Petra Han kov

‘The Films We
Are Ashamed of’:
Czech Crazy Comedy
of the 1970s
and 1980s
 THE INEVITABLE ‘LOSTNESS’ to show that these comedies are more ‘hybrid’
OF SMALL than ‘crazy’ and look for the reasons for this
NATIONAL CINEMAS formal anomaly.
Unsurprisingly, there has not been, so
The cinemas of small nations, which have typi- far, a significant academic attempt to research
cally remained peripheral to the main cultural the mainstream cinema of the normalisation
triumphs of big film industries, have managed times, either in terms of thematic and stylistic
to enter the ‘great’ General History of Cinema analysis, or concerning the presence of ideology
only through a couple of carefully selected works in the films of the period.5 This is not startling
and movements that are exceptional in their in-
ternal development. As a result, many important 1 It has been pointed out on several occasions that it is
works, directors and periods (even though they very often difficult to retroactively distinguish between Czech
might be central to the national context) remain and Slovak projects within the period of the centralised
Czechoslovak film industry. The absurdity of the present di-
‘lost’, unknown to foreign viewers and readers. viding of ‘Czechoslovak cinema’ from the 1950s on into two
The whole notion of ‘concise histories’ of cinema separate traditions for political reasons is also commented on
by Iordanova 2005.
can logically be comprised only of the history
of milestones and emblems. However, there 2 Comedies became the emblematic genre of the
period, although the range of film production was actually
is another form of ‘lostness’: the premeditated significantly broader—for example, the authors of the recent,
silence enveloping whole periods of national cin- brief, and in many respects limited, overview of Czech film
history pertinently entitled The Panorama of Czech Cinema
emas that are not only ignored abroad within the (Panorama českého filmu, 2000) stress the presence of the
canonical history of the great ‘art works’ of in- following genres during the period of normalisation from the
1970s to 1980s: 1) comedies (with further sub-genres of
ternational cinema, but are also only mentioned musical comedy, ‘bitter’ comedies, and communal satire);
with embarrassment and quickly discounted 2) detective films; 3) historical films (with the significant
sub-genre of World War II films); 4) psychological cinema;
within the domestic context. In the Czech, or 5) youth films; 6) socially critical works. Their list also
more precisely Czechoslovak, cinema,1 the includes generically unspecified works by prominent direc-
tors, designated as ‘classics’. The normalisation period was
period that is doubly lost in this sense, and also, paradoxically, one of the most prolific times in Czech
probably stands out as the ‘most lost’ period in cinema, with around 200 films made every pětiletka (5-year
‘planning cycle’). See the chapter ‘Hraný film v období
the history of Czech cinema, is the mainstream normalizace (1970–1989)’ (‘Czech fiction film in the period
production during the years of ‘normalisation’ of normalisation (1970–1989)’) in Ptáček 2000: 158−163.

− the 1970s and most of the 1980s. This is the 3 As I will try to illustrate below, particularly in the con-
real dark continent of Czech(oslovak) cinema, struction of ‘gags’ and in acting style, these films are notably
different from the ‘crazy comedies’ as we know them from
usually perceived as an intellectual, moral and Western cinema.
aesthetic wasteland that came into being after 4 These comedies are mostly juxtaposed with the ‘great
the ideas and ideals of the Prague Spring (mir- tradition’ of the New Wave, as the 1970s are traditionally
considered New Wave’s graveyard, the time when all artistic
rored in the filmic achievements of the New creativity came to a halt (or, as some histories state—the pe-
Wave) had been crushed by Soviet tanks. riod when the ‘great Men’ of the New Wave fled the country
and ‘took culture with them’—see, for example, Stoecker
The ‘normalisation period’ highly favoured 1999: 155). Often these films are considered the ‘perverse
‘ideologically neutral’ films, especially com- oozing of the perverse times’ (an expression recently used in
edies.2 The most emblematic of these, usually personal conversation by my colleague Stanislava Přádná, a
New Wave specialist).
referred to in Czech imprecisely as bláznivé
5 Iluminace, the only Czech academic film journal, dedi-
komedie (‘crazy comedies’),3 are today often cated a special issue to the topic of normalisation in 1997.
looked down upon as the epitome of escapism However, this issue contains only reprints of (nevertheless
very important) historical materials, interviews with authors
and ideologically complicit mass entertainment, working at the time, and one broad historical outline. There
and are occasionally considered only as debased is no attempt at a thematic, stylistic or ideological analysis
of the films themselves and, significantly, no interest in
and stillborn attempts at parody and satire.4 It mainstream cinema (see Iluminace, Vol. 9 (1)). Even more
is precisely this comedic production that I want indicative is the collection of texts published in 2006 to
accompany a local film festival that focused on normalisation
to concentrate on in this text, analysing these cinema (see Hadravová, Martínek 2006). The collection of
‘crazy comedies’ as essentially a sub-genre re- essays does not include a single text that directly addressed
markable for its hybridity and cross-breeding of the film production of the time, although there is one piece
that analyses the normalisation television sagas scripted by
stylistic and generic features. Basically, I want Jaroslav Dietl.

