Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe 9781501337178, 9781501337208, 9781501337192

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Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe

Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe Edited by Ewa Mazierska and Zsolt Győri

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2019 Paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Ewa Mazierska and Zsolt Gyo ˝ri and Contributors, 2019 Cover design by Louise Dugdale Cover image: Still from Red Boogie or What is the Matter Girl, 1982, dir: Karpo Godina © Karpo Godina All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF : eBook:

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Contents 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9

Introduction: Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe  Ewa Mazierska and Zsolt Győri

1

1968 Leftist Utopianism in The Young Girls of Rochefort and Hot Summer  Evan Torner

25

Representing Modern Romania in the Musical of State Socialist Period  Gabriela Filippi

45

Worlds that Never Were: Contemporary Eastern European Musical Comedies and the Memory of Socialism  Balázs Varga

63

Pop Music, Nostalgia and Melancholia in Dollybirds and Liza, the Fox Fairy  Hajnal Király

83

When the Golden Kids Met the Bright Young Men and Women: Rebellion, Innovation and Cultural Tradition in the Czech 1960s Music Film  Jonathan Owen

99

‘Music isn’t Music, Words aren’t Words’: Underground Music in the Hungarian Cinema of the New Sensibility  Zsolt Győri

117

Socialist Night Fever: Yugoslav Disco on Film and Television  Marko Zubak

139

Disco Polo and Techno According to Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz  Ewa Mazierska

155

Musical Variations in Karpo Godina’s Alternative Cinema  Andrej Šprah

171

10 Polish Music Videos: Between Parochialism and Universalism  Ewa Mazierska

187

11 ‘She Stole it from Beyoncé!’: Transnational Borrowing in Bulgarian Pop-­folk Music Videos and Audience Reaction to the Practice  Maya Nedyalkova

205

vi

Contents

12 Postsocialist Social Reality in Hungarian Rap Music Videos  Anna Batori List of Contributors Index

225 241 245

Introduction Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe Ewa Mazierska and Zsolt Győri

Music is the most pervasive element of film (and other forms of moving image) and the ‘two mediums share a long history of artistic affinities’ (Inglis 2003, 1), but it is also its most ‘invisible’ element. According to popular description, film is a visual medium. Much more rarely do we encounter claims of it being an aural medium, despite the fact that even silent films were shown to the accompaniment of music. Yet, while in the West the aural dimension and especially music eventually received their due recognition with regard to musicals, biopics, music videos and music documentaries, as well as film music (for example, Frith, Goodwin and Grossberg 1993; Romney and Wootton 1995; Mundy 1999; Robertson Wojcik and Knight 2001; Dyer 2002; Inglis 2003; Vernallis 2004; Edgar, Fairclough-Isaacs and Halligan 2013), in scholarship on Eastern European cinema this topic remains neglected, especially if we exclude Russia from Eastern Europe, which is the case here.1 Such neglect can be explained by several factors. The most important of them is an auteurist bias in Eastern European film studies and to some extent popular music studies. Until recently, the vast majority of books about Eastern European cinema, written in local languages and even more so in English, were concerned with the countries’ leading directors, during state socialism, whose work was treated as conveying their unique vision, typically at odds with the Party ideologies. In this way directors such as Andrzej Wajda, Miklós Jancsó, Miloš Forman and Béla Tarr were discussed. Even if some of their work can be considered as conforming to the precepts of genre cinema, this dimension has often been ignored or received little interest. By the same token, the work of other artists contributing to their success, such as composers, has been played down, as it has been (implicitly) regarded as subservient to a director’s vision.

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The other side of this approach has been an assumption that genre cinema (musicals included) was a conformist cinema in Eastern Europe. Its main purpose was to educate the masses in the spirit of state socialism, or distract them from the shortcomings of the system, by offering them entertainment. Such cinema relied heavily on the apparatus of the film industry and rules borrowed from elsewhere and hastily adjusted to local circumstances, ‘glocalized’, as we can say, using contemporary jargon. As Evan Torner observes in Chapter 1, musicals at large are frequently seen as reactionary in their dual reliance on established institutional infrastructure and the tropes of popular entertainment in order to ‘distract’ their audiences from socio-­economic issues with song and dance.2 However, the situation of Eastern European musicals was allegedly more perilous than that of their Western counterparts, due to the film industry in this region lacking the financial and technological resources, as well as tradition, to produce spectacles enticing eyes and ears (on this argument in relation to Polish cinema see Michałek 1981, 155–58). These perspectives, in our opinion, are short-­sighted and often fail to recognise the significance which auteur directors ascribed to music in their films on the one hand and to the cult popularity music cinema enjoyed, on the other hand. This collection is meant to challenge them by focusing on types of screen products, in which music draws attention to itself, as is the case, most obviously, with musicals and music videos, but also with music documentaries, and some experimental and fiction films, for example those casting rock and pop stars in main roles. We limit ourselves to the relationship between the moving image and popular music because such music is usually contemporaneous with film, hence the relationship between music and film on such occasions is more intimate and culturally more specific, as noticed by Rick Altman, who wrote: ‘While “classical music” is particularly able to provide routine commentary and to evoke generalized emotional reactions, popular song is often capable of serving a more specific narrational purpose’ (Altman 2001, 26). By focusing on the interface between popular music and the moving image, this collection fills a significant gap in the scholarship in two fields: Eastern European cinema and music in film. It also endeavours to paint a less biased image of Eastern European cinema as made up by a handful of masterpieces created by rebellious auteurs. Although it is beyond the scope of this volume to present the history of popular music on Eastern European screens, especially given that Eastern Europe is not a homogenous whole but a collection of diverse regions and countries, we would like to sketch here a chronology of developments, which led

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to music gaining in importance. Before we do so, however, let’s look briefly at the main types of relationship between popular music and the moving image, identified by scholars focusing on Western cinema.

Illustration, beautification, documentation and synaesthesia From a historical perspective it is possible to identify four main types of relationship between music and the moving image. In the first type music simply illustrates what we see on screen and fills gaps in the narrative. Such a role of music prevails in most films, including silent cinema. When we talk about ‘film music’, typically we have in mind this function of music. The second one is to beautify represented reality or, more broadly, to transform it. This function of music is predominant in musicals. The vast majority of musicals belong to spectacular and non-­realistic cinema with narrative function being subordinate to that of creating breath-­taking performance (Mundy 1999, 226). In musicals the world tends to be brighter, more colourful than in reality, people are more successful and happier, and live in harmony with each other. In the relationship of the third type, moving image is used to document music as ‘music’ or a social phenomenon. Such a relationship can be observed in music documentaries, most conspicuously in rock concert films (Edgar, Fairclough-Isaacs and Halligan 2013), but also in fiction films which employ rock stars or take issue with the lives of musicians and music subcultures, and in many music videos. The fourth relationship can be summarized as synaesthesia, namely an artwork, in which music and film reflect affinities between them, be it sensual, technical, metaphysical or referring to specific aspects of their meanings (Cook 1998, 24–56). Such an approach is taken in many music videos, particularly those for electronic music (Cameron 2013) and experimental films, but also, in some cases, in auteurist fictional films, for example in the productions of Derek Jarman. Of course, these types of relationship are ideal models. In reality, these specific functions and relationships overlap. If we map the fourfold classification of the music-­image synergy onto the history of the moving image, then we notice that with the passage of time music in films gains more importance and autonomy. This reflects the growing commercial power of popular music, especially pop-­rock, which since the 1960s has dominated the soundtrack of American and European films. In relation to Western media, John Mundy uses the term ‘commercial synergy’. Such synergy

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was reflected, for example, in a frequent practice in the 1980s and 1990s of releasing the soundtrack of a film on CD together with releasing the film on DVD by companies which specialized in both film and music production, such as Time-Warner and Sony (Mundy 1999, 227–29; see also Smith 1998; Knight and Robertson Wojcik 2001: 2–3). Admittedly, under state socialism ‘commercial synergy’ played a smaller role than in the West and especially Hollywood due to its cinema being less market-­ oriented. However, we observe there the same trend, namely a shift from music being used to illustrate action, through beautification, to image serving to document music and finally, to synaesthesia. In the first decade or so after the end of the Second World War music in films was typically inconspicuous. Beautification of reality through popular music was the main strategy used during the period of socialist realism. Documentation dominated in the 1960s and 1970s, when rock started to be seen as a distinct music genre and an important social phenomenon. Finally, synaesthesia pertains to the 1980s and later decades, when video entered the scene and developed as a specific genre. During this period we can also find examples of synaesthesia in fiction films, for example in Sátántangó (Satantango, 1994) by Béla Tarr. Let’s now address these developments in greater detail.

Stalinist utopianism The first distinct period in the history of Eastern European cinema is that of Stalinism. During this time several musicals were produced in countries such as Poland and Hungary. Examples include Przygoda na Mariensztacie (An Adventure at Marienstadt, 1953), in Poland and Dalolva szép az élet (Singing Makes Life Beautiful, 1950) and Ifjú szívvel (Young Hearts, 1953) in Hungary. These films presented a utopian reality: the world under construction, created according to socialist principles. In An Adventure at Marienstadt, directed by Leonard Buczkowski which was the first Polish film shot in colour (no doubt a stylistic device which was meant to add attractiveness to the represented reality), we see a whole new estate being built in Warsaw, by newcomers from the Polish province, keen to exchange hard work in the fields for a seemingly lighter and more rewarding labour on a construction site. This labour is performed to the accompaniment of cheerful songs which are a cross between folk and ‘estrada’ genres. Admittedly, socialist realism favoured folk music, but on this occasion, as

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Iwona Sowińska notices, it is a ‘glamour version of folk’, epitomized by the band Mazowsze, cast in An Adventure at Marienstadt (Sowińska 2006, 77). Music on this occasion purifies labour of its less appealing features, its wear and tear. It also plays an illustrative function, adding to the characterization of the protagonists. Thanks to linking them to cheerful, folk music, they come across as ‘simple and hardworking people’ without penchant to melancholia or self-­reflection, conforming to the ideal of the socialist ‘new man’, who happily embraces socialist ideology, without questioning its premises. Songs also act as substitutes of love confessions, which is important in the Polish context, given that Poles are traditionally more preoccupied with serving their country than their beloved women (Mazierska 2008). The greatest hit from the film, ‘Jak przygoda, to tylko w Warszawie’ (If we are to have an adventure, then it must be in Warsaw), is sung by the main female character, a country girl who finds herself in love with Warsaw and falls in love with a man there. It can be added that although An Adventure at Marienstadt was an overtly propagandist film, using the conventions of musical to tell the story of building a new, socialist estate and rebuilding the whole country, allowed the viewers to put the story in imaginary brackets and see it as an innocuous fantasy. The Hungarian Singing Makes Life Beautiful and Young Hearts, both directed by Márton Keleti, feature music for similar reasons – to beautify the period and emphasize the cheerful, optimistic attitude of young labourers. The first film narrates the success of a musically talented and ideologically immaculate agitprop officer who becomes the director of a factory chorus and guides it to victory at a national competition. The film clearly differentiates between the mindless imitators of fashionable Western dance music and the self-­conscious performers of folksy operetta music with lyrics welcoming the birth of the new, socialist man. Such differentiation between tasteless/egoistic and socially purposive love of music is underpinned by the West–East (capitalist–socialist, bourgeois–plebeian) binary and suggests that in the Stalinist-­era music, just as almost every aspect of culture, was seen as an ideological battlefield of forces that either promote or hinder the utopian transformation of society. Young Hearts also parodies youngsters dancing to American swing music; someone even refers to them as apes. At the same time the film glorifies the dedicated pioneers who march to the grandeur of the supreme leader in a monumental outdoor parade underscored by the marching song of the Communist Party. While the joint chanting of songs symbolizes the communal spirit and effort to build ‘the future’, non-­participation in them is a sign of dangerous egotism. This is also the case with the dexterous male protagonist of the film, whose

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stubbornness, isolation, and lack of comradeship endangers his school team’s chance to win the socialist competition. To embody the new man, he must embrace collective rituals and literally take part in the chanting which will be a signature of his moral development. In sum, many Polish and Hungarian films of this period appropriate music (particularly folk music) for ideological indoctrination and suggest that effective investments into this form of popular culture also contribute to the project of building the communist society. Although Stalinist utopianism did not exist in Yugoslav cinema because of the split with the Soviet Union in 1948, the majority of official films were celebrations of Titoist utopianism. The most notable educational genre was the Partisan War film, unquestionably the most important genre in Yugoslav cinema of the period. It supported Titoism by downplaying nationalist tendencies and celebrating the brotherhood of nations in the Balkan region, also reflected in the choice of patriotic music in the form of well-­known Partisan songs on the soundtrack. This includes Slavica (1947), the first full-­length Yugoslav film, a story of a Dalmatian fishing community building a ship as a form of resistance against oppression. With the outbreak of WWII, the ship becomes a symbol of identification with the Partisan’s cause and a future victory against tyranny, decidedly associated with diegetic songs chanted by the patriotic villagers. Partisan songs were also featured in films including Veljko Bulajic’s two films Kozara (1962) and Bitka na Neretvi (The Battle on the River Neretva, 1969), and Hajrudin Krvavac’s Valter brani Sarajevo (Walter Defends Sarajevo, 1972). Subsequently they were satirized by dissident filmmakers and used ironically in post-Yugoslav cinema, such as Emir Kusturica’s Underground (1995) and Srdjan Dragojevic‘s Lepa sela lepo gore (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame, 1996), but this only ensured their continuous existence in cultural memory.

The 1960s and 1970s: rock stars gain visibility In his introduction to Popular Music and Film, Ian Inglis observes that ‘it was not until the 1970s that popular music, which had by then reconstructed itself in significant part as “rock” rather than “showbiz”. . . was able to participate in film in ways which departed from the traditional conventions of the musical interlude and the “escapist” functions commonly associated with the screen musical’ (Inglis 2003, 2).

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In this respect Eastern Europe was hardly behind the West. The 1960s saw the production of a significant number of films which not only used popular music, but put it centre stage. However, in a typical self-­depreciating manner, betraying their bias against popular cinema, Eastern European critics tend to play down the achievements of local filmmakers in this area. For example, Piotr Fortuna, writing about Polish musicals, uses the mildly contemptuous term ‘muzykol’ (a word which does not exist in the standard Polish, but is a polonized version of ‘musical’) and announces that ‘the cinema of the Polish People’s Republic never moved beyond one third of the distance to musical’ (Fortuna 2015, 121). Iwona Sowińska, in her study of Polish film music, claims that bigbit (Polonized big beat, used to describe the vernacular version of rock) ‘functioned in Polish film as a “foreign body”. No author adopted its language; it functioned as a quotation from the foreign world, being treated with dislike, curiosity or at least indulgence’ (Sowińska 2006, 212). In Poland the first rock film was Mocne uderzenie (Big Beat, 1967), directed by Jerzy Passendorfer, a love story propelled by mistaken identities, whose background was a competition for young music talents. This was a popular event of the period, because Poland was eager to join the part of the world where rock was thriving. The soundtrack was provided by two of the most popular rock bands of the 1960s, Skaldowie and Niebiesko-Czarni and many songs were written especially for the film. Even before Big Beat had its premiere, new stars of bigbit cropped up in Polish films, sometimes in unexpected situations. An example is Dwa żebra Adama (Adam’s Two Ribs, 1963) by Janusz Morgenstern, where we find an episode in which the whole provincial town, including the Party dignitaries and older women, attend a concert given by young big-­bit stars Karin Stanek (known as Miss Dynamite) and Wojciech Gąssowski. Their performance can be seen as a transition from the treatment of music offered in An Adventure at Marienstadt and that in Big Beat, as the singing couple sing in a distinct ‘youth style’, but the song is a classical socialist realist song Budujemy nowy dom (We Are Building a New House) about building new houses, as well as, metaphorically, a new socialist reality. In the same period Hungarian cinema came to document the emerging youth culture with more realism. Ezek a fiatalok . . . (These Youngsters . . ., 1967) by Tamás Banovich addressed generational coming of age experience – like falling in love and the ensuing emotional turmoil, conflicting values of parents and children, and career choices, underscored by performances of some of the best known Hungarian beat bands, including Illés, Metro and Omega. As a result of

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its loose storyline and a broad-­brush approach to characterization, this film was valuable not for its artistic merits but for having introduced the upcoming Hungarian pop music scene to cinema audiences. János Zsombolyai’s musical road movie A kenguru (The Kangaroo, 1975) took a similar approach, and while its plot was more involving, it continued to focus on music and served as a vehicle to introduce new performers, such as Fonográf, Bergendy, LGT, Generál, Zsuzsa Koncz, Sarolta Zalatnay. The fact that the soundtracks of both films were released on vinyl and enjoyed widespread popularity in Hungary supports the claim that in this period cinema played a significant role in documenting and disseminating popular music. In addition, emerging starts of popular music were featured in the cinema of the period. Péter Bacsó’s Fejlövés (The Fatal Shot, 1967) starred Charlie Horváth and Kati Kovács, the latter performer also appearing in the main role of Márta Mészáros’s two early films – Eltávozott nap (The Girl, 1968), Holdudvar (Binding Sentiments, 1968) – and Miklós Jancsó’s Fényes szelek (The Confrontation, 1969). The 1960s also saw the emergence and development of music documentary. The bulk of the 1960s documentaries merely registered fragments of performances by popular stars, adding voice-­overs commenting on their successes, sometimes in a patronizing manner. Such short films formed part of newsreels shown in cinemas before the main screenings. Some short films were reports from competitions for prospective rockers, for example Wszyscy jesteśmy Presley’ami (We Are All Presleys, 1963), directed by Roman Wionczek and Konkurs (Audition, 1963), directed by Miloš Forman; a film comprising of two: Kdyby ty muziky nebyly (If There Was No Music) and Konkurs. The value of these films lies principally in documenting the youth culture of the time, as well as the beginnings of some of the greatest rock stars in their respective countries, such as the leaders of the band Breakout in Wionczek’s film (Pławuszewski 2015, 107–8). However, some music documentaries belong to the most sophisticated examples of national cinemas. Among them is Forman’s Audition and Kdyby ty muziky nebyly (If There Were No Music, 1964), discussed by Jonathan Owen in this collection. The first film shows an audition for the music theatre Semafor in Prague, whose directors, Vladimir Svitacek and Jiří Šlitr, Forman befriended when he was living in Brussels. It is a hybrid film, in which amateurs are mixed with professionals and pure documentation is enriched by a (fictional) story. As Peter Hames observes, ‘The strength of the film lies in its witty, ironic and sympathetic observation of its subjects . . . The famous scene, repeated in Forman’s first American film, Taking Off (1971), where different girls sing the

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same song, each image and face cut to different phrases, manages to be funny, cruel and beautiful all at the same time’ (Hames 2005, 109). From our perspective, the importance of the film also lies in documenting the desire of young people to become rock stars, given that in the official ideology of state socialist countries, this was not the most noble job – working on construction sites and in factories was presented as much more elevated occupations. If There Were No Music also shows the importance of rock music in the lives of young people, by comparing it with the declining culture of brass bands. It is worth mentioning here that the film was distributed in the United States under the title Why Do We Need All the Brass Bands? Why, indeed, one can answer, if we have rock. Two Hungarian films, András Jeles’s short documentary A meghallgatás (The Audition, 1969) and Gyula Gazdag’s Válogatás (Selection, 1970) portray youth culture of the socialist talent scout and adopt a similarly critical approach to Forman’s Audition. The strategy on the part of official cultural policies to make supportive gestures in public towards popular culture, according to Gábor Gelencsér, is exposed as hypocritical in these films. Bearing in mind that ‘authorities began to support harmless “entertainment” and mediocre kitsch in order to sanction subversive and “ambiguous” music by political means, and to neutralize the influence of Western music’ (Gelencsér 2016, 20), both filmmakers emphasize the dishonesty of such events. Selection is a more traditional documentary which shows how in an industrial plant representatives of the Hungarian Young Communist League organize a competition to find the beat band that would provide popular entertainment for young workers. Adopting the method of cinéma vérité, Gazdag concentrates on the selection process, on discussions between members of the jury and band leaders, and on setting up a system that ultimately neutralizes the spontaneity of youth culture. If Selection explores the ‘performance’ of the bureaucratic state as it constructs the concept of the respectable beat group, The Audition focuses on the performers themselves who, according to Gergely Bikácsi are ‘forced into a kind of death row, into a world where it no longer matters who the jury or the authority is, a world without an outside’ (Bikácsi 1989, 29). The apparent dilettantism of performers, their out-­ of-tune singing, disintegrating rhythms and careless tempo is coupled by the naivety reflected in motivational letters written by competitors and which the film reproduces in voice-­over. The clumsy and pedantic wording, like ‘My aim is to share my talent as public property. My age is between 19 and 20. I impatiently seek public opinion to hug me’ is symptomatic of the external political constraints forced on people, which extinguishes excitement and indoctrinates the yearning

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for fame. Despite being non-­narrative documentaries, both films talk about the difficulties of developing grassroots youth culture and popular music culture on its own terms. By the mid to late-1960s Eastern Europe not only saw thousands of youngsters eager to become rock stars, but several who achieved this position and were aware of their elevated status. This description fits Czesław Niemen, who by the end of the decade was the greatest rock star in Poland, as well as one of the most celebrated musicians in the entire Eastern bloc. Not surprisingly, Niemen captured the attention of one of the most original documentary filmmakers in Poland, Marek Piwowski, who dedicated to him Sukces (Success, 1968). The title of the film has a double meaning: it refers to the title of one of Niemen’s popular songs and the title of his LP, and to the meaning of success according to the singer. The result is humorous because of the incongruity between different parts of Niemen’s answer to the question ‘What is success?’. The singer keeps saying that fame does not matter to him and dismisses his fans for asking him about tips for breaking into showbusiness. Yet, at the same time, he boasts about various privileges he enjoys thanks to being a celebrity, such as being allowed into a high-­class restaurant, when it is officially closed down, and states that he has a ‘deeper contact with the essence of life’. Niemen’s pretensions to originality and spirituality are also undermined by the fragments of music Piwowski chooses for his film, such as the titular song, whose lyrics are banal, and another, sung in English, that sounds like an imitation of Anglo-American pop songs of the period. Success shows the then greatest Polish pop failing the ultimate test of a rock star’s value – that of authenticity (Mazierska 2016, 1920). The majority of music films from the 1960s and the 1970s privileged music and rudimentary stories around the lives of young musicians over other aspects of the film, such as set design and the architecture of shooting locations. However, in some films from the period, the visual and the aural elements were better integrated. This was the case of Estonian concert films and musicals from the late 1960s and early 1970s, set in Tallinn’s well-preserved medieval Old Town, now a UNESCO world heritage site. Films such as Varastati Vana Toomas (Old Thomas Was Stolen, 1970) by Semyon Shkolnikov and Don Juan Tallinnas (Don Juan in Tallinn, 1971) by Arvo Kruusement provide insights into Soviet discourse on tourism and space, as well as popular music. In Eva Näripea’s words, ‘the aural and architectural landscapes of these films functioned as a two-­way street. On one hand, they served as display windows for exportation of Soviet achievements on the Baltic to potential tourists, mainly outside, but also inside the Soviet

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Union. On the other hand, for local audiences they operated as illusory, yet probably somewhat comforting, tours to virtual space behind the Iron Curtain, importing cultural references the access to which in “real” life was restricted’ (Näripea 2015, 149). In many of these films we see people singing contemporary pop songs in historical attire. It is worth adding that although this trend of ‘historicizing’ pop-rock was most extreme in Estonia, it also existed in other countries, such as Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia, where pop-­rock stars were also filmed or photographed in historical costumes or near historic buildings. In Romania, for example, the communist regime pressured the band Phoenix to abandon their beat style and look for inspiration within Romanian folklore, pagan rituals, mystical animals and old traditions. This period of the band’s musical output was featured in Sergiu Nicolaescu’ historical-­adventure drama Nemuritorii (The Immortals, 1974), for which the band composed the soundtrack. Nicolaescu would also employ jazz music in other films of his, such as Cu mâinile curate (With clean hands 1972) and Ultimul cartuș (The Last Cartridge, 1974). Richard Oschanitzky’s jazz compositions in the main titles would become the most easily recognizable tunes of Romanian popular music used in movies.

The 1980s: Music sells films, films sell music The 1980s is widely regarded as a period when Eastern European rock matured (Ramet 1994). Such maturation can be regarded as a natural process, given that pop-­rock in Eastern Europe was born in the late 1950s–early 1960s, but it was also facilitated by factors such as easing of censorship, early attempts at neoliberalization of the music industry and more frequent contacts between Eastern and Western musicians (Patton 2012). This development was also reflected in the increasing number of films, in which pop-­rock music is used not merely as an ornament of a simple story which has little to do with music, but as a problem in its own right. Another sign of the maturation of pop-­rock and its changing relationship with the moving image is the emergence of new forms of moving image dedicated to music, such as full-­length documentary films, mockumentaries and music videos. Poland of the 1980s saw the production of several films, which were vehicles for rock stars, such as Wielka majówka (The Big Picnic, 1981), directed by Krzysztof Rogulski and Czuję się świetnie (I Feel Great, 1984), directed by Waldemar Szarek, which drew on the popularity of the band Maanam. The latter

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film played with the conventions of a biopic and mockumentary. It appeared as if it tried to offer an insight into the everyday existence of a famous band, yet it also undermined the authenticity of its representation by including episodes which were clearly fictional (Mazierska 2017). Among the most important documentaries of this period we should list Fala (Wave, 1985) by Piotr Łazarkiewicz, about the largest Polish rock festival in Jarocin. By interviewing the participants in the festival and the political authorities governing it, the director tried to establish the function of Jarocin (and by extension, rock music) in Poland of state socialism, referring to the two dominant narratives of rock: as a vehicle of political dissidence and a safety valve, allowing the potentially rebellious section of population to release its energy. Another important documentary of this period is Fan (1987), directed by Wojciech Maciejewski. As its very title indicates, in it attention shifted from a rock star to his/her fan, which on this occasion is the leader of Maanam’s fan club. In Hungary, with the emergence of generic romantic films targeting the teenager segment, popular love songs became an essential accompaniment of films and the means to increase their popularity. György Dobray’s Szerelem első vérig (Love Till First Blood, 1986) featured Ferenc Demjén’s song of the same title, a composition that was a raving hit at the time and played endlessly on radio stations. Dobray hoped to capitalize on the success of the film in a sequel that once again featured a music sub-­narrative beside the romantic plotline. The mainstream popularity of Love Till First Blood was, no doubt, due to its romantic melodies, while György Szomjas’s Kopaszkutya (Bald Dog, 1981) enjoyed a similarly warm welcome among audiences with a preference for more energetic rock sounds. The film presents the story of a band playing American rock’n’roll and blues hits with great enthusiasm but little success. After a change in the repertoire and the choice to sing in Hungarian about the mundane and delinquent aspects of life in their neighbourhood they began to sound more authentic in the eyes of the audience, who wanted their own pop-­rock and not a Western imitation. Composed by Hobo Blues Band featuring Gyula Deák Bill, the music had a cult following among fans of blues, even if the soundtrack record was banned on the grounds of vulgar lyrics. For followers of the underground music scene János Xantus’s documentary about the leader of the Budapest underground band Neurotic became an audience favourite. Rocktérítő (Rock Missionary, 1988) tells the story of an underground performer indulging in sex, drugs and rock’n’roll who, during the shooting, became a devout follower of the Pentecostal church in Hungary.

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However, the most complex portrait of a pop-­rock musician in Eastern Europe came not from Poland or Hungary, regarded as mini-­rock empires in this region, but from East Germany – Solo Sunny (1980) by Konrad Wolf, hailed as the greatest director to come from this country. Set in Berlin in the late 1970s, it casts as the main character Sunny, a singer in a band of musicians and circus performers playing in the provinces. The existence of these artists is rendered as repetitive and sordid, hence far removed from the dreams of youngsters presented in some of the films discussed so far. The performers stay in cheap hotels and, due to a lack of better options, drink late into the night. Sunny is constantly harassed by her colleagues and the male audience who regard her strong make-­up and stage clothes as an invitation for sex. While male artists have some standing, the female musician is practically equated with a prostitute. Sunny also has to endure hostile attitudes in the dilapidated, working-class tenement bloc where she lives. There the old petit bourgeoisie prejudices and the new socialist anti-­individualist impulses combine to reject everything that does not fit the socialist norm. Sunny suffers most because unlike the other entertainers, who are used to their routines, she would like to transcend her position of a provincial culture industry employee and become an artist. Yet, the audience, for whom she sings, does not regard her show as anything special, in part because she does not sing an original repertoire, but performs English songs. The Englishness of Sunny’s performance, like her English pseudonym and her ‘Liza Minelli’ make-­up, point to the complexes of the GDR (and by extension, of the whole Eastern bloc) towards the West, which were still noticeable at this period (Mazierska 2015, 127). Solo Sunny is also a unique film because it focuses on a female performer in a music business dominated by males and for that reason it might be considered as an East European counterpart of the British musical film Breaking Glass (1980), starring Hazel O’Connor. However, during this period more common were coming-of-­age stories with a musical focus, most notably Emir Kusturica’s bittersweet Sjecas li se Dolly Bell? (Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, 1981). Popular music features heavily as a sub-­plot: in one scene the protagonist, Dino, is obsessed with learning the Italian song by Adriano Celentano ‘24 mile baci’, and in another Dino’s father drunkenly makes the youngsters sing Partisan songs, while the family also sing Bosnian folk songs together. Kusturica would also have a decisive part in generating international visibility for the music of Goran Bregović, first a member of the seminal YuRock band Bijelo Dugme, best known for their modern rock takes on folk songs from around the Western Balkans and

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Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe

later a solo artist who ventured into Roma music. Bregović composed the soundtrack for Kusturica’s 1988 film, Dom za vesanje (Time of the Gypsies), which brought international fame to the director. The gloomy economic and political climate in the 1980s and the general disillusionment with ideological rhetoric which led some people to retreat into the private sphere and pursue activities they could enjoy there, like listening to music. Others, in contrast, enjoyed popular music in discotheques and clubs that started to proliferate all over the region. The cinema–music interface also intensified as a consequence of the film industry’s recognition of its own crisis of legitimacy among populations eager to consume anything new. Music-­related film offered such novelty, either by providing easily consumable pop songs, or portraying exotic subcultures. Popular music also benefited from the big screen: with attendance figures being still relatively high, musicians saw good opportunities to increase their popularity and either wrote music for films or appeared in them as guest performers. Although some of the short films about performers and bands can be regarded as precursors of music video, it was only in the 1980s that music video, or music clip or video clip, as it was labelled in many Eastern European countries, started to be produced on a larger scale and seen as a specific media form, requiring its own set of aesthetic tools. This period not only coincided with the birth of MTV in 1981 and, later, the golden age of this form in the Western world, but also with the flourishing of video art in many countries of the Eastern bloc. Not surprisingly, music video attracted some of the most innovative visual artists of this period, as it allowed them to create synaesthesia and showcase their work to a wider and younger audience (something experimental artists often yearn for, even though rarely admit to). In Poland, an example of this trend is videos for the punk band Moskwa produced by Józef Robakowski, one of the most renowned Polish experimental artists. In Czarna Data (Black Date, 1982), he uses found footage of military parades, screened in slow motion, to underscore the military character of the period when this film was made, marred by the imposition of martial law. Another example is Powietrza! (Air, 1985) for the song of the same band, which Robakowski shot himself with one camera during Jarocin festival while standing in the middle of the dancing crowd. By the same token, the 2,5-minute long film is a music documentary and an artistic rendition of a song about the lack of air, understood literally and, most likely, metaphorically, as a lack of freedom under the declining state socialism. The novelty of Robakowski’s approach lies in eschewing the temptation of making a mini-­narrative film or a

Introduction

15

mini-­documentary, something orderly and objective. Instead, he underscores the haptic dimension of video, making us feel as if we are in the middle of a crowd, touching the bodies of the rapturous fans. In Hungary the video-­related work of filmmaker Gábor Bódy is internationally recognized as a sophisticated synaesthetic experiment. The most notable works that arose from the novel juxtapositions of image, words and music are De Occulta Philosophia (1983), Eurynomé tánca (Dancing Eurynome, 1985), Valcer (Walzer, 1985). Nevertheless, Bódy was also planning to make innovative music videos with bands of the Budapest underground music scene, including Balaton and A. E. Bizottság. Also in Hungary Péter Tímár’s Moziklip (Music Cinema, 1987) was a breakthrough for the emerging music video scene. The film consisted of 18 music videos for songs performed by the most popular bands and performers of the 1980s, such as V’Moto-Rock, Kentaur, Sziámi, László Komár, and Klári Katona. Apart from voicing various registers of contemporary popular music, the videos offered a social survey of late-­socialist Hungary by showing people of different classes, ages and with varied attitudes and preoccupations.

