We & Film
Part 6

3,086 words

New Europe

It is beyond our scope to provide even a brief overview of the state of cinema in each European country. We can only note that in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and the Balkan countries, film production remained modest even in the pre-war years [1] and that while American and French films dominated continental Europe before the war, they were replaced by German and Italian films during the war. However, French cinema continued to enjoy a domestic boom and artistic continuity. Cinema attendance was at an all-time high and a total of 220 films were made. [2] In general, the restriction or complete ban on the import and distribution of Hollywood productions [3] gave domestic filmmakers more space everywhere, most notably in neutral Switzerland, where 12 films were made each year during the war, compared to only two in 1946. Or in Hungary, where the loss of American competition led to the production of 53 domestic films, accounting for more than 30% of all premieres. We do not know much about how and to what extent these different cinematographies reflected the new reality. However, the most beautiful film made according to the aesthetic and ideological standards promoted in the Reich was undoubtedly produced in France, based on a screenplay by the poet Jean Cocteau. [4]

France

It is called The Eternal Return (1943, dir. Jean Delannoy) and is an original adaptation of the Tristan legend to the present day. The lovers (with unnaturally lightened hair), played by Jean Marais and Madeleine Solognova, enchanted audiences: “They’re not people, they’re gods!” wrote one admirer in a film magazine. But notice the role “love beyond the grave” plays in the story, and the degenerate Achille, played by the dwarf Piéral. As with Riefenstahl’s work, if you are an idealist, you will see idealism in it; if you are a classicist, you will see classicism in it; if you are a Nazi, you will see Nazism in it.

Two feature-length educational and propaganda films about the activities of Freemasons and Jews in liberal parliamentary democracy were also made in France: Les Corrupteurs (1941, dir. Pierre Ramelot) and Forces occultes (1943, Paul Riché, pseudonym Jean Mamy, sentenced to death after the war), The film Forces occultes was written based on a screenplay by Jean-Marquès Rivièra [5] and was recently screened at Ponrepo in Prague as part of Francophonie Days (a cinema named after the pseudonym of one of the pioneers of Czech cinema). The main character, out of idealism, decides to become a Freemason, but gradually discovers that their organization is primarily a tool for the material interests of Jews, who, among other things, do not hesitate to incite France to war. [6] In 1942, Jean Morel and Jacques Chavannes’ film Français, vous avez la mémoire courte (Frenchman, You Have a Short Memory) was screened, promoting German-French cooperation as a guarantee of Europe’s salvation from Jewish Bolshevism, as propagated before the war in France by Blum’s Popular Front and artists associated with it.

Spain

On April 1, 1938, the Spanish Nationalist government in Burgos established the Office of Cinematography, headed by director Manuelo García Viñolas, a member of the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las J.O.N.S. (F.E.T.), a party that united revolutionary Falangists with conservative monarchists on the basis of Franco’s decree. Among Spanish films made before 1945 – which are still largely unknown in the US – the drama Raza (1942, dir. José Luis Sáenz de Heredia) stands out, at least in our context. The script was written by Francisco Franco himself, the leader of the national resistance. [7]

Japan

Japanese studios, which by the 1930s were producing 400 to 500 films a year, boldly took on Hollywood, but in the big cities, everything American was growing in popularity. [8] At the end of the decade, political circles began to demand films that promoted national culture and patriotism, especially when the country entered the war with China (1937). This led to the production of war films such as Hokushi no sora o tsuku (Attack on North China, 1937, dir. Kunio Watanabe) and Shingun no uta (Song of the Advancing Army, 1937, dir. Yasushi Sasaki). The second is interesting in that it depicts the battlefield as a place where class differences are erased—the strike organizer fraternizes with the son of a factory owner—which actually goes against the caste tradition of conservative circles.

