Slovo a Smysl (Dec 2015)
Z mého života: když má film právo na všechny postavy dějin // From My Life: When Film Claims Its Right to All History Figures
Abstract
Biographical film is a genre that acquired specific importance within the Czech film industry at the beginning of 1950s. It combined local particularity of Czech film culture, spontaneous and politically controlled inclination towards the revivalist tradition, authoritarianism of Zdeněk Nejedlý, the cultural ideologist, as much as Soviet cultural influence. The article focuses on a specific example of such type of film production, a film called Z mého života (From my life, Václav Krška, 1955) about Bedřich Smetana, a significant Czech composer of the 19th century. The initial research aim is to cover various factors that influenced the final style of the film. The text examines its connections to outer social and historical discourse, and proceeds from a summary of development in contemporary biographical film production, to changes within the cult of Bedřich Smetana during the first half of the 20th century, to the ideological nature of the given film. The article studies the way these long-term and current factors influenced the style and narrative of the film. Through one of the direct participants — Jiří Mařánek as the author of subject matter and script — it also reconstructs rival interests of power of both generational, professional and political character. This focus mediates partial but authentic insight into the nature and processes within Czech culture in its post-February stage. The research is based primarily on archive documents of film production, Jiří Mařánekʼs personal resources and media reception of the period.