The postcommunist period: nostalgia for the state socialist past The fall of state socialism put pressure on filmmakers to produce more profitable films. This meant, to a large extent, genre films, including musicals and biopics. Ironically, many of them, instead of praising the new system, convey nostalgia for bright moments from the history of state socialism, whose traces were obliterated by a new, Western-­style consumerism. Another dimension of this nostalgia concerns music as a form of political resistance and personal expression. It can be argued that music always plays such a role, but does it less openly under capitalism, which uses less overt censorship. Postcommunist Czech cinema quickly discovered the mass appeal of nostalgic representations of the socialist past, especially the post-Stalinist period, as exemplified by Jan Hřebejk’s Sakali leta (Big Beat, 1993) and Philip Renc’s Rebelové (Rebels, 2001), discussed by Balázs Varga in this collection. These musical comedies recontextualized the popular culture of the late 1950s and the period around the Prague Spring in 1968, making them look more sentimental and less political in order to fit the retro taste that was spreading in many fields

16

Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe

of life, such as fashion, food and furniture. Usually post-­socialist nostalgia is interpreted through Svetlana Boym’s conceptual binary of restorative and reflexive nostalgia (Boym 2001), the first element of which describes the empowerment gained through the idealization of the everyday and the fetishization of its scarce commodities. In Big Beat places (like Hotel Druzba), DIY techniques to create the Western image (preparing a hairdo with engine oil), Western import goods (empty cigarette boxes), other relics and, of course, the music composed in the style of the period, recreate the aura of state socialism. Hungarian examples of the nostalgic music film include Péter Tímár’s Csinibaba (Dollybirds, 1997) and Gergely Fonyó’s Made in Hungaria (2008), also discussed by Varga. These films fetishize the Sixties, a period when transformation in lifestyles, culture and social norms weakened ideological constraints and saw the initiation of social reforms in the country. Popular music epitomizes this spirit of liberalization and becomes a symbol of a fascination with the West. The protagonist of Made in Hungaria, who returns to Hungary after having lived in the US for many years, introduces the West to his peers as a vast array of exotic commodities, ranging from clothes, magazines, drinks and LPs to liberal attitudes and even the English language. This surface of consumer culture, constructed through the projection of desires and accommodating unconventional identity quests has lost its glamour for postcommunist citizens. The film suggests that the reality of neoliberal transformation has shattered this glittering surface and unearthed a disturbing depth of inequality and economic deprivation. Nostalgic music films release spectators from their disillusionment with the real West and promote a return to the illusionary West. Another shared feature of Czech and Hungarian films in the genre is their employment of coming-­of-age stories, formulaic narratives that performed well at the box office as they addressed both the parents’ generation, who were teenagers in the Sixties and their children’s generation. Positive emotional investment through the recollection of a carefree childhood attracted the former group while the motifs of first romance and rebellion found appeal among the younger generation. Music served as a connective material and the songs selected for the films functioned as devices of cultural translation. In Rebels Nancy Sinatra and Mamas & the Papas evoke the hippy movement, while Ivan Hlas’s soundtrack for Big Beat imitates late 1950s rock melodies. Maximizing appeal through rearrangement of songs is also the strategy undertaken by Fonyó’s Made in Hungaria, featuring music by the band Hungária recorded in the 1980s,

Introduction

17

spearheading a renaissance of rockabilly sounds amongst post-­millennium teenagers. The soundtrack of Dollybirds again advocated the modern orchestration of 1960s period hits and, beside its ironic caricature of the period, achieved multigenerational popularity by foregrounding music performed by today’s well-­known artists. The situation in Poland is somehow different than in other postcommunist countries, as the musical wave started somewhat later and the importance of the 1960s is less visible in this cinema. There are more films and television productions taking issue with other periods of Polish popular music, including the early postcommunist years, which in the 2010s also started to be depicted with a ‘nostalgic brush’. Moreover, while in Czech and Hungarian films home-­ grown rock is treated with great fondness, in Polish films the focus is usually on music used for dancing. This is exemplified by a wave of films devoted to disco polo (the most successful popular music genre in postcommunist Poland) and electronic music, such as Kochaj i rób co chcesz (Love Me and Do What You Want, 1997) by Robert Gliński, Hardkor disko (2014) by Krzysztof Skonieczny and Disco polo (2015) by Maciej Bochniak. What is characteristic of much of the music concerned, made in the last decade, is that they are conceived by directors who started their careers in screen media producing music videos or music documentaries. In Poland the importance of popular music is also reflected in the production of two high-­budget television series, devoted to singing stars: one of the most popular actors from the interwar period, Eugeniusz Bodo (Bodo, 2016), who died tragically during the Second World War and Anna German, an estrada star of the 1960s and the 1970s, Anna German (Anna German: A Mystery of White Angel, 2012). The last decade also saw a production of the first Polish horror-­musical hybrid, Córki dancing (The Lure, 2015) by Agnieszka Smoczyńska, in which two mermaids find themselves in the disco world of Warsaw of the 1980s. The last decade or so also saw a great increase in the production of music videos. This reflects a global trend, resulting from setting up YouTube in 2005 and other similar platforms, where artists can upload their work, as well as the contraction of the record industry, beginning in 2000, which forced the labels and artists to invest more in promoting their music by, among other things, producing videos for their tracks. By and large, due to the combination of factors pertaining to politics, economy and technology, the period after 1990 can be seen as a Golden Age for the moving image utilizing popular music.

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Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe

Structure and chapter description The collection is divided into three sections. The first is devoted to Eastern European musicals or films approximating to this genre. It begins with a chapter by Evan Torner who compares two musicals made around the momentous year of 1968: Jacques Demy’s French/US co-­production Les demoiselles de Rochefort (Young Girls of Rochefort, 1967) and East German Heißer Sommer (Hot Summer, 1968), directed by Joachim Hasler. Torner argues that these films take issue with the utopia of creating a community comprised of artistic, free-­thinking individuals, which was at the heart of the 1968 events in Paris and Prague, through means such as vibrant colours and upbeat music. Torner also locates Hot Summer in a wider context of Eastern European musicals, noticing its similarities and difference to Czech New Wave musicals such as Starci na chmelu (The Hop Pickers, 1964) by Ladislav Rychman. He also takes issue with the paradoxical nature of the musical, which, on the one hand, is the most self-­ reflexive genre and in this sense can be regarded as the most modern of popular genres, yet also the most conformist due to its reliance on established institutional infrastructure and the tropes of popular entertainment in order to ‘distract’ their audiences from reality. From East Germany we move to Romania. Gabriela Filippi in her chapter examines musical films produced in Romania during the whole period of state socialism, between the 1950s and the 1990s, discussing both continuities and discontinuities in their textual characteristics. In common with Torner, she argues that these films were influenced by both Eastern and Western models. Filippi is particularly interested in how films belonging to this genre represented Romanian architecture and gender relations, and the role they played in Black Sea tourism. Contrary to the common assumption that Romanian cinema was very conformist, Filippi suggests that the relationship between these films and the dominant ideology was more complicated. Balázs Varga discusses five postsocialist Eastern European musical comedies, dealing with the memory of the ‘long Sixties’, youth and beat culture. These films are the Czech Sakali leta (Big Beat, 1993) by Jan Hřebejk, the Hungarian Csinibaba (Dollybirds, 1997) by Péter Tímár, the Czech Rebelové (Rebels, 2001) by Filip Renc, the Hungarian Made in Hungaria (2008) by Gergely Fonyó, and the Russian Stilyagi (Hipsters, 2008) by Valery Todorovsky. He argues that with the use of original period songs and their reorchestration, as well as through the selective

Introduction

19

use of period codes and objects, these popular films mobilize postsocialist nostalgia, which consists of both yearning for the state socialist East and the West, as it was imagined in the East during the ‘long Sixties’. The last chapter in this part, authored by Hajnal Király, compares two Hungarian musicals, made almost 20 years apart: Dollybirds, examined also by Varga and Liza, a rókatündér (Liza, the Fox Fairy, 2014) by Károly Ujj-Mészáros. She claims that while Dollybirds is set in a well-circumscribed state socialist past, with retro-­style costumes and exclusively Hungarian music triggering collective memories, Liza, the Fox Fairy is characterized by a refreshing ‘bubble effect’, disconnected from all direct or implied references to a communist past or its aftermath. Király maintains that Hungarian recorded music in Dollybirds triggers a nostalgia affecting three generations of spectators, helping to create a more cohesive society. In turn, the protagonists’ paradoxical nostalgia in Liza, represented by their musical preferences, is symptomatic of individual isolation, that is, melancholia. Both the musical moments and the exuberant visual style emphasizing the helpless entrapment of the characters connects this latter film to a wider range of recent Hungarian films that thematize social disintegration of a generation stuck between political and economic regimes, as well as East and West. The second part of the collection does not deal with a specific genre, but with a variety of films, which are, however, similar to each other due to the fact that they document specific music and music traditions. It begins with the chapter by Jonathan Owen, who, similar to Torner, zooms in on the 1960s, although in Czechoslovakia rather than East Germany. He argues that at the time Czechoslovakia saw the emergence of new styles of popular music. Forming part of a wider national cultural renewal, the nascent pop industry came to focus youthful ‘rebellion’ into concrete political critique. Unsurprisingly, this new pop scene forged a relationship with Czechoslovakia’s privileged embodiment of 1960s renewal and iconoclasm, the cinematic New Wave. The new sounds and images produced a series of films that merge modernism and accessibility, political engagement and light-­heartedness. These films ranged from variety-­ style ‘showcases’, via musicals, to experiments with the cinematic translation of musical genres. Owen also explores the different meanings filmmakers assigned to popular music, arguing that on the one hand the pop world is shown to reinforce a passive, manipulated model of consumption, while on the other it serves as a potent expression of nonconformity and progressive, even utopian ideas.

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Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe

The next two chapters examine representations of dance music. First Marko Zubak explores the visual legacy of Yugoslav disco that thrived in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside more renowned punk and new wave scenes. It treats disco as a complex cultural phenomenon with remarkable ability to spread beyond its American homeland. Like its archetype, Yugoslav disco cannot be reduced to the musical realm, since it developed a distinct visual language that attached specific images, ambience and behaviour to the musical grooves. Zubak follows disco’s portrayal on Yugoslav film and television which helped articulate disco’s complex imagery representative of the country’s ongoing ideological decay. As film and TV directors processed disco through the late socialist filter, they revealed complicated realities of the era, while introducing new and transgressive media patterns. After Zubak, Ewa Mazierska discusses two documentary films directed by Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, Bara bara (Hanky Panky, 1996), concerning disco polo and Miłość do płyty winylowej (Love for a Vinyl Record, 2002) about techno, produced by Polish state television. She argues that by comparing the producers, fans and textual characteristics of these two genres and referring implicitly to a romantic ideal of music, Zmarz-Koczanowicz renders disco polo as music for uneducated, provincial and nationalistic masses, created by people whose only objective is to maximize profit from their work. By contrast, she presents techno as music for the urban elite, on their road to joining the European Union, whose creators are self-­directed and autonomous artists. Mazierska argues that Polish television’s support for these productions might be in part explained by the fact that their message was in tune with the objectives of the ruling elites during this period which were pro-EU and eager for Poland to shed its provincial ‘skin’. Zsolt Győri discusses the so-­called cinema of a new sensibility, a handful of Hungarian films that promoted seminal performers and bands of the Budapest underground music scene from the 1980s. He explores the poetics and politics of these films, adopting Jacques Rancière’s notion of the ‘distribution of the sensible’, claiming that the music–cinema synergy brought into view neo-­avant-­ garde tendencies in culture and an alternative public sphere. Focusing on Gábor Bódy’s A kutya éji dala (The Dog’s Night Song, 1983), András Wahorn’s Jégkrémbalett (Ice-­cream Ballet, 1984) and János Xantus’s Eszkimó asszony fázik (Eskimo Woman Feel Cold, 1984), among others, Győri describes the novelty and meanings of the sensibility understood as an agency to express but also resist the moral nihilism of the 1980s. The last chapter in this part, written by Andrej Šprah, examines the role of music in the short films of one of the most radical filmmakers of former

Introduction

21

Yugoslavia, Karpo Godina. Šprah argues that in Godina’s films music, which included both traditional folk melodies and songs arising from the international and the local rock subculture, was primarily a tool of political and aesthetic subversion. He analyzes its effectiveness by ascribing its transfiguring, performative and narrative function, and mapping them on three films where these functions are most pronounced: Piknik v nedeljo (Picnic on Sunday, 1968), Gratinirani možgani Pupilije Ferkeverk (The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk, 1970) and Zdravi ljudi za razonodo (Litany of Happy People, 1971). A short experimental film is a type of film in which music and the moving image are equal partners. In this sense the type of cinema made by Godina can be regarded as a precursor of music video. This genre is considered in the last part of the collection. It begins with Ewa Mazierska’s consideration of Polish music videos. She presents a brief history of Polish music video, from its beginning in the 1960s to the present day, taking into account its presence on television, at festivals and on YouTube. She also identifies two approaches to producing music video in Poland, which she describes as ‘parochialism’ and ‘universalism’. The former is informed by a desire to engage with Polish history and national identity, as exemplified by disco polo videos and those for rock bands such as Kult. The latter adopts and reworks international trends and, as much as possible, erases any sign of ‘Polishness’, as is the case of productions of electronic music. The chapter also identifies reasons why music video is a neglected area in the study of Polish screen media and popular music. The two chapters which follow also take issue with what is national/parochial and what is universal (or Western) in videos produced in two countries: Bulgaria and Hungary. Maya Nedyalkova considers the music video for the Bulgarian pop-­folk artist, Aneliya, Taka me kefish (You Please Me So, 2011), which presents an informal remake of Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love. She also investigates a number of forum and social media comments about this video, arguing that the critical approach which Bulgarian audiences adopt suggests not only social anxieties about Bulgaria’s cultural marginality but also an awareness of authenticity and originality, born out of an exposure to a multitude of artistic styles and forms. This observation rehabilitates the image of pop-­folk audiences in mainstream media and challenges Adorno’s idea of the uncritical masses. Finally, Anna Batori offers an account of the Hungarian hip-­hop videos. She analyzes the lyrics as well as the visual texts of the songs that structure the discursive and physical space of music videos around socialist prefabricated

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Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe

buildings. ‘Block-­rapping’, as she describes the wave that epitomizes this trend, emerged after the millennium and signals the very quality and social state of the artists’ surrounding physical space. Block-­rappers emphasize their spatial heritage, the socialist, isolated ‘hood’, where they grew up and live to this day. The question is why the new generation epitomizing this trend associates microraions with poverty, corruption and hopeless future and how this message is articulated via the content of the songs and their video clips. In this collection we attempted to include examples from as many Eastern European countries as possible. However, not every country could be examined due to space constraints, as well as the difficulty in finding local authors specializing in the research about the relationship between the moving image and popular music. Even those countries which are considered, are usually discussed from a specific perspective and time period. The most comprehensively covered is Hungary, on account of the fact that in this country the relationship between popular music and the moving image appears to be most intimate and versatile. Imitation or borrowing from the West is a motif informing many chapters which found its way to this book. Sometimes it is announced in their very titles, as is the case of Maya Nedyalkova’s chapter or through the use of terms such as ‘glocalization’ or ‘cultural translation’. By the same token, the authors admit that many of the examples on which they draw show a significant debt towards the West. They are also themselves indebted to the West, by drawing heavily on Western authors, such as Theodor Adorno, Richard Dyer, Robert Altman or Carol Vernallis. This in part reflects the fact that this field is under-­researched in Eastern European film and popular music studies, hence there is little to draw on, especially in relation to the newer, post-­socialist realist phenomena. However, we hope that this collection will act as an encouragement to create more localized and detailed studies on the subject. It may also serve as an inspiration for theories and concepts allowing to capture the specificity of the moving image-­popular music interface in the region as a whole and in other peripheral regions on the global map of cinema and popular music.

Notes 1 In the context of Soviet cinema this task was partly fulfilled by the volume edited by Kaganovsky and Salazkina (2014).

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2 Such attitude brings to mind the way popular music at large was perceived by Adorno and his followers (Adorno 1990).

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor W. 1990 [1941]. ‘On popular music’, in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds.), On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word, London: Routledge, pp. 301–314. Altman, Rick. 2001. ‘Cinema and Popular Song: The Lost Tradition’, in Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight (eds.), Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 19–30. Bikácsi, Gergely. 1989. ‘A bennszülöttek’, Filmvilág 32.8. pp. 28–29. Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Cameron, Allan. 2013. ‘Instrumental Visions: Electronica, Music Video, and the Environmental Interface’, in Carol Vernallis, Amy Herzog, and John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media. Oxford: Oxford University, pp. 752–769. Cook, Nicholas. 1998. Analysing Musical Multimedia. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dyer, Richard. 2002. Only Entertainment, second edition. London: Routledge. Edgar, Robert, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs and Benjamin Halligan (eds). 2013. The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop. London: Routledge. Edgar, Robert, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs and Benjamin Halligan. 2013. ‘Music Seen: The Formats and Functions of the Music Documentary’, in Robert Edgar, Kirsty FaircloughIsaacs and Benjamin Halligan (eds), The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop. London: Routledge, pp. 1–21. Fortuna, Piotr 2015. ‘Muzykol – kulturowa metafora PRL‘, Kwartalnik Filmowy, 91, pp. 121–140. Frith Simon, Andrew Goodwin and Lawrence Grossberg (eds). 1993. Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader (London: Routledge). Gelencsér, Gábor. 2016. Váratlan perspektívák: Jeles András filmjei., Budapest: Kijárat kiadó. Hames, Peter. 2005. The Czechoslovak New Wave, second edition. London: Wallflower. Inglis, Ian. 2003. ‘Introduction; Popular Music and Film’, in Ian Inglis (ed.), Popular Music and Film. London: Wallflower, pp. 1–7. Kaganovsky, Lilya and Masha Salazkina (ed.). 2014. Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema. Indiana: Indiana UP. Mazierska, Ewa. 2008. Masculinities in Polish, Czech and Slovak Cinema: Black Peters and Men of Marble. Oxford: Berghahn. Mazierska, Ewa. 2015. From Self-Fulfilment to Survival of the Fittest: Work in European Cinema from the 1960s to the Present. Oxford: Berghahn.

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Mazierska, Ewa. 2016. ‘Production, Consumption, Power, and Humor in the Films of Marek Piwowski’, Journal of Film and Video, 2, pp. 14–28. Mazierska, Ewa. 2017. ‘Beyond Authenticity, Beyond Romanticism: Films About Maanam’, IASPM@Journal, 1, www.iaspmjournal.net/index.php/IASPM_Journal/ article/view/839, accessed 12 January 2018. Michałek, Bolesław. 1981. Notes filmowy (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe). Mundy, John. 1999. Popular Music on Screen: From Hollywood Musical to Music Video. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Näripea, Eva. 2015. ‘East Meets West: Tallinn Old Town and Soviet Estonian Pop Music on Screen’, in Ewa Mazierska and Georgina Gregory (eds), Relocating Popular Music (London: Palgrave), pp. 148–166. Patton, Raymond. 2012. ‘The Communist Culture Industry: The Music Business in 1980s Poland’, Journal of Contemporary History, 2, pp. 427–449. Pławuszewski, Piotr. 2015. ‘Kino mocnego uderzenia: Polska muzyka rockowa w polskim kinie dokumentalnym lat 60. i 70.’, Kwartalnik Filmowy, 91, pp. 105–120. Ramet, Sabrina Petra. 1994. ‘Rock: The Music of Revolution (and Political Conformity)’, in Sabrina Petra Ramet (ed.), Rocking the State: Rock Music and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 1–14. Rinke, Andrea. “Eastside Stories: Singing and Dancing for Socialism.” Film History. 18.1. (2006): 73–87. Robertson Wojcik, Pamela and Arthur Knight (eds). 2001. Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music. Durham: Duke University Press. Romney, Jonathan and Adrian Wootton (eds). 1995. Celluloid Jukebox: Popular Music and Movies since the 50s. London: BFI. Smith, Jeff Paul. 1998. The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music. New York: Columbia University Press. Sowińska, Iwona. 2006. Polska muzyka filmowa 1945–1968. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Vernallis, Carol. 2004. Experiencing Music Video. Aesthetics and Cultural Context. New York: Columbia University Press.

1

1968 Leftist Utopianism in The Young Girls of Rochefort and Hot Summer Evan Torner

1968 wasn’t just about politics! . . . An ordinary life was lived, but . . . thanks to politics, everything suddenly became more colourful. František Sládek (2008), on the Prague Spring Of all the genres and ideologies paired with the globally pivotal year of 1968, musicals are not the first that come to mind. Despite the 1968 Academy Award for Best Picture being awarded to the film adaptation of Carol Reed’s Broadway musical Oliver! (1968) and William Wyler’s Funny Girl (1968) reaping the second largest box office share of the year, contemporary film history has overlooked the significance of such films in favour of the year’s philosophically provocative genre films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), emergent youth activist films such as The Strawberry Statement (1970), American documentaries like Fred Wiseman’s High School (1968) and, most importantly, politically left-­wing European New Wave films exemplified by Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend (1968). This emphasis is perfectly understandable, given film studies’ principal interest in works that generally lend themselves to Althusserian (ideological) and Lacanian (psychoanalytic) readings, as D.N. Rodowick (1994: 28) describes at length in The Crisis of Political Modernism. Since the early 1970s, film studies have canonized those films and articles dealing with the medium’s aesthetic psychological and social deep structures. Within this evaluative system, musicals as a genre are frequently seen as both normative and even reactionary in their dual reliance on established institutional infrastructure and the tropes of popular entertainment in order to ‘distract’ their audiences from socio-­economic issues with song and dance; in a few words, they are assumed to be anti-­modernist and actively consenting to hegemonic practices within global society.

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In this chapter, however, I argue that the 1968 utopian goal of re-­shaping society as a community comprised of artistic, free-­thinking individuals is hard-­ wired into the European musicals shot prior to the fateful events in Prague and Paris of that year, namely in Jacques Demy’s French/US co-­production Les demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort, 1967) and Joachim Hasler’s East German pop vehicle Heißer Sommer (Hot Summer, 1968). In contrast to the self-­reflexive and politically agitational scripts, montage and sound editing of left-­wing cinematic fare emerging from the years surrounding 1968, Demy and Hasler’s musicals create spaces of achieved utopia through their use of vibrant colours, upbeat music, pleasurably reconfigured genre conventions, and architectural unity. Yet while Rochefort experiments with generic boundaries and subtly distanciates the audience through affective abundance in the manner of Douglas Sirk, Hot Summer remains aggressively apolitical in its cinematic form to depoliticize the capitalist-­inspired youth culture at its core. Thus, while the Hollywood musicals of 1968 – Oliver! and Funny Girl, in particular – reify class struggle and the American dream through traditional musical narratives, Rochefort explores the generic possibilities – and Hasler the generational possibilities – of realizing a classless utopia in cinema.

Political modernism and the 1968 musical Scholars such as Tim Bergfelder (2005) and Johannes von Moltke (2005) have only recently begun to highlight late-1960s European cinema as not only the locus of accepted auteurs such as Antonioni or Godard, but also as a major producer of cheap genre productions to be distributed on the global market, particularly espionage films, westerns, and a few musicals. Prior scholarship on the period, such as that of Timothy Corrigan (1983) or Stephen Heath (1981), focused on aesthetic experimentation in modern art cinema by established auteurs because of the very legacy of 1968 on film studies: emphasizing the work of those directors who politically ‘activate’ their audiences through aesthetic self-­ reflexivity. Such a notion of political modernism in the cinema typically revolves around the philosophy and works of Bertolt Brecht. His debate with theorist György Lukács in the 1930s solidified the boundary between two very different representational strategies that would break the ‘commodity fetishism’ and reification of hierarchical social relations via cultural products (Jameson 1988). Brecht sought to denaturalize the imaginary spaces of the theatrical world by

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systematically calling attention to the apparatus of cultural production, whereas Lukács sought a kind of oppositional realism in which concrete events could be dramatically linked to abstract socialist principles. Brechtian aesthetically self-­ reflexive art versus Lukácsian ‘socialist realist’ art became a major axis of argument in left-­wing circles on both sides of the Iron Curtain, uniting countries such as France and East Germany in intentions to depict revolutionary class struggle through less-­deceptive forms of representation. Thanks primarily to the French and Czech New Wave films of the 1960s accompanied by eloquent writers in the journals Cahiers du cinema and Screen, the Brechtian aesthetic has dominated left-­wing filmmaking for the last forty years, and academic film criticism has been looking at political modernism through the lenses of the ‘V-effect’ – historicizing the time-­image within material relations of production – and the thematization of socio-­economic problems through cinematic conventions. Left-­wing musicals such as Rochefort and Hot Summer thus pose a theoretical dilemma for both sides of the Brecht and Lukács debate. On the one hand, the musical genre itself, with its direct-­camera address, fanciful song-­and-dance routines that mobilize entire populations to precisely accompany them and overly pronounced colours, stands as the most self-­reflexive of all established genres. Yet any Brechtian quality of this self-­reflexivity is mitigated by the genre’s inherent obsession with itself and its naturalized elimination of the fourth wall: direct-­camera address and costumed unreality are, after all, what make musicals musicals. From the Lukácsian point of view, musicals constitute an accepted genre within popular culture, such that socialist realist aesthetics can be integrated into them without breaking the connection between abstract Marxist ideals and their reification, as seen in the Soviet iterations of the genre created by Grigori Aleksandrov and Isaac Dunayevsky in the 1930s.1 The issue for the socialist realists, particularly in East Germany, was rather the extensive legacy of musicals and musical comedies under the National Socialist UFA cinema, with which the feature film branch of the East German Deutsche Filmaktiengesellschaft (DEFA) was to make a clean break. But both Brecht and Lukács might have agreed that most musicals, above all else, provoke utopian optimism about the social relations within their diegeses, favourably organizing society under certain musical principles rather than prioritizing historical or contemporary class struggle. Films with sung music tend to showcase it, with images of human faces and bodies, montage, melody and lyrics unifying the narrative. Even the musical segments in the latter section of Brecht and Slatan Dudow’s 1932 feature film Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the

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World?, for example, cinematically align with the content of the music sung: Berlin workers march in unison while singing the Solidarity song, and worker-­ athletes compete in a sports montage with Ernst Busch’s voice ‘Learn to Win!’ underscoring their training efforts in the present for a larger communist victory in the future. Instead of establishing a contrapuntal, politically modernist relationship between soundtrack, musical text and image to provoke self-­ reflexivity as they do with Helene Weigel’s ‘Song of the Spring’ earlier in the film, Brecht and Dudow ultimately bring all these elements together to reinforce a particular socio-­political viewpoint: the revolution lies in the organized marching and singing of young people. Modernist separation of elements may politicize the past and the present, but unity in song and movement is to lead the workers to a future beyond class boundaries. In terms of how Brechtian self-­reflexivity impacted future generations of filmmakers, 1968 itself proved theoretically important in the political conception of music vs. image, genre vs. avant-­garde, of colour vs. line, and of carefully crafted utopias and dystopias vs. disjointed portraits of the present. Godard’s British-­financed documentary on the Rolling Stones, One Plus One (1968), foregrounds microphones and recording technology as both integral to filmmaking and problematic in their subjectivity. In Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s The Bridegroom, the Comedienne and the Pimp (1968), classical music begins seemingly at random within a long opening tracking shot, calling into question the narrative link between soundtrack and image. The film also contains an extended wedding sequence and an aborted chase sequence, both of which foreground genre tropes and then expose them through controlling their duration in the montage. Vera Chytilová’s Sedmikrasky (Daisies, 1966) subverts generic restaurant romance scenes, train departure farewell scenes, and even a cabaret sequence to explore the apocalyptic limits of the avant-garde. Daisies exploits the bright Eastmancolor stock used on Rochefort to simultaneously underscore and undermine the sense of a unified narrative in its DaDa farce, while Godard’s La Chinoise (1967) and 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle (Two or Three Things I Know About Her, 1967) use the same stock to encode the primary colours with socio-­political ramifications. I define utopia here as a cinematic space in which an unchanging, equitable and pleasant set of societal circumstances dominate the narrative,2 with an appropriate example being Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970) and its emphasis on genuine love and community shared within a polyamorous collective before dooming the same to a cataclysmic end.

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For the purposes of contextualizing Rochefort and Hot Summer – both created shortly before 1968 – in terms of their contemporary cinematic discourses, one should mention that both Demy and Hasler recast the musical genre in terms of its strengths – its unification of music and image, self-­reflexivity as a genre, employment of colour to emphasize and de-­emphasize the dominance of the line, and ability to create an idealized form of the present – while struggling with the genre’s weaknesses, namely musicals’ closed-­form narratives centred around heterosexual marriage, tacit promotion of capitalist consumption and trivialization and/or omission of contemporary social problems. The utopias intended in these musicals were the future imaginaries of 1968, as outlined by András Bálint Kovács: individual freedom over collective repression, dismantled social and cultural hierarchies for mankind’s benefit, and the general assumption that ‘the only imaginable future of the society is what seems impossible from the dominant social and ideological structure’ (2007: 352). These were to be musicals of the slightly impossible, in the hope that the impossible would soon become possible. The question of how musicals, ruthlessly choreographed, constructed and consumerist as they are, can even create a ‘better’ world for their viewers should be addressed. Rick Altman (1987) classifies musicals under the three sub-­genres of show musicals, folk musicals and fairytale musicals so as to clarify how the present, past and otherworldly can be transformed into escapist spaces through standard song-­and-dance routines. Each sub-­genre leads to plot resolution through a different self-­sustaining discourse: the show musical leads one through the creation of a work of art that is simultaneously ‘real’ and performance (e.g., Funny Girl), the fairytale authenticates dream spaces and affirms belief in ‘Hollywood magic’ (e.g., Mary Poppins) and the folk musical glorifies history (e.g., The Sound of Music, Oliver!), ‘[colouring] every corner of the world with the transforming power of memory . . . which is far less stable than art or dreams’ (Altman 1987: 172). It is appropriate to the genre experimentation of 1968 that Rochefort and Hot Summer both soundly reject Altman’s American musical sub-­ genres for an experimental fusion of the European present-­day with colourful scenes of singing and dancing. Richard Dyer’s essay ‘Entertainment and Utopia’ might then best explain the path these two films take to their respective perfect musical worlds. Dyer argues that the five social tensions of modern life – scarcity, exhaustion, dreariness, manipulation, and fragmentation – are to be satiated by five ‘utopian solutions’ within a musical (or media in general), namely abundance, energy, intensity, transparency and community (Dyer 1992: 24). Both capitalist and

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communist societies in 1968 shared these social tensions, especially evidenced in Rochefort and Hot Summer. Yet many solutions to these tensions are coloured with simultaneously modernist and cinephilic film strategies to create European iterations of what Jean Baudrillard sarcastically refers to as the ‘achieved utopias’ of American capitalism and Soviet socialism (Baudrillard 1988: 78). Baudrillard invites scepticism regarding institutional simulacra; illusions of achieved social progress amidst systems of ceaseless exploitation. By proxy, these European musicals prove symptomatic of the very social tensions they seek to relieve.