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A year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the epic film The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya (1942) was released, depicting the attack from the perspective of a Japanese pilot and costing ten times more than the average Japanese production at the time. However, “militarism” is also present in historical films: Osaka Natsu no Jin (The Battle of Osaka, 1940, Kinugasa Teinosuke) and Kawanakajima kassen (The Battle of Kawanakajima, 1941, dir. Kinugasa Teinosuke), both set in medieval Japan, contain large war scenes, and Rikugun (Army, 1944, dir. Kinoshita Keisuke) deals with the history of a family in which three generations fought and died for the emperor. Kenji Mizoguchi, twice awarded in Venice after the war, [9] also made Genroku Chushingura (1941, The Loyal 47 Ronin) as a “celebration of the growth of Japanese power in the distant past,” as he was a devoted supporter of the regime and led the propaganda film section of the imperial government. During World War II, Akira Kurosawa also made his directorial debut with The Great Legend of Judo (1943), about a young man who becomes a master of unarmed martial arts during the Meiji period. In 1945, however, the Japanese film industry, already weakened by years of growing material and personnel shortages, collapsed completely as a result of defeat.

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

Finally, the long and complicated efforts of the First Republic to create an umbrella organization for the Czech film industry and reorganize the field were successful: the Film Center for Bohemia and Moravia united film workers’ unions, film production, distribution, and cinemas. [10] Under the name Filmové žně (Film Harvest), the first independent film festivals in country were also held in Zlín, [11] whose screenings were attended by tens of thousands of people and which were founded by the 8th section of the Cultural Council of the National Unity, headed by Zdeněk Zástěra, a Czech fascist of the “first hour.” [12]

A whole series of films were also made, which are still considered classics in television archives. And these are not always comedies such as Cesta do hlubin študákovy duše (Journey into the Depth of the Student’s Soul), Dívka v modrém (Girl in Blue), Kristian (Christian), Přítelkyně pana ministra (The Minister’s Girlfriends), Přednosta stanice (Station Master), Roztomilý člověk (The Lovable Man), Těžký život dobrodruha (The Life of an Adventurer) or Neviděli jste Bobíka? (Where is Bobi?). Babička (Grandmother, starring Terezie Brzková) was also filmed, as were other adaptations of books by Czech writers, such as Turbina by Karel Čapek-Chod, Mrštík’s Pohádka Máje, Rais’s Pantáta Bezoušek and several plays by Josef Kajetan Tyl.

The melodrama Noční motýl (Nocturnal Butterfly), also based on a literary work and directed by František Čáp, winner of the National Film Art Award, received enormous, even international praise. Čáp was probably the strongest of all Czech directors in terms of image composition and lighting, as he had already proven in Ohnivé léto (Fiery Summer, 1939), [13] then in Babička (Grandmother, 1940) and finally in Baar’s “rural” Jan Cimbura (1941) with its famous “Czech pogrom” scene [14] It was also Čáp who, in 1942, began work on the never-completed historical film Prince Václav, which was intended to illustrate interpretations of the legend of St. Wenceslas by Josef Klika and advisor and to the president’s office, Josef Kliment. However, only a few silent exterior shots have survived.

The drama Velká přehrada (The Great Dam, 1942, directed by J. A. Holman), filmed in Štěchovice, where a dam that is still in use today was being built, was a critical success. The film is not only a tribute to the creation of a magnificent structure, the “engine” from which modern civilization flows, but also to hard physical labor, which has long been regarded as something unworthy of a free person or even as a consequence of “original sin.” This resonates with an aspect of the National Socialists, which attempted to overcome these attitudes through their efforts to achieve national unity and strengthen the dignity and self-confidence of manual workers.

The films Pro kamaráda (For a Friend, 1940, dir. Miroslav Cikán) and Chlapci v modrém (Boys in Blue, 1943, dir. Walter Sent, pseudonym Valdemar Šašek) have a similar focus. A total of 114 feature films were shot and completed during the Protectorate period, which means that on average one was made every 19.7 days. However, the Czechs clearly preferred German comedies and musicals, with the notable exception of the serious film, Jud Süss.

