The influence of central European cinema in the post-Communist era
The decade that followed the collapse of the Eastern Bloc between 1989 and 1991 has garnered a lot of attention from the media. The 1990s saw huge transformations take place in the economies, societies and political arenas of post-Communist central European countries. These transformations shaped democracy in the region as it is today. However, while this shift from state socialism to free markets has been studied from economic, political and social perspectives, its cultural significance has been largely overlooked. The EU-funded project ATFM is looking into how central European society perceived and experienced these changes from a cultural perspective. Focusing on the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, ATFM is investigating how cinema and TV in these countries responded to the emergence of a free market economy. The manner in which this transformation was captured in the films and TV shows of the 1990s is explored in two articles appearing on the website of the pan-European online magazine ‘Political Critique’. Based on ATFM-funded research, the articles discuss this period’s cinematography in Poland and Slovakia. Poor quality and pedagogy in 1990s Polish films Polish cinema in the 1990s wasn’t known for its quality. Respected figures in the field thought it inconsequential and critics condemned it for not telling audiences anything about Poland. However, while the author of the first article, Kaja Puto, may agree that the period’s films couldn’t be called good cinema, she rejects the claims that they’re insignificant and tell us nothing about Poland. They may not have portrayed Poland as it was then, she claims, but they did reveal a great deal about the transformation itself. In the period’s films, audiences were guided towards rejecting the idea that the state could guarantee prosperity. They were sent the message that transformation would return them to a desired normality, epitomised by the West. The hero in these early post-Communist films bore Western values: the desire to accumulate wealth and the drive to succeed. The antagonist, referred to derogatorily as Soviet man, rejected these values and demanded state support instead. Overall, Polish cinema assumed a pedagogical role, copying Western models while turning a blind eye to local needs. Post-Communist Slovakian cinema lacks critical voice According to film critic Matej Sotník, who wrote the second article, the end of Slovak cinema came when local film studios were privatised in 1995. Employing over a thousand workers prior to 1989, Slovak film studios fell victim to the painful transition towards a capitalist economy. In the post-Communist 1990s, Slovakia produced less than 10 feature debuts. The stories of the period’s feature films failed to portray the country’s political situation, and public TV remained a propaganda tool in which broadcast content was censored. This censorship, Sotník writes, “disguised itself, persisted, and … still exists as long as public radio and television remain under the direct control of Parliament.” Through its work, ATFM (Articulating the free market: A cultural history of the economic transformation in central Europe, 1989-1999) intends to offer a novel cultural perspective of the systemic transformations of the 1990s in central Europe. For more information, please see: CORDIS project web page
Countries
Czechia