In the 1920s, like-minded artists in Prague formed the group Devětsil, which later evolved into a distinct movement within avant-garde art. It included poets, playwrights, musicians, and architects. Although the movement did not leave behind any filmed works, their approach to cinema was distinguished by a unique contribution: the writing of so-called poetic scripts[1]. This artistic fervor attests to cinema’s potential to inspire other arts through its aesthetic autonomy. Until then, avant-garde filmmakers had been trying to “liberate” cinema from the influence of literature and theater, each through their practice. The poetic scripts of Czechoslovakian artists were a gesture through which the art of the screen shed its ideological impulses to exist in absolute creative potential. In the 1930s, surrealism found fertile ground among Czechoslovakian artists, and its strong ideological and visual influence remained for decades in the cinema of Jan Švankmajer, Věra Chytilová, and others.
Alexander Hackenschmid marked the beginning of screen experiments in the country with his first film, Bezúcelná procházka (Aimless Walk, 1930). In 1939, he emigrated to the United States and changed his name to Alexander Hamid. His multifaceted skills proved to be at the heart of the then-emerging American experimental cinema. Hamid and his wife Maya Deren shot the prototype of experimental cinema, Meshes of the Afternoon (1947). Hamid worked on three more films with Deren.
Alexander Hamid organized the country’s first “Avant-Garde Film Week” in 1930, where he presented not only his own Bezúcelná procházka but also René Clair’s Entr’acte (1924) and Jean Vigo’s À propos de Nice (1930). Two more followed, in 1931 and 1932[2], respectively, and Hamid also worked as a set designer, cameraman, and editor. Bezúcelná procházka is a short film in which the author captures his Prague—the river, the barges on it, the factories, and the buildings. The relationship between cinema and the city is nothing new:
The reason is obvious: cinema is predominantly part of urban culture. It was originally made in the city and is most often distributed there. […] Historically, cinema was born in the city, stemming from urban cultural phenomena, reflecting the collective life of the polis, and quickly recognizing the modern metropolis as a home for its ideas and production [3].
The film features a visual-artistic practice that would later find its full expression in the joint works of Hamid and Deren, namely, reflections in mirrors, shop windows, and water surfaces. The appeal of shots with reflections is still used today in all types of cinema. In Hamid and Deren’s films, reflections that seem unpretentious at first glance are transformed into characters from a mythological dimension, always ready to open a gap between the simultaneously existing physical and spiritual worlds. In “A Pointless Walk,” Hamid presents several points of view—he is simultaneously a player and an observer, and often a reflection, a ghost. The author is fascinated by the idea of a separation of the human being into two.[4] A person whose splitting does not mark a psychotic state, but the possibility of being nobody and multiple people at the same time.
Jan Kucera shot Burleska in 1932. The film contrasts shots of a deck of cards with archival war footage. Kucera uses numerous shots of objects laden with symbolism, such as a flower, a flying balloon, and clock hands. For humans, a game without victims is never satisfying, and while the flower is thrown on the pavement, it still blooms. A handful of “players” condemn millions of innocent people to death. Kucera declares his pacifism at a time when cinema still has the passion to express an iconically independent socio-cultural position.
Due to the Nazi occupation in the 1940s and the establishment of communist rule in 1948, Czechoslovak cinema only began to enjoy a certain degree of creative freedom in the 1960s. The long-suppressed traditions of the avant-garde found space in the films of representatives of the New Czech Wave. The new generation of directors was strongly influenced by the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini, and Lindsay Anderson. Young filmmakers sought new means of expression, combining the approaches of their Western colleagues with those familiar to surrealism and other avant-garde movements.
Stefan and Franciszka Themerson from Poland are a well-known couple of avant-garde filmmakers. Their films are distinguished by exceptional technical proficiency and skillful use of a wide variety of techniques for creating cinematic images. Despite their intense creative activity, the passage of time has taken its toll, and only three of the couple’s films have been preserved: Adventures of a Good Citizen (1937), Calling Mr. Smith (1943), and The Eye and the Ear (1944). At the beginning of the 20th century, Polish artists embraced the radical spirit of futurism. This highly politicized movement met the nation’s need to form a suitable ideology of independence. The new socio-political situation in the country required different moral values, which had a strong impact on the artistic community, who were stoically attached to the traditionality in art, particularly Romanticism[5]. Polish artists tried to model futurism through their own eyes, distancing themselves from the essence of the movement in Italy and Russia. The military spirit of Italian futurism was not shared by the Poles, who were more reminiscent of the anti-war ideology of Dada. Russians and Poles sought social justice, while Marinetti’s futurism was a shocking, aggressive gesture. Nevertheless, Futurism in Poland was short-lived, lasting until 1923, with support from a few critics. Its aesthetic legacy can be seen a decade later in the works of artists from a variety of arts[6].