In addition to feature films, newsreels (Aktualita) and promotional, instructional, and educational documentaries were also produced, such as Krása a síla (Beauty and Strength, 1940, dir. František Rejlek), a 14-minute film based on German models, Nová mládež-nové cíle (New Youth—New Goals, 1942, dir. Walter Sent), Radostný život mládeže (Joyful Life of Youth, 1945, dir. Josef Lachman) and Kolesa dějin (Wheels of History, 1945, dir. Miloš Cettl), a very impressive montage documentary [15] based on the contrast between the atmosphere in the Protectorate (it is said that there had never been so many entertainment venues, theatres, and cafés in Prague as there were then) and the bloody reality of the battlefields on the Western and Eastern fronts. After the purge in 1945, Czechoslovak cinema naturally returned to the two idols of the left-wing cultural front from the First Republic: The Good Soldier Schweik and Golem. [16]

Summary of the first part until 1945

To avoid misunderstanding, without exception, all of the above-mentioned films should be approached more as a source of instruction than as entertainment, which – admittedly – was and is the primary purpose of “cinema.” However, the way films are told has changed many times since 1945, and especially for the youngest generation, not only for the so-called majority audience, who have grown up with digital images, clip editing, comic book aesthetics, etc., the old language of film can be almost unbearable. Stepping out of the era we live in is certainly not easy, and not everyone is capable of achieving the necessary empathy, artistic or otherwise, especially without prior training. Then there is nothing left to do but give up or:

Classify, structure, look for “your” passages…

Both feature films and documentaries, regardless of when they were made, also reflect the era in which they were created. In order for today’s viewers to appreciate them better, they should try to perceive them in a broader context and not judge them as a whole, but focus on different levels, e.g., clearly distinguish between aesthetic-artistic and historical values, individual storylines, focus on details not only in scenes (environments) but also in individual shots, etc. It is true that what we find most difficult to tolerate in “old films” today is what their creators could not have imagined at the time – i.e., the conventions of the era (for example, in the depiction of romantic relationships) as well as various “unconventional approaches” that have since either become clichés or proved to be dead ends. However, even between outdated conventions and dusty ballast, there may be hidden potential for the reawakening of spirit!

Notes

[1] This does not mean that there were no big names, such as Denmark’s first “silver screen star” Asta Nielsen or the important and still highly respected director Carl T. Dreyer. The Swedish school was characterized in the silent era by Viktor Sjöström’s so-called nature films: Terje Vigen (A Man There Was, 1916), based on Henrik Ibsen’s ballad, which is dominated by images of the sea, and Outlaws (1917), which features the Icelandic landscape.

[2] The predecessor of the French film school, the Centre Artistique et Technique des jeunes de l’Ecran (CATJE), was founded in Nice, where students learned how to make short films. A long-needed rationalization was also initiated, as the film industry was on the verge of financial collapse in 1940 due to its chaotic state. The French film industry therefore created its own organizing committee (Comité de l’Organisation de l’Industrie Cinématographique) – and many of its reforms still regulate it today. This does not, of course, apply to the removal of all Jews from the film industry (although some continued to work under changed identities).

[3] However, it quickly shifted its focus from Europe to “markets” in South America, and films from the US soon began to dominate cinemas in Latin American countries.

4) It is important to note that Jean Cocteau was a close friend of Arno Breker. According to Jean Marais, they lived together for some time in the 1920s, when Breker was working in Paris. They met again at the opening of a major exhibition that Breker held in 1942 in the Tuileries Gardens, which was attended by French sculptors such as Aristide Maillol, Paul Belmondo (father of the then barely ten-year-old Jean-Paul) and Charles Despiau. The entire Parisian cultural elite of the time was in attendance: writers Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Abel Bonnard (then Minister of Education), Jacques Bénoist-Méchin, actress Arletty, dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar, playwright Sacha Guitry, and many others. Breker wanted both Cocteau and Marais to model for his sculptures, but this did not happen until more than twenty years later (in 1963. Cocteau died shortly afterwards, but Marais still had Fantomas to film). Cocteau was inspired by the beauty of Breker’s sculptures to write L’Éternel retour (The Eternal Return) for his Jeanotte (Marais). The film was made just one year later, with the poet acting as artistic supervisor. He meant everything to the actor: “He was my springboard. Thanks to him, I entered the world of film,” Marais later said. His friendship with Breker also had one purely practical consequence: when Marais beat up a journalist from the anti-Semitic newspaper Je suis partout for unfairly criticizing Cocteau’s play, Breker’s intervention with the authorities reportedly guaranteed him immunity from prosecution.

