/THE FATHERS-THEIR SINS AND THEIR SONS/28 3/A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTISTS AS YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN/67 4/A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTISTS AS MIDDLE-AGED MEN/216 5/THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME/241 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF CZECH FEATURE FILMS/ 256 INDEX/266 Foreword to the Second Edition Very few tilms of artistic interest have been made in the Barrandov studios since this book was completed in early 1972. The swan song of the New Wave was Vit Olmer’s debut with a story about university students, appropriately titles Well, Good-Bye... (Takteahoj..., 1971). In 1973 an absolute majority of the films mentioned in this volume were blacklisted and withdrawn from public showing. Radok, Forman, Passer, Kadár and Jasný have remained in exile; to them has been added Jiří Weiss and, for the time being, Jan Němec, who was shipped out of the country as an incorrigible in 1974. Of those who remain Schorm, Juráček, Schmidt, Chytilová and Krumbachová had not been permitted to make any new films—the two women film makers were even pre¬ vented from attending the Women’s Film Festival in Toronto in 1973, where they had been invited to come by the organizers of the event. The rest of the New Wave directors have been allowed to make Soviet- bloc equivalents of Hollywood entertainment (TVin ZhrMce-Papoušek; 7?o<ico-Má?a), escapist adventure (The Man from London-Bočan), children’s films (The Legend of the Silver Fir-V láčil), fantasy based on the safely-dead-Soviet-author-Grin’s work(Morgiana-Wexz), and, in most cases, to take the traditional retreat (see pages 36-40) into the ideologi¬ cally non-controversial past ( . . . and say Hello to the Swallows-YaeV, The Days of Treason-Vávra). These films of the Societ occupation era are, as a rule, examples of well-polished craftsmanship, devoid, how¬ ever, of any of the social significance and innovation in form of the New Wave classics. Jiří Menzel of Closely Watched Trains renown was even forced by Mr. Hrbas (see footnote on page 197) to undergo “self- criticism” for his past sins, and commissioned to produce a socialist- realist spectacle about the building of a dam, originally entitled Knee- High in the Mud, but after censorial deliberation renamed Gold at the Bottom (the studio workers’nickname for this spectacle was Two Million Dollars Worth of S_t). Czech cinema reached its lowest depths in 1974 with Steklý’s Hippopotamus, an inept satire on the year 1968 which—to empty theatres—pokes fun at the dead Communist leader and Alexander Dubiek’s closest ally Josef Smrkovský. Smrkovský, ironically, was the man who, in 1945, prevented General Patton from liberating Prague, and thus saved it for the Russians. The teaching staff of the Film Academy has been purged of all such undesirables as Evald Schorm or Milan Kunders, and no interesting graduates have appeared. Which, under the circumstances, is by no means proof that there are none. J.S. Toronto, January, 1975. To Kathryn who loves to watch the late late show