The Young Girls of Rochefort – nostalgia for an egalitarian Hollywood The action of Rochefort takes place over a weekend in the small seaside village of Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. A traveling carnival led by Etienne (George Chakiris from West Side Story) and Bill (Grover Dale) arrive for the weekend to advertise Honda motorcycles in Place Colbert, the village’s sunny central square. Delphine (Catherine Deneuve) and her sister Solange (Deneuve’s real sister, Françoise Dorléac) run a dance studio for children in the village, but aspire to leave for the big city. Their mother, Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux) works at a seaside eatery recalling her lost love, while Simon Dame (Michel Piccoli), her lost love, opens a music shop in town that very weekend. Dame’s old chum Andy Miller (a 55-year-­old Gene Kelly) drops into town while Maxence the sailor (Jacques Perrin) paints Delphine as his dream girl without having met her, and will become a painter after this last weekend of service. Dramatic irony motivates virtually every scene, as potential mates circulate in their day-­to-day activities and miss each other. Once a casually mentioned axe-­ murder sub-­plot is introduced and resolved a day later without any intervention, the film ends with the couples of Solange/Andy and Simon/Yvonne staying behind in Rochefort, while Delphine goes with Etienne and Bill off to Paris . . . and Maxence hitches a ride into the afternoon countryside. Though Rochefort was preceded by Demy’s two music productions accorded higher value in film history – Lola (1961) for its place in the early New Wave and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) as a film operetta and the first great proletariat musical – the film stands out as the director’s skilful and unabashed left-­wing homage to Hollywood musical forms. Kovács (2007: 115) rightly views Demy’s

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films as ‘genre parodies’, offering a kind of easy intertextuality with familiar Hollywood musicals. The musicals directly referenced by the film include Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris (1951) – with Gene Kelly playing a similar role 16 years earlier – and Gigi (1958), with its Hollywood depiction of France. Stanley Donen’s Funny Face (1957) is recalled with the fountain in the Place Colbert, while the ever-­present sailors in bright white uniforms in the misè-­en-scène are a direct reference to Donen’s On the Town (1949), another film starring Kelly. With the exception of Gigi, all of these musicals take place in the cinematic present, and feature highly athletic dance choreography shot in dazzling Technicolor. By including Kelly in the cast and directly mimicking elements of choreography, shot framing, colour and mise-­en-scène from some of the actor’s most famous films, Demy distances himself from the melancholy, dance-­less Umbrellas of Cherbourg and in favour of Lola’s playfulness, with Hollywood’s master dancer at his side. Perhaps what makes Rochefort simultaneously so curious and so satisfying is its careful balancing act between the easy-­going distraction of Hollywood musicals and Demy’s modernist, musical utopia. Referring to Dyer’s criteria, the film satiates each of the five tensions, but only by reinforcing the perfect social functionality of Demy’s closed musical world. Rochefort displays energy from its opening dance sequence, where Etienne and Bill turn off their engine and wordlessly dance to Michel Legrand’s Errol Garner-­inspired song ‘The Transport Bridge’. Delphine and Solange’s dance studio also exhibits energy, filled with instruments that the characters pick up and play at random during the film’s medley, a reprise of the earlier ‘Twins Song’ and ‘From Hamburg to Rochefort’. The film expresses abundance not only through its immaculate streets and lack of poverty, but also via Yvonne’s full basket of oranges and lemons, the Saturday night feast and Delphine’s over-­stuffed shopping bags. The characters have no materialist desires. Transparency, or characters explicitly presenting their true feelings and motivations for the audience, is offered through psychologically and dramatically expository songs like ‘The Twins Song’ and ‘We Travel from Town to Town’, which successfully transmit each character’s knowledge and open the film to dramatic irony about said feelings and motivations. But it is through the intensity and community dimensions of Rochefort that Demy expresses his alternative utopia vision over that of Hollywood. The emotional intensity of films like Funny Face or Funny Girl is inevitably bound up with the leading woman’s submission to, and acceptance of, the affections of the leading man. In Demy’s film, the most emotionally intense moments are Delphine’s

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outright rejection of the art dealer Guillaume and Solange’s wordless piano concerto, performed live in Dame’s shop and inscribed in Legrand’s background score. The women are in firm control of their musical talents, passions and sexuality, and only men who present themselves as modest, world-­class artists qualify for their attentions. Art, rather than money, is linked with sexual prowess and long-­term passion. The community dimension proves even more striking. In Oliver!, for example, community is demonstrated in ruthlessly synchronized choreography: women simultaneously putting out their carpets and beating them in rhythm, children forming a human train, etc. The dancers are in unison and unified with their societal roles, with everyone in their rhythmic place amidst gross class inequalities. In contrast to this approach, Demy presents a world where the choreography may not be in sync, but communities function effortlessly with its population quite literally dancing in the streets. Extras might sit and read, or sing and dance. The police capture the murderous Dutrouz off-­screen without a fuss. Delphine can trust Etienne and Bill well enough to go away with them to Paris, but the other couples can also stay and dance in the Place Colbert without any problems either. There is, in fact, nothing inherently wrong with Rochefort that would make one want to move to Paris, save the supposed glamour of the never-­depicted city. The film implies that, culturally and socio-­economically liberated to be artists and workers, the citizens of Rochefort can keep their sunny naval village as a social utopia. Another utopian – but also modernist – aspect of Rochefort is its bold colour scheme. For Demy, colour highlights the artificiality of film while still guiding the eye as a painter does. To have colour ‘solicit a polyphonic response to an object’, as Brian Price (2006: 86) notes, Rochefort constantly swaps pinks, yellows and blues between the foreground and background to place its mise-­en-scène in colourful flux. And whereas Umbrellas of Cherbourg relies heavily on pinks, yellows and blues over blacks and primary colours, Rochefort uses white itself as a vibrant colour: in Dame’s music shop, the square’s tiles, sailor’s uniforms and dominant accents on most dresses. It reflects light, particularly sunlight, onto the characters and their faces. The white not only downplays the characters’ whiteness in this all-­white film, but also omits the scenic melancholy that the blacks introduce. Dutrouz is the only figure in a black suit in the film, and he turns out to be a sex murderer; this utopia’s dress code requires a splash of bold colour. The film’s unnatural hues set the characters apart from their background, closing them off from material reality while heightening their own emotional complexity. The scene where Solange and Kelly meet and dance in their immaculately white

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outfits in Dame’s white shop both painfully confines the figures in a colour scenario that could only happen in a musical, and yet aligns the narrative, colour, music, emotion and dance such that no dialogue is necessary to express the scene. Demy’s colours are openly parodic, but they continue their generic function nonetheless. Legrand’s music cannot be omitted from the discussion of the film, particularly given the prolific jazz pianist’s extensive film legacy. The musical style of Rochefort is undeniably big band: an ostentatious brass section trumps the typical musical’s strings and Legrand’s assertive piano performance directly references the likes of Duke Ellington before him. Caroline Layde notes how Legrand’s score selectively ‘celebrates American icons in references to Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton’, while expressing ambivalence to composer Andy Miller (Kelly), who ‘embodies a trifle of the ugly American’, by giving the composer no songs to call his own in the film.3 Demy and Legrand do not so much praise American culture here as praise the vitality of its African American tradition. The fact that the opening song, ‘The Transport Bridge’, begins as a kind of wordless dance warm-­up to piano improvization testifies to Legrand and Demy’s decision to emphasize melody over lyrics, instrumental rhythm over vocal textures, and young people enjoying themselves over expository narrative. Most of the film’s songs also share the key and leitmotifs introduced in the next wordless number ‘Arrival of the Draymen’, revealing that all the numbers found in Rochefort are effectively variations on the same song. The characters are not only unified by their musicality and physicality inspired by music, but the very harmonic progressions of the individual character’s themes are nearly interchangeable. The central point of the film, the medley begun as a reprise to the ‘Twins Song’ by Etienne, Bill and the twin sisters, revolves around the playful performance of music with all the major jazz instruments at their disposal. The centrepiece of the film is not love and relationships, but the collective, spontaneous, transformative quality of music. ‘Give us a song,’ Solange sings. ‘Give us a fantasy.’ The real music performed becomes a site of realized utopia, the result of a progression from Bach to, as Solange continues, ‘Stravinsky? . . . Duke Ellington? Louis Armstrong? Michel Legrand?’ Bach’s rigorous forms are linked with the experimentation of Ellington and Armstrong, leading up to Legrand’s present musical score as a culmination of the most appealing elements in Western music, just as the town of Rochefort represents the culmination of Western civilization’s best side. If Rochefort is unified under the auspices of musical progress and the accomplished alienation of bold film colour, then its generic experimentation

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may prove to be its most divisive aspect; what tears the film apart and reassembles it into a pastiche resembling a musical. Demy’s background as one of the early nouvelle vague directors serves to legitimate even a colourful musical with Kelly and Chakiris as a work of auteurist genre parody. Demy belonged to the Left Bank group, a group of leftist realists which included his wife Agnès Varda and François Truffaut, though Caroline Layde (2003) remarks that ‘while the New Wave tended towards Brechtian roughness and the Left Bank veered towards realism or philosophical ambiguity, Demy, in a sense, never grew up’. Still, Georges Beauregard, who produced Godard’s legendary film noir parody A bout de soufflé (Breathless, 1960), later produced Demy’s musical parody Lola, placing both directors’ aesthetics in the same attempt of French cinema’s reinvention.4 Rochefort shares the use of ironic-­affective musical swells with A Woman Is a Woman (1961), notably in Solange’s meeting of Andy for the first time. Demy also pays homage to Truffaut, Solange and Delphine mock Etienne and Bill in one scene as ‘Jules and Jim’. The question of whether or not the film experiments with genre and style as the French New Wave did is not so much relevant as to what degree it is experimental and whether or not the Brechtian or Lukácsian systems of leftist representation could find sympathies here. Rochefort violates genre expectations by placing instrumental music above the vocals and lyrics, using three strong, passionate women with ambitions beyond getting married as main characters, painting the town of Rochefort and characters in such bright colours as to defy realist conventions, and including a jarring murder in its plotline introduced by the song ‘The Woman Cut into Pieces’ that is resolved outside of the actions of the characters. A Brechtian critique would see the political commentary in the murder. A Lukácsian critique might find the reification of a world appealing where only fame matters – not money – and where music governs the populace without forcing them into a fascist, lock-­step dance. Yet Legrand’s music is still self-­aggrandizing and bound to bourgeois musical norms, the women are all gorgeous white women looking for men, the town of Rochefort is sheer surface, and the murder was an apolitical sex crime. Though African-American composers’ work is exalted both verbally and musically, the colour black is coded as hostile, whereas whiteness helps construct the utopian space. In other words, Rochefort strains against the traditional social hierarchies of the musical genre and cannot overtly politicize the musical without sacrificing the talent of some of the world’s best performers in the genre (Kelly and Chakiris).

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Yet Varda’s real world commitment to have the film restored alongside The Umbrellas of Cherbourg lends it some leftist cachet, and also because Oliver! and Funny Girl have proven more reactionary. Oliver! delivers an all-American story of an orphan rising to fame and fortune in an alienated British past, meant to be accepted as fundamentally representative of historical class struggle. Funny Girl, on the other hand, relentlessly focuses on the emotive-­submissive Barbara Streisand and controlled aggressive Omar Sharif ’s heterosexual love, also based on class differences. By rendering all save the black-­clad bourgeois Dutrouz and the black-­paint-using Guillaume ‘working class’, Rochefort at least includes the young, attractive and artistic as potential inhabitants of a musical world without major conflicts, only a murder here and there.

Hot Summer: dreaming of blue jeans and beaches While Rochefort came into being as a privately funded, mildly socialist tribute to certain Hollywood musicals, Hot Summer was created as a state-­funded, musical tribute to what we might call ‘mild socialism’. This is also what makes the musical an enduring monument to the dreams of a dead socialist state. The plot is comparatively rudimentary: eleven teenage girls vacation on the Baltic Sea, while ten eligible young men do the same. Gender battles ensue as the energetic women prove themselves to be cleverer than the men. A love triangle develops between the leather-­jacket-clad Kai (Frank Schöbel), the flirty blonde Brit (Regine Albrecht) and the hunky Wolf (Hanns-Michael Schmidt). Meanwhile, the dark-­haired leader of the women Stupsi (Chris Doerk) becomes attracted to Kai, but remains the asexual, moral centre of the community, particularly when the young people recklessly steal a boat and wreck it on a sandbar. Kai and Wolf fight over Brit, but their reckless behaviour simply injures them both. Rather than uniting any of the couples in the end, the film instead freezes the frame on a shot of all the teenagers playing in the Baltic, with Stupsi and Kai as the main objects of attention. Hot Summer’s simple coming-­of-age story yielded over 1.47 million viewers from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in its first 13 weeks with a net profit of 1.6 million marks. Its original title had been ‘Hot Sand’ and director Joachim Hasler co-­wrote the screenplay with Polish-German screenwriter Maurycy Janowski, who noted in his film pitch that ‘love [isn’t] a

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game of society – but should be hot, like this summer’ (Heißer Sommer Schlußbericht, 1968). The film was explicitly conceived as a star vehicle for real-­ life teenybopper musical couple, Schöbel and Doerk. Hasler had directed a prior musical starring Schöbel – Reise ins Ehebett (Journey into the Nuptial Bed, 1965) – and Schöbel’s budding romance with Doerk was evident in all marketing materials. Franz Bruk, head of the DEFA feature film studios at the time, justified the film with a delicate balancing act between ideology and entertainment, saying ‘we are of the opinion that the creators’ intention of reflecting the moral and ethical attitudes of young people in our state in a cheerful musical form has been correspondingly realized. Yet we should not fail to mention the set of problems posed by such a carefree arrangement of our socialist development as being very complicated’ (ibid.). After all, light-­hearted Schlagerfilm (pop-­music film) such as this one was intended to sell records to socialists, with Gerd and Thomas Natschinski producing the soundtrack for the East German label AMIGA. The record’s early release prior to the film indeed succeeded at creating hype for the film and increasing its box office reach. The frivolous Hot Summer may not have been the first DEFA musical, but it was the first DEFA musical shot mostly on-­location in Freest on the Baltic Sea and geared towards a growing teenager demographic. As Michael Hanisch (2006b: 48) argues, such musicals were created to compete with Western imports, an irony considering the film’s premiere as a double feature with the Hollywood blockbuster My Fair Lady (1964). Additionally ironic was its debut during the Soviet invasion of Prague, considering Hot Summer’s aesthetic and political debt to the light-­hearted Czech New Wave musicals of Ladislav Rychman like The Lady on the Tracks (1966) and The Hop Pickers (1964). Earlier DEFA films such as Midnight Review (1962) and Wedding Night in the Drizzle (1967) – the latter also starring Schöbel – had already paid the necessary homage to the musicals of Donen and Minnelli, such that both filmmakers and audiences were quite familiar with musical tropes. Yet, as Jon Raundalen points out, a 4 April 1965 concert review claiming ‘there was no essential difference between capitalist and socialist dance music’ was taken as an attack on socialist cultural values by the Ministry of Culture and ‘rock and beat music was singled out as one of the serious threats to socialist society’ (Raundalen 2005: 71). Thus a Schlagerfilm appearing in the GDR of 1968 would

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have still been considered subversive in its own right, such that even Kai’s leather jacket and blue jeans framed front-­and-centre would have raised some eyebrows (Rinke 2006: 85). Yet the film’s use of pop stars Doerk and Schöbel as well as Hollywood genre tropes proved not as important to the GDR authorities as the plotline itself: the focus on the conflict between the individuals and their gender collectives rather than between individual lovers. This approach resembles dynamics established in the Alexandrov and Dunayevsky’s collectivist factory musicals under Stalin, where groups playfully compete to see who can serve society more. The young people in Hot Summer are not at work, but specifically at play in a socialist society, and that the primary interest within Western vacation musicals such as Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday (1963) is to see who gets together with who in the end after the music establishes the characters’ desires. In Hot Summer, all of the love affairs consciously fizzle in favour of the collective playing as a service to society. Just as Rochefort clearly asserts the primacy of spontaneous song and dance in a social utopia, Hot Summer ensures that the tightly censored songs and dances are integral to these young people’s leisure activities. Enforced play supersedes artistic creation. One could say, however, that the fads and trends of youth culture produce their own forms of conformity, regardless of being in capitalism or socialism, and Hot Summer in hindsight appears all the more hegemonic as a result (Maas, 2010). Hot Summer’s aesthetic utopia still conforms to Dyer’s model and strongly resembles that of Rochefort. Abundance in the film is framed not only in terms of agricultural output – with truckloads of chickens and mammoth stacks of hay featured in the film matching Demy’s use of fruit displays in his film – but also in terms of open spaces available for their collective Baltic vacation; a notorious backlog had developed in the GDR for such coastal vacations. Energy is transmitted through the vitality of the young people and their constant urges toward activity, from Stupsi’s Pippi Longstockingesque song ‘To Experience Something!’ to Kai’s 1950s rock song ‘Everything We Do, We Do Only For You’. Community is firmly established in the narrative with the successful social resolution of the boating incident, and in the eternal collectivity expressed by the final freeze-­frame. Both Rochefort and Hot Summer introduce societies that are filled with helpful adults and enthusiastic youths who dance together in white, wide-­open squares and effortlessly deal with infractions (e.g., the murder, the boating incident) so that merry-­making can continue. These communities contain no hierarchies, nor are women subordinate to men.

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Where Hot Summer falters with its alternative utopia is in its constructions of intensity and transparency, two of the most challenging elements for the consciously apolitical DEFA genre film in general. The music more resembles Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes than the spontaneous jazz of Legrand’s score. Doerk and Schöbel’s presence as a real-­life couple gives their flirting and their shared song ‘Where Do You Know Me From?’ the sexual tension the screenplay otherwise denies them. Intensity of feeling is unconvincingly established between Kai and Brit through the song ‘Catch the Sunshine’, especially since she later sleeps with Wolf and regrets it. Thanks to their fistfight, Kai and Wolf’s homoerotic relationship appears more intense than any single relationship with Brit. This can be attributed to the dictum of socialist realism that one subsumes psychological realities to the class realities, but the over-­eroticization of the male– female relationships like in Funny Girl or even in Rochefort might also be coded as reactionary. Thus all the characters prove utterly transparent as they celebrate their tempered socialist love, singing directly to the camera while marching back and forth. Yet transparency about one’s feelings and motivations in the GDR was a particularly political commodity, such that even the hopes and dreams discussed in the French ‘Twins Song’ would have been too ideologically charged for the DEFA filmmakers. Rather, the youth can only sing about the weather (‘A Hot Summer This Year!’), their feelings for one another (‘I Found the One Who Belongs to Me’), and their naïve impressions of the world (‘Men Who Aren’t Really Men’). All the same, Claudia Fellmer (2000) argues that even this restricted, simplistic portrayal of young people ‘achieved an amazing cult status when audiences rushed to the movie theaters to watch it again and again. Back then the film carried a unique promise of freedom and promise possible in the socialist system’ (1). The colour scheme and architectural arrangements of the film also bear some mention as integral to its utopian construction. Shot on location in the summer of 1967 in just under 10 weeks throughout East Germany, Hot Summer depicts real spaces of the GDR as sites of finished progress and human playfulness, as Rochefort sought to depict the same in the French small town. Fellmer argues that particularly the title song and Kai’s dream scene with Brit ‘proudly present the new architectural achievements in the city centres of Leipzig and Berlin’ (Fellmer 2000: 3–4). These achievements include the Stalinallee luxury flats in Berlin, as well as the newly revitalized city centre of Leipzig with its opera house and post office (leaving, as Fellmer notices, the gaping empty space of the old university church). The squares are clean, free of objects, mostly devoid of real activity besides the dancing and principally focused on showcasing the modern

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buildings surrounding them. They do not impede human movement, nor do they shuttle traffic in any particular direction. In Rochefort, the cleanliness and uniformity of its space is due to its 400-year military heritage and strict municipal zoning laws, just as the East German city centres are also a result of strict politics ordering space. Social utopias can only come into being, it seems, when architecture has been sculpted to perfection in the background, recalling Antonioni’s wordless critique of modern architecture in Daria’s imprisonment behind glass at the end of Zabriskie Point. As far as colour is concerned, Hot Summer utilizes the East German ORWO colour stock, as opposed to the Technicolor or Eastmancolor of Hollywood, to produce a rougher, more organic colour palette of browns and beiges. This has to do with ORWO colour’s origins in Agfa colour, which Dudley Andrew compared favourably to Technicolor as ‘more supple, more responsive to natural light, paler, nearly receding from the audience’ in contrast to the Hollywood notion of colour: ‘purer than reality, needing strong artificial light, aggressive, almost whorish’ (Andrew 2006: 44). Hot Summer uses a mixture of bright reds, such as on Stupsi’s shirt, and blues, that of the sky, water and Brit’s clothing, to blend in with the browns and beiges of the landscape and clothing. Rather than using the simple foreground/background dynamic of Rochefort, Hot Summer blends the bright colours of the young people’s fashion into the tones of everyday GDR reality and Lukacsian socialist realism. The film succeeds on a generational level of integrating the bright and bold of the new in with the familiar colour textures of the old, seamlessly integrating this musical into DEFA’s other socialist realist endeavours, as well as its brightly-­coloured children’s films. Hot Summer sold much more than records; its dramatic situations, musical numbers and colour scheme sold a young audience on a possible vision of the GDR that resonated with the mood of the Eastern bloc in the late 1960s. Hasler notes in a production interview that the primary power of the film is in its soundtrack: ‘It’s well-­known that the emotions that such music transmits are much stronger than a thousand words’ (Raddatz 1967). Yet as Fellmer (2000) and Matthis (2007) have argued, the images of an easygoing youth accepting and flourishing on summer vacation under GDR socialism helped re-­imagine the young socialist bodies of a new generation into a collective that could match the strength of the immediate post-­war generation. It was a compelling audio-­visual argument that, despite tanks rolling through Prague, reminded Eastern bloc audiences of the purported innocence and good intentions of the socialist project.

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Curtain call The inclination to create collectivist utopias through film musicals was then perhaps one of the first casualties of the spring of 1968. The Henri Langlois affair, in which French cultural minister André Malraux unseated the very individual to which cinephiles such as Truffaut, Godard and Demy owed their film literacy, gradually spiralled out of control to engulf Paris and the rest of France in massive strikes. Godard formed the Dziga Vertov group, a film outfit overtly devoted to Brechtian alienation techniques and the thematization of class struggle (over alternative societal unity), thereby dividing the world’s auteurs into those serving Hollywood illusionism and those politicizing the cinema. Demy had meanwhile departed for Hollywood with Varda in 1967, allowing the latter to shoot her important Black Panthers documentary during Huey P. Newton’s incarceration. Demy’s assignment was to shoot Model Shop (1969) for Columbia Pictures, thereby relinquishing any participation in Godard’s iteration of the worldwide cinematic revolution. Demy’s work fell out of favour with influential critics like Pauline Kael, while his Left Bank colleagues Alain Robbe-Grillet and Chris Marker had gone in the artistic directions of the elliptical feature film (The Man Who Lies, 1968) and documentary film essay (The Sixth Face of the Pentagon, 1968) respectively. By filming the leftist Hollywood of his dreams, Demy wound up in Hollywood but alienated by the leftists. Hot Summer was placed in a similar ambivalent situation in the wake of the Prague Spring. On the one hand, its endorsement of a society focused more on pleasure and personal fulfilment over the requirements of socialism would have been seen as subversive. On the other hand, it was playing in open-­air youth festivals as the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague and East German NVA troops were dispatched as support. In fact, Czechoslovakia’s ticket sales (35,025) for Hot Summer ranked second only to the GDRs. In addition, the film came into being during the aftermath of the eleventh Plenum of 1965, which severely restricted filmmakers in approving projects beyond seemingly harmless genre kitsch. The inability for Kai, Wolf, Stupsi and Brit to sing about topics beyond how hot the summer is, how great it would be to go on an adventure in everyday life, and how hard it is to catch a sunbeam reflects this repression appropriately in contrast to Rochefort, with its witty asides and clever social puns. Hot Summer could therefore be seen as a film from the establishment with some minor concessions to pop sensibilities in order to convince young people of the vitality of the East German ‘brand’.5

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Through the musicals created shortly beforehand, one sees how 1968 began as a utopian year for the European intellectual – a possibility to create a world in which men and women would be free to explore their individual creativity and desires without being held back by socio-­economic or political limitations. What these films do not foresee, however, is the radical politicization of the cultural sphere of the May ‘68 movement, in which Harvey claims filmmakers ‘[searched] for a more adequate and more radical analysis of the reality of daily life under technocratic capitalism’ and possessed an ‘idealistic, often anarchistic, utopianism’ (Harvey 1980: 12). Demy and Hasler’s efforts certainly express idealism about their present: the traces of the Algerian War and East Germany’s economic decay under Walter Ulbricht are nowhere to be found in their musicals. But they remain in favour of uniting individuals into the collective through the emotional manipulations of a new entertainment cinema. Returning to socialist idealism found in Kuhle Wampe, the characters in these musicals may likewise possess very little in the way of wealth and property, but they have song, movement and youthful vitality to impose a future where wealth and property simply do not matter. Rather than marching off into the darkness singing in unison like in Brecht/Dudow’s film, Delphine and Maxence ride off into the sun-­drenched horizon with a group of carnies while the East German youth are captured in a still-­frame, splashing in the sunny Baltic Sea as a group of equals at play. The sun was to be shining on a utopian Europe free from the hierarchical, capitalist-, fascist- and Stalinist-­tainted power structures of the past, released through the liberation of colour, music and collective love. Instead, the sun illuminates the illusionism that had to be set aside in order to attain a non-­cinematicallyrepresentable utopia in stark opposition to the Old World. The musical genre would see its future in Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (1969) and Cabaret (1972), setting aside utopias of free love in the present-­day for the seduction of sexually provocative show tunes and nostalgic folk musicals.

Notes 1 The films to which I refer here are Jolly Fellows (1934) and Volga Volga (1938). 2 Karl Marx’s utopian notion of the artist under communism expressed in The German Ideology fits with this vision: ‘In a communist society, there are no painters but at most people who engage in painting among other activities’ (Marx & Engels 1985: 109).

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3 The song on the soundtrack entitled ‘Andy’s Song’ is merely a variant on Solange’s piano concerto (Layde 2003). 4 Demy also shared Legrand with Godard during the latter’s most productive period in the early 60s. 5 This proved necessary given the ubiquity of West German television in East German homes following 1965.

References Altman, Rick. 1987. The American Film Musical. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press. Andrew, Dudley. 2006. ‘The Post-War Struggle for Color’, in Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (eds), The Film Color Reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 40–49. Batchelor, David. 2000. Chromophobia. London: Reaktion Books. Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. America. New York: Verso. Bergfelder, Tim. 2005. International Adventures: German Popular Cinema and European co-­productions in the 1960s. New York: Berghahn Books. Byg, Barton. 1997. ‘Brecht, New Waves and Political Modernism in Cinema’, in Siegfried Mews (ed.), A Bertolt Brecht Reference Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 220–237. Corrigan, Timothy. 1983. New German Film: The Displaced Image. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Dyer, Richard. 1992. Only Entertainment. New York: Routledge. Fellmer, Claudia. 2000. ‘Hot Summer Is Cult: An Introduction’, an essay included on Hot Summer. DVD. Icestorm Entertainment. Hanisch, Michael. 2006a. ‘Der Junge aus Nantes.’ Film-Dienst, 59, no. 13, pp. 46–47. ——. 2006b. ‘Wo bleibt das Heitere? Quadratur des Kreises: Musikfilme aus Babelsberg.’ Film-Dienst, 59, no. 10, pp. 47–49. Harvey, Sylvia. 1980. May ’68 and Film Culture. London: BFI Publishing. Hayward, Susan. 1993. ‘Mainstream Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s: Comedy and Polars’, in French National Cinema. New York: Routledge, pp. 274–283. Heath, Stephen. 1981. Questions of Cinema. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ‘Heißer Sommer – Schlußbericht.’ 23 October 1968. Bundesarchiv DR 117/23333. Hill, Rodney. 2008. ‘The New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality: Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.’ Cinema Journal, 48, no. 1, pp. 27–50. Jameson, Frederic. 1988. The Ideology of Theory. New York: Routledge. Johnson, Albert. 1968. ‘The Young Girls of Rochefort by Jacques Demy.’ Film Quarterly, 21, no. 4, pp. 45–48. Kovács, András Bálint. 2007. Screening Modernism: European Art Cinema, 1950–1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Layde, Caroline E. 2003. ‘Jacques Demy: Personal Worlds.’ Senses of Cinema, 26. www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-­directors/demy/ accessed 14 November 2008. Maas, Georg. 2010. ‘Vom Umgang der DEFA mit populärer Musik. Oder: Wie die Wilde Mathilde doch noch die Leinwand erobern konnte’, in Sascha Trültzsch and Thomas Wilke (eds.) Heißer Sommer, coole Beats. Zur populären Musik und ihren medialen Repräsentanten. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 179–192. MacCabe, Colin. 1974. ‘Realism in the Cinema.’ Screen, 15, no. 2, pp. 7–28. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1985. The German Ideology. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Matthis, Bettina. 2007. Vom westlichen Fremdkörper zum volkseigenen Körperkollektiv. Körperbilder der Jugend in DEFA-Filmen der 1960er Jahre. Berlin: DEFA-Stiftung. Moltke, Johannes von. 2005. No Place Like Home: Locations of Heimat in German Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press. Neupert, Richard. 2002. A History of the French New Wave Cinema. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Price, Brian. 2006. ‘Color, the Formless, and Cinematic Eros.’ Framework, 47, vol. 1 https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/framework/vol47/iss1/2 Raddatz, Helmut. 1967. “Finale für Heißer Sommer” Nationalzeitung Berlin. 18 November. Raundalen, Jon. 2005. ‘A Communist Takeover in the Dream Factory – Appropriation of Popular Genres by the East German Film Industry.’ Slavonica 11, no. 1. (April): 69–86. Rinke, Andrea. 2006. ‘Eastside Stories: Singing and Dancing for Socialism.’ Film History 18, no. 1, pp. 73–87. Rodowick, D.N. 1994. The Crisis of Political Modernism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rosenbaum, Jonathan. 1996. ‘Songs in the Key of Everyday Life: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.’ Chicago Reader. 17 May. Sládek, František. 2008. ‘1968, the Wonderful Year That Went Awry.’ Portal Práhy. www. praha.eu/jnp/en/extra/Year_68/index.html, accessed 15 December 2008. Tinker, Chris. 2004. ‘Jacques Demy’s Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967): Beyond the Hollywood Film Musical.’ Australian Journal of French Studies, 41, no. 1, pp. 37–47.

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Representing Modern Romania in the Musical of State Socialist Period Gabriela Filippi

Until now, the Romanian musicals of the state socialist period have been neglected by film historians. However, the recent release of a new musical, Nae Caranfil’s 6,9 pe scara Richter (6.9 on the Richter Scale, 2016) awoke some debates about previous uses of the genre in Romanian cinema (Film 2017, 46–60). Still, film critics ventured no further than describing the plots of these films. What makes approaching these musicals so difficult? One of the reasons, even if not openly stated, is that they are considered aesthetically worthless. Their plot often lacks force, and usually revolves around an improbable quid pro quo sustained for too long, a weakness repeatedly pointed out by critics. Also, the songs are not integrated, and provide little more than a musical background. When they do feature more original musical compositions, they lack adequate visual support. Although originally intended for large audiences, none of their moments of singing and dancing are remembered today, unlike some iconic moments of other popular productions from the era, especially historical films. With the change of the political regime after 1989, almost all interest in these strange screen products was lost. This, however, was the fate of many other films from the socialist era. Two areas of continued interest were Romanian documentaries and historical films produced before 1990. Researchers have rigorously studied these genres because they were thought to carry the image of society envisaged by the communist elites. Nevertheless, the investigation of socialist musicals may also illuminate the period, as, among all film genres, musicals had the greatest potential to promote the new face of a modern and emancipated society and the types of human interactions promoted by official propaganda. Thus, this chapter will explore

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images regarded as desirable by Romanian society during state socialism. To this end, I will first examine how female characters and their interactions with male protagonists are represented. Second, I will address the specific environments in which these interactions take place, namely the new urbanistic development carried out in the socialist modernist style of architecture emerging all over the Eastern Bloc. Since the finished films represented neither the Party’s nor the artists’ vision of society, but the negotiation between these agents, I will, as much as possible, bridge these two distinct perspectives using both archival documents and the films themselves. The chapter will also introduce a third perspective, that of the film critics who praised or attacked the filmmakers on the grounds of (in) adequately portraying their times. In the following, I will explore Romanian socialist musicals chronologically, situating them in their appropriate historical contexts. My account leaves aside a few musical productions, including the highly popular films for children made by Elisabeta Bostan, and some parodic endeavours, such as Secretul armei secrete (The Secret of the Secret Weapon, 1988) by the reputed nonconformist director Alexandru Tatos.

The Soviet model After the nationalization of all Romanian industries, including the film industry, in 1948, a Soviet administrative model was imposed. Along with it came socialist realist aesthetics as the prevailing artistic practice. The tight control of culture would exist for a little more than a decade, approximately until the end of the 1950s. By the time it was adopted in the Romanian People’s Republic, socialist realism had already enjoyed an over fifteen-­year-long history in the USSR. It was first formulated by Andrei Zhdanov in 1934, at the First Congress of Soviet Writers. In search for a form to make socialist realist films more engaging and efficient as propaganda, Soviets drew on American genres known for their appeal to the general public. Surprisingly, the musical, so tightly bound to Broadway and the American dream, was the most compatible genre with socialist realist aesthetics (Anderson 1995, 41). Neither of them had to conform to the rigours of realism – as socialist realism too delivered, despite its name, an unlikely optimistic and utopic take on ‘life’. Moreover, just as their American counterparts, Stalinist musicals had to

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promote a ‘way of life’ – in this case, the communist way of life. As such, they were expected to offer imagery that stood in stark contrast with the glamorous or even lascivious locations of American musicals. Therefore, most Stalinist musicals were set in the open lands of collective farms or in villages. In addition, genuine talent and tenacity were their protagonists’ main qualities. Grigori Alexandrov’s Volga, Volga, for example, revolved around a confrontation between a band of amateur musicians and a professional one, the former winning thanks to its spontaneity. An equally remarkable feature of this and other Stalinist musicals was the inclusion of a strong female protagonist, in line with the official communist support for women’s emancipation. Strelka, the mail carrier who composes a musical piece winning everyone’s heart at the grandiose contest held in Moscow, is a joyful and energetic woman. So is Mariana from Traktoristy (Tractor Drivers, 1939), whom all men love, despite the fact that (or, in this case, precisely because) she lacks the attributes usually associated with attractiveness and femininity. Her charm is a kind of determination evident in the way she walks, as well as in the way she works, frequently exceeding her quota. These images of femininity, which defy the common model of the graceful woman, are stylized to the degree of being burlesque. The formula of a musical comedy with strong propagandistic components became popular and lived its days of glory in the 1930s and 1940s. Despite the critics’ denunciations for their unrealistic gaiety, these films were nonetheless well protected by Stalin’s declared admiration for them (Salys 2009, 47–55, 174). However, after his death, society and art changed drastically. The official condemnation of Stalinism opened the way to a more personal artistic expression, one in which the political dimension would be considerably reduced. Films such as Mikhail Kalatozov’s Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes are Flying, 1957) would mark this paradigm shift, and the beginning of the 1960s witnessed the ascent of a new generation of filmmakers, among which the most famous was Andrei Tarkovsky. While Soviet musical and socialist realism were born concomitantly – marked by the completion of the famous Vesyolye rebyata (Jolly Fellows) in 1934 – the first Romanian Socialist musical, Alo? Ați greșit numărul (Hello? Wrong Number, 1958) came much later, in a new political context. By 1960, socialist realism was extinct in Romania, and while art still had to represent ‘a new man and a new society’, other impositions grew looser, providing a diluted formula, often identified improperly nowadays as socialist realism. From this moment on, the delicate situation of Romanian socialist musicals laid in its contradictory objectives. On

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the one hand, they had to appeal to a general public, as the new cultural direction allowed for more variety, but also because the entertainment factor itself became vital for a film industry that was expected to support itself through box office profits (Vasile 2011, 120). But on the other hand, the educational dimension was not at all to be ignored, as the minutes of meetings between artists and cultural officials or even the head of the state, Nicolae Ceaușescu, attest. Beginning with the 1960s, Romanian cinema magazines regularly discussed the musical genre, trying to define it and trace its history, from its classical era in the 1930s and 1940s to what then seemed to be its revival. Significantly, none of these accounts ever mentioned the USSR’s tradition in this genre, or other musical films from the Eastern bloc. They all quoted the previous Western productions and filmmakers, either American or European: Paramount on Parade (1930), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), the musicals starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. From among the more recent ones, Gene Kelly’s films, West Side Story (1961), Jacques Demy’s Les parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964) and Les demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort, 1967), and even A Hard Day’s Night (1964), starring the four Beatles was regularly mentioned. With the consent of the state (which, after a policy of gradual detachment from the USSR beginning in the early 1960s, finally issued a ‘declaration of independence’ in 1964), critics and filmmakers alike sought their models in Western cinema. Yet, Romanian musicals could not simply copy capitalist models, but had to harbour an educational dimension and be exemplary of the working class’ actual way of living.

