Subversive Adaptations: Czech Literature on Screen behind the Iron Curtain

by Petr Bubenícek

Overview

This book deals with film adaptations of literary works created in Communist Czechoslovakia between 1954 and 1969, such as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (Zeman 1958), Marketa Lazarová (Vláčil 1967), and The Joke (Jireš 1969). Bubeníček treats a historically significant period around which myths and misinformation have arisen. The book is broad in scope and examines aesthetic, political, social, and cultural issues. It sets out to disprove the notion that the state-controlled film industry behind the Iron Curtain produced only aesthetically uniform works pandering to official ideology. Bubeníček’s main aim is to show how the political situation of Communist Czechoslovakia moulded the film adaptations created there, but also how these same works, in turn, shaped the sociocultural conditions of the 1950s and the 1960s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319409603
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/08/2017
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture
Edition description:	1st ed. 2017
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Petr Bubeníček is Assistant Professor in the Department of Czech Literature and Library Studies at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. He specializes in the history of modern Czech literature, literary interpretation, film adaptation, and intermediality. He has published several studies, in addition to editing three issues on film adaptation for the journals Česká literatura, Iluminace, and Pandora.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- 2. Adaptation as Subterfuge: Silvery Wind.- 3. Adaptation as Play: The Worlds of Jules Verne Come Alive.- 4. Adaptation as Challenge: Marketa Lazarová and Romance for Bugle.- 5. Adaptation as a Reflection of the Zeitgeist.- 6. Epilogue.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Petr Bubeníček focuses on six outstanding film adaptations of literary works, released in Czechoslovakia between 1954 and 1969. Despite the communist ideological pressure, these films were able to push against the prescribed boundaries. The subversion ranged from the subtle Aesopian language and nostalgia for the past, to the harsh disillusion and open criticism of the Stalinism. The book’s exceptional merit is its precise analysis of poetic and cinematic techniques, presented in the complicated sociocultural conditions of the 1950s and 1960s.” (Jiří Holý, Charles University, Czech Republic)

“This is an absorbing exposition of film adaptations from a period in Czechoslovakian history when political pressure was combined with a certain artistic freedom. Petr Bubeníček offers sensitive and multifaceted interpretations of films and their sources thoroughly embedded in cultural and political history. He unravels subtle layers of meaning, hovering between the aesthetic and the subversive, and finally leaves the reader with a sensation of better understanding the complex interrelations between art and society.” (Lars Elleström, Linnaeus University, Sweden)

Editorial Reviews

Bubeníček’s study is a remarkable historian’s project, as his introduction focuses on offering a nuanced overview of social thought between 1948 and 1969. … Bubeníček’s entire volume is, indeed, structured this way. Its great merit lies in the broad, well-documented historical overview it proposes, combined with the masterly interpretation of both literary and cinematic techniques.” (Maria Chiorean, Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory, Vol. 5 (1), July, 2019)

“Throughout this tour of post-war Czech cinema, Bubeníček is an urbane, perceptive, and exceptionally well-informed guide. He is a rewardingly subtle analyst of his country’s political history, its literary and cinematic landmarks, and especially the visual and auditory texture of the films in which he takes such contagious delight. … Bubeníček’s expositions are as illuminating as they are thorough … .” (Thomas Leitch, Adaptation, Vol. 11 (03), 2018)

From the Publisher