Czechoslovak New Wave
filmmaking movement in 1960s Czechoslovakia
The Czechoslovak New Wave (also Czech New Wave) is a term used for the Czechoslovak filmmakers who started making films in the 1960s. The directors commonly included are Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Jan Švankmajer, Ivan Passer, Pavel Juráček, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Jaromil Jireš, Evald Schorm, Hynek Bočan, Juraj Herz, Juraj Jakubisko, Štefan Uher, František Vláčil and others. The movement was sometimes called the "Czechoslovak film miracle".
Overview
The films touched on themes which earlier filmmakers in communist countries had rarely managed to depict while avoiding the objections of censors, such as the misguided youths of Czechoslovak society portrayed in Miloš Forman's Black Peter (1963) and Loves of a Blonde (1965), or those caught in a surrealistic whirlwind in Věra Chytilová's Daisies (1966) and Jaromil Jireš' Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970). The films often expressed dark and absurd humour in opposition to the socialist realist films of the 1950s.
The Czechoslovak New Wave differed from the French New Wave in that it usually held stronger narratives, and as these directors were part of a nationalized film industry, they had greater access to studios and state funding. They also made more adaptations, including Jaromil Jireš's adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel The Joke (1969). At the Fourth Congress of the Czechoslovak Writers Union Svaz československých spisovatelů in 1967, Milan Kundera described this wave of national cinema as an important part of the history of Czechoslovak literature. Forman's The Firemen's Ball (1967), another major film of the era, remains a cult film more than four decades after its release.
Czech film
The majority of films shot during the New Wave were Czech-language as opposed to Slovak.
The public source identifies “Czechoslovak New Wave” as filmmaking movement in 1960s Czechoslovakia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Czechoslovak, Wave and filmmaking.
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