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if we recognise that the time and material still rationalise their political decisions described the
remain morally and politically sensitive, as most current political purges as a ‘consolidation’, a
of the authors of hybrid comedies fall into the return to ‘normality’, or the ‘correction of earlier
category of film-makers who were ‘politically mistakes and deformations’. This terminology
convinced’. These film-makers were allowed to reinforced their goal of, as they presented it,
work and even had their films supported with centralisation and ideological stabilisation. This
abundant resources, while other authors saw linguistic subterfuge was merely a cover-up for
their work halted, films shelved, and careers the inescapable escalation of censorship, film
ruined in the period of ‘deep cultural decay un- shelving, control over distribution, coercion of
deniably connected with the profound moral and authors to join ‘the party line’, and ostracis-
civic depression of the people’ (Lukeš 1997: 66). ing of uncooperative artists. This period also
Furthermore, the enormous box-office success returned Czechoslovak cinema to a situation
of most of the normalisation comedies is often of political, cultural, and geographic ‘contain-
judged as proof of the culpability and complic- ment’, isolated from the development of ‘West-
ity of their authors with the regime (and also ern’ cinema and culture.8
reveals the painful truth that spectators quite Yet, the style of the hybrid comedies does
easily fell for the ‘official’ entertainment). The not reflect many ‘normal’ or ‘consolidated’
mainstream production of the 1970s and 1980 features—ironically, they celebrate chaos, im-
thus remains ‘the cinema we feel ashamed plausibility and the loss of stable spatial and
of’—the ‘we’ here meaning intellectuals, film temporal reference. Not coincidentally, they
historians and critics (and not so much common are habitually constructed on the basis of sci-
spectators, with whom the genre has remained ence fiction and the archetypal supra-genre of
popular to the present).6 Czech culture, the fairy-tale.9 This is one of the
The conditions of its production put the reasons why I believe that a symptomatic read-
genre of hybrid comedy in a position that was, ing of the hybrid comedy is possible—the genre
from the start, far from innocuous. It is this la- is both too elaborate and too paradoxical to be
tent complicity and interconnectedness with the merely rejected as escapist entertainment and
political situation that interests me here. But read only as the work of politically conformist
what I have chosen to pursue is not an ideologi- authors profiting from the re-establishment of
cal analysis. Instead, I aim to more broadly con- communist rule. At the same time, it is in no
sider the genre in the light of, and as a continu- way my aim to reassess the hybrid cinema of
ation and redevelopment of, certain stylistic and the 1970s and 1980s as subversive or politically
generic undercurrents that had been present in progressive. These films did, in fact, completely
Czech cinema and culture since much earlier fulfil their purpose of providing undemand-
periods. I hope to show how certain narrative ing distraction to the masses, while at the
and stylistic strategies used in this genre reflect same time becoming easily marketable goods
not only the conditions of the times, but also internationally, to the benefit of the totalitar-
various cultural tendencies and intellectual tur- ian regime.10 What I want to accentuate here
bulences present in Czech (or Czechoslovak) is how certain stylistic and generic breaks and
culture dating back to its modern ‘invention’ deviations from norms common to this type of
during the Revival period in the first half of the cinema may be understood as absorptions of
19th century.7 the specific conditions of the time and as echoes
of certain features that have existed and gained
HOW ‘CRAZY’ ARE prominence throughout the history of the Czech
THE CRAZY NORMALISATION striving for cultural identity.
COMEDIES? Although the hybrid ‘crazy’ comedy is
most often associated with the 1970s, its
The cultural politics of the normalisation pe- traditions can be traced back to the 1960s.
riod was supported by a twisted and perverse Furthermore, the genre’s popularity with the
semantics. The terms used by the authorities to public already at the high point of the New Wave

