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Czech Surrealism and Czech New Wave Realism

This article examines a major difference between French and Czech Surrealism as exemplified by their attitudes to film. It engages in a close analysis of three films by documentary-influenced Czech New Wave directors whom the Prague Surrealist group admired: Miloš Forman, Ivan Passer and Jan Němec. The analysis focuses on the way in which objects in these films can take on multiple meanings depending on their context. It concludes that such objects suggest a broadening of possibilities in everyday life and in this respect correspond to both Surrealist goals and to the experience of living in a society in the process of political liberalization. The Paris Surrealist group’s favourite Czech New Wave film was Věra Chytilová’s highly experimental Sedmikrásky (Daisies, 1966); the Prague group, by contrast, preferred the documentary-style approach of Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer (Král 2002: 9). The Prague Surrealists also extended their praise to the somewhat less realistic films of Jan Němec, but only insofar as their ’onirisme inclut [...] un sens des réalités crus/their oneirism included [...] a sense of raw reality’ (Král 2002: 9). This difference of opinion between the Paris and Prague Surrealist groups points to a more profound divergence in their cultural and historical origins. In this article I will begin by exploring this divergence and go on to explain how it influenced the Prague group’s attitude to cinema. I will then examine one film by each of the three directors that the Prague group singled out for praise: Miloš Forman’s Lásky jedné plavovlásky (Loves of a Blonde, 1965), Ivan Passer’s Intimní osvětlení (Intimate Lighting, 1965) and Jan Němec’s O slavnosti a hostech (The Party and the Guests, 1966). The analysis will focus on the way in which Forman, Passer and Němec make use of physical objects in their films: familiar items take on numerous different meanings in relation to their context and the characters’ preoccupations. I believe that part of the appeal that these films held for the Czech Surrealists was the way in which the directors deployed physical objects to demonstrate the rich multiplicity of meaning inherent in our everyday surroundings, an idea which was cherished by both Paris and Prague Surrealist groups. The Origins of the Czech Surrealist emphasis on reality As their differing tastes in cinema suggest, the major difference between French and Czech approaches to Surrealism lay in their relationship to physical reality. The Paris group at times became distanced from physical reality, allowing the unconscious (and its associated creativity) to take precedence (Král 1983: 18). The Prague group’s attitude, by contrast, was eloquently summarised by Vratislav Effenberger, one of their post-war leaders: ’Imagination does not mean turning away from reality but its antithesis: reaching through to the dynamic core of reality’ (Hames 2008b: 34). The origin of the Prague Surrealist group’s affinity for reality can be attributed to several distinct factors in its development. To begin, it is necessary to look to the forerunners of the respective Surrealist groups. While Surrealism in Paris developed from Dada, in Prague it grew from a specifically Czech movement known as Poetism. Poetism was itself part of a larger avant-garde movement in Czechoslovakia known as Devětsil. Like Dada, Devětsil reacted to the barbarity of World War I by rejecting Western culture and technology (Šmejkal 1990b: 10). Devětsil did not share Dada’s nihilism, however, as it found a viable alternative to that which it had rejected: leftist politics, folk art, and traditional lifestyles with their emphasis on simple pleasures (Šmejkal 1990b: 10). Devětsil’s orientation changed radically within two years of its foundation. By 1922, the movement’s leader Karel Teige and poet Vítězslav Nezval began to promote Constructivist approaches which privileged the very technology Devětsil had initially rejected (Šmejkal 1990b: 12, 18). What remained unchanged, however, was the group’s focus on real-life concerns: where Devětsil had initially embraced reality by turning to simple pleasures and popular art forms, a similar concern for everyday reality was subsequently reflected in the modern utilitarian approach of Constructivism.