Czech Cinema: From State Industry to Competition

Abstract

INTRODUCTION In the most widely reported incident of the 1998 Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Jiri Menzel, the Oscar-winning director of Ostire sledovane vlaky (Closely Watched Trains, 1966), seized a stick and drove his current producer from the main hall. In what seemed like a planned coup de theatre, he sought to draw attention to the way in which the rights to film Bohumil Hrabal's novel Obsluhovaljsem anglickjho knile Q Served the King of England, 1980)1 had been sold behind his back. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, it demonstrated the ways in which the practices of the had still to be fully assimilated. In 1990, another of Czechoslovakia's leading 'ew Wave directors, Vera Chytilovi, whose films include such works as Sedmi,66sky (Daisies, 1966) and Hra ojablko (The Apple Game, 1976), was asked what would happen to Czech cinema when it was forced to confront the market. How would the cinema be able to function with a potential audience of only 15 million (10 million in the current Czech Republic)? Her answer was making It is fair to assume that she had in mind the model of the 1960s New Wave. Films such as Closely Observed Trains and Milos Forman's Hofi, md panenko! (The Firemen's Ball, 1967) not only grew from a culture and confronted contemporary issues but appealed to international audiences. It was through national films that both and international audiences could be reached. When, in 1990, the government cut the state subsidy to the principal production centre, the Barrandov Film Studios,3 by 75%, it was the first stage in a programme of privatisation that, by 1991, had seen overall production fall by two thirds. It was a process that would, argued the film-makers union, pesky filmovy a televizni svaz (FITES), ...spell the end of the industry. The exercise was technically illegal since the law abolishing the state monopoly was not passed until 1993. Interviewed in 1994, Chytilova argued that the policy had been politically motivated and designed to outflank film-makers who had been creative under the Communist regime. We were accused of making films that added to the reputation of the regime, she said, when, in fact, our films were critical and `avant garde'.5 When she charged the then prime minister, Vaclav Klaus, with the need to make national films, his reported comment was, Don't even think about it. A cinema can be defined as one that emerges from a culture and deals with issues arising from experience. While such a cinema would clearly inform matters of identity, it is a relation that most Czech film-makers would see as engaging in critical and creative dialogue rather than the promotion of nationalism and heritage. The industry might be commercially successful without making national films. While the Czech Republic's best known film-makers, Menzel and Chytilova, have not found it easy to make films under capitalism, these exchanges raise a number of fundamental and perhaps obvious questions: How important is the making of national films for a culture? Do audiences want to watch national films? Is making national films the best way to succeed in the international market? In a free market economy, shouldn't the whole process be left to market forces? Despite postmodernism, globalisation, and tendencies toward universalisation, it can be argued that many policy makers accept the continued importance of identity and cultural diversity. Most governments, including that of the Czech Republic, pay allegiance to such ideas, and, if the need for cultural diversity is accepted, so also should the need for cinematic diversity.6 Do audiences want to watch films? To some extent the answer is no. The international success of Hollywood would suggest that both the idea of Hollywood and the films it produces are attractive. There is also truth in the argument that, unlike other countries, the USA directs its films at the world rather than a domestic audience. …