5) There is a strange coincidence: while The Eternal Return was the first French film to be shown in Czechoslovakia after the war and its premiere was attended by the highest state officials, Jean-Marquès Rivière’s remarkable book Ve stínu tibetských křížů (In the Shadow of Tibetan Crosses) was published in 1946 by Rudolf Škeřík’s renowned publishing house Symposion. This is an account of the author’s pre-war “spiritual adventures.”

Rivière was a Guénonian traditionalist who feared the consequences of materialistic Jewish Freemasonry on the European mentality and long regarded Tibetan Buddhism as the most vibrant and effective remnant of the original tradition. Long after the war, he met the Dalai Lama.

6) Cf. Louis Ferdinand Céline, L’école des cadavres (School for Corpses), 1938, Éditions Denoël, E.g.: pp. 13, 17, 33, 61, and others.

7) The film is also known as Espíritu de una raza. The word raza in the title means not only caste or having good blood from a noble family, but simply a person who is capable of some exceptional deed or achievement.

8) This is hardly surprising, given that by the end of the 1920s, there were reportedly 120 film magazines published in Japan and 23 film clubs operating in Tokyo alone, regularly screening top-quality works from around the world. In contrast, the first Japanese film to be noticed in the US was not made until 1935: Tsuma yo bara no yo ni (Kimiko, dir. Mikio Narus), about “the tragedy of a man who turns against his poetically inclined wife and becomes infatuated with her less intellectual friend.”

9) The second of these award-winning films, Ugetsu monogatari (Tales of the Pale Moon), is well known to club audiences in our country. It tells the timeless legend of a countryman’s love for a female ghost who seduces and destroys him. In 1953, it won the Silver Lion for its director.

10) In 1940, based on a decree issued by the Reich Protector, the Czech-Moravian Film Center was established. Unlike the first organization, membership was mandatory for filmmakers.

11) Two editions took place. The third was canceled because only a few weeks had passed since the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich. With the war continuing, the festival was never revived.

12) Dr. Zdeněk Záruba (1892-1942) was a co-founder of Klub červenobílých and later a member of the first board Národní obec fašistická.

13) The way the landscape of southern Bohemia and the sky are depicted here can perhaps only be compared to the lyrical Řeka (1933, dir. J. Rovenský) and the erotic Extase (1933, dir. G. Machatý) from Czechoslovak cinema of the period.

14) Czech women, cheerful peasant women, break into a Jew’s tavern to protect their young men, who “under his crooked hand, with his Judas gaze and quickly poured beers, easily lose their morals” (J. Cieslar, Concettino ohlédnutí, p. 147), and drive him out of the village. However, this scene is also described in Baar’s literary original, so it was not added – as can still sometimes be read – solely as a “concession to the Nazis.”

15) It is not known for certain whether the film was screened at all in 1945, even privately.

16) Much has been written about the ostracism of Baarová, Mandlová, Gollová, and Burian, but the vast majority of film workers, including other popular actors such as Marvan, Filipovský, and Vojta, continued to work almost without suspension (there were even those who joined the Communist Party in May 1945 for this reason). Only director Václav Binovec and actor Čeněk Šlégl, two pre-war anti-Semitic activists, were never allowed to return to film and were punished with imprisonment (the former served several years, the latter six months). Director Svatopluk Innemann, another pre-war “Jew-buster” who even dedicated one of his plays to Adolf Hitler, preferred to kill himself in October 1945. Director Zet Molas (real name Zdena Holubová) and her husband Bohumil Smola were forced to move out because they declared themselves to be of German nationality. Actor and director Vladimír Majer, a member of the Green Swastikas who played a Bolshevik commissar in Ritter’s film GPU, was banned from acting for life (although shortly before his death he still appeared in the films The Good Soldier Schweik and The Golden Spider (1956), even as a member of the SS).

Čáp was investigated, and screenwriter Josef Skružný was punished. Perhaps the worst fate befell Jan Sviták, also an actor and director, who was lynched on the street under unclear circumstances in May and finally killed with a “mercy blow” by a member of the Red Army. Screenwriter Felix de la Cámara (Girl in Blue) was also lynched, allegedly first set on fire by “Red Guards” and then thrown into the Vltava River, although there are also rumors that he escaped, like his former wife Jelizaveta Nikolská, prima ballerina of the National Theater in Prague during the Protectorate, and lived out his days in South America.

Translated by Ondrej Mann.