Postcolonial Approaches to Eastern European Cinema: Portraying Neighbours on Screen

349 Pages·2013·14.12 MB·English

by  Ewa Mazierska, Lars Kristensen, Eva Näripea

Acknowledgements
We wish to express our gratitude to the Estonian Film Institute for supporting this
project with a grant.
Special thanks goes to all institutions and individuals, who provided us with
the stills, used in the book and granted the permission to use them, such as Adam
Wyżyński from the National Film Archive in Poland and the filmmakers Arvo Iho
and Arsen Anton.
We are also indebted to Kamila Rymajdo for helping to proofread some of the
chapters in this book.
Published in 2014 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
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Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright Editorial Selection © 2014 Ewa Mazierska, Lars Kristensen
and Eva Näripea
Copyright Individual Chapters © 2014 John Cunningham, Peter Hames, Petra Hanáková,
Kristin Kopp, Lars Kristensen, Ewa Mazierska, Eva Näripea, Elżbieta Ostrowska, Vlastimir
Sudar, Bruce Williams and Špela Zajec.
The right of Ewa Mazierska, Lars Kristensen and Eva Näripea to be identified as the
editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof,
may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book.
Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.
The International Library of the Moving Image 14
ISBN: 978 1 78076 301 9
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00a-Postcolonial_Prelims_i–x.indd 2 06/11/2013 11:23
List of Contributors
John Cunningham
John Cunningham lived in Hungary for nine years from 1991 where
he taught Film and Media Studies at most of the major universities.
He returned to the UK in 2000 where he has just recently retired
from his post as Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Sheffield Hallam
University. He is the author of a number of studies on various
aspects of Eastern European, particularly Hungarian, cinema. In
November 2009 he was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica medal
for his services to Hungarian art and culture.
Peter Hames
Peter Hames is Visiting Professor in Film Studies at Staffordshire
University and a programme advisor to the London Film Festival.
His books include The Czechoslovak New Wave (second edition,
Wallflower Press, 2005, also translated into Czech and Polish),
Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition (Edinburgh University
Press, 2010), Best of Slovak Cinema 1921-91 (Slovak Film Institute,
2013) and as editor, The Cinema of Central Europe (Wallflower Press,
2004), The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer: Dark Alchemy (Wallflower
Press, 2008), and Cinemas in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe
after 1989 (with Catherine Portuges, Temple University Press,
2013). He also contributed to Marketa Lazarová: Studie a dokumenty,
edited by Petr Gajdošík (Casablanca Publishers, 2009). His articles
v
00a-Postcolonial_Prelims_i–x.indd 5 06/11/2013 11:23
a
m
e
n have appeared in Sight & Sound, Vertigo, Studies in Eastern European
ci
n Cinema, KinoKultura and Kinoeye.
a
e
P
o
r
eu Petra Hanáková
n
r
e
t Petra Hanáková is Assistant Professor in the Film Studies department
s
a
e of the Charles University in Prague, the Czech Republic. Her
o
t research focuses on the theory of film and visual culture, gender
s
e analysis and the representation of national identity in film. She is
h
c
a the author of Pandořina skřínka aneb Co feministky provedly filmu?/
o
Pr Pandora’s Box or What Have Feminists Done to Cinema?, 2007,
P
l a editor of Výzva perspektivy. Obraz a jeho divák od malby quattrocenta k
a
ni filmu a zpět/The Challenge of Perspective: Image and its Spectator from
o
l Quattrocento Painting to Film and Back, 2008, and the co-editor of
o
c
t Visegrad Cinema: Points of Contact from the New Waves to the Present
s
o
P (2010, with Kevin Johnson). She is currently working on a book
on national imagery in Czech visual culture.
Kristin Kopp
Kristin Kopp is Associate Professor of German Studies at the
University of Missouri. Her research alternately addresses German-
Polish relations, German colonialism, and German film. She is a
recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship
in support of research leading to her publication of Germany’s Wild
East: Constructing Poland as Colonial Space (University of Michigan
Press, 2012), and is the co-editor of Die Großstadt und das Primitive:
Text, Politik, Repräsentation (with Klaus Müller-Richter), Peter
Altenberg: Ashantee. Afrika und Wien um 1900 (with Werner Michael
Schwarz), Germany, Poland, and Postmemorial Relations: In Search of a
Livable Past (with Joanna Niżyńska), and Berlin School Glossary: An
ABC of the New Wave in German Cinema (with Roger F. Cook, Lutz
Koepnick, and Brad Prager).
vi
00a-Postcolonial_Prelims_i–x.indd 6 06/11/2013 11:23
l
is
t
Lars Kristensen o
f
c
o
Lars Kristensen is a lecturer in Media, Aesthetics and Narration at n
t
r
the University of Skövde, Sweden, where he teaches film history ib
u
and film theory in relation to games and digital cultures. He has t
o
r
taught Russian and Comparative Literature at the University s
of Glasgow and held the position of Research Associate at the
University of Central Lancashire. He completed his PhD in Film
Studies in 2009 at the University of St Andrews and has published
predominantly on cross-cultural issues related to Russian, Chinese
and Albanian cinema. He is the editor of the collection Postcommunist
Film – Russia, Eastern Europe and World Culture: Moving Images of
Postcommunism (Routledge, 2012).