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period defies attempts to characterise it as es- milestones’, organically progressing to the communist
future. (This teleological view was articulated in particular
sentially an idiosyncratic and eccentric product by the communist ideologue Zdeněk Nejedlý in his paper
of normalisation (as is the usual practice). The ‘Communists, the heirs of the great traditions of the Czech
nation’ (‘Komunisté, dědici velikých tradic českého národa’),
1970s and the beginning of the 1980s ‘merely’ presented in 1946.)
offered favourable conditions for its boom and
8 Czechoslovak cinema and culture for most of the 19th
later paved the way for its transformation within and 20th centuries was defined by a condition of ‘contain-
the medium of television, and for the creation of ment’, isolation or marginality. One of the major aspects
of this containment during the totalitarian regime was the
‘hybrid’ television series for children. divorce from Western culture and inclination towards the
Historically speaking, comedy appears Soviet sphere of influence. One of the first decisions of the
new political leadership of the Czech Film organisation in
as the most typical genre in Czech cinema, at 1969 was to re-establish close cooperation with the Eastern
least in the period after the arrival of sound. Bloc and ‘restore’ close contacts with the USSR and its
socialist satellites. (In official documentation this is referred
The sound era also gave rise to the representa- to as ‘correcting the deformations established in 1968 and
tive ‘chatty’ or ‘garrulous’ comedies, as Czech 1969’; see Edice 1997.)
humour is typically not physical, but verbal.11 In 9 Andrew Horton repeatedly stresses the importance of
many cases, this verbal humour is also connect- the fairy-tale in Czech culture: ‘Perhaps the biggest reason
ed to the ‘political sphere’, whereby the politi- for [Zelman's] success, though, is the importance of the
fairy-tale (or pohádka, as it is known) as a genre in the
cal message is often communicated within the Czech Republic. The Czechs take their fairy-tales far more
framework of surreal, fantastic, or supernatural seriously than most and fairy-tales are a far more prominent
part of children’s reading than in Western Europe. This car-
circumstances. This is one of the reasons why ries over into film....’ (Horton 1998; see also Horton 1999.)
Czech comedy seems rather difficult to translate 10 The hybrid films became quite profitable and desirable
for foreign viewers. In one effort to deal with goods for export to most of the world. (Václav Vorlíček men-
this ‘distance’ and problem of reading, Charles tions that he personally saw spectators from South America
to Bombay to Volgograd enjoy the films; see Kopaněva 1976:
Eidsvik attempts to ‘translate’ the comedies of 212.) The films were rather quickly spotted and ‘scouted’ by
the 1960s for Western audiences.12 He claims the German film industry as possible niches for co-produc-
tions. Although we must here set aside the most famous
that watching East European comedy may be co-production with East Germany, Vorlíček’s fairy-tale Three
unsettling, as it is difficult to identify the comic Wishes for Cinderella (Tři oříšky pro Popelku, 1973), co-
produced with DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft),
protagonist and the cultural conventions that as too classical for the current discussion, we can find a
signal when to laugh. He connects this difficult plethora of hybrid projects among the TV fairy-tale/fantasy/
sci-fi series co-produced during the 1970s and 1980s with
translation to the necessary politicisation of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), such as the ‘modern fairy-
genre and to the logic of comic conventions that tale’ Pan Tau series starting in 1970, Arabela (1979/1980),
Flying Čestmír (Létající Čestmír, 1984), and Hamster in a
evolved among people ‘keeping their sense of Nightshirt (Křeček v noční košili, 1987), the surreal time
humour’ under socialism (Eidsvik 1991: 91).13 travel extravaganza The Visitors (Návštěvníci, 1983), made
with the participation of Jan Švankmajer for special effects,
For him, the comedies of the 1960s are notable or my personal favourite example of bizarreness, Bambinot
for a coalesced ‘mock-realist’ comic style14 that (1984), set in a genetic research institute.
is dominant in the whole East European region, 11 It is not a coincidence that the epitome of Czech
in which the comic effect is created through al- humour is the verbose Švejk.
lusion to the everyday world of viewers, which 12 Eidsvik develops his claims with a firm belief in a
‘regional sense of humor’, asserting that there are no
identifiable comedies in ‘the usual American sense’ in East
6 This popularity may also be evidenced by the present- European cinema (see Eidsvik 1991).
day ‘marketability’ of the films from the 1970s and 1980s.
They are often published as DVD bonuses in the popular 13 According to Eidsvik, the official sombre and puritanical
press and sell very well, a phenomenon that is then fre- façade of socialism is replaced in these comedies by only
quently criticised in the ‘serious’ press. For many cinephiles vaguely concealed malice and scepticism, as the stance
the main sign of the ‘decadence of the times’ is the reality of the authors is one of irreverence and levity. This type of
that most of the ‘gems’ of the New Wave have not been humour is ‘ignited by an appreciation of the ridiculousness
published on DVD in the Czech Republic, whereas most of inherent in futile plans and hopes’ and the transition from
the ‘normalisation garbage’ is now available in new DVD socialist and Marxist visions to capitalist projects does not
editions (and paradoxically often with English subtitles). make them less ridiculous (Eidsvik 1991: 103).

7 The grounding of Czech culture in the Revival period 14 Eidsvik claims that the ‘standard pose of the comic film-
(the early 19th century) or even further back to the Hussite maker is that of a recorder of ordinary behavior; the result, for
period (the early 15th century) seems far removed from the the lack of a better phrase, could be called “mock realism”.’
logic of an abrupt historical break that creates a ‘new social- (Eidsvik 1991: 92.) ‘In such realities, what is normally taken
ist society’. Yet, paradoxically, the communist representa- for humor is serious and seriousness itself is comic.’ (Eidsvik
tives constantly referred to these periods as ‘great democratic 1991: 103.)

