Army Film and the Avant Garde

Alice Lovejoy

Description

Honorable Mention, 2016 USC Prize in Literary and Cultural Studies

Co-winner, 2017 MLA Scaglione Prize in Slavic Languages and Literatures

During the 1968 Prague Spring and the Soviet-led invasion and occupation that followed, Czechoslovakia's Army Film studio was responsible for some of the most politically subversive and aesthetically innovative films of the period. Although the studio is remembered primarily as a producer of propaganda and training films, some notable New Wave directors began their careers there, making films that considerably enrich the history of that movement. Alice Lovejoy examines the institutional and governmental roots of postwar Czechoslovak cinema and provides evidence that links the Army Film studio to Czechoslovakia's art cinema. By tracing the studio's unique institutional dimensions and production culture, Lovejoy explores the ways in which the "military avant-garde" engaged in dialogue with a range of global film practices and cultures. (The print version of the book includes a DVD featuring 16 short films produced by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense. The additional media files are not available on the eBook.)

Aknowledgements
Note on Translation
Introduction
1. A Deep and Fruitful Tradition: Jiří Jeníček, The Film Group, and Cinema Culture of the 1930s
2. All of Film is an Experiment: Postwar Documentary, Postwar Reconstruction
3. The Crooked Mirror: Pedagogy and Art in Army Instructional Films
4. Every Young Man: Reinventing Army Film
5. A Military Avant Garde: Documentary and the Prague Spring
Coda
Appendix: Companion DVD Contents
Filmography
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Media Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Película fotográfica
• Communism
• Czechoslovak New Wave
• History of film
• Documentary film
• Communisme
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 29 décembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780253014931
• Langue: English