Ewa Mazierska
Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Contemporary Cinema in the School
of Journalism and Digital Communication at the University of
Central Lancashire. Her publications include European Cinema and
Intertextuality: History, Memory, Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),
Jerzy Skolimowski: The Cinema of a Nonconformist (Berghahn, 2010),
Masculinities in Polish, Czech and Slovak Cinema (Berghahn, 2008),
Roman Polanski: The Cinema of a Cultural Traveller (I.B.Tauris, 2007),
Polish Postcommunist Cinema (Peter Lang, 2007) and with Elżbieta
Ostrowska, Women in Polish Cinema (Berghahn, 2006) and with
Laura Rascaroli, Crossing New Europe: The European Road Movie
(Wallflower Press, 2006). She is Principal Editor of the journal
Studies in Eastern European Cinema.
Eva Näripea
Eva Näripea is affiliated with the Estonian Academy of Arts
and with the research group of cultural and literary theory at
the Estonian Literary Museum. She holds a doctorate from the
Estonian Academy of Arts (Estonian Cinescapes: Spaces, Places and
vii
00a-Postcolonial_Prelims_i–x.indd 7 06/11/2013 11:23
a
m
e
n Sites in Soviet Estonian Cinema (and Beyond), 2011). A number of
ci
n her articles on representations of city- and landscapes in Soviet
a
e Estonian and Polish cinema have appeared in various Estonian and
P
o
r international publications (KinoKultura, Studies on Eastern European
u
e
n Cinema, Studies on Art and Architecture etc.). She has co-edited Via
r
e Transversa: Lost Cinema of the Former Eastern Bloc (2008, with Andreas
t
s
a Trossek) and a special issue on Estonian cinema for KinoKultura:
e
o New Russian Cinema (2010, with Ewa Mazierska and Mari Laaniste).
t
es Her current projects focus on representations of work in Eastern
h
c European science fiction films and in Estonian auteur cinema, on
a
o
r the relationship between tourism and European cinema and on
P
aP recent Estonian coproductions.
l
a
ni
o
l Elz ˙ bieta Ostrowska
o
c
t
s
o Elżbieta Ostrowska currently teaches film at the University of Alberta,
P
Canada. Her publications include: The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda: The
Art of Irony and Defiance (co-edited with John Orr, 2003), The Cinema
of Roman Polanski: Dark Spaces of the World (co-edited with John Orr,
2006) and Women in Polish Cinema (with Ewa Mazierska, 2006)
Vlastimir Sudar
Vlastimir Sudar is an associate lecturer at the University of the
Arts London, teaching film history and theory. He was also an
associate lecturer at Goldsmiths College in London, in the History
department, where he focused on film as a historical resource. He
obtained his PhD at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and
Balkan cinema is his main area of expertise. Vlastimir published on
the subject in an anthology The Cinema of The Balkans (Wallflower
Press, 2006), as well as in numerous journals and magazines,
including KinoKultura. He has in the meantime also reworked his
doctoral dissertation A Portrait of the Artist as a Political Dissident: The
Life and Work of Aleksandar Petrović, which was published by Intellect,
Bristol, in 2013. Vlastimir has an interest in cinema beyond his main
viii
00a-Postcolonial_Prelims_i–x.indd 8 06/11/2013 11:23
l
is
t
area of expertise and regularly contributes film reviews to Sight & o
f
Sound magazine. Research for the essay published in this volume c
o
n
was kindly supported by the University of the Arts London. t
r
ib
u
t
o
Bruce Williams r
s
Bruce Williams is Professor and Graduate Director in the
Department of Languages and Cultures at the William Paterson
University of New Jersey.  He has published extensively in the
areas of cinema history; film theory; Latin American and European
cinemas; and language and cinema.  His current research interests
include Albanian cinema; cinema as a tool for nation-building in
North Korea and Albania; cinematic ties between Brazil and the
Soviet Union; and the sociolinguistics of the cinema. His articles
have appeared in such journals as Quarterly Review of Film and Video,
New Review of Film and Television, Film History, Canadian Journal of
Film Studies, Cinémas, and Journal of Film and Video.
Špela Zajec
Špela Zajec recently finished her Ph.D. on the subject of film
cultures in the territories of the former Yugoslavia at the University
of Copenhagen, Denmark, and she currently works as a research
assistant at the same university. She has a BA in Ethnology and
Cultural Anthropology from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and
a European MA in Human Rights and Democratization.
ix
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00a-Postcolonial_Prelims_i–x.indd 10 06/11/2013 11:23
Postcolonial Theory and the
Postcommunist World
Ewa Mazierska, Lars Kristensen and
Eva Näripea
This book is devoted to representations of neighbours in Eastern
European cinema, using as its main methodological tool postcolonial
theory. However, as practically every term used to describe our
project has a contested meaning, we shall explain them first.