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allows them ‘to react in terms of an imagined ‘primal colours’. The characters remain discreet
(and incongruous) world suggested by the film’ in acting and natural in most ridiculous situa-
(Eidsvik 1991: 93). For Eidsvik, this constella- tions. There is also no place for cranks, quib-
tion gave rise to the ‘comedy of futility’, in which bling, physical gags or comic gestures on the
‘cacophony rules’. path to attaining the ‘realistic staging of absurd-
Yet, this cacophony or lack of formal con- ity’ and ‘comedy without clowning’ (Vorlíček
sistency may have its origin elsewhere—in the and Macourek, quoted in Kopaněva 1976: 209).
‘tradition of the hybrid genres’ in Czech cul- As we will see, the hybrid comedies also depend
ture, where comedy is more often tragicomic, on a bizarre combination of realistic settings
drama has comical or lyrical undertones to it, combined with futuristic props and plots. They
and where we find no pure genre films, such as are typically formed as a cut-and-paste amal-
melodrama, horror films, gangster films etc. gam of aesthetic tropes, generic and formal
This hybridity was, to a great extent, caused models, and disorienting spatial and temporal
by the plethora of cultural influences absorbed references, combined to excess, with no prede-
throughout history, the changes in political termined rules.
climate, and the transformations of the social The hybrid film may be, therefore, formed
function of cinema, a medium that was always as a mixture of conversation comedy and other
striving to incorporate foreign impulses, of- generic elements, for example sci-fi motifs (e.g.
ten experimenting, adopting and translating Man in Outer Space (Muž z prvního století,
both avant-garde and traditional forms15 into 1961), I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (Zabil
the Czech tradition. But there were other pro- jsem Einsteina, pánové, 1970), and You Are
cesses present in Czech(oslovak) culture from a Widow, Sir (Pane, vy jste vdova, 1970)),
modernity on that added a specific twist to the sometimes turning into time-travel films (To-
strategies of hybridisation, connected to the morrow I Wake Up and Scald Myself with
aberrant situation of cultural isolation and the Tea (Zítra vstanu a opařím se čajem, 1977),
negotiation of the forms and meanings that this which combines the theme of time travel with
condition created. I will address these processes war film motifs). Other common generic ele-
in the last section of this paper. ments in the mix include comic books (Who
According to Eidsvik’s approach, East Wants to Kill Jessie? (Kdo chce zabít Jessii?,
European comedies also tend to be ‘deadpan 1966)), Westerns (Lemonade Joe or The Horse
and sly spin-offs of “ordinary” realism’ (Eids- Opera (Limonádový Joe aneb Koňská op-
vik 1991: 92). Although Eidsvik’s claims may era, 1964)), spy films (The End of Agent W4C
be too generalised and over-simplified, the (Konec agenta W4C prostřednictvím psa pana
disturbed relationship to reality is one of the Foustky, 1967)), mafia black comedies (Four
emblematic traits of Czech cinema. The realist Murders are Enough, Honey (Čtyři vraždy
sense of the Czech ‘crazy comedy’ is especially stačí, drahoušku, 1970)), horror films (The
noticeable, particularly in the style of acting. Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (Tajem-
There is no exaggerated grimacing and the ství hradu v Karpatech, 1981), which starts
acting is toned down to a rather low-key perfor- as a classical horror film (in its paraphrasing of
mance. The secret of crazy comedy, according Nosferatu), then turns more into a ‘techno-hor-
to its most prolific authors, is to capture ‘real’ ror’, while also being an opera film and an eth-
reactions to absurd stimuli and focus on ‘realis- nographic study), or ‘adult’ fairy-tales (How to
tic’ situations created by them (Vorlíček, quoted Drown Dr. M. or The End of the Water Spirits
in Kopaněva 1976: 208–209). The story is thus in Bohemia (Jak utopit doktora Mráčka aneb
built upon situations and the characters do not Konec vodníků v Čechách, 1974); and Saxana,
experience substantial internal development. The Girl on the Broomstick (Dívka na koštěti,
They are not psychologically scrutinised, deep 1972)), to name only the most popular and well
personages who deal with traumas, depressions known examples.
and crises. There is nothing latent about them; All of these films are sometimes read as
they have clear outlines and are painted in parodies, satires or pastiches. Yet I believe that

