Table Of ContentJosef
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