The beginnings: the lively musicals of late 1950s, early 1960s The first Romanian musicals, Hello? Wrong number, directed by Andrei Călărașu, and Nu vreau să mă-­nsor (I Don’t Want to Marry, 1960), directed by Manole Marcus, both written by Simon Macovei, show similarities even though they point to different social backgrounds. Hello? Wrong Number portrays the world of intellectuals and artists, contradicting the general assumption that all Romanian films from the 1950s had to focus on working-class characters. Music is introduced through the particularity of the world described, that of the Conservatoire, which is also why some classical pieces (such as Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto) are featured in the film. This contradicts the likewise common assumption that only popular music was admitted in these films. Still, ‘high

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culture’ does not go along with solemnity; on the contrary, there is a joyful atmosphere created by the young students. However, up to a point, it seems there will be a confrontation between classical music, advocated by a rigid professor from the Conservatoire, and the jazz-­inspired pop songs preferred by his much younger students, representing the first generation of people educated under communism. Still, the confrontation between the two artistic practices – and, implicitly, views on the world – is never carried out, and this line of action seems forgotten by the authors, who in the second part of the film focus exclusively on the sentimental drives of the protagonists. A cheerful mood dominates I Don’t Want to Marry as well, presenting the adventures of a collective of young women involved in the artistic brigade of their textiles factory while attempting to put on an operetta. A reputed conductor from the National Opera is supposed to help them, but because the ‘maestro’ is too busy, he sends a young composer to the factory in his place. Instead of the languorous music the women were to sing, he teaches them a more vibrant, youthful piece. However, the actual rehearsals for the show are more spoken of than shown in the film. Even the end, culminating with the women’s performance, is rather rushed. What is strange in these two musicals from the 1950s is how poor they are in what concerns musical compositions. Merely two original musical pieces are repeated on and on throughout each of these films. It is in fact a situation that characterizes most of the Romanian musicals of the socialist era: with few exceptions, the musical compositions are not satisfactory, and neither are the scripts, relying too much on predictable sentimental quid pro quos, as in the case of Hello? Wrong Number and I Don’t Want to Marry. However, given the era when these two films were completed (the end of the 1950s), one might be surprised they are not at all or just very little indebted to socialist realism. Also, they both depict independent female characters that are active and curious and take the initiative at home, at work and in society more generally speaking. This in fact reflected the social reality of Romania at that time, with the country indeed witnessing considerable progress in the field of gender politics. Women’s emancipation represented an important objective for the regime during its first two decades and was actively supported by propaganda. For the first time in Romania’s history, an egalitarian legislation was introduced. New workplaces were created for women on a massive scale and they even came to constitute half of the population of university graduates (Jinga 2015, 226). In these early musicals we also see an attempt to present modern architecture: the newly built factories, the recent urbanistic achievements, such as Eroilor

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Boulevard culminating with the Military Academy, an eloquent example of Stalinist architecture in Bucharest, and the newly redesigned area of the Palace Square, both representing some of the most important achievements in urban design of the late 1950s. These two areas would be obsessively featured in all Romanian musical films until the end of the 1980s, with only one exception, Dragoste la zero grade (Love at Freezing Point, 1964), whose story took place entirely in a Romanian ski resort. Revisiting Hello? Wrong Number shortly after the Revolution of 1989, a film critic praised its skilful use of the urban landscapes: ‘It is to the film’s advantage that the exteriors are used with such consistency, testifying to the poetry of our capital’ (Căliman 1993, 13). Dragoste la zero grade (Love at Freezing Point, 1964), by Cezar Grigoriu and Geo Saizescu (two directors who will make Shots on Staves in 1967 and Me, You and Ovidiu, in 1978, two other important musicals of the socialist era) introduced a new generic formula, that of the touristic musicals. Set entirely in the Romanian ski resort Poiana Brașov, the plot revolves around two couples, with the lovers constantly shying away from revealing the depths of their feelings despite being in love with each other. The film has a distinct message in regard to femininity, though a rather retrograde one. One of the women does not appear feminine enough to her lover, who suspects she might not be fully attracted to him. The conflict is solved only after she learns to behave more gracefully. Apart from the script’s lack of consistency, noted by the reviewers at the time of the film’s release, the educational dimension is even less present than in the previous musicals. Bearing in mind that characters are differently dressed in every sequence, the film was intended as a display of fashionable and colourful winter clothes on the white snowy landscapes; also, it was the first Romanian production filmed in CinemaScope. The critics promptly denounced this extravagance, condemning ‘the waste of colours and costumes that push toward excessive ornamentalism and the tedious waste of sound and movement’ (Ungheanu 1964, 2). Despite the faults of its script, Love at Freezing Point is more accomplished as a musical than most of the Romanian productions in this genre, as at least its musical compositions, such as ‘Tu ești fotogenică’/ ‘You are photogenic’ and ‘Săniuța dragostei’/ ‘Love’s Sleigh’, are more crafted and catchy and eventually became hits. They were created by George Grigoriu, the brother of one of the directors of the film. In fact, George and Cezar Grigoriu were part of Trio Grigoriu, the most well-­known musical group in Romania in the 1950s and 1960s, singing easy listening music, and they put their stylistic imprint on songs featured in the film, guaranteeing its success with the audiences.

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A difference from the two previous Romanian socialist musicals was that chorographical sequences in Love at Freezing Point were not introduced realistically, under the pretext of setting a show. Dancers enter the diegesis without any narrative justification, which would be unconceivable under Zhdanovist dogma. Suggestively, the film was released in 1964, the year of the ‘declaration of independence’ from the USSR. Worth noting is that by that time the historical film, portraying national leaders, marking the adoption of ‘official’ nationalism1 (Stoil 1982, 65), emerged as an important genre in Romanian cinema and soon became the most popular due to the state support it received.

The musicals of the ‘thaw’ (1965–1971): a glamorous look Assuming power after the death of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej in 1965, Nicolae Ceaușescu carried on with the policy of independence from the USSR. Moreover, in August 1968, on the very day of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact nations, the Romanian leader held a speech condemning the military intervention. This made him popular in the Western world, but also at home, and he was invited to official meetings with the most influential political leaders of the moment in the capitalist sphere. Until 1971, the regime maintained good relations with the West. Unlike his predecessor, the new leader involved himself directly in cultural-­artistic production and held meetings with creators and cultural representatives from various artistic fields. In a session at the head office of the Party in 1969, he acknowledged the need for a mainstream cinema: ‘We must make ideological films, but we should not go to the other extreme, and allow musicals, comedies, and Western films to disappear altogether. We need casual films that do not necessarily tackle political problems, but simple aspects of life, the relationships between people and love’ (quoted in Vasile 2011, 134). These guidelines resulted in a few cinema productions that nowadays might seem surprising. De trei ori București (Three Times Bucharest, 1967) and Împușcături pe portativ (Shots on Staves, 1967) were both commissioned to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the founding of Bucharest and both stressed the city’s cosmopolitan dimension. Three Times Bucharest consists of three segments, made by different directors. The reference point for this film was the French film Paris vu par . . . (Six in Paris, 1965) (ANF, folder 153), made by six directors of the nouvelle vague and released

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less than two years before the shootings for Three Times Bucharest began. This indicates the deep interest of Romanian filmmakers towards Western cinema. However, documents also reveal that, during a meeting held at the film unit in which details of the film were discussed, the directors were warned about the dangers of such influences. Director Mircea Drăgan states in an elliptical phrase: ‘We shouldn’t pursue this path, but the one followed at the moment’, while another director Dinu Cocea notes that the film should show ‘the new Bucharest, the socialist one’ (ANF, folder 153). As these concerns suggest, not even the filmmakers knew exactly what they were expected to show or not show in their films. The first two segments in Three Times Bucharest do not follow the conventions of the musical. They both show a very modern Bucharest, with a myriad of places destined for pleasure: cinemas and concert halls, restaurants, bars, tuck-­shops, even airline agencies – images that cannot be seen in films made after 1971. Everything looks fancy, from the fashionable dresses and sunglasses to the convertible car the characters drive in one segment. Only the last segment, directed by Ion Popescu-Gopo, can be readily identified as a musical. It shows another dimension of the city: that of ‘the old Bucharest’ of the beginning of the twentieth century and the interwar period. It is interesting to see how a subject intensely exploited and idealized after the fall of communism, and explicitly contrasted with the recently overthrown regime, was already showcased in the 1960s and with permission from the authorities. It is even more intriguing to read the explanation in a document stating that the film was to portray ‘the old Bucharest, the flavour of which has never faded away and adding a nostalgic charm to the Bucharest we are building today’ (ANF, folder 153). The image of the bohemian old city is fabricated through a few clichés: a singing chimney sweep who pretends to bring good luck, a photographer in Cișmigiu Park using a nineteenth-­century camera, or the parade of top hats and ornate long dresses. The choreographic number, performed on a rooftop by a chorus with cabaret-­ inspired suits, completes this image of a cheerful Bucharest carrying the tradition of variety shows, very popular before War World II. Also, the chimney sweep musical piece brings to mind the novelettes of the same time. Still, these two connected sequences have another source of inspiration as well: the famous Walt Disney Studios’ production Mary Poppins (1964), starring Julie Andrews, and whose action was set at the beginning of the twentieth century, thus displaying a fashion similar to that shown in this third segment of Three Times Bucharest. Even the dynamics of the moment are built on the same pattern: the melancholic sequence with the chimney sweep, recalling the ‘Chim Chim Cher-­ee’ moment

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from the American musical, opens the way to the lively synchronic choreography, similar to the ‘Step in Time!’ moment in Mary Poppins. The other film produced that year to celebrate Bucharest, Shots on Staves, directed by Cezar Grigoriu, presents the modern and dynamic city featured in the first two segments of Three Times Bucharest. In this case, again, only a part of the film is a musical, introduced by the ingenious narrative device of a cleaning lady working at the Buftea film studios who tangles the reels of three films produced simultaneously – a detective film, a musical and a sports film, which end up being edited together into one film. Unintentionally, the author of the film becomes the cleaning lady – a situation bringing to mind the tender humour of pink neorealism in films such as Bellissima (1951) or The White Sheik (1952) about the entanglement of the worlds of common people and the dream factory of Cinecittà. This narrative technique also solves the tension between anonymity and celebrity, a difficult dilemma for socialist musicals, as they had to represent the life of ordinary people, rather than that of the exceptionally important or famous. By contrast, the film inside the film very glamorously presents the American-­born singer Nancy Holloway, who built a career in France in the 1960s. The star is shown landing at the airport in Bucharest where she is greeted by fans who escort her to the city. A spectacular scene shows her entering Bucharest singing a pop song in French dedicated to the city (‘Bonjour, Bucharest!’/ ‘Hello, Bucharest!’) from an open-­top car, while being filmed from a helicopter to further emphasize her celebrity status. This practice of glamourizing a foreign star is satirized only a few moments later. This real foreign singer is taken for an impostor by the musical manager who had been fooled before by a native artist. Rejected in a competition, she returns to the scene pretending to be Italian and is actually selected for the show. Afterwards, Nancy Holloway is made to sing a song in English, but with a Romanian folkloric touch. The situation mocked in the film hinted to the fact that at the time foreign stars were often imported to play in Romanian films. It was the short-­lived era of co-­productions for Romanian cinema. Two of the most important historical films treating the subject of the Romanian ethnogenesis, Dacii (The Dacians, 1967) and Columna (The Column, 1968), were in fact filmed with foreign actors in the leading roles: Pierre Brice and Marie José-Nat for the former, Richard Johnson and Antonella Lualdi for the latter. Also, Western directors such as Robert Siodmak, René Clair, or Roberto Rossellini came to film at the Buftea Studios outside Bucharest, given the financially advantageous conditions: costs were low and the new studios were well equipped. The political power had an ambivalent attitude towards this

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situation: while being aware of the financial benefits, it also perceived it as menacing for its political autonomy. However, it was during this relative liberal era of the regime that one of its most contested measures was adopted, with a profound impact for women’s liberties. In 1966, only nine years after abortion had been legalized for the first time by the communist state, it was again criminalized (Decree 770/1966) (Jinga 2015, 116). This, together with other measures designed to hinder the legal process of obtaining a divorce that were adopted a few months later (Decree 779/1966), outlined Ceaușescu’s politics of forced demographic growth (ibid., 216). Thereafter, the traditional family was placed at the heart of the regime’s propaganda. Discussing the ambiguities of the official propaganda in regard to women’s social status in socialist Romania, anthropologist Katherine Verdery (1996, 67) argues that, while women and men were considered to play equal parts in the industrial and economic growth of the country, motherhood was still emphasized as women’s chief task. Verdery uses the term ‘socialist paternalism’ to describe the stance of the Eastern and Central European socialist states towards their citizens, who were supposed to rely on the Party’s assignment of tasks and redistribution of resources. This was all the more salient in regard to women in socialist Romania during the 1970s and the 1980s, as the regime’s pro-­natalist policies made their bodies ‘no more than instruments of the state’s reproductive requirements’ (ibid., 64–65). This ambiguity would influence the musical films of the 1970s and 1980s and pave the way to more traditional gender representations than those of the musicals of the previous decades.

The mini-­cultural revolution of 1971: the attack on celebrity culture The short and relative cultural relaxation came to an end with the adoption of the ‘July Theses’ in 1971 (or, as it was called at the time, the ‘mini-­cultural revolution’ of Chinese inspiration), which sought to reinforce the Party’s ideological control. Already in 1970, the reception of Cântecele mării (The Songs of the Sea, 1970), directed by Francisc Munteanu, announced the return to strict rules. From all the Romanian musicals, this is the most likely to be appreciated today as it contains two hits that are still popular (‘Tu, eu și-­o umbrelă’/ ‘You, Me

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and an Umbrella’ and ‘Să cântăm chitara mea’/ ‘Let’s Sing, My Guitar’) and also because it is the most recognizable Romanian musical in the Hollywood tradition. Western inspiration is evident in the way the singer and main actor, Dan Spătaru, is filmed. It seems as if the film was a vehicle for the star, a rarity in the Romanian cinema of the era; not even in the culturally most permissive times was such a glamorous portrayal welcomed. Consequently, Cinema magazine, the most powerful publication in the field and usually favouring Romanian films, violently attacked The Songs of the Sea. One review stated: ‘The director did not manage to free the star of his clumsiness, of a certain stiffness in the way he walks, of excessively languishing gazes or excessive frowns’ (Racoviceanu 1971, 19). Other reviews reiterated the same idea in some other form. Critics even used the unethical strategy of publishing a letter by an allegedly outraged spectator, commonly representing the ordinary working class spectator, damning the film (Lipatti 1971, 19). No other Romanian musical was so harshly condemned. This indicates just how much The Songs of the Sea ruffled ideological sensibilities. It also contains a nude scene, a very rare sight in the films of that time, as Romanian socialism was disconcertingly prudish. While attacking Spătaru’s glamorized look, film critics highlighted the way the female character is represented. Tudor Caranfil, in a review for the newspaper Informația Bucureștiului, wrote: ‘When Spătaru sings, his partner is always invited to fix the camera with the same standard smile of supposed participation’ (Caranfil 1971, 2) – a rather accurate observation. The neglect of the female character seems particularly bizarre, given that the actress in question, Natalia Fateeva, was herself a celebrity in the USSR, and that the film had an emancipatory script. The plot is built on a suggestive confusion. A few musicians are waiting for a delegate of the renowned Soci festival. A man and a woman happen to arrive at the same time, and the musicians assume the man, not the woman, is the important person they were waiting for, although in the end they are proven wrong. In fact, the prejudice leading to the comic misunderstanding had its roots in Romanian society of the time. The distrust of women in positions of authority was widespread (Jinga 2015, 249–251), despite the continuous political efforts of the regime to increase the percentage of women in leading positions (ibid., 239: Verdery 1996, 64–65). A few years after the adoption of the ‘July Theses’ in 1971, a new set of measures brought further ideological constraints for artists as the National Festival ‘Song of Praise to Romania’ was inaugurated in 1976. Not exactly a ‘festival’, but rather a spread of venues granting visibility for the amateur artistic

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movement, ‘Song of Praise to Romania’ engaged millions of amateurs in different art-­related activities. Henceforth, the mass artistic movement was favoured by the political regime, which started to harbour suspicions toward the professional artistic movement and condemned its alleged elitism. Likewise, folklore was favoured over highbrow art (Vasile 2014, 83–85). The political preference for artistic practices accessible to everyone inevitably influenced the stories of musicals. The next musical, Melodii, melodii (Melodies, Melodies, 1978), directed also by Francisc Munteanu, was a decisive blow to the celebrity rush. The plot revolves around a female lead singer in an ‘amateur’s band’, played by a renowned musician and actress, Margareta Pâslaru, who is tired of singing in cafeterias and wants to become a real star while other members of her band – all males – are happy just playing their music. She also rejects the love of one of her colleagues, whom she otherwise likes, just because he is not ambitious enough for her. In the end, the man understands that he has to be more assertive to win her love and assumes an overtly patriarchal role. This persuades the young woman to reassess her position and understand how illusory her aspirations really were. Consonant with the new cultural directives of the 1970s, the film took a more political stance, but remained within very comfortable boundaries when it came to gender stereotypes. A few well-­known Romanian actors, such as Ion Dichiseanu, Sebastian Papaiani and Dan Nuțu, appeared in short cameos. Trying to set a positive tone for the reception of the film, which might otherwise have seemed like an eulogy to celebrity, one critic stated: ‘as for the cast, we could say that an army of stars was mobilized: this would have been a Hollywoodian vice, but the film managed to avoid it, as they all limited themselves to no more than two or three words’ (Suchianu 1971, 24). The critics’ reaction probably came in response to the previous film of Francisc Munteanu, The Songs of the Sea. The last musical of the decade, released the same year as Melodies, Melodies, Eu, tu și Ovidiu (Me, You and Ovidiu, 1978) goes back to the theme of the ‘amateur’s band’. Here, a female artistic brigade from a factory in Bucharest performs a choreographic number also aired on TV in which they satirize the management of a factory in Constanța for inadequately supplying materials needed for their work. At first glance, the show has a progressive touch: women are singing and dancing joyfully in their overalls in a set composed of oversized cogwheels. However, the cogwheel quickly becomes a metaphor for the wedding ring, suggested to be the supreme goal of a woman’s life. At some point in the story, a woman, in disapproval of a man’s reaction, irately states: ‘Only a woman

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could show such a strong-­headedness’, echoing the very premise of Melodies, Melodies. The women eventually reach their aim and the director of the factory admits his errors, but only after he falls in love with one of the women. By contrast to the regressive ideology concerning gender, the scenery of the film is very modern even by international standards, being mostly comprised of the beautiful new resorts of the Romanian Black Sea. During the 1960s and 1970s, a massive building project was undertaken by the state for the purpose of creating hundreds of thousands of tourist accommodation in modern resorts. Offering a healthy choice for recreation, these seaside resorts represented an important asset for socialist propaganda. It was during this era that the right for a paid holiday of minimum 15 days was introduced in Romania. With the building of resorts, the democratization of the holiday was pushed even further. The seaside ceased to be a destination for the elites, as it was the case before War World II, and began receiving the Romanian working class as tourists. With their simple, yet elegant modernist design, the new hotels imposed the model of the holiday as a genuine and righteous experience, opposed to the sensual seaside experience promoted by the capitalist countries (Maxim 2015, 70–92). Being developed by the state on previously unoccupied land (as is the case with Mamaia, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Cap Aurora, Neptun, Olimp), these resorts formed a very coherent architectural ensemble, covering vast areas of the Romanian coast. But, especially from the mid-1960s, the vision of a social tourism was overshadowed by a more typically capitalist, entertainment-­focused type of holiday seeking to attract foreign tourists, who could have significant input for the country economy (Ștefan 2015, 129–145). Consequently, the national studio for documentaries, Sahia, at the political commands of the moment, started to create short tourist promotional films destined for foreign audiences (Brădeanu 2015, 160–179). The seaside also became the background of some of the socialist musicals alongside other feature films produced starting with the 1970s, to the benefit of both cinema and tourism. No less than half of the socialist musicals featured at least a few sequences filmed at the seaside. Moreover, in a socialist state where all the industrial and commercial branches were controlled by the state, they had to cooperate. The State Tourist Office provided accommodation for film crews; the National Railway Company ensured transportation and so on, while the film would constitute an indirect advertising for all these. It is interesting to see how such practices were justified in a document issued by the cinema unit while preparing for the shooting of Me, You and Ovidiu. The document was addressed

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to the Minister of Light Industry, Liana Ciobanu, and stated: ‘Conceived as a successful film, destined to vast audiences in the country and abroad, the film could be an excellent occasion for launching the 1978 summer line. Considering that this system of indirect advertisement is successfully practiced by other film industries, we kindly ask you to dispose the making of the costumes for the main actors of the film by the Confections’ Head Office within the Ministry of Light Industry, following the newest and most representative models that will be launched in 1978. In the end credits we will specify that costumes were created and offered by the Confections’ Head Office’ (ANF, folder 324). Such situations generated a specific trait of the Romanian socialist musicals, as this system of cooperation forced them to be more rooted in the reality of their time, and to advertise other accomplishments of the regime.

In search of originality: the musicals of the 1980s Musicals released during the 1980s become less credible and coherent. One might suspect this was due to the tightening of ideological control. This was nonetheless not the case. In fact, cinema experienced an unexpected and short-­ lived second ‘thaw’ at the beginning of the decade, when the most subversive films of the whole era were made (Filippi 2017, 19). At the same time, the last decade of Ceaușescu’s rule was the most burdensome for the population, with restrictions on basic supplies being imposed in order to repay the country’s external debt as quickly as possible (Ban 2012). The plot of Melodii la Costinești (Melodies at Costinești, 1982), directed by Constantin Păun, revolves around the attempts of a young band to get selected in an important musical competition held in the seaside resort Costinești, where the most important bands of the national rock scene gathered. The film also showcases footage of rock bands popular at the time, which were a rare sight on socialist cinema screens. Also unusual were the steampunk set pieces and the musicians with their faces painted in similar fashion to the members of the American rock band Kiss. Yet the film does not have a narrative rhythm and looks fragmented, as if shots had been piled up in a haphazard manner. One might suspect that the commissions of ideological control, alerted by the non-­ conformism of the film, required a lot of changes that irremediably altered its form. The film’s relatively short duration of 70 minutes might also suggest severe cuts. Still, a glimpse at the changes requested before the shootings and after the

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editing indicates that this was not the main reason for the film’s failing, which was largely due to the inefficiency of the film crew and the rebellion of the director. The narration seems rushed towards the end where a montage sequence concludes all the storylines of the film. Carefully constructed up to a certain point, the main one, about the conflict between the leader of the band and his girlfriend, is eventually solved in a single poetic shot of the couple reuniting on the seashore at night, leaving the spectator without any explanation of how the two got back together. Again, the documents preserved at the National Film Archive might shed light on the incoherent ending. As it appears from accounts written by the delegate producer and other members of the film crew, Constantin Păun maintained the chaotic climate of work, the cancellation of some days of shooting for minor causes, or dismissing some of the personnel for no apparent reason (ANF, folder 477). Melodies at Costinești is a plea for originality. The main character, the composer, brings the bagpipe in his rock compositions, a personal imprint in his art, and something that scandalizes the musical world. He is also harshly criticized by the director of the school where he teaches music for not conforming to the educational standards. The scriptwriter also found a gag to accentuate this character uniqueness: a voice (interpreted by the same actor) on the magnetic recorder in the characters’ room gives him advice on life, since he is oblivious of earthy things and is entirely immersed in his own art. The directors’ preference for such ‘an original character’ was probably triggered by his own reluctance to obey the rules of the times. Instead of showcasing ‘authentic compositions of national folkloric origin’ (ANF, ibid.), like he was expected to do, his film featured only rock music, definitely making the film the odd one among socialist Romania musicals. By contrast, the next musical, În fiecare zi mi-­e dor de tine (I Miss You Every Day, 1988), directed by Gheorghe Vitanidis, did not manage to avoid folklore, although it might have intended to. But here this ideological imposition seems more artificial than in other Romanian socialist musicals: a young singer, dragged by her mother to every musical competition in town and made to sing Western compositions desperately confesses to a vaudeville director that her only passion is folklore music. But before her confession and the consequent turn in her musical career, the dialogue between the young woman’s mother and a musical director is very suggestive for the political context at the time of the film’s completion. The musical director is critical of the young girl’s imitation of foreign

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stars and emphasizes that only ‘singing in one’s own way’ can allow a singer to succeed. Contrary to this vehement nationalist statement, from time to time the film reproduces the choreographic numbers of a show in the making, which boast a definite Western look, with men and women dressed in aerobic suits, like that worn by Olivia Newton-John in her video for the song ‘Physical’. The ending of the film is telling of this hesitation between following a Western model and the image of the musical world inspired by the folkloric creation promoted in Romania at that time. Dressed in a costume bearing folkloric touches, the young woman passionately sings a very approximate adaptation of a folkloric song with a disco orchestration. The background, comprised of a multitude of disco lights, is also dissonant with her performance and so are the stage dancers moving hesitantly and out of step on what was probably supposed to look like a jazz dance sequence. In this case it is hard to say whether the authors intended to mock the official propaganda’s constraints through the unconvincing choreographies, set design and compositions (the composer is again George Grigoriu, this time lacking his spark from the 1960s), or whether they were simply unable to create consistent musical numbers.

Conclusions Romanian socialist musicals are markedly different from their Hollywood counterparts, as they introduce a series of important modifications to the genre’s thematic and poetic formulas. They never show the hard work and the competitive spirit behind success, since none of these attributes were encouraged in regard to artistic endeavour by the official propaganda of the socialist regime. Instead, Romanian socialist musicals predominantly showcase the efforts of artistic brigades or amateur bands. The plot is never set in rehearsal rooms or the stage, but rather takes place in the open air, preferably in a touristic resort, with art being promoted as a means of recreation accessible to everyone, and not as a full-­time profession. Romanian socialist musicals were also supposed to have an educational dimension and were expected to represent a progressive society. They failed this objective mainly because they did not have strong real-­life examples in the Romanian socialist society. This is obvious from the way women are represented in these musical films and from their interactions with male characters, which are all suggestive of the conservative roles ascribed to them. Furthermore, with the advent of the folklore movement that was strongly

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promoted by the officialdom in the last decade of the regime, the filmmakers began to elude the things they had to represent and such internal tensions undermine the musicals produced in the 1980s. Behind the façade of what was imposed as the correct ideological path, the directors tried to push through more desirable Western images.

Note 1 After the Soviet army left Romania in 1958, nationalism became gradually embraced by the official ideology. The internationalism was officially abandoned in April 1964 when Romania declared its independence from USSR. Consequently, Romania sought support from the Western world to assure its autonomy in relation with the Soviet power. The official propaganda started to emphasize the Latin roots of the Romanian nation, in opposition to Slavic influences in the area. It also instrumentalized the local historical figures of the Middle Ages who were said to have attempted to create a national state inside Romania’s actual geographical borders long before the nineteenth-century concept of a national state even existed.

References Anderson, Trudy. 1995. ‘Why Stalinist Musicals?’. Discourse, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 38–48. Ban, Cornel. 2012. ‘Sovereign Debt, Austerity, and Regime Change: The Case of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania’. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 743–776. Brădeanu, Adina. 2015. ‘Tourism, Car-Boots, Cinema: Considering Sahia’s “Orphan” Films,’ in Șerban, Alina, Dimou, Kalliopi, and Istudor, Sorin (eds), Enchanting Views: Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and 70s. Bucharest: Association pepluspatru. Căliman, Călin. 1993. ‘Pe unda clapelor, mi-­e dorul călător’. Contemporanul, 24 June, p. 13. Căliman, Călin. 2011. Istoria filmului românesc (1897–2010). Bucureşti: Ideea Europeană. Caranfil, Tudor. 1971. ‘Comedia muzicală – o problemă complicată.’ Informația Bucureștiului, 19 January, p. 2. Filippi, Gabriela. 2017. ‘Comori ascunse. Receptarea după 1989 a filmelor interzise în perioada comunistă’, in Gorzo, Andrei, and Filippi, Gabriela (eds), Filmul tranziției. Contribuții la interpretarea cinemaului românesc ‘nouăzecist’. Cluj-Napoca: Tact. Film. 2017. No. 1, pp. 46–60.

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Jinga, Luciana M. 2015. Gen și reprezentare în România comunistă, 1944–1989. Iași: Polirom. Lipatti, Rodica. 1971. ‘Cântecele mării’. Cinema, No. 1, p. 19. Maxim, Juliana. 2015. ‘Enchanting Views. The Politics of Seduction in Early Romanian Socialist Resorts’, in Șerban, Alina, Dimou, Kalliopi, and Istudor, Sorin (eds), Enchanting Views: Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and 70s. Bucharest: Association pepluspatru. Racoviceanu, Al. 1971. ‘Cântecele mării’. Cinema, No. 1, p. 19. Romanian National Film Archives (ANF): folders 153, 324 and 477. Salys, Rimgaila. 2009. The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov: Laughing Matters. Bristol, UK, and Chicago, USA: Intellect. Ștefan, Adelina. 2015. ‘From “Working People” to “Citizens”: Individual Tourism, “Tourism of Choice”. Tourism Policies in Romania of the 1960s and 70s’, in Șerban, Alina, Dimou, Kalliopi, and Istudor, Sorin (eds), Enchanting Views: Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and 70s. Bucharest: Association pepluspatru. Stoil, Michael. 1982. Balkan Cinema. Evolution after the Revolution. Michigan: Umi Research Press. Suchianu, D. I. 1971. ‘Cântecele mării – un film anonim’. România literară, 21 January, p. 24. Ungheanu, M. 1964. ‘Dragoste la zero grade’. Scînteia tineretului, 2 October, p. 2. Vasile, Aurelia. 2011. Le cinéma roumain dans la périeude comunniste. Répresentations de l’histoire national. București: Editura Universității din București. Vasile, Cristian. 2014. Viața intelectuală și artistică în primul deceniu al regimului Ceaușescu. 1965–1974. București: Humanitas. Verdery, Katherine. 1996. What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Worlds that Never Were Contemporary Eastern European Musical Comedies and the Memory of Socialism Balázs Varga

A spectre is haunting Eastern Europe: the spectre of nostalgia for the period of state socialism. This kind of retrospective mythmaking (idealizing the socialist past as an antidote to the disturbing postsocialist present) is sometimes understood as a marketing tool, and retro films are seen as commodities in this context (Berdahl 1999; Bach 2002; Roberts 2002; Nadkarni and Shevchenko 2004; Richardson 2010; Todorova and Gille 2010; Pehe 2013). Films dealing with the memory of the socialist decades are commonly interpreted in a binary structure, based on Svetlana Boym’s categories of restorative and reflexive nostalgia (Boym 2001). Restorative nostalgia, the uncritical depiction of the past is associated with popular culture and memory politics, while reflexive or critical nostalgia is associated with high culture and auteur cinema (Strausz 2011; Imre 2013). However, as Nadkarni and Shevchenko highlighted, ‘the task of distinguishing between “bad” and “good” cases of post-­socialist nostalgia has to be reformulated into the task of exploring the distinction between the nostalgic practices themselves and the political causes to which these practices may or may not contribute’ (Nadkarni and Shevchenko 2004, 505). In this study, which will analyze five musical comedies from Eastern Europe, I will try to go beyond the binary oppositions and concentrate on special nostalgic practices, namely the use of music and the representation of musical subcultures. Furthermore, I intend to show how the uses of these practices are situated in and contribute to different cultural and political contexts. The films, in chronological order, are the Czech Sakali leta (Big Beat, 1993) by Jan Hřebejk, the Hungarian Csinibaba (Dollybirds, 1997) by Péter Tímár, the Czech Rebelové (Rebels, 2001) by Filip Renc, the Hungarian Made in Hungaria (2008) by Gergely

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Fonyó, and the Russian Stilyagi (Hipsters, 2008) by Valery Todorovsky. All of them have been popular in their respective countries and won festival prizes or received acclaim from film critics. However, they were not really distributed outside their local markets, thus their international visibility was limited mostly to festival screenings. First I will discuss the production and reception of these films within their own domestic cultural contexts, and later present a comparative analysis on the use of music and the portrayal of youth musical subcultures from the Eastern European ‘long Sixties’.

