Czech Cinema After Revolution

Time: Monday, 15.50 – 19.05

(Every Two Weeks: 8.10, 22.10., 5.11., 19. 11., 3.12., 17.12)

Lecturer: Dr. Jindřiška Bláhová

Module Description

Combining lecturettes, screenings, and discussions, this course focuses on Czech cinema culture after 1989. The course does so by approaching key cinematic trends (political cinema, quirky cinema), key directors (Věra Chytilová, Jan Švankmajer, Jan Svěrák), and important topics such as nostalgia, national identity, authorship, and globalization. Students will be invited to analyze exemplary films in relation to the social, political, cultural, and film-industrial conditions shaping their production, content, and reception. In so doing, the course also invites students to consider a range of debates structuring understandings of cinema in the Czech Republic, including notions of national cinema, transformation, and memory.

NB. Reading and applying mandatory texts is of the same importance for the class as analyzing films.

All films include English-language subtitlesand are subject to change.

Upon successful completion of this course students will:
In a general sense, this course aims to enrich students analytical, critical, and interpretation skills, by demonstrating an informed understanding of:
- Key historical aspects of cinema culture in the Czech Republic
- Important industrial and aesthetic dimensions of cinema in the Czech Republic
- Style and work of pivotal filmmakers
- Debates about national cinema, national identity, popular cinema and cinema and politics
- The position of Czech cinema within the context of global cinema

Assessment Components
This course is graded on three papers and participation. For papers One and Two, students will choose from two questions, for paper Three one question will be given. Guidelines on each prompt will be issued when students are expected to turn their attention to the assessment in question.

Each Paper – 1500 words: 25%
Participation: 25%

Submission deadlines:
Paper One (Due Thursday November 1^st8pm CET)
Paper Two (Due Thursday, November 29^th, 8pm CET)
Paper Three (Due Thursday, December 27^th, 8pm CET)

Penalties for Late Submission of Work
Up to 24 hours after the due date - 5 marks out of 100 deducted 
Between 24 and 48 after the due to date - 10 marks out of 100 deducted
Between 48 and 72 hours after the due date - 15 marks out of 100 deducted
Between 72 and 96 hours after the due date - 20 marks out of 100 deducted
More than 96 hours after due date - all marks deducted

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is defined as follows:

Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as though it were one’s own.
More specifically plagiarism is to present as one’s own a sequence of words
quoted without quotation marks from another writer, a paraphrased passage
from another writer’s work; facts or ideas gathered, organized and reported
by someone else, orally and/or in writing. Since plagiarism is a matter of fact,
¨not of the student’s intention, it is crucial that acknowledgment of the sources
be accurate and complete. Even where there is no conscious intention to deceive,
the failure to make appropriate acknowledgment constitutes plagiarism.

Also specified is following:

“presenting an oral report drawn without attribution from other sources
(oral or written), writing a paragraph which, despite being in different words,
expresses someone else’s idea without a reference to the source of the idea, or
submitting essentially the same paper in two different courses (unless both
teachers have given their permission in advance).

Receiving help on a take-home examination or quiz is also cheating – and so
is giving that help – unless expressly permitted by the teacher (as in collaborative projects). While all this looks like a lot to remember, all you need to do is give credit where
it is due, take credit only for original ideas, and ask your teacher or advisor when
in doubt.”

“Penalties for plagiarism range from failure for a paper, failure for the course
or dismissal from the university.”

Classroom Etiquette:
Students are expected to arrive on time. One or two short breaks will be given. Students are expected to read the assigned essays before each session and bring hardcopies of the readings with them to the session. All students will be expected to contribute to seminars. Discussion is highly encouraged. Cell phones and similar devices must be switched off. There is no cell phones or other electronic devices policy in the classroom.

Readings:

Studentsare required to read readings assignedfor individual sessions. Additional readings are recommended for some of the sessions. Students do not have to read them in preparation for the session. They are suggested for further reading around the topic if a student wants to do so. Both assigned and recommended readings are available through the SIS.

Useful on-line sources
www.kinoeye.org
www.filmcenter.cz
www.ce-review.org

Supplemental Texts (Recommended Readings):

Melis Behlil, Hollywood is Everywhere. Global Directors in the Blockbuster Era. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2016.

Daniel J.Goulding [ed.]: Post New Wave Cinema in The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1989.

Peter Hames, Czech and Slovak Cinema, Theme and Tradition.Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

Dina Iordanova, Cinema of the Other Europe. The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film. Wallflower Press, London, 2003.

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SCHEDULE

Session 1: Introduction: The Outlines of Post-Socialist Cinema

This session offers an overview of the Czech film industry, culture, and society; particular attention will be paid to the transformation after 1989, new structures of the film industry, emerging film trends, and creative talent. A periodization of Czech film history after the Velvet Revolution is offered as a foundation for following sessions. In doing so, it offers a background for the following sessions and posits some questions that will be explored by individual case studies.

Reading: Peter Hames, The Velvet Transformation, 1997, pp. 309–321.

Screening: Rebelové(The Rebels, Filip Renč, 2001)

Session 2: Cinema and Representation of Communist Past

This session focuses on issues of national history and identity in the post-communist era Czech cinema and explores various modes of representations of Communist past.

Reading:Veronika Pehe: “The Colors of Socialism: Visual Nostalgia and Retro Aesthetics in Czech Film and Television”, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 57, No.3-4 (2015), pp. 239–253.

Second Reading TBC.

Screenings:Pelíšky(Cozy Dens, Jan Hřebejk, 1996, 116 min)

Home Screening:Pouta(Walking Too Fast, Radim Špaček, 2009)

Session 3: Of Losers and Winners: In Search of National Identity

Cinema played a key role in re-constructing national identity after the tectonic political and societal shift of 1989. The session explores some of the key tenets of national identity as reflected in films.

Reading:Ladislav Holý, “Self-Stereotypes and National Traditions”, in Holý, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 72–113.

Second reading TBC

Screening: Musíme si pomáhat(Divided we Fall, Dir. Jan Hřebejk, 1999)

Home Screening: Český sen(Czech Dream, Vít Klusák/Filip Remunda, 2002)

Session 4: Feminine (?) Traces in Czech Cinema

Female Czech film directors are fewer in number than their male counterparts. However, they left a considerable mark. The session looks at work of Věra Chytilová, Helena Třeštíková, and Alice Nellis with an