114
they, in fact, surpass the contours of this ap- The materialised characters in this case, or the
proach, achieving instead a new hybrid form ‘mirages’ as they call them in the film, are three
that is beyond both parody and satire and has personages taken from Western comic books:
only a certain degree of pastiche, and only Superman, a voluptuous female scientist clad
for very specific purposes. On the basic level, in miniskirt (who, by chance, has invented anti-
both parody and satire require considerable gravitation gloves) and a Western gunman. The
knowledge of the original form, both for the topic of the scientific manipulation of dreams
spectators and, even more importantly, for the adds a socially critical edge to the film, yet the
authors. This was not the case with many of main theme remains the confrontation be-
the ‘poached’ genres that were used in hybrid tween fantasy and reality. Fantasy is ultimately
comedies.16 Unsurprisingly, the two most pro- embraced and welcomed as a refuge, not from
lific authors of hybrid films and series, Václav reality in general, but from a reality deprived
Vorlíček and Miloš Macourek, openly expressed of dreams. At the end of the film, Beránek un-
their resistance to readings of their comedies as surprisingly exchanges his wife for the sexy
parodies, this being ‘too easy’ an approach (see mirage scientist and stays with her in the real
Kopaněva 1976).17 Their films do not include world. Beránková, on the other hand, chases her
any ridicule or condemnation of the original superman-lover into the dream realm.
material; the film-makers did not use it with Thus, we have a combination of a science-
polemical or critical distance. Their relationship fiction film and comedy, inspired by various
to the source forms was, for the most part, neu- comic book sources (and with a witty twist,
tral; they employed them as pieces of their own since Superman is the bad guy, i.e. the villain
jigsaw constructions. Their extravaganzas are of the film, together with Beránková the dream-
bricolages, connecting several genres and styles controller). Fantasy, the combinations of spaces
by means of a playful ‘gadgetry’. and times detached from logic, rationalism and
For a more specific example, let’s look at linearity usually also have an effect on the set-
one of the first very popular and openly hybrid tings of hybrid comedies. Very often they present
projects, dating from 1966: Who Wants to Kill a very ‘anomalous’, troubled chronotope, which
Jessie? by Vorlíček and Macourek. Jessie ex- reflects the strife between isolation and open-
ploits several basic themes of hybrid comedy. ness, provincialism and cosmopolitanism, belief
There are sci-fi motifs, as the film is set in the in the future and fear of the present.
near future, but more importantly, it is a social- The setting of the hybrid comedy typically
ist future that looks very much like the present blurs its temporal and spatial coordinates: it ha-
reality as the spectators knew it. The story bitually takes place either in complete timeless-
presents a married scientist couple, who both ness or in a near future that still resembles the
work in research institutes. The woman, Prof. present. In Jessie, the setting is very realistic
Beránková, is a world famous ‘somnilogist’, for the time, with only the scientific inventions
studying dream control (her aim is to relieve
her subjects of disturbing dreams and implant
15 This may become even more complicated when we
in them pleasant sensations). Her husband realise that, in the specific context of political and cultural
researches (although with significantly less suc- containment, what defines mainstream and what defines
counter-culture may be very paradoxical. For example,
cess) more ‘practical’ things: heavy weight lift- during normalisation, Western popular culture could be read
ing cranes for use in factories. as a progressive counter-culture threatening the ‘official
culture’.
Beránková and her team develop a vaccine
that instantly eliminates disturbing dreams, 16 Vorlíček himself admits in interviews that when he
made The End of Agent W4C, a variation of a Bond movie,
and she injects it into her husband when he is he had seen only one of the four already existing Bond films,
having a nightmare inspired by the comic book and did not even study this one very much. Furthermore, the
majority of Czech spectators had never seen any Bond films
he read before they went to sleep. However, the at the time.
resulting side effect of the vaccine is that the
17 Macourek claims here: ‘I hate parody and even more
characters from the dreams materialise in the satire... this is so cheap and easy. You can parody anything
real world and start to act of their own free will. just through subtle exaggeration.’ (Kopaněva 1976: 207.)

115
belonging to the future. In Tomorrow I Wake For example, in The End of Agent W4C, an
Up and Scald Myself with Tea, although the East European Bond film, the glamorous spy
city looks like present-day Prague, the plot re- world is made awkward, and ultimately it is the
volves around a travel company specialising in Czech common man, not even a real spy, who
time travel, mainly selling trips to ancient Egypt triumphs in a situation where all the foreign su-
and the time of the dinosaurs. The story also per-agents fail. Western culture thus becomes
features a group of Nazis who want to use the a point of reference, giving an ambivalent twist
company to reverse the flow of history by deliv- to the ‘Western imperialism’ proclaimed by the
ering a neutron bomb to the Führer. You Are a political representatives of the time.
Widow, Sir brings us to a place that looks like a The West and the East are also ironically
present city, but is in fact a ‘retro’ view of a class connected through the caricatured belief in the
society—the Czech(oslovakia) of the film is a wonders of the ‘scientific and technical revolu-
monarchy with a king who has a personal astrol- tion’ (shared across the Eastern bloc18 but also
oger. Yet this country also has advanced military mirrored in the West). The typical setting of a
and medical research, even innovative neurosur- hybrid comedy is a research institute (note the
gery that allows brain transplants. The End of two institutes in Jessie, the rejuvenating insti-
Agent W4C claims, by means of an inter-title, tute in What Would You Say to Some Spin-
to take us to an ‘unspecified city’ full of agents ach? (Což takhle dát si špenát?, 1977) or the
and mafiosi, yet we clearly see the well-known Bond-reminiscent gadgetry inventor scene in
present-day skyline of Prague in the back- W4C). The invented apparatuses are often too
ground. When the chronotope in these films is effective and expeditious. The extreme case of
further complicated by the theme of time travel, a ‘too effective apparatus’ is the intricate swim-
they may take us to places or times that appear ming pool widget that kills all the secrete service
similar or even the same, but are revealed to be agents with the power of 200,000 volts in W4C.
significantly and uncannily different. Also, the inventions usually have absurd side
So these are clearly imaginary places, effects (e.g. the dream manifestation in Jessie or
dream spaces and time loops built upon the the accelerated process of rejuvenation in What
realistic environment of Czech actuality. This Would You Say to Some Spinach?). Some-
imaginary ‘present’ also has the power to deny times they merge with time machines or media
the antipodal character of the West/East rela- apparatuses, for example, most of the story in
tionship (as presented and opposed by the po- Tomorrow I Wake up and Scald Myself with
litical geography of the time). Most of the films Tea unfolds in the offices of the time travel com-
openly negate the Cold War state of isolation pany, Jessie uses a TV-like interface for control-
and flavour the ‘socialist’ setting with Western ling dreams, and The Mysterious Castle in the
implants and motifs. The situation defined by Carpathians is full of apparatuses and machines
cultural containment and the normalisation that fuse the human body with technology.
(‘purging’) of socialist culture is contradicted These apparatuses are very often exten-
through a strange mixture of Eastern and West- sions of the human body, invented to perfect it,
ern features and motifs, predominantly employ- discipline it or even replace it if the organic can
ing Western ‘implants/transplants’. no longer survive. As genres and styles are frag-
As some of the motifs, characters, objects mented and grafted one to the other(s) in the
or settings obviously stem from Western genres hybrid comedy, so the image of the body in these
that were not well known in the Czechoslovakia films becomes the site of fragmentation, de-
of the time (since Western movies typically did struction and technological rebirth. As Vorlíček
not enter into official distribution), some of the stated, ‘the mystique of the genre lies in mak-
films served as awry ‘introductions’ to Western ing the spectators believe in the possibility that
iconology. However, this iconology is usually one brain can be transplanted in three bodies’
domesticated in a quite bizarre fashion and ap- (Vorlíček, quoted in Kopaněva 1976: 209). The
propriated with a commonly cynical translation body in the hybrid films is the site of hybridity
and a cultural colonisation of Western icons. itself—it undergoes transformations, crosses