Musicals and Eastern European cinemas Musical is a rather overlooked terrain in the postwar history of Eastern European popular cinemas. Apart from Stalinist musicals, operettas, socialist revue films, musicals and television productions made everywhere in the Soviet bloc, musical is not regarded a frequent genre of socialist popular cinemas (Rinke 2006; Taylor 2012; Šrajer 2016). Therefore the proliferation of the genre in the postsocialist period is of special interest, and represents new aspects and a renewed potential of popular cinemas in the region. These films, although very different, have shared specificities, as their narratives unfold coming-­of-age stories from the 1950s and 1960s with special regard to the beat or counterculture. Generational divide, the change of generations and generational memory are fundamental in the understanding of nostalgia. Fred Davis argues that 20 years of distance from a specific period usually triggers nostalgia (1979). This recurring twenty-­year cycle of nostalgia implies the importance of the generations in discussing the mechanism and dynamics of nostalgia. Nostalgia always crosses the generational divide. Its target audience is naturally multigenerational – and this multigenerational audience is served by the multifaceted nature of nostalgia. The question of true or false representations, period accuracy, mediated experiences, pastiche and ‘unapologetic imitation’ (Dyer 2007), retro as an ‘unsentimental nostalgia’ (Guffey 2006), selective remembering and ‘selective revisioning’ (Jameson 1991) are persistent problems of scholarly debates concerning the politics of nostalgia. Although one of their most important features is the meticulous attention to costume, props and details of the period, the films in question do not intend to represent the past authentically. According to Philip Drake’s terminology, these Eastern European musicals might be seen as

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‘retro films’, and counterparts of the new retro movies of 1990s Hollywood cinema. As Drake argues, retro films are based on selective remembering. They mobilize particular codes, ‘and these codes function metonymically, standing in for the entire decade’ (Drake 2003, 188). Thus, these films work as an amalgamation of the time period: instead of situating the story and the milieu in exact chronological order, they mix up topical elements of the period. The music in Rebels and Dollybirds is a unique compilation of well-­known hits from the 1960s. The majority of the songs we hear in Rebels are from around 1965 and 1966 but there are also songs from later periods. However, these songs create the feeling of ‘being in the late Sixties’, and that is their first and most important function. The temporal and spatial anchoring of events is always important, as it is not by coincidence that each film indicates (by inserted text or via dialogue) the time and location of the story, in its first sequence. Stilyagi takes place in 1955, in Moscow, two years after Stalin’s death and one year before Khrushchev’s secret speech about his predecessor’s crimes at the Communist Party’s XXth Congress. Big Beat is set in 1959, in a Prague district, in the middle of the de-­Stalinization process and the year zero of the arrival of the new youth beat culture to the Eastern Bloc. Both Hungarian films, Dollybirds and Made in Hungaria, take place in 1962–63 in Budapest – a crucial moment in the history of the Kádár regime as these were the years of the so-­called consolidation which ended the years of retributions following the 1956 revolution. And finally, Rebels takes place in 1968 Summer in a small Czech town – just before the end of Prague Spring movement and the days of the Soviet-­led invasion. Thus each film points to a time which is significant: the post-Stalinist, Cold War transformation of the Eastern European countries. In Big Beat the arrival of a young rebel, named Bejby, disturbs the boring and grey everyday activities of the neighbourhood. Not only the world of adolescent boys but their families and the people around them are transformed. Dollybirds centres on a talent show organized by the Communist Youth Organization. Everybody in the neighbourhood tries to fulfil his/her dreams by performing in public. In Rebels three young girls, while preparing for their graduation, find romance with three young guys who have just deserted from the army. Stilyagi tells the love story and the transformation of the hero Mels from being a loyal member of the Komsomol to stilyaga (youth subculture, obsessed with Western and American style and fashion). Finally, Made in Hungaria unfolds the story of Miki, who, after returning back to Hungary with his family from the USA, finds love and organizes a successful rock band in Budapest.

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As mentioned earlier, each film has been popular in their respective country. The director of Big Beat, Jan Hřebejk, along with Jan Svěrák and Peter Zelenka, belongs to the post-1989 generation of Czech cinema. He studied screenwriting at FAMU, Prague and worked with Peter Zelenka, Ondřej Trojan and Petr Jarchovský. After successful short films and TV productions which they made together, Hřebejk and Jarchovský wrote a script for Trojan’s generation comedy, set in a socialist youth camp, Pějme píseň dohola (Let’s All Sing Along, 1990). The success of these early films gave him the opportunity to make his directorial debut. Big Beat was based on generational memories and experiences, and the story was inspired by Petr Šabach’s short stories.1 The budget of the film (25 million crowns) exceeded the average budgets of Czech films at the time. Big Beat was a box office success with more then 600,000 admissions.2 It won many prestigious awards, including Czech Lions for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Score, and Best Film of 1993. The cycle of humorous and ironic Czech films recalling the period of socialism is one of the best-­known and most successful trends in the Czech cinema of the 1990s (Dominková 2008; Čulík 2013; Pehe 2016). Big Beat is an important early example of this cycle. The director of the Hungarian Dollybirds, Péter Tímár worked for a long time (from the mid-1970s) as a special effect designer, cameraman and experimental filmmaker, and made his first feature film, Egészséges erotika (Sound Eroticism) in 1985. He worked continuously in the following years, mostly presenting eccentric comedies and satires. However, after the political changes, during the transformation years of the Hungarian film industry, the focus was on arthouse films and popular cinema did not get much (financial and critical) support (Varga 2016), Tímár did not have the opportunity to make a film for years. Thus it is not surprising that he took the chance to direct Dollybirds. The project was developed in one of the former state studios, but Tímár also included changes.3 For example, he insisted on not using original period songs, but their reorchestrated versions. The eccentric visual style of the film is due to Tímár’s special technical experiments: some scenes were recorded with half and others with twice of the normal speed. The limited budget and technical problems made the shooting complicated and troubled. Few believed in the success of the film, and at first the studio could not find a distributor either. Yet the film was awarded the divided main prize at the Hungarian Film Festival in 1997, which was followed by huge success in cinemas with more than half a million viewers in a few months. The film’s soundtrack was also an instant hit, and the success of Dollybirds has exploded Sixties nostalgia and retro fashion in Hungarian popular

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culture.4 In such a way Tímár’s film marks a crucial turning point in the history of Hungarian popular cinema. Dollybirds is still a popular hit, and in the 2000s the film was adapted on stage as a musical. The director of Rebels, Filip Renc, belongs to the same generation as Jan Hřebejk. Besides his early arthouse films he also made music videos and commercials, and Rebels is a kind of continuation of these popular stylistic and genre experiments. The film did well at the box office, with more than 400,000 admissions, and has also been nominated for several Czech film awards. Rebels’s soundtrack, with 120,000 copies sold, was the highest selling soundtrack album ever in Czech Republic, as well as the second bestselling domestic album between 1994 and 2006. In addition, the stage version of the film opened at Prague’s Broadway Theatre in September 2003. The production history of the other Hungarian film, Made in Hungaria was grounded by the popularity of the Hungarian singer and musician Miklós Fenyő, whose life and career (together with the story of his band Hungaria) provided the story for a stage musical, co-­written by Miklós Fenyő and István Tasnádi, in 2002. This musical was adapted onto screen in 2008 by Gergely Fonyó. Fonyó in the 1980s worked as a cameraman in Budapest, then in the 1990s in Los Angeles. His low-budget first feature film was shot in the USA, but post-­production was made in Budapest. Kelj fel Jancsi (Johnny Famous, 2000) won the divided main prize at the Hungarian Film Festival in 2001. After this unexpected success, however, Fonyó did not have many new opportunities in the Hungarian film industry. He made music documentaries, TV shows and later was offered the opportunity to make comedies. Among these offers was Made in Hungaria, which he had long wanted to adapt to the screen. Made in Hungaria was the most successful Hungarian film of the year with almost 250,000 admissions. The film was premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2009, the same year as Todorovsky’s Stilyagi. Todorovsky’s film is perhaps the best known among the five musical comedies. Valery Todorovsky (the son of the director, Piotr Todorovsky) began his career as a scriptwriter in the second half of the 1980s. After his directorial debut in the 1990s his films were screened at leading international festivals and he was considered one of the most promising new Russian directors. Stilyagi represents an opening to a wider audience in Todorovsky’s career. The big budgeted production was supported by leading Russian television channels (Rossiya TV Channel and Channel One Russia), yet it took almost a decade from the conception to the release of the film (Kaganovsky 2014; Salys 2015). The premiere

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was timed for the New Year holidays, the best date for blockbusters, and although the film had to battle with two other potential domestic blockbusters, Neobitaemiy Ostrov (The Inhabited Island) by Fyodor Bondarchuk5 and Lyubov-Morkov-2 (Lovey-Dovey-2) by Maksim Pezhemskiy, it did well at the box office (with almost 3 million viewers) and later won several important prizes from critics and from the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences. Today Stilyagi is regarded as a contemporary cult classic.

Tales from the ‘long Sixties’ The coming-of-age narratives of the films gravitate around the imagined West and Western commercial culture. Furthermore, they share many motifs, such as the East–West dichotomy, or the opposition of youth culture (often youth counterculture) and ‘official’ or mainstream popular culture. The stories of the films range from mid-1950s to the late-1960s. Yet, we can say that in terms of counterculture, the clash of generations, and the transformation in lifestyle, culture and social norms, these films portray the ‘long Sixties’, the period Arthur Marwick (2006) dated roughly between 1958 and 1974. Although ‘long Sixties’ might seem a useful umbrella term to describe changes both in the East and the West, we have to differentiate in some respect. The ‘Fifties’ and the ‘Sixties’ were different periods on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and these films explicitly highlight these differences. Besides saying that the ‘Sixties’ were revolutionary in the West and reformist in the East, the dynamics of changes were also diverse. In the West the peaceful ‘Fifties’ were contrasted with the revolutionary ‘Sixties’, but in the East the repressive, Stalinist ‘Fifties’ was faced with the reformism of the ‘Sixties’. Thus the Eastern ‘Fifties’ were in no way a period which could be a time for yearning.6 Each film describes the moral panic concerning the appearance of the new youth culture in Eastern Europe. However, this youth culture is associated with the question of authenticity. The appearance of a person who (seems to) represent the Western world is equally disturbing for both the middle-­aged generation and the youth. This ‘first contact’ situation is nicely portrayed in Big Beat. As the family needs someone to take care of the grandmother, the father (who is a policeman) asks a distant relative to visit them and stay for some time. Nobody knew that this relative is an early rock’n’roll hero, who calls himself Bejby, and the meeting with him at the railway station – choreographed with a reference to

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the opening scene of Sergio Leone’s How the West Was Won – is a real shock for both the father and his son. Similarly, in Made in Hungaria, nobody from the gang recognizes Miki who, after spending seven years away from Hungary, arrives to Budapest in Hawaii shirt, sunglasses and with an American hairstyle (and with a perfect American accent). The West is not portrayed as a real territory in these films but as a land of promise, an imaginary place to which desires and wishes are projected. The youth’s limited knowledge about Western culture becomes an important factor in the stories and is the foundation of a one-­sided longing, identity quest and fetishization of objects of Western consumer culture. The young heroes of these films want to look like Western musicians on the pictures of the magazines and postcards. They are excited to talk and sing with their accents. Although this is unachievable, the pursuit and drive itself has a strong power for identity formation. The ‘West’ is just an image that can be adapted to and, to some degree, imitated. Sometimes this requires home-­made materials, like in the case of the young boy in Big Beat who shades his glasses with engine oil and garnishes his hair to look like the boys in the pictures. The power of DIY culture and the Eastern European bricolage technique of recycling, transformation and imitation is a recurring motif of these films. During the title sequence, Big Beat begins with Western rock’n’roll music, and the lyrics tell the story of the phenomenal success of the band in Western Europe and the USA. With a sudden change, the narrative continues in an elegant bar with late-1950s-style schlager music being played. Our first impression is the contrast between the ‘here’ and the ‘there’ – the dynamic rock from the West and the oldish schlager music in the East. Nevertheless, the song we hear is the Czech version of the Swiss-German singer, Vico Torriani’s 1957 hit, ‘Ananas au Caracas’, which was a hit of the West German musical comedy, Siebenmal in der Woche (Seven Times a Week, 1957), made by Harald Philipp. The next scene reveals that the action takes place in Hotel Druzba, the largest and emblematic Stalinist building in Prague which was inspired by the Soviet Stalinist skyscrapers of the time. While there is discreet schlager import music inside the elegant redstar decorated hotel, outside a gang fight is initiated (in the style of West Side Story) with youngsters quarrelling over boxes of Western imported goods, such as paperboard cartons of cigarettes and liquors, taken from the garbage can of the hotel. The sequence suggests that the real contrast and conflict is not political (capitalism vs. communism), but cultural, while also portraying the clash of lifestyles between the communist Party elite and the youth. Both groups are open to Western cultural influences and share an

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addiction to Western commodities. However, their different cultural taste (conformist schlager music versus renitent rock’n’roll) is an evident marker of their opposition and inequality in the political–cultural power hierarchy. Stilyagi ends with the return of Mel’s friend from America who tells him that there are no stilyagi in America, that young people do not dress as they are imagined, making it evident that longing is a one-­way process in these films. The aspirations and yearning of the youth is unrequited. No happy ending awaits the young heroes of Dollybirds, only the bitter realization that the winners of the talent competition have been selected in advance. The boy who has been engaged in endless correspondence with his love in the West, finds that the letters were written by a Hungarian girl hopelessly in love with him. Strangely enough, the film allows a happy ending only to older characters, possibly because they belong to the generation which has first-­person experiences and memories of the 1950s. Unlike the young generation of the 1960s, they are able to compare the early 1960s with the Stalinist era and appreciate the difference. Victories and rebellion may also be considered illusionary. In Big Beat, the scene in which young people are shooting at representatives of the establishment and demolish the nicely decorated table, is supposedly just a dream.7 Made in Hungaria ends with Miki’s new band winning the talent competition and with Miki and Vera, the daughter of a high-­ranking party member, kissing in the dressing room. However, the head of the party’s cultural department spells Vera’s nervous father with the words – ‘This is OUR rock’n’roll’ – suggesting that even rebellion and youth counterculture will be put to the Party’s service.

Vinyl cultures The importance of music instruments are evident in these films. Each begins with a music performance or with an image of music-­making instruments. In Big Beat and Rebels it is stage music performances, in Dollybirds the news of the communal radio system, in Made in Hungaria dissolving images of wurlitzer records and the propeller of the plane landing with Miki and his family in Budapest and Stilyagi the process of making a DIY record on X-ray plates. Vinyl records are one of the most polysemic motifs of these films. LP albums and their vividly designed, coloured paper sleeves are per se nostalgic and retro objects, and closely connected to the youth cultures of the 1960s. Yet, rock albums and music relics like jukebox machines are not only eminent period

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markers but involve the problem of originality and authenticity in multiple ways. The circulation, distribution, consumption and duplication of Western rock music in Eastern Europe during the Cold War period was a complicated and precarious issue. From the 1960s Western rock was not officially banned by authorities. However, due to cultural policy and business considerations, these records were rarely imported or licensed. Western rock music was ideologically condemned (at least till the mid-1960s) and therefore unavailable in the official music record stores. They were available only on the black market of ‘forbidden fruits’ and rare consumer products. In these films the possession of an original Western record, that is a vinyl record made and released in America is an essential status symbol. It is definitely a precious property and has a high value. Even touching them seems to be a magic experience. Possessing these albums was a way to achieve individuality. Their owners protected these objects not because of their material but symbolic value. Bejby is beaten in Big Beat by a group of kids from the neighbourhood, who take away his American records. Miki in Made in Hungaria only agrees to sell his records when he really needs money. Actually this is the deferred price of his love, as he has to buy a new piano for his family after their former piano got burnt during a serenade he performed under his beloved girl’s window. Attila, in Dollybirds, proudly tells everybody that he has successfully purchased Ricky Nelson’s SP album, ‘Hello Mary Lou’. Unfortunately, he does not own the record player to listen to this piece of treasure. Near the end of the story, he gets into a studio where he can finally put the valuable record on a player only to realize that he has been tricked and while sleeve and label are original, the record contains mediocre Czech schlager music. All these examples show the symbolic value of a physical object. At that time only very few people had the chance to access Western releases of rock albums. Thus the second best thing was to acquire an Eastern European replica of it – like a Supraphon record.8 This was not identical with the original Western album as far as symbolic value was concerned but at least it meant something. Especially if we compare it with other possibilities of accessing Western music, such as listening and recording Western radio’s rock music broadcast (Radio Free Europe, Radio Luxemburg or Voice of America) on tape. However, in this case the possession of a physical object is not that relevant – the music ‘itself ’ and its carrier are separated from each other. However, this was the most typical, accessible, and therefore the most widely used method of recording and possessing Western music. Furthermore, tape recording is closely linked to the

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problem of loss of quality – both in terms of the quality of the sound and the symbolic value of an object which, in case of these tapes, was next to nothing. Beside tape recording songs and albums there were other original methods of archiving. The so-­called ‘X-ray audio’ or ‘music on the bones’ method represented a unique version of early Soviet DIY culture. Stilyagi portrays in detail the procedure of these home-­made records – pressed on or graved into exposed X-ray plates (Meerzon 2011; Kaganovsky 2014).

The song will not remain the same ’A-wop-­bom-a-­loo-mop-­a-lomp-­bom-bom!’ Little Richard

Scholars of popular music (DeNora 2004; Frith 1998; Frith 2007; Bennett 2008) have both identified music as an important nostalgia-­producing factor and described the ways music can act as a powerful generator of memory and marker of generational belonging. The emotional effect of music, plus the recollection of personal memories connected to the songs invites the audience to immerse oneself into the past or at least to evoke the fiction of the past. As David Shumway noted: ‘recent soundtracks, consisting mainly of previously recorded material, are put together on the assumption that the audience will recognize the artist, the song, or, at a minimum, a familiar style. Tie-­ins between films and sound track recordings have become so important that producers now routinely hire musical consultants to assemble a collection of songs that not only will make the movie more appealing but will also lead to sales in music stores’ (Shumway 1999, 36–37). Pre-­existing songs could effectively embed these films in the context and memory of popular culture. To quote Shumway again: ‘[T]his process of fictionalizing the past is all the more effective in that what is brought to mind is not unfamiliar, even though the audience never actually lived through it’ (Shumway 1999, 41). Furthermore, as Jeff Smith suggested about the multiple function of soundtrack compilation, the knowledge differences in the audience will be acknowledged this way. On one level, an audience of uninformed viewers may interpret the song as background music pure and simple. As such, they may make judgments regarding the overall style and its appropriateness to considerations of setting,

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character and mood. However, an audience of informed viewers will recognize the song’s title, lyrics, or performer, and will apply this knowledge to the dramatic context depicted onscreen. In such a way, musical allusion also serves as an expressive device to either comment on the action or suggest the director’s attitude toward the characters, settings, and themes of the film. Smith 1998, 168–69

The complex dynamics of cultural exchange, period markers, nostalgia and originality might be better understood with the investigation of the films’ soundtracks, especially cover songs. Eastern European cover versions of Western hits in the 1960s not only show the universal trend of cultural borrowings, but also the politics of covers – domestication, localization of imported goods. In view of the previously mentioned lack of access to Western albums and Western rock music in general, Eastern cover songs functioned, on the one hand, as local substitutes for the ‘original’ and, on the other hand, as adaptations and adjustments of music styles. Consequently, they could be understood as an important cultural transformation or translation. How did Western-style music sound in Czech or Hungarian? The soundtrack of these films and their music compilations are representative of different attitudes and strategies. The most important aspect here is the use of original period songs and their reorchestration which might be complemented with the topic of cover versions. The soundtrack of Big Beat consist of songs written for the film in the style of the late 1950s. Dollybirds is based on reorchestrations of well-­known local period hits. Rebels uses new versions of period hits – both Czech cover versions of Western songs and covers of local period hits. Made in Hungaria uses new versions of local hits, which were written in the 1980s but in the style of the 1960s. And finally, Stilyagi Hipsters is built around the reorchestration and rearrangement of Russian underground rock hits from the 1980s. In the following I will discuss these different strategies in detail. The composer of the soundtrack of Hřebejk’s film, Big Beat, is Ivan Hlas, a well-­known Czech composer and singer, and also an old friend of the writer Petr Sabach whose short stories serve as the source of the script written by Jan Hřebejk and Petr Jarchovský. Thus, the imitation of the late-1950s style of popular music has a personal dimension: the songs echo the music of the filmmakers’ early childhood, and stand as an early example of postsocialist musical nostalgia (as this is the earliest film of the group, and was made only three years after the political changes). Ivan Hlas’s soundtrack is a joyful pastiche, and an interesting supplement to the history of Czech popular music, in some way representing a

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tracklist of missing or ‘unwritten songs’ from the late 1950s. One of the major hits of the soundtrack, ‘Rock’n’roll for Beethoven’ (which recalls a strange dream about playing rock’n’roll with Beethoven) is an evident response to Chuck Berry’s hit from 1956, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’. Thus, the local history of popular music is ‘corrected’: now Czech rock’n’roll and Western rock’n’roll are in line – yet, only in the retro fashion. In Dollybirds the soundtrack was arranged by Gábor Závodi who, in agreement with the director, collected a list of famous Hungarian period hits, all of which were reorchestrated but in a style and fashion quite different from the original recordings. The most memorable performances are based on some surprising pairing of the original song and the performer of the new version. These reinterpretations illustrate the various interplays between narrative (plot, character development) and period hits, the performer, and the style and attitude of musical arrangement. For example, Dollybirds reactivated János Gálvölgyi on Hungarian film screens. Gálvölgyi, an extremely popular comedian, previously appeared almost only on television shows and on stage, but not in films. He strongly contributed to the success and appeal of Dollybirds. In the film, he performs ‘Bring a walking-­stick’ (‘Fogj egy sétapálcát’), an early 1960s hit, a good-­old Charleston song that fit perfectly Gálvölgyi’s comedian character and reassured his popular image.9 However, in the film Gálvölgyi plays Uncle Simon, an ex-­member of the Stalinist State Security Authority (ÁVH), who, in the early 1960s, performs his duties as a caretaker for the block of flats, guarding the peace and socialist order of the neighbourhood. His song-­and-dance performance is therefore a childish demonstration of paternalist omnipotence and an ironic caricature of the figure. In Dollybirds, another hit is performed by Tamás Cseh, the ‘Hungarian Vysotsky’ (Schandl 2014), a legendary Hungarian singer of the 1970s and 1980s. In contract with Gálvölgyi’s song, Cseh performs a song entitled ‘Angela’, which differs from his wit and melancholic style. His cameo appearance in the film as the father of a teenage girl who tries to spend the night with her boyfriend, joyously parodizes conservativism and paternalism. The song ‘Angela’ was originally performed by Lajos Németh, one of the most popular Hungarian schlager singers of the late Fifties and early Sixties, in a television film entitled Téli szerelem (Winter Love, 1966) directed by Nándor Bednai. In Dollybirds the sentimental love song turns into a kitschy confession by a soft-­hearted father to his daughter. With this exaggeration and parody Cseh’s performance in the film fits both the content of his songs and his image.

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Finally, Dollybirds was an important step in the career of the band, Kispál és a Borz. This band was one of the most important alternative-­rock bands of the Hungarian music scene from the late 1980s. They perform several songs in the film, among them ‘I’m Feeling a Little Gloomy Today’ (‘Kicsit szomorkás a hangulatom’) which is reorchestrated in the band’s unmistakable style. The sped-­up and (post)modernized version of the early 1960s sentimental schlager accompanies the scene in which factory workers receive their low salaries. Thus the silly and neutral schlager becomes an ironical-­critical commentary on the early 1960s socialist paradise, and a gesture of self-­parody as the Hungarian alternative-­rock band performs an old-­time schlager song.10 In Rebels, the first song is Yvonne Přenosilová’s period hit, ‘Měsíc’ (‘Moon’), performed in a local pub by an amateur band. Besides evoking the 1960s and the Czech tradition of covers,11 the song subtly foreshadows the end of the film in which the heroine and her family – just like Přenosilová after the 1968 invasion – leave the country. Filip Renc’s film is based on cover songs of well-­known Western hits like ‘Down Town’ or ‘Sugar Town’, both presented by the lead actress, Zuzana Norisová. As mentioned earlier, the film’s rainbow-­coloured visual world, and sugar-­coated, sentimental atmosphere suddenly reverts into the dramatic conclusion. This closure, the end of the Prague Spring and the end of ‘revolutionary Sixties’ is clearly reflected in the film’s musical choices as well. In fact, it is the use of music which help us to arrive from the colourful, naive, shiny mid-1960s to the depression of the post-1968 period. After the ironical, frivolous and highly stylized song-­and-dance performances, and the easy and plain love story, the film ties together Eastern and Western youth culture in another way and mood, with a clear twist in the use of music. The collaborative singing of the Mamas & the Papas and Scott McKenzie song entitled ‘San Francisco’ (the only Western hit which is performed in English in the film)12 resembles the hippie movement, and underscores the scene of the three fugitive soldiers trying to escape from the police. At the end Simon decides to stay by the side of his love. However, after the Soviet invasion the girl and her family leave the country, and Simon ends up in prison. The scene of the family crossing the border is tied with the emblematic folk song-­turned political song of the 1960s, ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’. Through these two iconic songs of the 1960s, Eastern youth culture and Western counterculture are finally brought together. The happy and optimistic film ends with the loss of illusions,

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imprisonment, all underscored by the melodies of an internationally renowned antiwar anthem. As was mentioned earlier, the other Hungarian musical, Made in Hungaria, tells the partially biographical story of Miklós Fenyő, the founder and singer of the legendary Hungarian band, Hungária. His band indeed won the TV talent show (‘Ki mit tud?’) in 1968, where they presented, among others, their hit ‘Csavard fel a szőnyeget’ (‘Wrap up the carpet’) also featured in the film. However, the majority of the songs in the film (‘Meghalok, hogyha rám nézel’, ‘Ciao Marina’, ‘Csókkirály’) were written in the early 1980s after the band’s turn towards rockabilly. Fenyő’s band, Hungária, has changed its musical style on several occasions over the decades. As they had fewer opportunities and were less successful in the early 1970s, first they decided to make a Beatles revival LP.13 At the beginning of the 1980s, when the first signs of a nostalgia fever appeared in Hungarian popular culture, Hungária was in a good time at the right place. They have changed style (again). This time they introduced late-1950s American rock’n’roll culture into Hungary. After the first successful concerts, within a couple of weeks, they wrote a lot of new songs and released the album ‘Rock’n’Roll Party’, which became extremely popular. Hungária soon became the most popular Hungarian band of the early 1980s. Their playful, light-­hearted songs led their fans into a world of imagination. In the grey socialist everydays of the Kádár regime they simply opened a bohemian world of sunshine, extravagant behaviour, cheerful love and eternal smile. Their next album, ‘Hotel Menthol ’14 was also dedicated to this fantasy world and to the American way of life of the late 1950s (Jávorszky and Sebők 2006). Fenyó’s film features these hits of the band, even though they are presented as compositions from the 1960s. Made in Hungaria recalls the memory of the 1960s via the 1980s – and via the memory of the 1960s in the 1980s. The film’s success and the popularity of the band supported each other. Nothing proves that better than the end titles of the film, showing the band’s nostalgia concerts from the 2000s as they perform their hit ‘Made in Hungária’. Finally, Stilyagi – similarly to Made in Hungaria – uses the music of the 1980s, but in a more politicized way. In contrast to the Hungarian film, in which the songs from the 1980s were popular retro period hits, Stilyagi is centred around emblematic underground hits of the period: songs from the bands Nautilus Pompilius, Nol’, Kino, Mashina Vremeni and Chaif. Originally Todorovsky wanted to use a completely new, original score and later he tried to find period songs but had to realize that these efforts are unproductive. When he realized the

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common ground between the stilyagis and the counterculture of the 1980s, he turned towards late Soviet underground music. ‘The choice of using Soviet rock in a new “retro” form (and the consequent absence of American or Western rock’n’roll or jazz) speaks to something vital at the heart of this picture: the film is actually not an exploration of the Soviet Union’s relationship to the West but rather of the Soviet Union’s (and now, Russia’s) relationship to itself ’ (Kaganovsky 2014, 264). These underground songs, some of which are satirical and some of which are lyrical or grotesque, find their place in a very diverse way in the film. For example, the Nol’ band’s grotesque song, ‘Chelovek i kloska’ (‘Man with a cat’), about the strange friendship between the old man and his animal, is sung in the film by Mel’s father with an accordion, reorchestrated as a modernized folk song. However, the song is accompanied by a montage sequence of communal flats and images of Soviet everydays. One needs to know about the band’s recurring topic of the unbearable everyday experience of Soviet apartments, to access another layer of meanings. Another song, by the experimental and eccentric rock group, Kolibri, entitled ‘(He Doesn’t Need an) American Wife’ is reorchestrated and partially rewritten to fit to the scene in which Mel’s friend leaves the stilyagi group and moves to the United States with his family. This is a farewell song performed specially for him in a club by the members of the company, but the soundtrack was performed by the Ukrainian girlgroup, Nu Virgos (VIA-gra), and became a feminist protest song. But perhaps the most telling (and most popular) example is the rearrangement of the emblematic song ‘Bound With One Chain’ by Nautilus Pompilius. Originally written in 1986, the song is a dense, metaphorical satire of the Soviet society and the control of ideology (with lyrics like ‘I want friendship but feel pressure / I look for eye contact but instead I feel watched’). In the film we hear a new version, with verses changed but the original refrain (‘Bound by one chain / Tied by one aim’) preserved. Actually, this refrain, and the original lyrics, refers to the concept of collective responsibility (‘krugovaja poruka’) which could be traced back to the early medieval ages of Russian history. However, the proper context is the ideological framework (‘one aim’) of the Soviet regime and its state-­controlled society in which everybody is bound with one chain (Ledeneva 2006). This song is performed in the scene of Mel’s expulsion from the Komsomol, and the new lyrics express an accusation against Mel(s), who excluded from his name (an acronym of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin) the letter S, thus, by transforming into a stilyagi, he became a traitor who sold himself to the enemy.

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While the chorus in the original version was understood as a charge against the ideologically driven Soviet regime, in the film’s version it restored the ‘original’ Stalinist totalitarian context. As protagonists leave the diegetic world of the film in the final scene and march in today’s Moscow at Tverskaya Street in the company of contemporary stilyagis (members of the punk and goth subculture), Todorovsky’s film with its ‘palimpsest history’ (Meerzon 2011) clearly points to the legacy of Soviet period in Putin’s Russia, or at least poses the question: what does it mean to be nonconformist in this culture? (Kaganovsky 2014)

Conclusion Although the Eastern European music comedies in focus are often accused of apolitical nostalgia, anachronism, inaccurate representation and superficiality, I claim they skilfully mobilize nostalgia’s different modalities. Each film attempts to redefine the memory of socialism and the ‘long Sixties’ from the perspective of the present era, and none of them portrays the past with uncritical nostalgia. The ‘Sixties’ are not presented in a way that we would definitely yearn for. In contrast, these films portray the power of longing in the Sixties. In addition, they present various strategies on how this longing is activated in the imagination of the youth. Besides describing the ways nostalgia is connected to imagination, they also show the myth of the imagined West in the imagined worlds of socialist East during the ‘long Sixties’. As such, they force their audience to face the question: how long is the shadow of these ‘long Sixties’ and what can we do with the legacy of socialism?

Special note This work was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, project number 116708, entitled The Social History of Hungarian Film.

