SKOPAL, Pavel. Going to the Cinema as a Czech : Preferences and Practices of Czech Cinemagoers in the Occupied City of Brno, 1939–1945. Film History. 2019, vol. 31, No 1, p. 27-55. ISSN 0892-2160. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.2979/FILMHISTORY.31.1.0027.
Other formats:   BibTeX LaTeX RIS
Basic information
Original name Going to the Cinema as a Czech : Preferences and Practices of Czech Cinemagoers in the Occupied City of Brno, 1939–1945
Authors SKOPAL, Pavel (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
Edition Film History, 2019, 0892-2160.
Other information
Original language English
Type of outcome Article in a journal
Field of Study 60405 Studies on Film, Radio and Television
Country of publisher United States of America
Confidentiality degree is not subject to a state or trade secret
WWW URL
RIV identification code RIV/00216224:14210/19:00107467
Organization unit Faculty of Arts
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/FILMHISTORY.31.1.0027
UT WoS 000469286000002
Keywords in English cinemagoing; audiences; Second World War; cinema culture in an occupied society; Nazism; cinema and national identity; Czech cinema
Tags rivok
Tags International impact, Reviewed
Changed by Changed by: doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D., učo 18130. Changed: 6/1/2021 19:40.
Abstract
After the occupation of the Czech lands by Nazi Germany in March 1939, Czechs embraced domestic (and ignored German) movies more vigorously than they had before. This implies that the occupation caused notable changes in the mode of movie reception. After about 1942, however, the popularity of a portion of German production was increasing. This fact raises the question of whether cinemagoers' values and identities were undergoing significant change under the occupation. This paper focuses on Brno, a city with a long history of coexistence and rivalry between those who identified as Germans and as Czechs. I argue that watching a Czech movie became one of the behaviors that defined the Czech national identity. The later embrace of German entertainment by Czechs was accompanied by two strategies that redeemed watching the desired cinematic distraction from being an un-Czech behavior: by indexing the movies as not fully German due to the presence of non-German stars, and by a parallel redefinition of cinemagoers' Czech behavior from choosing Czech movies to choosing cinemas identified as non-German. These strategies represent culturally specific reactions by Czech audiences living in a nationally divided city to the distribution and exhibition practices applied during the occupation.
Links
GA16-13375S, research and development projectName: Česká filmová kultura a německá okupace: procesy kulturního transferu
Investor: Czech Science Foundation
PrintDisplayed: 10/10/2024 05:30