Films of Laughter and Forgetting : The "Prague Spring" in Czech Film during the "Normalization" Period
Abstract
In this article the author explores the ways in which the events of the “Prague Spring” are depicted in feature films made in Czechoslovakia during the “Normalization” Era. These films were made both on instructions of top-ranking members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
The author focuses on three films by Karel Steklý, Hippopotamus (1973), The Enemy behind the Wheel (1974), Where the Storks Nest (1975), a film by Vojtěch Trapl It Won’t Toll for You, My Friend (1975), and a film by Václav Vorlíček Riotous Wine (1976). The films depict the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia according to the official interpretation set out in the ideological brochure Lessons from the Crisis in the Party and Society after the 13th Czechoslovak Communist Party Congress, published in 1970.
In keeping with the line laid down in this publication, the attempted reform of the Communist regime is described as a failed “counter-revolutionary putsch”, the aim of which was to re-establish capitalism and the “bourgeoise”.