116
gender and class boundaries, and ceases to be forgotten may belong to the core of identity
a site of knowledge or a locus of identity, thus and specificity of Czech cinema. Some of the
having significant consequences for identity and features typical for this genre—the stylistic and
gender politics. generic impurity and hybridity, premeditated
In most cases, the body becomes ‘dis- excess, and creative dilettantism and provin-
ciplined’ and merges with the apparatus. The cialism—play a very important role throughout
female body in particular often becomes a sort the history of Czech cinema. Thus, in conclu-
of ‘bachelor machine’ and the ultimate object of sion, I want to offer the hypothesis that the hy-
‘technological’ desire.19 In The Mysterious Cas- brid cinema is more typically ‘Czech’ than the
tle in the Carpathians, the female body as the more cosmopolitan and ‘pure’ production of the
ultimate object of desire is literally constructed privileged New Wave, or the films of the unique
as an inhuman apparatus, both a mechanical pre-World War II cosmopolitan authors, such
reconstruction of the diva, with her flickering as Gustav Machatý.
image and voice captured as a projection. Inter- If we risk making a generalising state-
estingly, this mechanisation and fragmentation ment, we can say that there are two main de-
of the (preferably female) body does not leave terminants shaping the face of modern Czech
much space for typical stereotyping. On the culture and cinema. Abrupt political changes
contrary, it reflects and reveals it. Thus the motif and cultural turns created drastic ruptures in
of brains wandering from male to female bod- the development of Czech cinema, which may
ies in You Are a Widow, Sir is not used for the consequently be seen as constantly in search
expected gags playing on gender difference; in- of continuity, cultural identity and stylistic spe-
stead, the body here becomes primarily a mere cificity.20 Several political regimes and totally
‘receptacle’ for a persona. Paradoxically, al- divergent cultural contexts shaped political and
though the characters in hybrid films are rather cultural expression during the 20th century,
fixed and do not develop during the narrative, with every new regime having different cultural
the sexual objects themselves are relatively sub- expectations and needs. The development of
jectivised (e.g. the sex-bomb may at the same Czech art, and particularly cinema, during the
time be a scientist in Jessie and, in You Are 20th century was defined by radical politically
a Widow, Sir, the stunning female body may and socially determined breaks, with almost
in fact have the genial brain of an unattractive every second decade developing its forms of
male astrologer and the admired theatre diva cultural production anew. Large national cin-
may at the same time be the king’s smart confi- emas have their own natural development,
dant and friend, in an asexual sense). inner structure and system: in Czech cinema-
tography, one finds fissures, turns and returns,
THE COLONIAL AND breaks with foreign influences, and adaptations
POST-COLONIAL CONTEXT to political changes.
OF CONTAINMENT AND This is the context in which we must judge
SELF-HYBRIDISATION the question of stylistic and generic anomalies
in Czech film, as symptoms of the absorption
How are the hybrid comedies of the 1970s, of impulses present in the broader cultural and
considered at the time one of the lowest genres
(and often contrasted with the pure and high 18 Note that the USSR was at that time referred to as
visual tradition of the New Wave), connected to the land where ‘tomorrow already means yesterday’, i.e. a
the specificity of Czech culture and cinema? In country characterised by scientific progress.
spite of the disconnection between the lost and
19 For the classical reading of representations of the
the privileged, I’m not suggesting that this cin- female body as a ‘bachelor machine’ and ‘male invention’ see
ema is ‘lost’ in the psychoanalytical sense, i.e. Penley 1989.
that what has been lost determines significantly
20 I have outlined this claim in my essay ‘The construction
the identity of what remains. On the contrary, of normality: The lineage of male characters in contemporary
in this case I believe what is lost or deliberately Czech cinema’ (Hanáková 2005).