Extrait

ARMY FILM AND THE AVANT GARDE

ARMY FILM and the Avant Garde
CINEMA AND EXPERIMENT IN THE CZECHOSLOVAK MILITARY
ALICE LOVEJOY
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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Herman B Wells Library 350
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Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
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2015 by Alice Lovejoy
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 and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lovejoy, Alice.
Army film and the avant garde : cinema and experiment in the Czechoslovak military / Alice Lovejoy.
pages cm
Based on the author s dissertation (doctoral)-Yale University, 2009.
Issued with a DVD featuring 13 short films produced by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01488-7 (pb : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01483-2 (cl : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01493-1 (eb) 1. Experimental films-Czechoslovakia-History-20th century. 2. eskoslovensk arm dn film. 3. Documentary films-Czechoslovakia-History-20th century. I. Title.
PN1993.5.C9L68 2014
791.43 61109437-dc23
2014022233
1 2 3 4 5 20 19 18 17 16 15
In memory of my father, David Beaton Lovejoy.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation
Introduction
1. A Deep and Fruitful Tradition: Ji Jen ek, the Film Group, and Cinema Culture of the 1930s
2. All of Film Is an Experiment: Army Documentary, Postwar Reconstruction, and Building Socialism
3. The Crooked Mirror: Pedagogy and Art in Army Instructional Films
4. Every Young Man: Reinventing Army Film
5. A Military Avant Garde: Documentary and the Prague Spring
Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS PROJECT has taken shape over more than a decade, across two continents. In the process, I have benefited from the support, generosity, and wisdom of numerous people.
It is in many ways marked by its beginnings in Yale University s Film Studies Program. I can think of no more dynamic and rigorous environment for the study of cinema and cultural history, at the heart of which were always films themselves. I am grateful to Dudley Andrew, Katerina Clark, John MacKay, and Charles Musser for their generous, imaginative intellectual guidance and for the models of scholarship that they continue to provide. I thank Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder for expertly shaping the project s foundations in East Central European history and Pericles Lewis for thoughtful feedback in its early stages. Over the course of this project, I was privileged to work with Peter Demetz, who generously offered his unparalleled perspective on the story it tells. I owe my deepest debt of gratitude to Katie Trumpener for her unwavering faith in the project, insightful readings and critiques, the towering example of her own work, and the wide-ranging conversations that are an ongoing source of inspiration.
The Film and Media Studies Program at Colgate University and the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature and Moving Image Studies program at the University of Minnesota provided supportive environments in which to revise the manuscript. In particular, I thank my Minnesota colleagues John Archer, Hisham Bizri, Cesare Casarino, Gary B. Cohen, Keya Ganguly, Eva Hudecov , Rembert H ser, Richard Leppert, Jason McGrath, Verena Mund, Paula Rabinowitz, Matthias Rothe, and Christophe Wall-Romana for comments and advice from numerous disciplinary and linguistic perspectives, and the CSCL staff, especially Barbara Lehnhoff, Claire Anderson, and Kate Gallagher, for indispensable logistical expertise. John Mowitt deserves special thanks for steadily encouraging me to make this project s stakes ever clearer.
I could not have completed this book without my colleagues and friends in cinema and media studies and in East Central European culture and history, who have helped me understand its intersection with numerous other stories and disciplines. Rossen Djagalov, Krista Hegburg, Joshua Malitsky, Lisa Peschel, and Masha Salazkina have been invaluable readers and interlocutors. Bradley F. Abrams, Rachel Applebaum, Luca Caminati, Shawn Clybor, Sarah Cramsey, Kevin B. Johnson, James Krapfl, Jessie Labov, Jind ich Toman, Cristina Vatulescu, Daniel Vojt ch, Ond ej Vojt chovsk , Tara Zahra, and Kimberly Zarecor generously shared knowledge, references, and material. Stimulating conversations with Haidee Wasson helped me sharpen and refine the book s arguments. In Prague and Brno, some of the finest film and media historians I have met-Jind i ka Bl hov , Lucie es lkov , Ivan Klime , Pavel Skopal, and Petr Szczepanik-offered incisive feedback and discussed the finer points of postwar media history, while V t Jane ek and Pavel Jech made the Film Faculty of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) an institutional home-away-from-home. It is to Martin voma that I owe my knowledge of Army Film s existence. And in New Haven, Prague, Minneapolis, Montr al, Boston, and beyond, Laura Bohn, Susan Burch, Michael Cramer, Daniel Feldman, Elan Fessler, David Greenberg, Zden k and Hedvika Hol ch, Maryhope Howland, Noor Jehan Johnson, Casey Riley, Brangwen Stone, and Kimberly Strozewski, among others, provided good incentive to leave the archives and libraries.
In the project s later stages, it benefited greatly from the insight of scholars whose influence is legible throughout it: Nata a urovi ov , Tom Gunning, Anik Imre, and Nancy M. Wingfield, all of whom read the manuscript in its entirety. My thanks in particular to Nata a for her expert translations and for seeing the story this book tells with crystal clarity.
A series of remarkable films was the impetus for this project, and I am grateful to Tom Gunning (University of Chicago), Andrea Slov kov (the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival), Dan Streible (the Orphan Film Symposium), and Yale University s 1968 conference for facilitating their presentation. The Czech Studies Workshop and conferences and talks organized by Muriel Blaive (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Public Spheres), Christiane Brenner (Collegium Carolinum), Nata a urovi ov (University of Iowa), and Irena Grudzi ska Gross and Andrzej Tymowski (Princeton University) offered challenging and lively debate. Needless to say, any shortcomings in this book are my own responsibility.
This project would not exist without archives and libraries. I thank the superb staff at the Czech Republic s National Archive (N rodn archiv), National Film Archive (N rodn filmov archiv), National Library (N rodn knihovna), Military History Institute (Vojensk historick stav), and Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive (Archiv Ministerstva Zahrani n ch v c ); the British Film Institute, Special Collections; the British Library; and the University of Minnesota Libraries for helping me locate material. The National Film Archive (NFA) and Military History Institute, where I conducted the majority of my research, deserve particular thanks. At the former, I am indebted to Michal Bregant, who first opened the doors to research on Army Film and has remained a stalwart ally. Vladim r Op la wisely selected the first Army films I saw. Jarka Fikejzov and Eva Pavl kov uncovered essential resources, while Iwona Lyko provided invaluable assistance. Many of the images in this book are reproduced courtesy of the NFA. I am also grateful to the Military History Institute for providing me with access to films, which served as critical tools in my research and from which some of the images in this book were sourced. The Institute s archival staff, especially Alena Hrn ov and Zuzana and Marcela Pivcov , provided a congenial space in which to work. At its film archive, David ern and Milan Hrub graciously endured my presence in their office for weeks at a time, locating and explaining countless films, while V clav midrkal shared information and resources.
It would also not exist without the filmmakers who generously agreed to be interviewed: Rudolf Adler, Ivan Bala a, Alois Fi rek, Ladislav Helge, Karel Hlo ek, Vojt ch Jasn , Jarom r Kallista, Rudolf Krej k, Ji Krob, Jan Schmidt, Juraj ajmovi , and Karel Vachek. In particular, I thank Anton n Liehm for an e-mail confirming that I was on the right track, Jarom r Kallista for the timely reminder that it is in imperfection that stories become more believable, and Karel Vachek, with whom it all began. It is with a sense of loss that I acknowledge the brilliant cinematographer Juraj ajmovi , who did not live to see this book s completion.
I am grateful to the programs and institutions that generously supported my research: the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and International Security Studies at Yale University; the Institute of International Education Fulbright Program; the Fulbright-Hays Program; the Fulbright Commission of the Czech Republic (especially Hana Ripkov and Hana Rambouskov ); the American Council of Learned Societies; the Mc Knight Foundation; and the University of Minnesota s Center for A