Notes 1 Šabach’s book, Jak potopit Austrálii (How to Sink Australia) was published in 1986 and contains short stories based on his childhood experiences. He grew up in

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Prague’s Dejvice district, where his stories, and Big Beat is set. Šabach, Jarchovský and Hřebejk continued to work together after the success of Big Beat. Hřebejk’s Pelíšky (Cosy Dens, 1999) and Pupendo (2003), as well as Trojan’s Občanský průkaz (Identity Card, 2010) is based on Šabach’s short stories (Pehe 2016). Of the domestic films, only Svěrák’s comedy, Akumulátor 1 (Accumulator 1) attracted more viewers than Big Beat in that year. [The source of box office numbers and distribution information is Lumiere database and Czech and Hungarian film yearbooks.] Tímár mentioned in an interview that the absurd tone and grotesque look of the film could be attributed to an adolescent boy’s perspective (Matalin 2017). There is a ten-year-old boy in the film, without any speaking parts, who is the silent observer of the story. His gaze and understanding is a kind of distorted mirror, reflecting the everydays in a special way. As Tímár was 11 in 1962 when the story takes place, this boy is actually the director himself. In a recent interview which was dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the release of the film, Tímár recalled that he could discover the secret of the film’s success only years later: that he delivered a ‘social order’, the audience was simply starving for this film (Matalin 2017). The battle between Stilyagi and The Inhabited Island, a musical about post-Stalinist time subculture and a dystopian sci-­fi with a story set in 2157, was also particularly interesting because both films could be understood as an allegory on present-­time Russia. Both of the directors come from famous filmmaker dynasties (Fyodor Bondarchuk is the son of Sergey Bondarchuk, who adapted Tolstoy’s classic, War and Peace on screen), thus the symbolic stake of the ‘clash of the titans’ was no less than the post-Soviet legacy of contemporary Russia (Shakirov, 2009). At most only hardcore Stalinists could remember with nostalgia back to the early Fifties. There is a scene in Csinibaba where two former members of the Stalinist State Security Authority (ÁVH) remember with tears the former raids against the enemies of the state in the Margaret island. Obviously, this scene is a mark of double-sided irony: mocking the nostalgia for the past times and ridiculing the representatives of Stalinism all at once. This scene presumably resembles those ‘rebel’ classics as Very Chitilová’s Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966) and Miloš Forman’s Hair (1979). Supraphon is a Czechoslovakian record label, issuing domestic and after the late 1960s, Western rock music. Gálvölgyi became famous with a comic sketch in an 1968 Hungarian TV talent show (Ki mit tud?). Given that ‘Fogj egy sétapálcát’ was a hit from the film, Rainy Sunday (Esős vasárnap, Márton Keleti, 1962) which tells the story of youngsters who prepare for the first Hungarian edition of ‘Ki mit tud?’, Dollybirds, with its similar story and with Gálvölgyi’s appearance, present a complex system of intertextual and

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cultural links between ‘now’ and ‘then’, 1960s and 1990s, and a reflected interpretation of the actor-­comedian’s public persona or image. 10 As one of the band’s previous hits was ‘It is good that the 1960s are over, and will never ever come back again’ (‘Jó hogy vége a hatvanas éveknek, és nem jön újra el’), their performance in the film might be seen as a self-­fulfilling prophecy. 11 Přenosilová is considered to be one of the founders of Czech rhythm and blues and rock’n’roll. She covered such international hits as ‘Boty proti lasce’ / ‘These Boots are made for walking’ by Nancy Sinatra. 12 The song is performed by Jan Kalousek who was responsible for the arrangement and reorchestration of the period song in Rebels, and who actually performed some songs in Big Beat. 13 Actually the songs were recorded that time but the LP was released only twenty years later, in 1997. 14 Indeed, Fenyő has written another stage musical, Hotel Menthol, based on the most popular hits of his band, which was premiered in 1998 in the Budapest Operetta Theatre. Only a year after the success of Tímár’s Dollybirds in the cinemas, Fenyő’s musical showed that retro fashion has conquered Hungarian popular culture.

References Bach, Jonathan. 2002. ‘ “The Taste Remains”: Consumption, (N)ostalgia, and the Production of East Germany’, Public Culture, 3, pp. 545–556. Bennett, Andy. 2008. ‘Towards a Cultural Sociology of Popular Music’, Journal of Sociology, 4, pp. 419–432. Berdahl, Daphne. 1999. ‘ “(N)Ostalgie” for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East German Things’, Ethnos, 2, pp. 182–211. Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Čulík, Jan. 2013. A Society in Distress: The Image of the Czech Republic in Contemporary Czech Feature Film. Brighton, Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press. Davis, Fred. 1979. Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. New York: Free Press. DeNora, Tia. 2004. ‘Historical Perspectives in Music Sociology’, Poetics, 3–4, pp. 211–221. Dominková, Petra. 2008. ‘ “We Have Democracy, Don’t We?” Czech Society as Reflected in Contemporary Czech Cinema’, in Sarkisova, Oksana, and Apor, Péter (eds), Past For the Eyes: East European Representations of Communism in Cinema and Museums after 1989. Budapest: CEU Press, pp. 215–244. Drake, Philip. 2003. ‘ “Mortgaged to music”: new retro movies in 1990s Hollywood cinema’, in Grainge, Paul (ed.), Memory and Popular Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 183–201.

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Dyer, Richard. 2007. Pastiche. London: Routledge. Frith, Simon. 1998. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Frith, Simon. 2007. Taking Popular Music Seriously. Aldershot: Ashgate. Guffey, Elizabeth E. 2006. Retro. The Culture of Revival. London: Reaktion Books. Imre, Anikó. 2013. ‘Why should we study socialist commercials?’ VIEW: Journal of European Television History and Culture, 3, pp. 1–17. Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New York: Verso. Jávorszky, Béla Szilárd, and Sebők, János. 2006. A magyarock története 2. Az újhullámtól az elektronikáig. Budapest: Népszabadság Könyvek. Kaganovsky, Lilya. 2014. ‘Russian Rock on Soviet Bones’, in Kaganovsky, Lilya, and Salazkina, Masha (eds), Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema. Indiana: Indiana UP, pp. 252–272. Ledeneva, Alena V. 2006. How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Marwick, Arthur. 2006. ‘Culture and the Cultural Revolution of the Long Sixties’, in Schildt, Axel, and Siegfried, Detlef (eds), Between Marx and Coca-Cola: Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960–1980. New York: Berghahn, pp. 39–58. Matalin, Dóra. 2017. ‘Annyira nem volt jó a Csinibaba, mint amennyien megnézték’, https://index.hu/kultur/cinematrix/2017/02/20/timar_peter_interju_20_eves_a_csi nibaba/ Meerzon, Yana. 2011. ‘Dancing on the X-rays: On the Theatre of Memory, countermemory, and Postmemory in the Post-1989 East-European Context’, Modern Drama, 4, pp. 479–510. Nadkarni, Maya, and Shevchenko, Olga. 2004. ‘The Politics of Nostalgia: A Case for Comparative Analysis of Post-Socialist Practices’, Ab Imperio, 2, pp. 487–519. Nadkarni, Maya. 2010. ‘ “But it’s Ours”: Nostalgia and the Politics of Authenticity in PostSocialist Hungary’, in Todorova, Maria, and Gille, Zsuzsa (eds), Post-Communist Nostalgia. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 190–214. Pehe, Veronika. 2013. ‘An Artificial Unity? Approaches to Post-Socialist Nostalgia’, Tropos, 1, pp. 6–13. http://ojs.lib.ucl.ac.uk/index.php/tps/article/view/262 Pehe, Veronika. 2015. ‘The colours of socialism: visual nostalgia and retro aesthetics in Czech film and television’, Canadian Slavonic Papers, 3–4, pp. 239–253. Pehe, Veronika. 2016. Socialism Remembered: Cultural Nostalgia, Retro, and the Politics of the Past in the Czech Republic, 1989–2014. PhD Thesis, University College London. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1502115/1/Thesis%20Pehe%2026.6.16.pdf Richardson, Michael D. 2010. ‘A World of Objects: Consumer Culture in Filmic Reconstructions of the GDR’, in Fisher, Jaimey, and Prager, Brad (eds), The Collapse of the Conventional. German Films and its Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, pp. 216–237.

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Rinke, Andrea. 2006. ‘Eastside Stories: Singing and Dancing for Socialism’, Film History: An International Journal, 1, pp. 73–87. Roberts, Andrew. 2002. ‘The Politics and Anti-Politics of Nostalgia’, East European Politics & Societies, 3, pp. 764–809. Salys, Rimgaila. 2015. ‘Hipsters’, Kinokultura, 50. www.kinokultura.com/2015/50/ fifty_stiliagi.shtml Schandl, Veronika. 2014. ‘Writing between the Lines: Reviewing Shakespeare Productions in Socialist Hungary’, in Gregor, Keith (ed.), Shakespeare and Tyranny: Regimes of Reading in Europe and Beyond. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Shakirov, Mumin. 2009. ‘Dissenting blockbusters’, www.opendemocracy.net/article/ email/dissenting-­blockbusters Shumway, David R. 1999. ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Sound Tracks and the Production of Nostalgia’, Cinema Journal, 2, pp. 36–51. Smith, Jeff. 1998. Sounds of Commerce. Marketing Popular Film Music. New York: Columbia University Press. Šrajer, Martin. 2016. ‘We ain’t heard nothin‘ yet – Czech musicals’, www.filmovyprehled. cz/en/revue/detail/we-­aint-heard-­nothin-yet-­czechmusicals Strausz, László. 2011. ‘Archeology of Flesh: History and Body-Memory in Taxidermia’, in Jump Cut, 53, www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc53.2011/strauszTaxidermia/index.html Taylor, Richard. 2012. ‘Soviet Union’, in Creekmur, Corey K., and Mokdad, Linda Y (eds), The International Film Musical. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 105–118. Todorova, Maria, and Gille, Zsuzsa. 2010. Post-Communist Nostalgia. New York: Berghahn Books. Varga, Balázs. 2016. ‘The Missing Middle: Transformations and Trends in Hungarian Film Comedies After Political Change’, in Misiková, Katarína, and Dudková Jana (eds), Transformation Processes in Post-Socialist Screen Media. Bratislava: Academy of Performing Arts (VSMU), pp. 97–116.

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Pop Music, Nostalgia and Melancholia in Dollybirds and Liza, the Fox Fairy Hajnal Király

In February 2017, Péter Tímár’s Csinibaba (Dollybirds, 1996) celebrated 20 years since its release in 1997. On this occasion, the director, former member of the famous Balázs Béla Stúdió, author of 14 feature films and a great number of short films, confessed in an interview that with this film he actually ‘fulfilled an order’ coming from the Hungarian public. As he said, ‘It was ordered by society and I got tremendously lucky that the film chose me’ (Matalin 2017). The film reviewed postcommunist nostalgia through predominantly Hungarian pop music during the state socialist era and that was listened to, sung and performed by celebrated actors such as Gábor Reviczky, János Gálvölgyi, Judit Pogány, as well as musicians like András Lovasi, co-­founder of the very popular rock band Kispál és a borz, author of the soundtrack of the film, and Tamás Cseh, who had a very successful solo career in the 1990s, respectively. Set in 1962, the film presents the everyday life of a tenement block community, often choreographed by the lyrics of a retro soundtrack, both diegetic and non-­diegetic, which is shaken up by a prospective talent contest, promising the winner a trip to Helsinki. In this film depicting a relatively calm period following the trauma of the 1956 revolution, pop music becomes a signifier of community cohesion, generational tensions, coming of age and a nostalgic longing for the West. The film mourned a specific configuration of the West itself, experienced as an imaginary elsewhere under state socialism, leading to nostalgic reception and thus reflected upon distinctly post-­socialist realities. Produced by local companies (MMA, Objektív Film and Telefilm) on a low budget of 41 million HUF (today approximately 130,000 EUR) and distributed by the Budapest Film Rt., the film was a huge success, with the number of viewers exceeding half a million in movie theatres. It won the Grand Prize of the Hungarian Film Week in 1997 and became very popular afterwards, just like its soundtrack that created new nostalgic communities. Although representing high-­quality musical and comedy standards, it has only been distributed in Hungary.

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Almost two decades later, at its release in 2015, Károly Ujj Mészáros’s film Liza, a rókatündér (Liza, the Fox Fairy) was greeted as a Hungarian film that finally addresses the international audience with an innovative visual style punctuated by musical scenes. It tells the story of Liza, a candid, single ‘femme fatale’-against-­her-will, who, through an imagined friendship with a long-­time dead Japanese pop-­star finds herself as a protagonist of the Japanese legend of Fox Fairies and the curse falling upon all men in love with them. The director, Károly Ujj Mészáros, belongs to the mid-­generation of Hungarian directors socialized in the state socialist era, and this was his first long feature film after a series of award-­winning short films. The popularity of Liza, the Fox Fairy in Hungary has been compared to that of Dollybirds. Like the film of Tímár, the film was a domestic success in Hungary, with over 100,000 spectators only a couple of months after its premiere and its music was awarded the most successful soundtrack in 2015. Produced by FilmTeam and co-­produced with FocusFox Studio and Origo Film Studio with a budget of approximately 450,000,000 HUF (cca. 1.5 million Euros), the film won at the Hungarian Film Week in seven categories, including the Best Long Feature Film, Best Director and Best Actress. It was also distributed internationally, becoming an international success: it premiered in Portugal, where it won the Grand Prize at Fantasporto Film Festival and subsequently won several prizes at festivals all over the world, such as the Seattle International Film Festival, Bruxelles Fantastic Film Festival, Imagine Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, Fantastic Fest in Austin, Nocturna International Fantastic Film Festival in Madrid and Lund Fantastic Film Festival. I argue that besides their remarkable popularity the two films represent two completely different generational models of dealing with the past, presented as a musical heritage of previous generations. As I will demonstrate, in both films, musical scenes and recorded music have a figurative role in depicting generational differences of the coping mechanisms in periods of social and economic insecurity that follow political changes (a revolution and a change of régime, respectively). In other words, musical scenes are metaphorically or allegorically modelling social interactions characteristic of the represented era.

Musical scenes as social scenes Released almost 20 years apart, the two films display musical scenes depicting social and individual coping strategies with a crisis affecting the public–private

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relationship. In Dollybirds the singing and dancing accompanied by recorded music and often under surveillance, presents social connections under state socialism, stirring nostalgic feelings in those viewers of the late 1990s, who remember those times. At the same time, Dollybirds created nostalgic communities of viewers not only by connecting those who remembered, but also by passing this nostalgic experience to a new generation (of children and grandchildren) that had no memory of communism. By thematizing the role of popular music in the period of ‘normalization’ after the failed revolution, the film presented a social model of collective coping strategies that addressed the period of transition after the fall of communism. Apparently disconnected from all direct or implied references to a state socialist past and its aftermath, Liza is a compilation of various film genres, from melodrama through murder mystery and fantasy to the Western. Enriched with visuals evoking the Hungarian 1960s and 70s, as well as sonorous (pop-­musical) connections to Far Eastern (Japanese) and Nordic (Finnish) cultures, the film offers a playful alternative to the narratives of disenchantment and escapism pervasive in contemporary Hungarian cinema.1 By presenting affixation of distant and marginal cultural musical objects, the film emanates a melancholia often portrayed in the Hungarian cinema of the 2000s. The marginality of Finnish and Japanese pop music is a signifier of the marginal position of Hungarian pop music in terms of international pop music. The fact that the lyrics are not translated also illustrates both a cultural and individual isolation and ‘otherness’: for example, Liza is called a UFO by sergeant Zoltán. The coping strategies on display in the two films show a movement from an effort to connect with a larger community to a strategy of retreat into one’s own world and isolation through recorded music.2 Nothing has remained in Liza, the Fox Fairy from the generational nostalgia on display in Dollybirds. Indeed, the retro-­style Japanese and Finnish pop songs (Finnish Western ballads, more specifically) have nothing to do with collective remembering and belonging, but rather with a longing for an elsewhere, a remote, isolated place, compounded by the fact that the lyrics are completely incomprehensible for the spectator. Whereas in Dollybirds music is a trigger of nostalgia, a ‘memorative sign’ of home (Boym 2001, 4), in Liza, the Fox Fairy there is no such place as home: Liza lives alone, in an inherited, strange apartment full of the relics of the Hungarian 1960s and 70s. This ruinous space represents a burdening inheritance of a previous generation for Liza, a woman turning thirty at the beginning of the narrative. Apparently she has no memories of the socialist past but she is rather ‘infected’

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with nostalgia for Japan by her employer, aunt Márta, the widow of a former ambassador in Japan. Liza chooses to step out of this space by dating various men, who become victims of the evil spirit of the same flat, the Japanese pop singer Tomy Tani, an incarnation of a nostalgia inherited (together with the old flat) from aunt Márta, Liza’s employer. This nostalgia for Japan, lacking the original experience (Liza has never been to Japan) turns into escapism in the case of Liza, and leads to her melancholic isolation. In both Dollybirds and Liza, the Fox Fairy recorded pop music appears as a fetishistic object reframing the nostalgia–melancholia distinction in terms of pleasure, showing ‘how aural desire is formed, charged and inflected in the social body’ (Corbett 1990, 80). In Liza, recorded pop music has already lost its nostalgic and connecting role which is portrayed in Dollybirds and it is already related to a melancholic sense of loss and desire to fill the void of complete isolation. The following comparative analyses of the musical moments in the two films aim to prove how these scenes become indicators of nostalgia and melancholia, as well as collective bonding and individual isolation, respectively. I contend that the audiovisual complexity of Liza requires an analysis of the figurative role played by the trope ‘girl with a tape recorder’ in the representation of a melancholic, isolated female subjectivity recurrent in contemporary Hungarian films.3

Dollybirds and Liza: from nostalgia to melancholia David R. Shumway distinguishes between two meanings of nostalgia: the subjective experience of an emotional state or consciousness of longing for one’s own past, and commodified nostalgia that involves the revival by the culture industry of certain fashions and styles of a particular past era (Shumway 1999, 39). He also argues that the use of ‘oldies’ (that is, rock’n’roll and pop music from the mid–1950s to the 70s and 80s) in movies tends to reinforce this second aspect: We might be inclined to call oldies the tea-­soaked madeleine of the masses. But if hearing an old song on the radio invites us to remember our own past, movies use the same technique to evoke the fiction of a common past. 1999, 40

This is definitely true for Dollybirds, in which the narrative appears as a patchwork of pop song lyrics from the 1950s and 1960s. The comical and ironical effect in

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the film originates, in the light of Shumway’s argument, in the capacity of recorded pop music to give us the ‘illusion of a community that the film’s narrative, like contemporary social life, cannot sustain’ (Shumway 1999, 26). Indeed, the community represented in the film, although strongly determined ideologically, is not homogeneous. The generational discordance is revealed by the clearly subversive rock music played by the young participants of the music contest. As we shall see in the following discussion, in Liza, the Fox Fairy pop music also serves to capture the otherness of the listening (female) subject. In fact, this force of social commentary distinguishes the cinematic use of classical and pop music. According to Rick Altman, ‘While “classical music” is particularly able to provide routine commentary and to evoke generalized emotional reactions, popular song is often capable of serving a more specific narrational purpose’ (Altman 2001, 26). In Dollybirds, for example, oldies stand for a nostalgia conceived as longing for childhood and youth, a more innocent time. Accordingly, as Maya Nadkarni argues, this musical film also participates in the discourse that sees the transition from state socialism to postsocialism as a coming-of-age process (Nadkarni 2010, 199). Liza’s story can also be read as a coming-of-age narrative: the naive, single protagonist gradually manages to shake off the heavy inheritance of an older generation represented by aunt Márta, a controlling matriarch, as well as her nostalgia for Japanese pop music of her youth, just to be reborn as a mature woman, wife and mother. The passage between the roles of a disoriented single woman and mature woman coincides with the scene of collapse of a visual décor presenting an uncanny mixture of socialist and capitalist details that characterized the Hungarian period of transition. This powerful scene, orchestrated as an intermedial ‘battle’ between a pop musical theme and a visual design, already surpasses the category of reflective nostalgia, introduced by Svetlana Boym and described as a phenomenon that ‘fetishizes distance, reflects emotionally and sometimes playfully on the irretrievability of the past’ (Boym 2001, 49). I contend that while Dollybirds still fits in the category of reflective nostalgia, in Liza, the Fox Fairy the compelling relationship between image and sound already delineates a discourse on the changing role or rather disappearance of postcommunist nostalgia. It seems that this film has only retained mourning and melancholia, both considered by Svetlana Boym as elements of nostalgia. As she argues, ‘nostalgic loss is never completely recalled, it has some connection to the loss of collective frameworks of memory’ (Boym 2001, 55). Liza is completely alone; she has no family, relatives or friends and

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apparently no memories. Instead she nurtures a strong desire for a new, ‘private’ beginning, materialized in her plan to connect with a man who could become her soulmate. If, as Boym points out, nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy, characteristic of melancholia as well. But while nostalgia is about the relationship between individual biography and the biography of groups or nations, between personal and collective memory, melancholia confines itself to the planes of individual consciousness. Released relatively shortly after the change of regime, Dollybirds not only emphasized the role of recorded pop music in maintaining a community but, as a cult movie, it also celebrated a strong nostalgia linking three generations: those who were young adults in the early 1960s, their grown-­up children and their grandchildren born after the 1989 change of regime. Besides the nostalgia stirred by ‘classic’ pop songs, the popularity of Dollybirds was greatly due to the featuring of performers who became increasingly popular in the postsocialist period: András Lovasi and Tamás Cseh. This points to the transgenerational aspect of nostalgia, but also highlights a slightly critical attitude of the new generations towards the music of their parents: the songs sung with slightly exaggerated pathos and sentimentalism turned into postsocialist reinterpretations of original recordings.

Recorded music as collective experience Despite the numerous narrative and stylistic details reflecting critically upon the mechanisms of state socialism, Dollybirds has never become an ironic, politically engaged film about that era. With its visual and musical gags like slowing down and speeding up of the movement, as well as the deliberate turning on and off of the recorded music, it rather became a ‘funny movie’ that provided light entertainment by stirring up audio-­visual memories from the youth and childhood of at least two generations. Recorded music, designating both the public–private, official–leisure divisions and intergenerational relationships through different genres ranging from communist march and choral music through popular dance music to rock’n’roll, addresses in this film different, although constantly overlapping communities. Music, either diegetic, recorded (mostly played by radio) or extradiegetic, serves as relief for individual tension, effacing anxieties, uncertainties or preventing isolation. In a memorable scene that shows the members of the community in an outdoor restaurant, in the park,

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at the beginning protagonists appear isolated, sitting at separate tables and busy with private fixations. At the click of the radio button, the Dollybirds musical score starts and the characters start meddling, dancing in a group, then couples are formed and followed by the camera in individual scenes. Similar is the role of the so-­called ‘potato-­pasta valse’ (evoking a typical, extremely filling Hungarian dish popular in times of deprivation, consisting of pasta mixed with mashed potato flavoured with fried onions and paprika powder), danced every single evening in the indoor community area. Its lyrics also betray a longing for connection and solidarity: ‘let us get together, you should love me, at least.’ At the end of the talent contest and of the film, the characters exit to the hall of the theatre building by dancing the very popular ‘locomotion dance’, holding each other closely, while the score Dollybirds plays again. Dollybirds epitomizes the fundamental logic of nostalgia as ‘desire to desire’, mourning through music. As Maya Nadkarni argues, ‘it presents a specific configuration of the West itself ’, imagined as ‘a fantastic surplus of commodities and as an object of longing around which Socialist-­era subjectivities were constituted’ (Nadkarni 2010, 196–197). In both Dollybirds and Liza, sonorous and visual objects (pop and rock music and Fellini’s La Dolce Vita in Dollybirds, the fashion periodical Cosmopolitan and the Japanese and Finnish pop music in Liza) exemplify both the Marxist approach to commodity as fetish and the Freudian definition of fetish generated by lack. The absence of the voluptuous body of Anita Ekberg transforms its very image, the screen into a fetish touched and ripped off by spectators in Dollybirds, just as recorded sound stands for the absent performer in Liza, the Fox Fairy. Fetishism appears as a Western disease in Dollybirds, either as a mass hysteria (in the Dolce Vita scene a song ‘Susu bolondság – Chouchou Foolishness’ plays extradiegetically), or as a worship of pure formalities. The Mary Lou disc is one of the central Western fetish-­objects in the film: it appears at the very beginning as a ‘rarity’, a collection item bought at the flee market by one of the young protagonists. Throughout the film he talks about and tries to listen to this disc, without success. He refuses to use his father’s gramophone due to a generational incompatibility (‘At my fathers’? Mary Lou?’ – he asks with indignation). When finally he manages to sneak into the sound chamber of the community hall where the contest takes place, he realises that only the cover is Mary Lou: the disc inside plays Hungarian pop songs similar to those played throughout the film. Beyond pointing at a merely ‘formal’ aspect of the Western influence, this scene is also about the impossibility of complete privacy during state socialism, presented as the impossibility of listening to one’s ‘own music’. The

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scene also suggests that the West will always remain an unfulfilled fantasy for the inhabitants of this corner of Europe. In another scene, the ‘illegal’ private listening to rock music of Attila, another young protagonist is disturbed by a bad radio reception and interrupted by the loud intrusion of his landlady, who consequently throws him out. In the next scene we see Attila on the street, with the radio under his armpit. Listening to recorded music as an exclusively public event is epitomized by Mancika’s listening to a small portable radio while walking on the street. Moreover, the music played by the young rock band at the contest is the rock’n’roll piece entitled Táskarádió (Portable Radio). Scenes often start with extradiegetic recorded music that turns into a musical scene in which the protagonists sing that very song. At the very first occurrence of this phenomenon a cult song entitled Kicsit szomorkás (A Bit Melancholic) plays, with lyrics representative of the need for a community of the individuals who feel like a ‘sulking little child whose toy was taken away’ and reaching out for the comforting words of a ‘dear friend’. In Dollybirds there is no singing or listening to music or dancing alone, in isolated spaces, there are always at least two people involved in the musical scene choreographed around songs, at times inventively played in different styles, depending on the age of the protagonists of the respective scene. Exaggerations, changes in tonality and volume make of Dollybirds an ingenuous, funny movie, uniting the spectators in laughter and a nostalgia for the times of youth. This nostalgic vision is emphasized by the conventional presence of a child observer, an alter ego of the contemporary spectator watching from a distance the musical and dancing scenes of the adults. Identification with the child character also ensures the transgenerational aspect of nostalgia: upon the release of the film, even the third generation, who had no memory of the period and never experienced the fetishistic longing for products of the Western market, joined, through parents and grandparents, in the community shaping moments of nostalgia.

Fetishism of recorded music Fetishism, as a mechanism meant to replace the object of loss and fill the void, is a shared characteristic of nostalgia and melancholia. In Liza, the Fox Fairy socialist-era styles and goods coexist with once-desired Western, capitalist goods and styles, encapsulated by a compelling mixture of visual styles and sounds. Theodor Adorno sees the consumption of popular music as fetishism, comparing its consumer with ‘a prisoner who loves his cell because he has left nothing else

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to love’ (Corbett 1990, 80). This definitely applies to Dollybirds, where pop music seems to bear all the answers and is the key to resolve tense situations. But it is epitomized even more radically in Liza, the Fox Fairy, where the protagonist is literally ‘enclosed’ in a dream world animated by the long-­dead Japanese pop star Tomy Tani. The others cannot see what she sees and she repeatedly performs a choreographed, foolish little dance. She also has fantasy discussions with the aforementioned Japanese singer. Similarly, Sergeant Zoltán, a policeman charged with the supervision of Liza, a fan of the so-­called Finnish Western music (that is, music evoking the soundtrack of the Western film genre) is seen enclosed in his own world while listening to music: his isolation through music is visually enhanced by framing. As already mentioned above, whereas pop music in Dollybirds appears as a collective refuge from powerlessness and isolation, in Liza the exact opposite happens: pop music is a portal into powerlessness and isolation. Whenever Liza wants to escape from tense situations, she starts the tape recorder and ‘meets’ Tomy Tani, sings and dances with him. We also see her, in many instances, alone, listening to music from a tape recorder, lying or standing by it, with or without the headphones on. In both films the two types of fetishism, coined by John Corbett, coexist: the individualizing one (the desire to be different) and the identificatory (finding identity in mass production) (Corbett 1990, 81). In the case of Liza, the Fox Fairy, it is the recorded sound that initiates desire in relation to the popular music object. It is as if the lack of visual, endemic to recorded sound, generates not only the fantasy of the Japanese star and culture, but also the exuberant visual style. In this film, the formative attempt to restore the visual manifests itself in colours, pictures, Japanese illustrated books, the invocation of the artist, a vintage visual style and technical, cartoonish effects conferring a touch of magic to the claustrophobic interiors, alternating with images of the galaxy. The striking contrast between musical oldies played by vintage tape recorders and an up-­to-date, twenty-­first-century technology of the image exemplifies the thesis of Theodor Adorno and Hans Eisler, who consider ordinary listening as ‘archaic’ compared to seeing. As they point out, listening ‘has not kept pace with technological progress [. . .]. For this reason, acoustical perception preserves comparatively more traits of long bygone, pre-­individualistic collectivities than optical perception’ (quoted in Shumway 1999, 39). In this respect, the final ‘battle’ at the end of the film, between the recorded sound (the Finnish Western) and the sophisticated visual décor, ending as the triumph of the former, can be read as emblematic of a social reintegration process of the female protagonist.

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This closing scene depicts the heroic rescue mission undertaken by Sergeant Zoltán: struggling through a number of obstacles in slow motion, accompanied by the Western musical soundtrack, he manages to save a suicidal Liza, trapped in the visual maze of melancholic isolation. The musical scene playing the loud pop Western and the predominantly visual scene depicting Liza’s hallucinatory dream about her meeting with Tomy Tani in the Mekkburger are shown as a parallel montage. As the sergeant advances towards Liza in the flat, and Liza in her dream realises that her secret helper was the sergeant, the illusionary world animated by the ghostly pop singer gradually disappears. At the end of the montage Zoltán’s musical theme already starts on the image of the illusionary world, marking the sergeant’s presence. The décor falls as a wall that separates reality from illusion, truth from lie and we see the two men facing each other for a moment in Liza’s room, like in a Western: Zoltán advancing with his music and Tomy trying to maintain Liza in this hallucinatory state. The moment of transition between artificial visuality and immediacy also marks Liza’s return to (social) life. In the epilogue we see her and Sergeant Zoltán married, on a trip to Japan with their daughter, fulfilling together Liza’s dream and, according to the narrator, planning a trip to Finland, Zoltán’s favourite place. Tomy Tani is also there, sitting in the back of the track on which the family’s car is placed (another gag playing with the illusory nature of cinematic representation), but importantly, he is only seen by spectators and by Liza in the rearview mirror, as if a memory. Liza’s demon has not disappeared; it left its imprint on Zoltán, too (constantly wearing bandages similar to the Japanese flag). Ultimately, their union is shown as a mutual ‘infection’ with each other’s fixations: the last images show Liza singing in playback a pop-­folk song of the Finnish Värttinä band, famous back in the 90s. The audio-­visual competition goes hand in hand with a duel of the two musical scores (male and female, associated with the two protagonists) and two old tape recorders that signify the audiophilia of Liza and Sergeant Zoltán. As I will argue below, these tape recorders are not only emblematic of a fetishistic desire, but also evoke a narrative trope that is descriptive of gender-­specific distribution of power and desire.

The girl with the old tape player In both Dollybirds and Liza, the Fox Fairy musical scenes can be conceived as screen music arising from a source located directly in the space and time of the

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action, this source being an old tape player (Chion 1994, 77). In Dollybirds the radio was the fetishistic object that, often placed in public spaces, initiated community events and encounters. In turn, in Liza the recurrent image of the old tape recorder and the click sound of the button introduce musical scenes in which recorded music is experienced as a site of pleasure and escape, a retreat to her world. As John Corbett points out, ‘Recorded music, at once the site of intense pleasure and the producer of a similar threat of lack, is therefore constituted in its object-­form as erotic-­fetishistic, and the aural is mystified as something satisfying in itself ’ (Corbett 1990, 85). The film epitomizes all the three ways of fetishistic audiophilia: the attempt to reconstitute the image of the disembodied voice (that is, the invocation of the pop singer), the assertion of the autonomy of sound and the fetishization of audio equipment (in both Liza’s and Zoltán’s room the tape recorder occupies a prominent place) and the attempt to fill the void with recorded music objects (both protagonists are listening to music alone) (Corbett 1990, 85). These recorded music objects, the lyrics of which, sang in foreign languages, cannot be understood by the spectators, also correspond to what Chion calls the internal voice of a character who can be seen in the image – the voices of his conscience, of his memory, of his imaginings and fantasy (Chion 1994, 74). The songs associated with the two characters can be interpreted as musical themes that embody their unconscious. While through cultural and intermedial references the songs Sergeant Zoltán and Liza are listening to evoke the clumsy romanticism and melancholia of Aki Kaurismäki’s characters and the candid playfulness of Japanese pop culture, respectively, they also give voice to what the character does not know about himself. This is emphasized by the lyrics of both songs, sang in strange, completely incomprehensible languages. The inexpressive detective is not aware of slowly falling in love with the murder suspect. The lyrics of the Finnish Western pop music he is listening to, entitled Jäätynyt sade (Frozen Rain), describes falling in love as a moving image slowing down and freezing into a tableau vivant. However, Finnish Western music here is more than an expression of a personal message: besides evoking, through a sonorous reference, the stories of ‘lovable’ male losers from the Kaurismäki films, it also alludes the Western myth and film genre. This, with its large social frescoes depicting changing male sexual roles (from that of a fierce conqueror to a disillusioned lonely wolf) became an embodiment of a social meaning, that is, of a crisis of masculinity imminent in times of transition and change. As Michael Samuel argues in his article on post-9/11 films, the new Western genre exists ‘between

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movements where the reinforcement of identity and the comfort of a recognizable film grammar serve to ease audiences into a sense of security’ (Samuel 2016, 174). In the case of Liza, music thus becomes a figuration of a male helplessness often invoked by critics when analyzing representations of masculinity in post1989 Hungarian cinema (Kalmár 2017). As I have argued above, male or female characters in Dollybirds, even when they are pictured with a radio or a gramophone, cannot find relief or intimacy in the musical moment: either the radio signal is bad or somebody is intruding in their private sphere or they realize that the music is actually not theirs. In the case of Mancika, the star of the neighborhood, the tiny portable radio appears as an accessory to her sexy public image when she walks down the street. But recorded music and the image of a tape recorder, a radio or other musical device can be also a common cinematic figure of the female subjectivity, labelled by Pamela Robertson Wojcik as ‘the trope of the girl with the phonograph’ (2001, 434). According to Robertson Wojcik, this trope typically involves discreet scenes in a film in which a woman is shown playing a phonograph or other playback technology, such as a cassette player. In these scenes, she is generally alone or in the company of another woman or women. Rather than being a passive listener, she often performs with the record – dancing, singing or lip-­synching. Unlike the married women and mothers in most discourses about gender and phonographs, the women in these scenes are often single. Instead of domestic uses, the phonograph in these scenes signals a range of uses related to the woman’s desire (Robertson Wojcik 2001, 441). As Robertson Wojcik argues, the phonograph functions not only as the perfect synecdoche of the audiovisual, but also as an overloaded gender signifier: ‘it is a shorthand for female transgression and lack, employed to mark sexual desire’ (2001, 440–441). Accordingly, it has a compensatory value: the music and the act of playing it is a consolation for sadness. The songs signify the fantasy world of female characters, who are either ‘bad’ or ‘sad’ girls (Robertson Wojcik 2001, 445). In Liza, the Fox Fairy, suspense is sustained exactly by an ongoing oscillation between the two types: while spectators get to know her as a naive girl, the police see her as dangerous, a vamp and serial killer. Similarly, her repeated associations with technical devices (old telephone and a dysfunctional electricity in the old apartment) are somehow comically depicting the observation that ‘male fantasies about women and sexuality are interlaced with visions of technology’ (Robertson Wojcik 2001, 449). At the same time, she is clearly a sad girl compensating for a deprivation of seeing and listening with what Kaja Silverman calls the ‘false auditory power provided by the tape recorder as

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fetish object’ (Silverman 1988, 22). More importantly, the meaning of these scenes depends more upon our understanding of how the woman employs the phonograph than on the specific song played (Robertson Wojcik 2001, 448). In Liza, the Fox Fairy, for example, the silly Japanese pop song, with its lyrics incomprehensible for the spectator, is secondary compared to the way the protagonist, the sad girl, uses it, in order to find relief, as if in a bubble from an everyday routine and loneliness. In the introductory scene she dances with the phantasy character, the singer Tomy Tani, a carefully choreographed dance, with movements and gestures echoing the 1970s. This dance, instead of being expressive, sensual or wild, subversive as in the case of similar scenes featuring ‘bad’, revolting girls, is all about a candid playfulness, well controlled and, above all, ‘safe’ and asexual. This regression to a childlike state of mind excludes sexual desire as fearful and destructive. Other scenes of listening, without dancing, with or without a headphone, figurate emotional repression: the headphone is emblematic of enclosure of the music into the silent body and the body immobilized by the musical device (Liza can’t take a distance or dance/move while listening, her movement being restricted by the headphone cable). This intimate dependency, somehow reminiscent to that of a baby tied to the mother through the umbilical cord, ceases the moment when Liza decides to step out from her musical bubble and, after a radical change in her image, becomes desiring and desirable. In the scene preceding this coming out, we see Liza lying on the bed, next to the same tape recorder, while looking at the fashion periodical Cosmopolitan, featuring the sexy lace dress that she later puts on. This scene of inception of a new, seductive femininity, also shot from an upper point of view, renders the tape recorder as a (male) fetish and object of desire. The breakout from this safe bubble opens a new chapter in the film, marked by the narrative consequences of unleashed desire.