117
political milieu. The style and form of cinema can be further expanded and explored for the
is never disconnected from the society that analysis of modern Czech culture.
produces it and, as Czech film and literary The relevance of the term ‘hybridisa-
theoretician Vratislav Effenberger claimed in tion’ with regard to Czech culture is apparent,
the 1960s, ‘the development of film style can be although we should define it further. I do not
read as revealing a social and psychological im- refer here to cultural hybridisation in the sense
age of man (or people) as if on the reverse side of a mixing of cultures; what I want to stress is
of official history.’ (Effenberger 1996: 175.) In a specific sort of self-hybridisation and self-
his view, film style and official history function colonisation, used as a strategy to deal with
as underpinnings for each other, determining the political and cultural isolation and contain-
and defining each other significantly. ment of the region. From this perspective, the
The second determinant of Czech film is mixture of cultural forms, and the creation of
connected to the generally acknowledged fact new formats and generic structures appear as
that the Czech cultural tradition derives from a a strategic experiment, very remarkable when
popular, democratic legacy, and is thus discon- compared to what ‘mainstream cinema’ usually
nected from any notion of exclusiveness, elitism stands for, a strategy to deal with seclusion and
and sophistication. Focusing on the fact that forced separation from the surrounding world.
the Czech nation entered modern history as Self-hybridisation might be seen as a very pro-
probably the only European state with no aris- ductive tactic within the history of Czech litera-
tocratic elite, as a nation built up from below, ture and film.
historians claim that this had significant conse- Important work on the specific nature
quences for the self-definition of Czech culture. of Czech culture has been done by the Czech
Film historian Jaroslav Boček believed that this semiotician Vladimír Macura, who has focused
plebeian anchoring caused a cult of mediocrity, particularly on the formation of the ‘national
a disrespect for form and order, both in Czech myths’ of ‘Czech-ness’ during the period of
art and society.21 The disrespect of ‘purity’ in National Revival in the first half of the 19th
form and style may also be understood as hav- century (Macura 1995). It can be claimed that
ing opened the door to the hybridisation and certain cultural strategies and practices still
contamination of Czech cinema. present in Czech culture can be traced back to
The power of these popular origins and and their roots connected with the re-creation
this cultural democratisation only intensifies in and reinvention of the Czech tradition, past
cinema, as there is no single, sustained tradi- and future, during the time of the Revival. Ma-
tion of Czech cinema, its historical basis having cura’s extensive studies of this period especially
been shaped more as a series of breaks and focus on the strategies of mythologisation and
attempts to bridge gaps. Still, we can detect re-creation (‘imagining’)23 of Czech-ness and
here an underlying framework of popular tra- connect them to the ‘Czech question’, i.e. the
dition and the relative permanence of hybrid, copious historical discussions about the mean-
and stylistically ‘patchwork’, Frankenstein-like ing and character of Czech historical develop-
works. Yet this motif must be analysed further. ment.24 The Revivalist culture here appears as a
Scholars writing on East and Central European specific cultural type, which is simultaneously
cinema have recently started to accentuate the constructed and disturbed. The Czech situation
framework of post-colonialism and analyse the at the dawn of its modern history is character-
cinema of the region as a result of cultural colo- ised by
nisation.22 In the Czechoslovak context, we can
actually speak of serial colonisation, starting the shattered continuity of the Czech
with the German colonisation in the 17th cen- cultural development, the breakdown of
tury, through the Nazi control during the war, the national social structure, the Czech
and up to the inclusion into the Soviet sphere of language being pushed out from the most
influence after 1948. I believe the colonial situ- important functions of intra-cultural com-
ation proves to be very relevant as a model that munication, and the creation of modern

118
 Czech culture inside other culture— culture strived to create reality in and out of the
linguistically German, this creation ap- re-created language. In this process, originality
pears not as a continuing culture, but as a paradoxically did not lie in the original, appropri-
founding culture. (Macura 1995: 6–7.) ated culture. On the contrary, it was the new,
hybrid, translated and parasitical form that was
Macura considers the basic units of the Revival- perceived as authentic.
ist culture to be ideograms and sees the Revival The act of consuming and nationalising
as a ‘period of an accelerated development’. foreignness through translational parasitism
These periods, characteristic especially of small- can also be recognised in the hybrid film. This
er nations surviving on the margins of the cul- is not a form of hybridisation aimed at achieving
tures of big empires, are typical in their consid- the quality of other cinemas and cultures, but
erable stylistic impurity or hybridity: ‘The usual a parasitical translation and amalgamation in
stylistic typologies, successful in periodising the order to construct a form that is paradoxically
big cultures with their continuous, undisturbed self-contained and non-derivative. Although it
development, fail in attempts to apply them to is beyond the scope of this paper, we may also
small cultures with complicated progress,’ as relate this strategy to the importance of play
they are typified by the transience and diver- and mystification in the process of the creation
sity of phenomena.25 Cultures of accelerated of Czech culture, which offered the Revivalists
progress, according to Macura, are distinguish- the unique opportunity to build Czech culture
able by their syncretism, the valorisation of ‘virtually’, not only outside of time and space,
dilettantism (i.e. the search for renaissance au- but also independent of the rather frustrating
thors capable of filling gaps and creating works reality (see Macura 1995: 104). The specific role
in all areas of culture), and by accentuation of of mystification within Czech culture forms the
phenomena from the cultural periphery. theme of several recent films (see for example
What brings us back from the Revival to
normalisation is the analogical break in continu-
21 He reminds us that even the first president of Czecho-
ity and the shared feeling of spatial and ‘mental’ slovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, despite all his belief in
circumscription, the awareness of being severed the nation, maintained that the Czechs had never known how
to rule or obey. F. X. Šalda, a major Czech literary critic of the
from the surrounding world but, at the same first half of the 20th century, supported this allegation—he
time, connected to a feeling of self-sufficiency repeatedly stated that Czechs had never known the value of
form and style in art and had never respected it, because they
in the ‘world-inclosing’ closure and fullness, had never cultivated the forms of social life (Boček 1968:
almost plenitude.26 The two periods of seclu- 143–144). For the typology of Czech ‘democratic’ or ‘plebe-
ian’ characters see Jedlička 1992: 10.
sion remain significantly different: during the
Revival, the seclusion from the surrounding 22 See especially the work of Robert Stam (e.g. Stam,
world was seen as necessary for the re-creation Shohat 2003).

