Cinema in Service of the State

Perspectives on Film Culture in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, 1945-1960
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-78238-996-5
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 18, 406 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 736 g

Reihe: Film Europa

The national cinemas of Czechoslovakia and East Germany were two of the most vital sites of filmmaking in the Eastern Bloc, and over the course of two decades, they contributed to and were shaped by such significant developments as Sovietization, de-Stalinization, and the conservative retrenchment of the late 1950s. This volume comprehensively explores the postwar film cultures of both nations, using a “stereoscopic” approach that traces their similarities and divergences to form a richly contextualized portrait. Ranging from features to children’s cinema to film festivals, the studies gathered here provide new insights into the ideological, political, and economic dimensions of Cold War cultural production.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Karl, Lars

Skopal, Pavel

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I: CULTURAL POLICY AND CINEMA

Chapter 1. From Soviet Zone to Volksdemokratie: The Politics of Film Culture in the GDR, 1945-1960

David Bathrick

Chapter 2. Czechoslovak Culture and Cinema, 1945-1960

Jirí Knapík

PART II: PRODUCTION AND CO-PRODUCTION

Chapter 3. “Veterans” and “Dilettantes”: Film Production Culture vis-à-vis Top-down Political Changes, 1945–1962

Petr Szczepanik

Chapter 4. Barrandov’s Co-Productions: The Clumsy Way to Ideological Control, International Competitiveness, and Technological Improvement

Pavel Skopal

Chapter 5. Co-Productions (Un)Wanted: 1950s East/West German Film Collaborations and the Impact of Sovietisation on DEFA’s Prestige Agenda

Mariana Ivanova

Chapter 6. No TV without Film: Production Relations between the DEFA Studios and Deutscher Fernsehfunk

Thomas Beutelschmidt

PART III: NON-FICTIONAL CINEMA

Chapter 7. Military Film Studios before 1970: Between Cinematic Avant-Garde and Films on Command

Václav Šmidrkal

Chapter 8. Socialism for Sale: Czechoslovak Krátký film, Custom-Made Film Production, and the Promotion of Consumer Culture in the 1950s

Lucie Cesálková

PART IV: CHILDREN'S CINEMA

Chapter 9. Between Magic and Education: the First Fairy Tale Films in the GDR

Christin Niemeyer

Chapter 10. Children’s Films: Between Education, Art and Industry

Lukáš Skupa

PART V: FILM FESTIVALS

Chapter 11. Decreed Open-Mindedness: The Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival in the 1960s as an example of the self-representation of the East German State

Andreas Kötzing

Chapter 12. National, Socialist, Global: The Changing Roles of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 1946–1956

Jindriška Bláhová

PART VI: DISTRIBUTION AND RECEPTION

Chapter 13. Cinema Cultures of Integration: Film Distribution and Exhibition in the GDR and Czechoslovakia from the Perspective of Two Local Cases, 1945-1960

Kyrill Kunakhovich and Pavel Skopal

Chapter 14. A Decade between Resistance and Adaptation: The Leipzig University Film Club (1956-1966)

Fernando Ramos Arenas

Chapter 15. Screening the Occupier as Liberator: Soviet War Films in the SBZ and the GDR, 1945-65

Lars Karl

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Skopal, Pavel
Pavel Skopal is a Lecturer in the Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture, Masaryk University, Brno. He has edited anthologies devoted to the Czech film industry in the 1950s and local cinema history, and he has published a book of comparative research on cinema distribution and reception in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the GDR. His current book project is focused on co-productions between East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Karl, Lars
Lars Karl is a Researcher at the Leipzig Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe and a Lecturer at the University of Leipzig and the Humboldt University of Berlin. He has published a book on the perception of Soviet movies in the GDR and numerous articles on Russian and Soviet film history.

Lars Karl is a Researcher at the Leipzig Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe and a Lecturer at the University of Leipzig and the Humboldt University of Berlin. He has published a book on the perception of Soviet movies in the GDR and numerous articles on Russian and Soviet film history.