Conclusion Almost two decades after Dollybirds embraced musical nostalgia for the older generation and helped a post-1989 community of spectators to (re)connect, Liza, the Fox Fairy presents a single female character disoriented in a world of coded signs and events, a mixture of post-­socialist and capitalist fetish-­objects. Representative of a growing community of single men and women from the Y generation (born between the 80s and mid-90s), Liza finds it difficult to deal with the heavy heritage of the older generations (prescribing marriage as an

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ultimate task, among others). She is eventually rescued by a detective, visibly from the X generation (born between the mid-60s and late 70s), in a duel of two pop musical themes and two listening, fetishistic habits that reveal melancholic subjectivities. The film’s closure is ironic and optimistic at the same time: in the epilogue, the longing for an elsewhere represented by the fetishistic musical object is replaced with the two protagonists’ fulfilled dream, a family trip to Japan. In Dollybirds, the trip abroad never happens: but by the end of Liza, the same generation witnessing the pop musical enclosure into nostalgia in Dollybirds, the peeping child character now grown up, manages to take a distance from fetishistic desire and follow liberating dreams.

Special note This work was supported by the Exploratory Research Project Rethinking Intermediality in Contemporary Cinema – Changing Forms of In-Betveenness – Code: PN-III-ID-PCE-2016-0418 funded by the UEFISCDI (Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation), 2017–2019, Romania.

Notes 1 Representative of this phenomenon are most prominently the films of Béla Tarr, Kornél Mundruczó, Benedek Fliegauf, Ágnes Kocsis and Szabolcs Hajdu. 2 In this respect, the two films of Ágnes Kocsis, Friss Levegő (Fresh Air, 2006) and Pál Adrienn (Adrienn Pál, 2010), are relevant, as they show both the aborted efforts to connect with others through music (at organized dance–dating parties and karaoke bars) and the subsequent tendency of isolation through lonely listening to music. 3 Single female protagonists (often single mothers) appear in Ágnes Kocsis’s Fresh Air and Adrienn Pál, Peter Strickland’s Varga Katalin Balladája (Katalin Varga, 2010), Szabolcs Hajdu’s Bibliotheque Pascal (2010) and most lately in Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul, winner of the Golden Bear at the 2017 Berlinale.

References Altman, Rick. 2001. ‘Cinema and Popular Song: The Lost Tradition’, in Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight (eds.), Film and Soundtrack. Durham: Duke University Press, 19–30.

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Barthes, Roland. 1984. The Empire of Signs. New York: Hill and Wang. Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Chion, Michel. 1994. Audio–Vision. Sound On Screen. New York: Columbia University Press. Corbett, John. 1990. ‘Free, Single, and Disengaged: Listening Pleasure and the Popular Music Object’. October (Autumn) no. 54, 79–101. Deleuze, Gilles. 1988. Foucault. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kalmár, György. 2017. Formations of Masculinity in Post-Communist Hungarian Cinema. Labyrinthian Men. Palgrave Macmillan. Matalin, Dóra. 2017. ‘Annyira nem volt jó a Csinibaba, mint amennyien megnézték’, https://index.hu/kultur/cinematrix/2017/02/20/timar_peter_interju_20_eves_a_csi nibaba/ Nadkarni, Maya. 2010. ‘ “But It’s Ours.” Nostalgia and the Politics of Authenticity in Post-Socialist Hungary’, in Maria Todorova and Zsuzsa Gille (eds.), Post–Communist Nostalgia. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 190–214. Robertson Wojcik, Pamela. 2001. ‘The Girl and the Phonograph; or the Vamp and the Machine Revisited’, in Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight (eds.), Film and Soundtrack. Durham: Duke University Press, 433–453. Samuel, Michael. 2016. ‘Reclaiming Past, Resisting Progression. Existential Tensions on Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption’, in Scott F. Stoddart (ed.), The New Western. Critical Essays on the Genre since 9/11. North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 172–187. Schwarz, David. 1997. Listening Subjects: Music, Psychoanalysis, Culture. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Shumway, David R. 1999. ‘Rockn’ Roll Soundtrack and the Production of Nostalgia.’ Cinema Journal vol. 38, no. 2 (Winter): 36–51. Silverman, Kaja. 1988. The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Tincknell, Estella. 2006. ‘The Soundtrack Movie, Nostalgia and Consumption’, in Ian Conrich and Estella Tincknell (eds.), Film’s Musical Moments. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 132–143.

5

When the Golden Kids Met the Bright Young Men and Women Rebellion, Innovation and Cultural Tradition in the Czech 1960s Music Film Jonathan Owen

Communist culture industry There is a song from the Czechoslovak dissident community, originally broadcast in English over Radio Free Europe during the 1980s, that lists an array of privileges, consumer goods and creature comforts only to defiantly refuse them.1 This countercultural anthem is an uncompromising rejection of materialism – of the non-Marxist variety – that is also, by extension, an attack on Gustav Husák’s post-Prague Spring ‘normalization’ regime, with its calculated promotion of a modest ‘socialist consumerism’. Among the luxuries rejected, from ‘Tuzex woolens’ to ‘polished Chryslers’, the song asserts: ‘I do not want to hear a crooner’. According to Paulina Bren, this is a reference to the ‘iconic socialist pop star Karel Gott’ (Bren 2010, 199). Gott thus assumes the status of an emblem of normalization and its various cultural and political wrongs. We meet this association again in Jan Švankmajer’s short Konec Stalinismu v Čechách (The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia, 1990), a mordant condensed history of Czechoslovak communist rule in which Gott’s 1972 song ‘Kávu si osladím’ (‘I Sweeten My Coffee’) accompanies the image of President Husák with Czech dumplings popping from his mouth – an image of consumer goods as a ploy to win over the resigned late-­socialist public. But the best-­known of Gott’s symbolic appearances – to an English-­speaking audience at least – comes from Milan Kundera’s novel Kniha smíchu a zapomnění (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, first published in 1979 as Le Livre du rire et de l’oubli). Kundera describes a letter

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written by Husák to Gott in which the president pleads with the singer, then living in West Germany, to return home, where he can continue to ‘help’ the normalization regime. In Kundera’s view ‘[t]he president of forgetting and the idiot of music deserve one another’: Husák and Gott make apt partners given that Gott himself ‘represents music without memory’ (Kundera 1994, 181). Such symbolic uses of Gott present the singer as typifying a world of kitsch, materialism and inauthenticity. They suggest a perspective akin to those twentieth-­century critiques of ‘mass culture’ that align undemanding commercial entertainment with intellectual decay and political conformism. Yet where the accusations of mass culture’s negative and conformity-­inducing effects may take general form in an Adorno or a Hoggart, Gott is charged with representing and buttressing a specific political regime – one that actively reinforced conformity and fostered a culture of public apathy and materialistic, self-­oriented satisfaction (Holý 1996, 26–27). There is some validity to these references. To address the charge of kitsch, Gott’s quasi-­operatic renderings of ballads and beat numbers do tend to the overblown; his work seizes on original songs and international pop and rock standards with little apparent awareness of the disparateness of the material; and his ‘novel’ treatment of other artists’ hits can be questionable, if not perverse (a German-­language cover of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’, rearranged as a Russian folk dance, comes to mind). As Petr A. Bílek suggests, Gott’s career is marked by a sense of aimlessness, a lack of progression or development, thereby exemplifying within a single oeuvre the idea of ‘culture industry’ product as formulaic and repetitive (Bílek 2016, 232). And Gott’s status as a figurehead of normalization was no mere matter of sensibility: the singer notoriously signed the so-­called ‘anti-Charter’ intended to express pro-­regime opposition to the dissident movement Charter 77, in a lavish gala-­like event that implicated, among many others, fellow household names of the Czech pop world such as Eva Pilarová and Pavlína Filipovská. Yet this chapter aims to cast a very different light on Czech popular music – to catch the quite distinct significance it has in the less politically compromised context of Czechoslovakia’s reform-­driven 1960s. As elsewhere in the 1960s, Czechoslovakia’s emerging pop world was one of ceaseless invention, vital contemporaneity and, ultimately, political engagement and dissent. In many ways developments in popular song paralleled the rise of that most internationally celebrated, prestigious and impeccably ‘non-­conformist’ manifestation of post-­war Czech culture – the cinematic New Wave. Film and pop intersected in

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the 1960s, with film sometimes serving to showcase outstanding personalities of contemporary pop in a relatively straightforward manner, while elsewhere finding influence in the aesthetic and tonal features of popular song genres, channelling them into that restless pursuit of new film forms that is one of New Wave cinema’s vaunted trademarks. In exploring this relationship between film and pop, this chapter will reveal the significance that New Wave filmmakers ascribed to native popular song – as an indicator of generational shifts, a source of formal inspiration and an iconoclastic partner in crime. Even Karel Gott takes on a different aspect when seen in the context of 1960s film. Is it that same purveyor of naïve, easy-­listening schmaltz who sang the playful nonsense English of the opener to Oldřich Lipský’s brilliantly sophisticated parody Western Limonadový Joe/(Lemonade Joe 1964)? Is it that ‘oleaginous’ emblem of normalization-­era banality who performed a self-­ satirising turn in Mučedníci lásky (Martyrs of Love, 1966), a surreal entry from New Wave firebrand Jan Němec (Remnik 2003)?

Twin miracles: developments in popular music and film in the 1960s This section will sketch developments in Czech popular music in the late 1950s and 1960s – a world that has barely penetrated the consciousness of English-­ speaking countries – and will highlight its affinities of form, sensibility and implication with the films of the New Wave. As with cinema and every other sphere of culture in 1950s Czechoslovakia, popular music had first to wrest itself from the stranglehold of ‘official cultural-­political norms’, which reduced art to a means of ‘education’ – that is, to propaganda in the service of socialist construction (Zemanová 2015, 19). In content, the soundtrack to the highStalinist years effused over tireless work in fields or factories, while the form of the songs took its lead from traditional folk music – thus steering a course between the elitist ‘formalism’ of modern concert music and the lowbrow vulgarity of sentimental ‘schlager’ songs (Zemanová 2015, 20). This ‘popular’ music was not really popular at all – sales of the recordings often failed to exceed one thousand copies a year – while genuinely well-­loved traditions from the pre-­ communist era, such as jazz or the tramp song (Czech-­style country music), were denounced for their ‘spiritual poverty’ or insufficient political ‘engagement’ (Zemanová 2015, 23, 20).

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Official attitudes towards popular music began to soften in the second half of the 1950s, with increasing recognition for the role of music as a means of pleasure and recreation. Yet, as Zuzana Zemanová points out, if the theoretical approach was changing, the music world’s professionals were in any case having their hand forced by shifting realities in musical consumption – shifts that included the rise of small, cabaret-­like theatres and the illegal incursion of Western rock’n’roll (Zemanová 2015, 21). Rock’n’roll began to put down local roots in the late 1950s, and its successor – the vocally denser beat sound that exploded internationally with Beatlemania – likewise took native form during the 1960s (Jeřábková 2014, 14–15). Ultimately to be known internationally as rock, and re-­designated in Czech as ‘big beat’ (or bigbít), beat music shares with rock’n’roll its emphasis on the guitar and its basic four-­piece structure. Alongside these developments, the rise of ‘dance music’ (taneční hudba) – comprised of a solo singer accompanied by an orchestra – was a no less dominant trend. As Czech popular music grew significantly in musical and lyrical sophistication between the 1950s and the 1960s, so did it grow into something like an established ‘industry’. The latter point suggests the extent to which popular music was officially accepted in the 1960s. It could even be seen as useful to the authorities, for, as Petr A. Bílek argues, the introduction of a ‘distinctive type of music’ aimed at the young helped to ‘assuage generational conflicts’, while financially speaking the records and performances brought in ‘Western currencies’ through their success abroad (Bílek 2016, 221, 226). Yet this music was still sufficiently identified with ‘hooliganism’ and the negative properties of the West to earn its share of official interference. According to Josef Škvorecký, ‘[President] Novotný’s cultural department’ waged a ‘Holy War against jazz and pop music’, whose most notorious salvo was a defamatory story that charged singers Waldemar Matuška and Eva Pilarová with urinating on a workers’ delegation while Gott(!) sang ‘Tam, kde šumí proud’ (‘The Bubbling Stream’) (Škvorecký 1971, 103). Popular music shared with the cinematic New Wave not only its subjection to official censure but also much of its artistic sensibility. In reaction to the Stalinist era’s emphasis on collectivism and the grand theme of socialist construction, both films and songs now sought to portray intimate experience and a sense of the demotic and everyday. These concerns were evident not only in lyrical themes but also in performance styles, with singer Václav Neckář for instance deriving his sung diction from ‘conversational Czech’ (Rohál 2014, 104). Moments of literal contact foreground the shared themes and perspectives of

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film and song, as when we hear Pavlína Filipovská and Josef Zima’s popular duet ‘Nej, nej, nej’ (‘Most, Most, Most’) (written by Miroslav Zikán and Jindřich Zpěvák) in Miloš Forman’s Černý Petr (Black Peter, 1963): an account of young love shot through with both nostalgia and ‘gentle irony’, the song forms a counterpart to Forman’s own wry yet tender observations of teenage romance (Zemanová 2015, 47). Two of the most influential figures in popular song – and in Czech culture in general – during the 1960s were the double-­act Jiřï Suchý and Jiří Šlitr, who wrote, staged and performed music-­driven comedy sketches and plays for their Semafor theatre (founded in 1959). Suchý and Šlitr’s work holds great significance for the wide impact their songs had on 1960s dance music, as well as for the number of singing stars who began their careers at the Semafor – Matuška, Pilarová and Gott among them. But the duo’s material has inherent importance for its deft alternation of literary registers and for the sophistication of its comic wordplay. Suchý and Šlitr delivered accessible entertainment sharpened with avant-­garde edge, littering their work with ‘references to Poetism, Dadaism and Surrealism’ (Just 2000, 341). Suchý and Šlitr’s blend of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture represents a conscious reconnection with Czech tradition: their explicit model in many ways was the interwar comedy duo Voskovec and Werich, whose own legendary productions had fused ‘dadaism, circus, jazz and American vaudeville’ into ‘a kind of intellectual-­political musical’ (Hames 2000, 67; Škvorecký 1971, 24). It has been claimed that popular music contains its own internal ‘high’ and ‘low’ polarities: critics Bill Martin and Derek B. Scott identify clear ‘avant-­garde’ tendencies within rock music, while Fredric Jameson writes of a ‘high modernist’ tradition of rock exemplified by the Beatles and Rolling Stones (Martin 2015, 184; Scott 2008, 218; Jameson 1991, 1). Czech musical artists extended to the modernist and avant-­garde approaches of their British and American peers. For instance, Golden Kids, a pop ‘supergroup’ comprising already-­established stars Václav Neckář, Marta Kubišová and Helena Vondráčková, may have projected a breezy insouciance with their vibrant dance routines, but the songwriters on whose material they drew included some of the more ‘heavyweight’, literary and experimental names of rock and folk such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Bert Jansch (Zemanová 2015, 116). The trio’s 1969 ‘Micro-­magic-circus’ (an original by Bohuslav Ondráček and Zdeněk Rytíř) is an unabashed stab at Day-Glo psychedelia complete with wailing guitars and modish production effects.

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The Golden Kids – and Kubišová as a solo artist – also embraced political commentary. Kubišová, whose 1968 song ‘Modlitba pro Martu’ (‘Prayer for Marta’) was embraced as an anthem of resistance to the Soviet-­led invasion of Czechoslovakia, was banned from publicly performing in 1970 and later became a spokesperson for the Charter 77 movement – an inverse career trajectory to that of Gott. As a future dissident who later rubbed shoulders with the notoriously oft-­persecuted ‘avant-­rock’ band the Plastic People of the Universe, Kubišová symbolizes the continuity between the rebellious energies of popular music in the 1960s and music’s role as a major instrument of political and social opposition in the 1970s. Elements of 1960s Czech popular music thus kept pace with the formal bravura and the political outspokenness in which New Wave cinema would culminate. Given this and the other affinities suggested here, it is perhaps inevitable that the worlds of cinema and music should have coincided. One form this interaction took was the casting of pop singers in film roles. It is often remarked that pop stars generally fail to translate their appeal into decent screen performances, but Czech cinema yields several arguments to the contrary – a reflection, no doubt, of the culturally specific basis of many Czech pop careers in theatre and cabaret (Thompson 1995, 33–34). To give the most distinguished examples, Neckář delivered beguiling performances in Jiřï Menzel’s Ostře sledované vlaky (Closely Observed Trains, 1966) and Skřivánci na niti (Larks on a String, 1969), also performing creditably in now-­obscure titles like Juraj Herz’s Kulhavý ďábel (The Limping Devil, 1968), while Matuška’s film roles include being part of the ensemble of Vojtěch Jasný’s Všichni dobří rodáci (All My Good Countrymen, 1968). More noteworthy though in this context are the films based around musical performance. Suchý and Šlitr feature significantly here, not surprisingly given that their music was conceived for a comic or dramatic context that could be transposed to film and that allowed for significant professional crossover with the film world. Suchý and Šlitr thus adapted their work – or at least their particular form of entertainment – several times to the big and the small screen. More interesting still are those films (involving Suchý and Šlitr or others) that do not grow out of a theatrical background and that represent a more integrally ‘cinematic’ response to popular music. In the next section I will look at the range of different forms through which 1960s Czech cinema sought to contain, dramatize and even aesthetically approximate song.

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Popular music and film form At the more straightforward end of the range of music-­based Czech films we find examples of the ‘showcase film’. Emerging in Hollywood in the early 1930s, the showcase film was a variant of the earlier ‘revue film’: where the revue film simply strung together a series of unconnected variety performances (music, comedy, magic, etc.), the showcase film fostered a semblance of coherence by ‘embedding’ those discrete ‘units’ of performance within a loose frame story (Altman 1989, 102; Jenkins 2004, 116). Clear examples of Czech showcase films are Kdyby tisíc klarinetů (If a Thousand Clarinets, Ján Roháč, Vladimí Svitáček, 1964) and Ta naše písnička česká (The Good Old Czech Tunes, Zdeněk Podskalský, 1967); the first of these can additionally be seen as a subversive (though no doubt inadvertent) twist on the ‘troop show’ scenario that often provided a framing conceit for showcase films in wartime Hollywood – for in this film performance becomes the only option when army weapons turn into musical instruments. Antonín Kachlík’s Bylo nás deset (There Were Ten of Us, 1963) and Jiří Menzel’s Zločin v šantánu (Crime in the Night Club, 1968), while more narrative-­driven, also gesture to the showcase film with their stagebound musical and variety numbers. It seems clear that a film like If a Thousand Clarinets was conceived predominantly as a vehicle for Suchý and Šlitr’s songs and humour and as a means to present some of the most exciting new singing stars. Yet the necessarily loose, capacious form of this showcase film also aligns it with the Czech New Wave and its rejection of linear, closely-­plotted narratives in favour of more episodic structures. In this regard we might profitably examine one of the New Wave’s own engagements with popular song – Miloš Forman’s debut film Konkurs (Talent Competition, 1963) – as a sophisticated variant of the showcase film. Talent Competition is a film whose twin stories (‘If There Were No Music’ and ‘Audition’) contrast two different types of music and musical performer – the first traditional and middle-­aged, the second contemporary and young. The film’s second, and much longer, section documents the audition process for a new female singer at Suchý and Šlitr’s Semafor theatre – though in reality the audition had been held solely for the purpose of filming it. Through the footage of the ‘real’ auditions Forman threads a slender narrative about a young beautician who has lied in order to take the day off work and try her chances at fame. The film’s interest, of course, resides as much in the apparently authentic

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audition performances as in the negligible storyline that nominally holds everything together. Forman’s early films favour a slack, open-­ended narrative line, all the better to concentrate on the minutiae of human interaction and accommodate a wide range of performers with their distinct mannerisms and physiognomies. In greedy pursuit of the ‘unrepeatable face’, of those unsimulated quirks of expression and gesture that can be coaxed from the non-­professional actor, Forman’s cinema seeks to record and highlight the unique spectacles and performances of everyday reality, similarly to how the showcase or revue film aims primarily to be an indulgent and unmediated record of the singer or comic’s turn (Škvorecký 1971, 85). The young auditionees of Talent Competition often lack talent or glamour; they are sometimes too nervous – or too brash. To that extent the film could be seen as a highbrow antecedent of the modern television singing contest – a genre that itself derives from the traditional variety show but which notoriously flaunts the imperfections and grotesqueries of its hapless hopefuls. Yet Forman’s approach is much more sympathetic. When one sequence famously cuts between different girls singing successive lines of Karel Mareš and Rotislav Černý’s hit song ‘Oliver Twist’, the elegant seamlessness of the effect not only emphasises distinctive qualities of performance but also suggests that everyone might safely and harmoniously be permitted their ‘turn’ – variety-­show principle extended to democratic vision. Soon after Talent Competition another ground-­breaking film appeared: Ladislav Rychman’s Starci na chmelu (The Hop Pickers, 1964), with script and lyrics by the acclaimed satirist Vratislav Blažek. The Hop Pickers has been considered the first bona fide (i.e. American-­style) Czech musical in any medium, and is one of the few such of the 1960s (though a few of the titles mentioned, including If a Thousand Clarinets, might be considered at a pinch as ‘backstage musicals’) (Zemanová 2015, 59). Often seen as a Czech counterpart to West Side Story (filmed by Robert Wise in 1961), The Hop Pickers adapts its songs into full-­ blown production numbers, coupling them with athletic dance sequences and imaginative production design. The songs are now also well integrated into the story, used to express characters’ emotions, comment on the action and amplify dramatic moments. Rychman and Blažek spark a subversive charge from their adherence to the musical’s specific formal conventions. According to Rick Altman, a key feature of the musical is its use of the production number to stage a shift from ‘diegetic realism’ into ‘supradiegetic fantasy’: as the music and dance break out, so do the

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characters break out of normal reality and enter a beautiful, stylized world free of ‘societal constraints’ (Richardson 2012, 119; Altman 1989, 61). Music carves out an ideal space that Altman terms ‘utopian’, and Rychman and Blažek expand on this ‘utopian’ aspect in a slyly critical fashion. One of the most beloved sequences in this tale of a typical communist-­era labour brigade is an extended dream or fantasy in which teenage protagonists Filip and Hanka proclaim their love to a blissfully transformed world: not only does the couple’s (in reality still-­tentative) romance receive improbable approbation from their supervisors and fellow brigade-­workers, it also sparks a trend in romantic coupling that is officially embraced as a formula for boosting work productivity. Zuzana Zemanová argues that this sequence is predominantly satirical or parodic, fusing the language of popular love song with the discourse of socialist realism so as to expose the triteness common to both (Zemanová 2015, 62–63). An alternative reading – one more closely related to the film’s overall theme of the struggle to resist conformity – is to see the sequence as presenting a utopian alternative world, stylistically heightened and even half-­ironized though it may be, in which values of personal fulfilment are reconciled with social demands – in which, in Altman’s terms, the conflict between ‘cultural’ and ‘countercultural’ values is finally appeased (Altman 1989, 49). The distinction of The Hop Pickers lies essentially in its witty and provocative transposition of musical conventions to a determinedly ‘socialist’ Czechoslovak context, and less in any attempt to rework generic codes. Rychman and Blažek’s follow-­up musical film, Dáma na kolejích (Woman on the Rails, 1966) is arguably more audacious in this respect, for here the genre-­specific slippage into fantasy is actually unannounced: only belatedly is it revealed that much of the film’s narrative has comprised a dream in which the female protagonist throws off patriarchal norms and reinvents herself as a glamorous, independent vamp. But the most radical variant of the musical is Jan Němec’s Martyrs of Love (1966). While hardly an obvious example of the genre, this film does seize on the associations between song, dream and the countercultural values of play that are fundamental to the musical. Indeed Němec pursues these associations by rendering the whole film a playful modernist fantasy in which the slippage between reality and dream is chronic and often indeterminable (or, as Raymond Durgnat put it, in which ‘nothing is altogether real nor altogether unreal’ (Durgnat 1972, 189]). Thus, while Němec’s film may have skimped on actual production numbers (in the strict sense of songs performed by onscreen characters, set to elaborately realized dance routines), his entire film takes place

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on the borders of that ‘supra-­diegetic’ world of utopian grace, ease and pleasure that the production number traditionally offered us in more self-­contained glimpses. Martyrs of Love in any case abounds with real music and song, to the extent of featuring, showcase-­style, a roll-­call of contemporary Czech music and dance stars: Gott, Němec’s future wife Kubišová, singer Eva Olmerová, jazz musicians Jan Hammer and Miroslav Vitouš and choreographer Josef Koníček. Němec’s specific model for Martyrs of Love was not the Hollywood musical but the European genre of popular song known as chanson. In its postwar incarnation, as exemplified in the work of such songwriters as Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel, this predominantly Francophone genre is a form identified with the lone singer-­songwriter, one that makes song a vehicle for sophisticated, ‘literary’ lyrics. Chanson also has its Czech variant (spelled ‘šanson’), represented most famously by Hana Hegerová, although Zemanová suggests that Czech culture defines the genre more narrowly by further identifying it with a predominantly ‘melancholy’ tone (Zemanová 2015, 43–4). The wistful Martyrs of Love certainly lives up to this more specific Czech definition, though Němec’s stated aim was to make a film that would portray ‘the most serious things . . . in a lighthearted, cheerful and even sentimental manner’ (Němec in Hames 2005, 177). In that respect Martyrs of Love is as much a tribute to the unassuming significance of popular song in general as to the chanson specifically, and he achieves that counterpoint of grave import and lighthearted form by drawing on the iconography of silent-­film and slapstick comedy, garbing the film’s three tales of longing and loneliness in a Chaplinesque bowler hat. Each of the stories is no more than a wisp: their respective protagonists are avatars of romantic melancholy and little more, as indicated by a final scene in which they walk side by side, the tripartite image of an eternally thwarted quest. But Němec’s aim here is to subordinate narrative and individuation to feeling and suggestion, to craft a cinematic mood piece that stimulates our emotions and provokes the imagination. Dialogue is abandoned as superfluous, with words relegated to the plaintive and passionately delivered texts of songs, while in cinematic terms exposition and causality are forsaken for a suggestive, sometimes opaque language of visual metaphor: the diffident office worker of the first story appears pantless in public, an object of opprobrium, after a night of carousing and ultimate romantic humiliation, while the second story’s servant girl protagonist has her precious suitcase targeted by a battery of ‘phallic’ rifles on the orders of an oppressive husband-­dictator (Hames 2005, 180). Němec has thus crafted a

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film that does not merely incorporate music but also strives to imitate it, both as a cinematic version of the chanson and as a film that works in an affective, non-­ rational register comparable to music itself. Martyrs of Love may be the least regarded of Němec’s three 1960s features, but it shows an adventurous artist trying to expand the boundaries of narrative cinema through the influence of music. As the examples above suggest, popular music had a varied formal impact on Czech 1960s cinema: Němec himself rounds out that variety with a series of filmed ‘recitals’ of Kubišová’s songs that he directed for television (collated as Náhrdelník melancholie (The Necklace of Melancholy, 1968) and Proudy lásku odnesou (The Streams Carry Love Away, 1969]), an inimitably surreal and baroque response to the television musical spot that also anticipates the elaborate aesthetics of pop video. Of course, filmmakers incorporated popular music thematically as well as formally, exploiting it as a potent signifier for social discontent and longings, a figure for an ideal reconnection with the past as well as a symbol of contemporaneity. The next section examines the various meanings filmmakers derived from pop as a subject.