The most famous Polish avant-garde film is Europa (1932), a work by the Themersons. The film was based on Anatol Stern’s futuristic poem of the same title – a post-apocalyptic text about a mad Europe rapidly sinking into servile destruction. The Second World War deprived film historians and viewers of the chance to see the film. Evidence of it can be found in the few remaining photographs in the Themersons’ personal archive and in the screenplay[7].
Still Shot from Еuropa. Credit: https://lux.org.uk/work/europa/
Themersons encountered several difficulties while shooting their films. Making an avant-garde film in 1930s Poland was no easy task. Cinema requires technology, and in those days, film stock, cameras, and the subsequent laboratory processes of developing, copying, and editing were not accessible to everyone[8].
Stefan created his first photogram while still a student, and the technique subsequently became a hallmark of their films. Adventures of a Good Citizen (1937) combines live-action footage with photograms resembling flying birds. In contrast, The Eye and the Ear (1944) presents abstract images through photograms, while Calling Mr. Smith (1943) incorporates the processes of solarization[9] and the Sabatier effect[10] into these photograms. Although modernism represents the world as rejecting the natural in favor of technological invention, Themersons’ films are distinguished by their search for the connection between nature, culture, and technological progress, rather than their antagonistic characteristics[11].
Still Shot from The Eye and The Ear. Credit: https://lux.org.uk/work/the-eye-and-the-ear1/
In Adventures of a Good Citizen, the main character, a government official, begins to walk backwards. The film’s subtitle is A Humorous Burlesque. With their “backwards” gait, Franciszka and Stefan manage to criticize the status quo entertainingly. In a radio interview in 1978, Stefan said that the early avant-garde believed in “a new order or disorder in art” that could change the world for the better[12]. This film comes closest to Surrealism. Avant-garde ideology and aesthetics helped preserve creative autonomy amid the destructive onslaught of social realism imposed by the Stalinist regime[13]. The family left Poland in 1938. The following year, Stefan joined the Polish army, while Franciszka left for London. They spent several years apart, with Stefan working for the Polish Red Cross in France from 1940 to 1942[14]. Finally, at the end of 1942, the couple reunited in London, where they remained until the end of their lives in 1988. In 1948, the couple founded the publishing house Gaberbocchus Press. It was named after the poem about the killing of the Jabberwocky monster from Alice in Wonderland. Funded by the Polish government, Themersons filmed Calling Mr. Smith and The Eye and the Ear.
The work of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson ranges from writing children’s books (Stefan) to illustrating them (Franciszka) to filming movies, organizing screenings, editing and publishing the works of the most eccentric authors, many of whom were rejected by established English publishers and the well-established literary tradition, e.g. Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters, and others.
The cinema avant-garde gives freedom to creative individuality, which nowadays is presumed to be given to anyone with a camera in their hand. Nevertheless, contemporary global visual culture is becoming increasingly impersonal because the “small” artist wants to resemble the “big” one, forgetting that inspiration is a step of the individual towards themselves.
Bibliography
Dimitrova, Maya. Kinoto i gradat. In: Art Readings. S.: Institute of Art Studies – BAS, 2007.
Hames, Peter. Czech and Slovak cinema: Theme and Tradition (Traditions in World Cinema). Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
Kuc, Kamilla. The Struggle for Form: Perspectives on Polish Avant-Garde Film, 1916–1989. WallFlower Press, 2014.
Kuc, Kamilla. Visions of Avant-Garde Film: Polish
Cinematic Experiments from Expressionism to Constructivism. Indiana
University Press, 2016.
[1] Hames, Peter. Czech and Slovak cinema: Theme and Tradition (Traditions in World Cinema). Edinburgh University Press, 2010, p.145.
[2] Ibid.,146.
[3] Dimitrova, Maya. Kinoto i gradat. In: Art Readings. S.: Institute of Art Studies – BAS, 2007, p. 309.
[4] Hames, Peter. Czech and Slovak cinema: Theme and Tradition (Traditions in World Cinema). Edinburgh University Press, 2010, p.146.
[5] Kuc, Kamilla. Visions of Avant-Garde Film: Polish Cinematic Experiments from Expressionism to Constructivism. Indiana University Press, 2016, p.69.
[6] Ibid., 70.
[7] Ibid., 72.
[8] Kuc, Kamilla. The Struggle for Form: Perspectives on Polish Avant-Garde Film, 1916–1989. WallFlower Press, 2014, p.8.
[9] Solarization refers to the reduction in optical density observed after development at extremely high exposure values. In the solarization zone, the characteristic curve drops rapidly, which means that as exposure increases, density decreases—the more exposed parts appear lighter in the image, i.e., a positive image is obtained.
[10] In artistic photography, a graphic technique is used whose effect is very similar to that of solarization. This technique is often mistakenly called solarization.
[11] Kuc, Kamilla. The Struggle for Form: Perspectives on Polish Avant-Garde Film, 1916–1989. WallFlower Press, 2014, p.20.
[12] Ibid., 22.
[13] Ibid., 16.
[14] Ibid., 26.
