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Golden Oldies II

Another rummage through the National Film Archives
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 26th, 2007 issue

Golden Oldies II Another rummage through the National Film Archives
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A few months back I reviewed films from Barrandov’s salad days, a number of frothy screwballs from the ’30s and ’40s that have been recently released by Filmexport in their Zlatý Fond DVD Collection. All the films are from the Czech National Film Archives, and have been superbly remastered, with many (though not all) featuring an English subtitles option.
Now, leaving behind the age of Lída Baarová, Oldřich Nový, Nataša Gollová and Vlasta Burian, I’ve recently taken a look at a few of the pivotal post-war films from the same series.
Alfréd Radok’s Distant Journey (Daleká cesta) from 1948 is, quite simply, a masterpiece. It’s one of the first attempts to grapple with the Holocaust within a fiction film (Polish director and Auschwitz survivor Wanda Jakubowska’s film The Last Stage was released the year prior), and there are haunting moments created by Radok that surpass, in depth and intensity, any later attempts on the subject.
For a first film it’s remarkable, and it’s not surprising to learn that Radok gained much of his ideas for the film’s eventual structure after having finally seen Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. As with Welles’ use of the fictitious “News on the March” in Kane, Radok juxtaposes newsreel footage of Hitler’s rise with the tragedy slowing engulfing a young, Jewish ophthalmologist, Hana (Blanka Waleská).
Also like Welles, and his cameraman Gregg Toland, the novice Radok threw himself into experimenting with camera angles and sound, at one point brilliantly building a sonic montage — from a victrola’s needle grinding at the end of a record to a cobbler at work — of a transport train steaming toward Terezín (where some of the film was actually shot). There’s also one striking shot of Hana sitting behind a menorah, when her gentile lover proposes marriage to her, in an attempt to save her. She’s seen momentarily imprisoned behind the candles, before accepting his offer and moving out of the frame.
This experimentation damned the film in the eyes of the new social realist overlords, and the film was shelved until 1991.
Accompanying Distant Journey is another Radok film, The Grandfather of Cars (Dědeček automobil), from 1956. Thematically, this light comedy of the early days of auto racing couldn’t be more different than Journey. Yet stylistically there is, again, striking work from the director.
The composition of Radok’s scenes (expertly shot by cinematographer Jaromír Holpuch) are certainly more assured, and even within the confines of communist dictates, Radok manages some experimentation.
The story itself is pleasant enough, as Czech racers in the early 1900s travel to Paris for a championship race. The borrowed French actors (a novelty at Barrandov at that time) are strictly second-rate: Raymond Bussieres is a rough cartoon of what Louis de Funés would later achieve, while the simpering Ginette Pigeon is a Poverty Row Leslie Caron, who seems to have earned her obscurity.
Still, Grandfather is informed by the spirit of Czech painter Kamil Lhoták, who served as the film’s art director. His fascination with defunct, fin de siecle technology was obviously shared by Radok. One other item to mention, the young Miloš Forman can be seen as an actor in this film, which he also worked on as Radok’s first assistant.
The “Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy” begins with 1954’s Jan Hus, a big budget, Sovcolor spectacle, where the Christ-like Hus (given monumental life by the great Zdeněk Štěpánek) becomes the voice of his people. Stirring, if stodgy, Jan Hus seems more like Protestant than communist propaganda, a kind of Lutheran Man for All Seasons.
The second and third parts of this trilogy, which focus on the Hussite battles led by Žižka (also played by Štěpánek), are rumored to be superior to this first installment, though the scenic design and sets (including a half completed Týn Church) are excellent here throughout.
Lastly, The Good Soldier Švejk (Dobrý voják Švejk), from 1957, is one of the most faithful film adaptations of a novel, down to the raucous cast resembling the character drawings of Josef Lada.
Hašek’s immortal wastrel, Švejk, comes brilliantly slouching into life through Rudolf Hrušínský’s remarkable performance. Plus, any fear that Hašek’s anarchistic hloupost would be muted by the prevailing politics of the time is quickly calmed. In fact, when it comes to allusions of sex and bodily functions, the Czechs were allowed far more freedom than Hayes Coded Hollywood. A splendid comedy.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (26/12/2007):

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