Slavic 423 – East European Film

This course takes a comparative look at the films of East European directors. The first part of the class focuses on East European directors who moved to the “West” to work. Among these are Milos Forman, from Czechoslovakia, and Agnieszka Holland and Roman Polanski, from Poland. We will spend the most time working with the cinema of Milos Forman, a director who made outstanding films in his native Czechoslovakia during the so-called Czech New Wave of the late sixties, and then succeeded in making the quintessentially “American” Hollywood films such as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The People vs. Larry Flynt. The second part of the course will compare East European films with films from other parts of the world on the basis of one distinctive technique, such as the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated stories taking place in different countries in order to reveal unexpected connections. We will here look at films such as Dusan Makavejev’s iconic WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Yugoslavia) and Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain (Macedonia), and compare them with Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown (France).
This course will also familiarize students with some of the basic features of Eastern European cinema in the post-World War II period. These include the vibrant production of experimental and animated films, and the issues associated with filmmaking in a non-market-based society. No prerequisites.