Eastern European cinemas, Eastern European
neighbours
By ‘Eastern European cinema’ we mean cinemas of countries that
were within the Warsaw Pact and the Federal People’s Republic of
Yugoslavia and today are labelled as postcommunist. They cover
a geographical area that extends from East Germany in the West
to Mongolia in the Far East, from Murmansk in the North to the
southern tip of Albania. Although ‘Eastern Europe’ is by no means
a homogeneous entity, it has in common a certain political and
economic system, which was perceived as different from capitalism.
We argue that the term ‘Eastern Europe’ is useful not only to
describe the situation pertaining to the Cold War, but also after
1
00b-Postcolonial_intro_001-040.indd 1 06/11/2013 11:23
a
m
e
cin the fall of communism, as this region preserved many peculiarities
n from the communist period.1 Accordingly, we define this region
a
e
p as ‘Eastern Europe’ from the present perspective, yet also attempt
o
r to account for its communist and earlier past, in particular the
u
e
n times of the Tsarist and Habsburg Empires. Limited by space and
r
e our research specialisms, we decided to tackle only some national
t
s
a cinemas, leaving others untouched. However, we believe that our
e
o case studies are sufficient to test the effectiveness of postcolonial
t
s
e approaches to Eastern European cinema and allow other researchers
h
c to broaden or correct our analysis by discussing other national
a
o
r cinemas and other types of films.
p
p
a By ‘neighbours’ we mean people living in a neighbouring
l
a country, ethnic minorities, namely those inhabiting the same
ni
o country, but regarded as ethnically and culturally different, as well
l
o
c as those located further away, but exerting significant political,
t
s
o economic or cultural influence on the examined group. Of course,
p
it would be impossible in a publication of this size to consider all
neighbouring relations in Eastern Europe. Our choice was also
dictated by our desire to show as many types of neighbouring
relations as possible, a need to discuss different sub-regions of
Eastern Europe and practicalities involved in preparing books
of this kind. We decided to focus on people attached to a nation-
state, leaving out Jews, Roma and stateless ethnic minorities as
the main subjects of our investigation, as they would activate a
different set of questions, especially the Holocaust, which have
already attracted a large amount of scholarship. Nevertheless, we
will refer to them as an important factor in mediating neighbouring
relations between people possessing their own country. Our choice
of neighbours is also informed by what Charles Taylor describes
as the ‘politics of recognition’. Such politics, as Taylor observes, is
based on two assumptions; first on equal dignity of individuals and
social groups and, secondly, on their distinctness and, hence, the
right to preserve their language and traditions.2 At the same time,
an important motif of the chapters constituting this collection is
precisely the lack of the ‘politics of recognition’ in Eastern Europe.
2
00b-Postcolonial_intro_001-040.indd 2 06/11/2013 11:23
P
o
s
t
Their authors attempt to explain the reasons why the ‘politics of c
o
recognition’ was rejected during most of the history of this region, lo
n
including during the communist period, and assess whether the ia
l
shift towards the new economic and social order is conducive to t
h
e
applying it. o
r
y
a
n
d
The concept of colonialism and its Western and t
h
Eastern versions e
P
o
s
The term ‘colonialism’ denotes a specific form of domination and t
c
o
exploitation that has political, economic and cultural dimensions. m
m
Some commentators emphasize its cultural aspects,3 while others u
n
stress the importance of economic and/or political aspects. For is
t
example, Ania Loomba argues that ‘colonialism can be defined W
o
r
as the conquest and control of other people’s land and goods’.4 l
d
According to Estonian art historian Jaak Kangilaski, however,
the most important characteristic of colonialism is the fact that
the colonizer and the colonized come from different cultural and
ethnic backgrounds, and that the colonizers have regarded their
language and culture as higher than those of the colonized, and
have seen their dissemination as progressive.5 Kangilaski cites
German historian Jürgen Osterhammel, who defines colonialism as
a relationship between the local majority and the foreign intruders.
Principal decisions about the colonized territories are made and
implemented in the metropoles. The colonizers are convinced of
their supremacy and right to rule.6 Thus what defines colonialism
is not a set of (legal) characteristics but the economic, political,
cultural and socio-psychological nature of the colonialism in its
entirety.7
However, these general definitions, while valid, certainly need
to be further qualified. It has been argued that colonialism, defined
in those broad terms, span at least four centuries and is affected
by the onset of World War I, and covers nine-tenths of the land
surface of the globe.8 Thus it is difficult to imagine that what we are
dealing with here is a monolithic and stable phenomenon. Scholars
3
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