of the nation and was made progressive through 23 See the concept of nation as ‘imagined community’ in
the values of Czech-ness, whereas the cultural Anderson 1991.

isolation during the totalitarian regime was of 24 For more information on the history of the Czech ques-
a different political order, since it was imposed tion, see Havelka 2001.
from above. Yet, in many respects these eras 25 Macura describes these cultures in the following man-
share common features. The hybridisation is, in ner: ‘The popular fluctuating of categories is brought forth
necessarily by the inner stylistic haziness of the revivalist
both cases, a tactical gesture, both highlighting cultures; it is caused by their need to compensate for current
and negating the necessary relational character artistic development, as if ‘at once’. The syncretism we find
of the Czech culture and its correlation to other here, even though it is probably the necessary accompanying
effect of any ‘culture with accelerated development’ (i.e. of
cultures. Macura claims that the translation or revivalist type), and thus typical of it, is primarily a syncre-
transposition of foreign culture into patriotic tism turned outwards, the syncretism of the outer impulses.’
(Macura 1995: 14.)
soil during the Revival constituted a ‘political
act’ of devouring the foreignness, engulfing 26 This is very often connected to the metaphor of the
little garden (zahrádka) applied to the Czech lands. This
it, appropriating it through ‘cultural aggres- metaphor may be found both in the cultural production of the
siveness’ (Macura 1995: 74). The Revivalist Revival and today (Macura 1995: 28).

119
the most famous one, Czech Dream (Český FILMS
sen) from 2004). Arabela, dir. Václav Vorlíček.
Thus, from this perspective, the ‘dark Czechoslovakia, West Germany,
decades’ after the New Wave, traditionally and 1979/1980
generally considered a barren time of creative Bambinot, dir. Jaroslav Dudek.
impotence, crippled by severe censorship, are Czechoslovakia, West Germany, 1984
linked to traditions that have formed the very Czech Dream (Český sen),
framework of Czech cultural identity. The format dir. Vít Klusák, Filip Remunda.
Czech Republic, 2004
of the ‘hybrid comedy’ may seem escapist and
apolitical, yet, on the stylistic and generic level, The End of Agent W4C (Konec
agenta W4C prostřednictvím psa
its parasitical, self-contained and self-hybridised pana Foustky), dir. Václav Vorlíček.
structure may provide a greater reflection of the Czechoslovakia, 1967
political choices in the Czech cultural produc- Flying Čestmír (Létající Čestmír),
tion of the time than might be evident in a su- dir. Václav Vorlíček. Czechoslovakia,
perficial reading. West Germany, 1984
Four Murders are Enough, Honey
(Čtyři vraždy stačí, drahoušku),
dir. Oldřich Lipský. Czechoslovakia,
1970
Hamster in a Nightshirt (Křeček v
noční košili), dir. Václav Vorlíček.
Czechoslovakia, West Germany, 1987
How to Drown Dr. M. or The End of
the Water Spirits in Bohemia (Jak
utopit doktora Mráčka aneb Konec
vodníků v Čechách), dir. Václav
Vorlíček. Czechoslovakia, 1974
I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (Zabil
jsem Einsteina, pánové), dir. Oldřich
Lipský. Czechoslovakia, 1970
Lemonade Joe or The Horse
Opera (Limonádový Joe aneb
Koňská opera), dir. Oldřich Lipský.
Czechoslovakia, 1964
Man in Outer Space (Muž z
prvního století), dir. Oldřich Lipský.
Czechoslovakia, 1961
The Mysterious Castle in the
Carpathians (Tajemství hradu v
Karpatech), dir. Oldřich Lipský.
Czechoslovakia, 1981
Pan Tau, dir. Jindřich Polák.
Czechoslovakia, West Germany,
1970–1978
Saxana, The Girl on the Broomstick
(Dívka na koštěti), dir. Václav Vorlíček.
Czechoslovakia, 1972
Three Wishes for Cinderella (Tři oříšky
pro Popelku), dir. Václav Vorlíček.
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, 1973
Tomorrow I Wake Up and Scald
Myself with Tea (Zítra vstanu a
opařím se čajem), dir. Jindřich Polák.
Czechoslovakia, 1977

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West Germany, 1983
H o r t o n, Andrew 1999. Making
What Would You Say to Some history: Comforting visions of the past
Spinach? (Což takhle dát si špenát?), in Czech Oscar-winners.—Central
dir. Václav Vorlíček. Czechoslovakia, Europe Review, Vol. 1 (15) (http://
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Czechoslovakia, 1970
J e d l i č k a, Josef 1992. České typy
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