Meanings and associations of popular music in film The identification of popular song as a key expression of identity and difference for 1960s youth is perhaps most vividly presented in The Hop Pickers. Indeed the film’s cult status has much to do with the way it was embraced by young audiences, who could identify with this story of beleaguered individualism and romance, enjoy the catchy songs and thrill to that sense of contemporary cool with which the film helped inaugurate ‘the sixties’ in Czechoslovakia (Winkler 2017, 213–214). This sensibility is nowhere more evident than in the iconic pre-­ credits sequence, in which the film’s chorus-­like trio of male singers performs the song ‘Milenci v texaskách’ (‘Lovers in Jeans’) from atop a hill. Brandishing electric guitars and sporting identical outfits of black t-­shirts, black slacks and black winkle-­pickers, the trio is clearly intended to evoke, in appearance as well as in its guitar-­driven sound, the ‘combo’ formation of the modern beat group, while adopting that aesthetic of matching, black-­dominated dress most closely associated with the early Beatles (are the ‘texasky’ of the opening song’s title being presented as an icon of manual labour or an accoutrement of the new, casual dress style?). This ‘beat’ chorus thus aligns popular song with new fashions

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as part of an arsenal of youthful self-­expression. Given the trio’s role in introducing and commenting on the action, the chorus also identifies the film’s own perspective as a contemporary one sympathetic to its modern-­spirited protagonists, at odds with the socialist-­realist perspective that the film’s subject of hop-­picking brigades might easily suggest. Yet the trio’s songs also appeal to parental tolerance towards youthful foibles, indicating that popular song might also reach out to older listeners and help reconcile (and not merely express) generational conflicts. In Miloš Forman’s films (both his Czech work and American-­made entries like Taking Off (1971) and Hair (1978) popular music similarly acts as a symbol of the alienation and misunderstanding between the young and their parents. Generational division is incorporated into the very structure of Talent Competition, literally bifurcated as this film is between two age groups and two styles of music. The older characters in Forman’s work often embody such negative traits as hypocrisy and authoritarianism, and in many ways the first story of Talent Competition – depicting rehearsals for a brass-­band performance – proves no different. Much of this first section consists of harangues – most memorably from that arch-­nag Ivan Vostrčil, the relentlessly admonitory father of Black Peter – in which young band members are rebuked for lack of commitment to the music of their elders. Yet Forman’s depiction of this markedly middle-­aged brass-­band culture is more nuanced and sympathetic than that description may sound. The middle-­ aged and elderly authority figures in Forman’s work are sometimes identified with political conformism or even read as a veiled critique of communist power itself (as with the farcical committee cover-­up of a theft in Hoří, má panenko (The Firemen’s Ball, 1968]), but it is important not to equate this musical culture with official communist culture. It rather represents an older tradition that precedes communist power, a tradition whose contemporary stewards labour quixotically to keep it vital and fresh. The brass-­band music amounts to the kind of folk expression that escapes categorization as highbrow or lowbrow and also evades the broadsides of critical theory and mass-­culture critique (Macdonald 2011, 13 and Cook 1996, x). The ‘authoritarian’ manner of the stern and domineering bandleaders belies the fact that the music is not itself a culture dictated from on high, as ‘mass culture’ is attacked for being, but rather a tradition in which ordinary people participate with expertise, discernment and genuine love. Craft rather than industry, this is a music practised without regard for gain: Vostrčil’s bandleader sounds out Vladimír Pucholt’s errant young player for only

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wanting to play those concerts that will be paid (‘We either do music with love or for money’). By contrast, the storyline of the film’s second section suggests that the young strive for modern pop careers less for their love of artistic craft than for the prospect of fame and an escape from drudgery: the female protagonist who has skipped work to attend the audition insists that she know the outcome of her performance there and then, in order that she may quit her dreary beautician job immediately. If pop music stands for rebellion here, it is less the principled, introspective non-­conformism embodied by Filip in The Hop Pickers than a paltry and mildly irresponsible individualism founded on a pipe dream. Moreover, unlike the brass band music, contemporary popular music is not a culture that its young enthusiasts create and control themselves. Pop is an industry maintained by adults, and those young fans who hope to graduate to being performers must submit to its pre-­established rules of adjudication. Forman’s wry observation of the audition process and its inescapable brutality may skirt the edges of ‘culture industry’ style commentary, yet his nuanced approach avoids the much more jaundiced and cynical vision observed in contemporaneous intersections of pop and art cinema, such as Peter Watkins’ dystopian Privilege (1967) or Bob Rafelson and The Monkees’ deliriously self-­ reflexive Head (1968). After all, Suchý and Šlitr, who are responsible for the auditions here, are no vulgar pop impresarios, and while they may represent an adult authority empowered to ‘make or break’ their tender supplicants, the duo themselves – Suchý especially – are presented as youthful, approachable and kind. If the film’s focus restricts our awareness of the artisanal nature of Suchý and Šlitr’s work as managers, creators and performers – while also denying us the boundless vivacity of Suchý’s own singer-­actor persona – there are moments when the auditionees themselves seem animated by a genuine pleasure in performing for the sake of it. One girl sings the Voskovec and Werich number ‘Hoja hoj, kapitán’ (‘Hey, Hey, Captain’) with a bright-­eyed and palpably infectious gusto, complete with lavish gestures. The effervescence of such a performance counters the impression of nervy passivity that might otherwise dominate, suggesting that pop music may allow scope for spontaneous expression and even a level of personal investment among those who are not strictly ‘professionals’. Even the girl’s breezy forgetting of some of the song’s lyrics only compounds the sense of an innate, disinterested enjoyment and comprises a further means of ‘personalising’ the song, a creative intervention by default. But if moments like this blur the boundaries between amateurism and professionalism, between play

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and performance, the film’s ending reinforces the dichotomy of established performer and humble wannabe. The female protagonist’s response to being told that her audition was unsuccessful is to ask Suchý for his autograph. Thus seizing on the only tangible gain she can extract from the experience, she consigns herself to the sterile and subordinate role of the stereotypical pop fan. While Talent Competition tellingly keeps its ‘old’ music and its ‘new’ music isolated in separate stories, other films are more interested in combining different musical styles and exploring their common resonances. Talent Competition may do little justice to Suchý and Šlitr’s interest in reconnecting with the culture and music of the interwar years, but If a Thousand Clarinets, a film in which the duo was more centrally involved, projects a more unificatory vision of music in which various popular genres come together as so many instruments – or weapons – of the humanist affirmation of life. Even classical music is added to this film’s musical arsenal: it is a statue of Bach that magically causes the transformation of army weapons into musical instruments, even if those instruments are used to play pop songs. The reconciliation here of new pop trends and the established canon – characteristic, as we have seen, of Suchý and Šlitr’s work and its fusion of highbrow and lowbrow – is an overt expression of the film’s deeper integration of apparent incompatibilities, of the way it addresses a grave, critical theme (pacifism versus militarism) in a cheerful, spirited and comic tone. Clearly the capacity to speak, to sing, of ‘the most serious things’ in a ‘lighthearted’ way extends to much of the Czech culture of the 1960s, with or without the instructive model of the chanson adopted by Jan Němec. Like If a Thousand Clarinets, Martyrs of Love is a film in which different styles of music are yoked together in the service of a progressive, even utopian vision. A core musical combination of vivacious traditional jazz and wistful modern chanson sets the film’s affective tone and goes a long way in establishing its underlying themes. Jazz serves as an obvious signifier of the interwar years of the 1920s and ’30s, an aural reference point to accompany the visual iconography of the slapstick comedies of the same period (bowler hats, bowties, white gloves, walking canes). These images and sounds serve as echoes or spectres of a cherished and idealized lost world of interwar insouciance, freedom and romance; they present a boisterous jazz-­age mirage within an arid modern world of manipulation and conformity (the bowler hat is that of the stern bureaucrat and harassed white-­collar worker as well as of the silent-­film comic). Just as Suchý and Šlitr sought to revive the art of Voskovec and Werich, so does Němec’s film yearn to reconnect with a lost interwar (or more generally pre-Communist)

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culture. This is a desire allegorized by the romantic quests of the three stories. The third story, in which the adult ‘orphan Rudolf ’ is apparently taken in by a mysterious family living lives of luxury and roaring 20-­style drunken excess, is particularly suggestive in this regard, reading as a half-­sceptical fantasy of re-­established cultural lineage. This is another sense in which the film blends the ‘serious’ and the ‘lighthearted’, as a sincere lament for a lost world of play. Complementing the haunted evocations of the past are the contemporary chansons sung by Marta Kubišová. These numbers’ vaguely philosophical bent – the song concluding the first story is called ‘Nebot’ co je to člověk?’/‘For What is a Human Being?’ – flavour the romantic melancholy with the interrogative aura of Czech ’60s revisionism, a trend that was itself striving to re-­establish a legitimate cultural and intellectual tradition. Popular music has positive associations throughout Martyrs of Love, both as the specific object of a wider cultural nostalgia and as a form that speaks the language of the inner life, expressing and inciting its dreams, desires and fantasies. Interestingly, the only moment in the film that can be seen as at all critical of pop involves Karel Gott, who appears in the film’s second story as an aloof, aristocratic figure with whom servant protagonist Nastěnka is besotted. In Gott’s key scene he delivers a romantic love song with parodically solemn religiosity from a balcony as a group of people, Nastěnka included, listen raptly and deferentially below. According to Peter Hames this scene satirises the cult of the pop star by portraying Gott as an object of literal veneration, offering an implicit pun on Gott’s surname (‘God’ in German) (Hames 2005, 179). There is also a presidential character to this sung ‘address’ from a balcony that oddly anticipates Gott’s notorious utilization by the Husák regime. But if this scene could be said to reprove the false cultification of the pop singer and to reinforce the idea of the fan as passive, manipulated dupe of the culture industry, the final twist of Nastěnka’s adventures reasserts the progressive side of popular music. Aboard a train Nastěnka meets an older man dressed in cowboy gear who whistles and strums a guitar. Hames suggests that this figure is a reference to another vintage musical genre, the country-­style ‘tramp song’ that emerged in the 1920s (Hames 2005, 180). Arising from an eponymous youth subculture based around camping and outdoor adventure, tramp music unavoidably connotes freedom and nonconformity, and Němec makes his singing cowboy a relaxed and seductive figure at odds with the remoteness of Gott’s singer or the sinister air of Jan Klusák’s military authority figure. The romantic relationship struck up in this scene also seems to be of a more equal

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kind than that of male pop deity to enrapt female fan, as signalled by Nastěnka’s initiating role in the implied erotic encounter – she coyly undresses before the cowboy – and by the characters’ sharing the same ‘democratic’ space of the train. At the risk of over-­reading the musical reference, there is a resonance here with tramp culture itself as an intensely participatory model of fandom: living and often dressing as cowboys or American Indians themselves, young ‘tramping’ enthusiasts expressed their love of Wild West mythology not through passive consumption but through active embodiment. Martyrs of Love is easily considered the most lighthearted of Němec’s 1960s films, a taking of relief after the grave political and historical dimensions of his previous two features. Closer examination, however, reveals that the film’s celebration of popular culture – and above all popular song – proves consistent with the critique of tyranny and authoritarianism in those earlier films. Martyrs thus shares with other contemporaneous Czech music films – The Hop Pickers, Woman on the Rails, Lemonade Joe – the capacity to be at once lighthearted, formally adventurous and implicitly politically or socially critical. This is a combination of qualities that to a large degree comes apart, under the impact of normalization, in the music and popular culture of the 1970s and ’80s. Two symptomatic films for these later decades are, at one extreme, a vehicle for the inevitable Karel Gott, Hvězda padá vzhůru (The Star Falls Upwards, 1974), a cautionary drama-­cum-fairytale of musical fame that conveys a dogmatic message about the evils of Western commercialism, while lacking the imaginative staging of production numbers that director Ladislav Rychman brought to his 1960s work; and, at the other extreme, Juraj Herz’s collaboration with experimental jazz-­rockers Pražský výběr, Straka v hrsti (A Magpie in the Hand, 1983), a bizarre subversion of the fairytale genre that got banned for its ‘unintelligibility’ and the dissident credentials of its creators (Košuličová 2002). Both unsatisfying in their very different ways, these two films represent two distinct tendencies – towards the mainstream and ingratiating pleasure, towards the avant-­garde and interrogative edge – that had fused into an effortless whole in much of the music and cinema of the 1960s.

Notes 1 The title of this chapter is indebted to Josef Škvorecký’s 1971 book All the Bright Young Men and Men: A Personal History of the Czech Cinema.

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Bibliography Altman, Rick. 1989. The American Film Musical. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bílek, Petr A. 2016. ‘Karel Gott: The Ultimate Star of Czechoslovak Pop Music’, in Ewa Mazierska (ed.), Popular Music in Eastern Europe: Breaking the Cold War Paradigm. London: Springer/Palgrave Macmillan. Bren, Paulina. 2010. The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Cook, Deborah. 1996. The Culture Industry Revisited: Theodor W. Adorno on Mass Culture. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Durgnat, Raymond. 1972. Sexual Alienation in the Cinema. London: Studio Vista. Hames, Peter. 2000. ‘The Good Soldier Švejk and After: The Comic Tradition in Czech Film’, in Diana Holmes, Alison Smith (eds), 100 Years of European Cinema: Entertainment or Ideology? Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hames, Peter. 2001. ‘Enfant Terrible of the Czech New Wave: Jan Němec’s 1960s films’, Central Europe Review, Vol. 3, No. 17, 14 May 2001. www.cereview.org/01/17/ kinoeye17_hames.html (retrieved 1 October 2017) Hames, Peter. 2005. The Czechoslovak New Wave. London: Wallflower. Holý, Ladislav. 1996. The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation: National Identity and the Post-Communist Social Transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Jenkins, Henry. 2004. ‘ “A High-Class Job of Carpentry”: Toward a Typography of Early Sound Comedy’, in Pamela Robertson Wojcik (ed.), Movie Acting: The Film Reader. New York and London: Routledge. Jeřábková, Kamila. 2014. ‘Normalizace a česká rocková scéna’ (bachelor’s thesis, Charles University). Just, Vladimír. 2000. ‘Mýtus Semafor’, in Radka Denemarková (ed.), Zlatá šedesátá: Česká literature, kultura a společnost v letech tání, kolotání a . . . zklamání. Prague: Ústav pro českou literaturu. Košuličová, Ivana. 2002. ‘Drowning the Bad Times: Juraj Herz Interviewed’, in Kinoeye, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 7 January 2002. www.kinoeye.org/02/01/kosulicova01.php (retrieved 1 October 2017) Kundera, Milan. 1994. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. New York: Harper Perennial. Macdonald, Dwight. 2011. Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain. New York: New York Review of Books. Martin, Bill. 2015. Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork. Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court. Remnik, David. 2003. ‘Exit Havel: The King Leaves the Castle’. The New Yorker, February 17 and 24. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/02/17/exit-­havel (retrieved 20 September 2017).

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Richardson, John. 2012. An Eye for Music: Popular Music and the Audiovisual Surreal. New York: Oxford University Press. Rohál, Robert. 2014. Legendy československé populární hudby 70. a 80. léta. Prague: Grada Publishing. Scott, Derek B. 2008. Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris and Vienna. New York: Oxford University Press. Škvorecký, Josef. 1971. All the Bright Young Men and Women: A Personal History of the Czech Cinema. Toronto: Peter Martin Associates. Thompson, Ben. 1995. ‘Pop and film: the charisma crossover’, in Jonathan Romney and Adrian Wootton (eds), Celluloid Jukebox: Popular music and the movies since the 50s. London: BFI Publishing. Winkler, Martina. 2017. ‘Starci na chmelu: The Aesthetics and Morals of a Socialist Blockbuster’, in Lucie Česálková (ed.), Czech Cinema Revisited: Politics, Aesthetics, Genres and Techniques. Prague: National Film Archive. Zemanová, Zuzana. 2015. Písničky pro (ne)všední den: Písňové texty v české populární hudbě 60. let. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého.

6

‘Music isn’t Music, Words aren’t Words’ Underground Music in the Hungarian Cinema of the New Sensibility Zsolt Győri

The Budapest underground music scene took root in the late 1970s in the environment of a softening dictatorship. As Zsófia Réti asserts, ‘the principle of 3T (tiltás, tűrés, támogatás – banning, tolerating or supporting) was in line with János Kádár’s credo ‘who is not against us is with us’ (Réti 2016, 150). The bands emerging in the subcultural milieu of the Hungarian capital fell into the first and second category yet the air of hostility was mutual. The most notable bands, including the Vágtázó halottkémek (Galloping Coroners), Albert Einstein Bizottság (A.E. Committee), Kontroll csoport (Control Group), Neurotic and Európa kiadó (Europe Publishing House), outspokenly resisted cooperation with the music industry they perceived as patronizing, and which Bence Csatári and Béla Jávorszky describe as bureaucratic, monopolistic, corrupt and exercising a system of privileges (Csatári–Jávorszky 2016, 269–70). This chapter examines what was termed the cinema of the new sensibility, a group of Hungarian films that featured the emblematic figures, songs, ideas and aesthetic strategies of this underground music scene. I will specifically look at Gábor Bódy’s A kutya éji dala (The Dog’s Night Song, 1983), András Szirtes’ A pronuma bolyok története (The History of the Pronuma Pack, 1983), Péter Müller Sziámi’s Ex-­kódex (Ex-Codex, 1983), András Wahorn’s Jégkrémbalett (Ice-cream Ballet, 1984), János Xantus’s Eszkimó asszony fázik (Eskimo Woman Feel Cold, 1984) and Rocktérítő (Rock Missionary, 1988), Béla Tarr’s Kárhozat (Damnation, 1987), Miklós Ács’ Sőn és Grósz (Nice and Big, 1988) and András Monori Mész’ Meteo (1990). I will argue that in the case of these films the alliance between the moving image and music was not incidental and went much further than offering musicians cinematic exposure as actors, or performing the role of the recording

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studio and the radio station in archiving and disseminating otherwise hardly accessible music. I define new sensibility as the agency of a largely invisible countercultural movement to comprehend and perform their marginal position in relation to the official public sphere. Relying on Jacques Rancière’s notion of dissensus, I analyse the synergies between music and cinema as avant-­garde strategies of destabilizing established distributions of the sensible by pointing to the films’ unconventional presentation of live and recorded music.

The concept of new sensibility Existing research ascribes Hungarian neo-­avant-­garde movements non-­ conformity, and describes these cultural initiatives and groups based on their being partially integrated or peripheral within the public sphere. Similar to both Balázs Béla Studio, where most of the films in focus were made, and avant-­garde art circles, the underground music scene was also under tight surveillance with authorities making every effort ‘to concentrate these endeavours onto a narrow scale or even in one – easily controllable – place, so that they would have no chance for expansion either in space or time’ (Peternák 2014, 72). Filmmakers, fine artists and musicians typically lacked an explicit political stance against the regime. Instead, they articulated their marginality through resistance to prevailing forms of what Jacques Rancière has termed the distribution of the sensible: ‘the way in which the abstract and arbitrary forms of symbolization of hierarchy are embodied as perceptive givens, in which a social destination is anticipated by the evidence of a perceptive universe, of a way of being, saying and seeing’ (Rancière 2011, 7) According to this view, the ‘arbitrariness of prescriptive givens’ propagates the politics of exclusion – differentiating between those who can be heard and those who cannot – and control over spaces, times, and forms of communal activities. As Rancière puts it, ‘political dissensus is not a discussion between speaking people who would confront their interests and values. It is a conflict about who speaks and who does not speak, about what has to be heard as the voice of pain and what has to be heard as an argument on justice’ (Rancière 2011, 2). By the same logic, I understand artistic struggle not as a struggle between aesthetic values but a struggle over what aesthetic value is. Anna Szemere’s remark about the political economy of rock music under state socialism well illustrates this claim: ‘when the record companies turned down dissenting or unconventional

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styles, they referred to economic rather than political considerations: the “alternative” sounds called rétegzene (literally “astratum music”, meaning music catering to elite or minority tastes) were found lacking in profit potential’ (12). Moreover, Rancière’s notion of dissensus also expresses instances when the presupposed competences, anticipated entitlements and established orders of what is legitimate and dissident are questioned. As elsewhere in the region, the struggle for visibility was a formative feature of underground musicians. Without access to professional sound recording facilities, well-­equipped concert venues and coverage in the national press, bands’ self-­made recordings spread from hand to hand while occasional performances were visited by a handful of loyal followers. Conceptual artists and musicians alike were hindered by bureaucratic regulations, refused permissions, terminated exhibitions and concerts, penalties, police harassment and an antagonistic media. Beside the shared experience of marginality, the historical conditions of avant-­garde and youth subcultures also promoted their dialogue. As Gábor Klaniczay explains: ‘[a]fter the 1960s, when form-­based artistic ventures of avant-­garde became more esoteric and alienating, certain artists began to adopt aesthetic properties of youth subcultures to secure their audience. At the same time, subcultures – in their intellectual ethos and poetic experiments – started to resemble avant-garde art performances’ (Szilágyi 1985b, 20). Political and historical circumstances offered a fertile ground for alternative forms of expressions which did not simply hope to shift the partition lines of the sensible but subscribed to dissensus as the necessary precondition of art, citizenship and a democratic life world. The manifesto-­style declaration of Gergely Molnár, the founding member of the protopunk/new wave band Spions, offers a vivid example of how rock acts resembled avant-­garde performances: ‘[The members of Spions] are not into spectacle but action . . . Rock’n’roll is not their medium, they are the media of rock’n’roll . . . They are machines and not humans, thus they don’t create art. They deteriorate with their creations’ (quoted in Szőnyei 337). Although bands of the Budapest underground scene shared punk’s non-­mainstream appeal, they did not protest against consumer society which was non-­existent in the form known in the West. With a commitment to perpetually overcome one’s created style, image and musical constraints, art punk could easily integrate into avant-­garde’s various inspirations, ranging from neo-­avant-­garde painting, pop art, performance art, and video art. The cinema of new sensibility combined and advanced the respective aesthetic experiments through the adoption of serial

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and permutational narrative logic, ambiguous symbolism, the use of bricolage and collage techniques (Pápai 2009, 147). Such textual devices stood in stark contrast to more conventional paths of artistic expression and added a poetic layer to the defiance against institutional control. The politics of dissensus also served as a frame for the collaboration between music and cinema. Songs, for instance, were not subordinated to the status of the film score generally employed to enhance the dramatic effect of a scene but spoke the deep-­rooted anxieties of the era. The conventional role of musical pieces like creating continuity in edited sequences, establishing the emotional atmosphere of a film, and guiding viewers in the interpretation of plot events or central motifs does not question the primacy of images, while in these films, songs gain autonomy and become markers and symptoms of the reality images convey in a less straightforward manner. By the same token, musicians and music-­related events were not featured as guest appearances but introduced authentic personalities and communities with lifestyles and views that captured and amplified the disillusionment and identity crises of the younger generations. The answer Gábor Bódy provides, when asked why he cast himself in the protagonist’s role in The Dog’s Night Song explains why underground musicians appeared in these films: ‘I felt that my so-­called artistic wanderings and attempts at self-­justification provided a firmer ground to play this character than a professional actor – with more self-­assurance, experience in imitation and a fascination for the superficial aspects of the role – would have had’ (quoted in Kovács 1983, 13).

New sensibility: origins and philosophy and the agency of rock music The chief novelty of new sensibility was the construction of an agency that captured in authentic environments, the deeper aspects of really existing socialism: the inner contradictions of the world and the anxieties of its inhabitants who perceived of value and identity crises as permanent features of their lives. This agency first took shape in András Jeles’ (Kis Valentino Little Valentino, 1979), a film which rejected the cunning consensus with the paternalistic regime to address the social nihilism of the period. The film recounts a single day in the life of a young man whose job includes posting money for his employer. On the day featured in the film he runs away with the

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money in the hope of satisfying long desires (like buying Western magazines, riding in a taxi, eating in a restaurant) and although he spends the whole sum, he seems more unfulfilled than before. Realizing that his sense of loss cannot be remedied with extravagancies, he reports himself at a police station at the end of the story. As Gábor Gelencsér explains, ‘[Little Valentino] grasps something of the grandeur of human life entangled within its concrete socio-­historical interlacing, yet, it does so without having to translate the portrayed reality into an ideological model, allegory, symbol, or metaphor’ (Gelencsér 2002, 408). Gelencsér ascribes to Jeles a radical form of artistic agency which rejects past traditions of Hungarian cinema and portrays the lack of individual liberty ‘without adopting an analytical-­interrogative attitude. It purely documents situations and concludes: this is what there is’ (Gelencsér 2002, 396, emphasis in original). While the parables of the 1970s expressed individual and collective frustrations over paternalistic political and social practices, they concealed their agency of criticism and protested against an order while acknowledging the power and authority of this order over its critics. As such they subscribed to a consensual reality. According to Gelencsér, in Jeles’ film there is no longer protest but a commitment to the real and the actual, to a form of creation which declines to perceive itself from the vantage point of a utopian future (281). The agency called into life with Little Valentino presents socialism as a failed social-­ ideological project and the affective experience – stagnation, emptiness and depression – of its citizens. To achieve this aim of representing this reality, Jeles foregrounds atmospheres and symptoms, he chooses ‘not “to write” but “to read” the “grandiosity of everyday life”; for him the presentation of spectacle and fate on screen is not a goal but a source: meaning in not something created, but that which peels off ’ (408). The legacy of Little Valentino for the cinema of new sensibility is its unvarnished presentation of reality, existential aimlessness and the all-­pervasive sense of loss. The agency called into being by Jeles comprehends the nihilism of really existing socialism, and foregrounds the tense relationships between the self and the world, a common trait of which – according to Ákos Szilágyi – is that personal and artistic efforts focus on the indivisible in a person, on something unalienable. New sensibility can be described and interpreted, but cannot be moulded into ideologies. As such, the founding principle of this community is that there is ‘no community, no consensus with anyone or anything’ (Szilágyi 1985a, 27, emphasis added).

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Such rejection of ideological frameworks was an essential factor in the emergence of the underground music scene. The regime’s inability to cover up the legitimacy crisis of state socialism1 made, especially for the younger generation, the anti-­state attitude legitimate. They perceived of rock’n’roll as the agency which, unlike fanatic and pathetic heroism, resonated on all sides with the lived reality. More precisely, they believed that rock music can help the agency to articulate unalienably human qualities and impulses. This agency did not promise protection against disintegration, only a musical and linguistic sensibility to encounter its effects. Many songs addressed the agency of rock’n’roll, including ‘Young Hungarians’ (‘Fiatal magyarok’, 1997) by Europe Publishing House: ‘Young Hungarians are rocking the square / Budapest is trembling but little are they aware / Which one of them brought this new sensation / From the suburb to the city centre’. Rock music is addressed here as a vital, yet indefinite communal force. A similar indetermination is ascribed to music in Neurotic’s ‘Rock’n’roll is . . .’ (A Rock’n’roll az . . ., 1988): ‘When the sun sets I rise / I ring up my partner / And shout in the street / That rock’n’roll ain’t no dance.’ Finally, ‘Rock’n’Roll is an Animal’ (‘A rock’n’ egy állat, 1993) by Control Group captured the ambiguous agency of rock while making references to the regime’s attitudes towards popular music: ‘Rock’n’roll is a human / You can’t keep an eye on him / You got no free time for that / You live off rock’n’roll / You fear rock’n’roll’. As these examples reveal, music as a legitimate means of self-­expression arose from its flexibility to cater for a multitude of expressions. With the disappearance of traditional motivational systems, rock’n’roll – at least for participants of the Budapest underground scene – changed into the recording machine of social and existential uncertainties. The apparent value crisis of the world left people dispossessed of their previous security. This barren form of being, however, did not equal nihilism, but was the necessary precondition of the encounter with the unalienably human. It was in the gravitational pull of nihilism and disillusionment that one’s core psychological design became legible and one’s artistic personality, image and orientation attained. Nihilism was overcome by creating music that subscribed to unalienably human impulses, by opening avenues to primal impulses, as demonstrated by the Galloping Coroners’ encounters with the archaic, or primitive-­hedonistic surges exemplified by A. E. Committee. For Tamás Pajor, music emerged through animalistic-­ hedonistic bursts of energy, while in the case of Marietta Méhes and Mihály Víg instinctual-­intimate stimuli served as the catalyst for musical expression.

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Bódy seems to fully comprehend the agency of underground rock when casting Attila Grandpierre, the lead singer of Galloping Coroners,2 as a central character of The Dog’s Night Song. In one of their first concerts, Grandpierre sent out a provocative message to the audience: ‘We are not entertainment! Do not hope you’ll be entertained with us. Those who want to get entertained should scram. Get entertained at home in front of the TV. You are going to get something very different here!’ (Seszták 1988, 88). More than an instance of punk’s calculated shock tactics, this is an act of reclaiming the concert hall for something different from promoted pop music acts. To grasp the novelty of their music, Grandpierre points to Béla Bartók’s notion of folk music, which he defines as ‘music devoid of clichés, born out of an inner necessity in a purified state . . . demanding the auratic presence of the performer’ (Seszták 1988, 88). The repetitive, wild, yet psychedelic tribal music of the Galloping Coroners, employing pulsating drum sounds, reminiscent of Nordic ethno-­music, rhythmic electronic guitars, in the vein of trash metal and the ritualistic-­shamanistic chanting of Huns, fits this description well. Along these lines, we might call The Dog’s Night Song a folk film, a film born out of the inner necessity to resist ideological cinema. Just as the band captured spontaneous energies, the film speaks, or rather howls the desperation and frustration of people, treated as dogs on a short leash. Bódy identified with this subaltern position and, as Péter Jósvai asserts, ‘made a complete fool out of everybody on the regime’s side. They thought that The Dog’s Night Song was a new contemporary Hungarian film but what they really got was an enormous tableau, an extraordinary diagnosis on how bad and how dead Hungarian life and reality was.’ The theatrical poses of the film, its inaudible dialogues and the use of low resolution Super 8 and video images blown up to fit standard cinema screens are not just gestures towards amateur filmmaking but spell out the impossibility of telling coherent stories in a disintegrating social universe. Bódy’s conceptual preference for the grainy image instead of flawless spectacle is an unmistakable critical remark about cinematic academism. Adopting the consensual format (as a cinematic equivalent of social consensus) would have been false and opportunist in a world of forced consensus. Low resolution, a chief quality of the archival footage capturing performances of underground bands, becomes the image of dissensus: in vibrations it conveys, the apathy, indifference and aimlessness of people respectable and officially supported auteur cinema failed to show. Paradoxically, low resolution becomes high resolution in the sense that high resolution is ‘able to capture more than just

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faces of movie-­stars wearing fake costumes under huge lights in a studio. High resolution means that when you watch a movie 30 years later, it will have the details of reality – cars, furniture, clothes, styles, how they made money, how they spoke, how they made love, how they thought of cars or weapons. High resolution means a sort of a cultural anthropological aspect.’

Staging dissensus In the cinema of new sensibility the concert hall was reclaimed for performances lacking spectacular stage designs, proper sound engineering, star poses and the aspiration to entertain the audience. Gábor Klaniczay’s account of Mihály Víg’s stage persona (singer in bands Balaton and Trabant) draws a vivid picture of why these events should be considered as performances of self-­decomposure: ‘I remember the frequent problems with the gear; microphones going mute, guitar strings being ripped, and songs coming to a sudden end, then being restarted . . . In the ensuing chaos Mihály Víg still remained in control. There was certainly some intent and honesty in the manner messy performance choreographies and amateurish musical skills were pressed upon the audience with Machiavellian disorganization’ (Klaniczay 2003, 377). Instead of well-­rehearsed performances, these low-­fi acts described by Klaniczay declined to recognize the stage as a privileged place and thus disregarded established structures of the sensible – in this case the theatrics of official popular music. Being consistent with marginal individuality was more important than to gain stardom and receive devotion, especially in view of the fact that a key role of popular culture was, as Peternák asserts, ‘to repress the essential information by means of information overload’ (Peternák 2014, 72). More than a sign of amateurism, badly orchestrated concerts, the regular use of improvized set lists and imperfections, were critical gestures targeting state-­supported professional musicians. The names of relevant bands already suggest how the stage as a symbol of the public sphere was seized by attitudes incompatible with respectable entertainment. These included satire in the case of Trabant and Balaton (brand names within Eastern Europe, but also allegories of the Soviet bloc), grotesque demonstrated by Galloping Coroners, political sarcasm associated with Central Committee (later renamed as Albert Einstein Committee), pathological metaphors exemplified by Neurotic, and ambiguity epitomized by Europe Publishing House or Europe for Rent. Depending on their temperament, each band would subvert

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the ‘politics of the stage’ and no longer inhabit it as ‘inlaws’, as performers who accept the norms of popular entertainment but as ‘outlaws’ who pursue the ‘transgressive politics of the stage’ while questioning consensus over the proper use of the public sphere. The subversive use of stage in music related scenes of the films, put into the spotlight the irreparable fracture between established and alternative forms of expression, thus ‘raising delicate issues regarding the configurations of the public sphere’ (Pápai 2014, 151), and, by the same token, the distribution of the sensible. Apart from featuring musicians and songs unknown by the average viewer, filmmakers took every opportunity to clarify their dissensual position. A few minutes into András Szirtes’ film The History of the Pronuma Pack, a person appears and, looking directly into the camera, says how much he wished there were more idiots among filmmakers and audiences, since it is much easier to make and receive films if one does not believe in coherence. Later, he advises spectators to leave the cinema of nonsense, yet after long seconds of silence he gladly welcomes those who stayed. Sardonic and witty, the address appropriates the official view of the nonconformist filmmaker, shared by many influential auteur directors of the decade declining to support filmmakers emerging outside the walls of paternalistic studios. Also an example of mimicry, this sequence embraces idiocy as the only ‘authentic voice’ in a cultural climate marked by the ‘conflict between “legitimate,” official, and respectable arts, on the one hand, and rejected, forbidden, and outcast arts, on the other’ (Szemere 2001, 51) and a film culture in which the dictatorship of a specific taste (auteur cinema) claimed for itself the labels of serious and respectable art. In Ice-­cream Ballet, Pápai calls attention to similar acts of mimicry – the simultaneous appropriation and subversion of a discourse. His most vivid example is the performance of the song ‘Békásmegyer’, also the name of a suburban district of Budapest comprised of concrete high-­ rise buildings: Rise, rise! Work awaits, the factory awaits! Rise, rise! The office awaits, the factory awaits! I get out of bed in haste, I stagger to the bathroom, Have a shave, brush my teeth, I don’t think, I don’t care

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I’m the typical labour of today Living in the slave colony of Békásmegyer

Beginning in the manner of Communist marches calling comrades to arms, the song soon deviates towards the parodic description of how tenants prepare for work after a weekend of wild partying. Identifying Békásmegyer – regarded by the regime as a major achievement of socialist welfare policies – as a slave colony (the experience of many tenants) openly addresses the discrepancy between official and alternative perceptions of the neighbourhood. The deliberate provocations against the Establishment and the inherent critique exposing how the culture of a presumably egalitarian society is divided into the non-­egalitarian spheres of the ‘inlaws’ and the ‘outlaws’ earned the attention of censors. Consequently both films were allowed to be screened only for a limited audience. In my previous examples, the public sphere took shape as a discursive space, promoting official while rejecting dissident views. The antagonism of promoted and rejected cultural practices was, nevertheless, featured in more direct ways. In another scene of Ice-­cream Ballet, a room full of physical labourers prepare to watch the much-­awaited 1982 football World Cup final on TV. The broadcast is interrupted by the guerrilla transmission of László fe Lugossy (frontman of A. E. Committee and neo-­avant-­garde artist) posing as a tele-­shaman and reading out a speech titled ‘Love is the same all over the world, but a bit different in this country’, a Dadaistic meditation on love featuring pornographic images. In this case, the public sphere and the sphere of alternative expression (pure entertainment versus a mock-­educational programme) clash via the mediated images of mass communication. The Dog’s Night Song also raises the issue of (in) accessibility of the public sphere; there the media is embodied by the television crew conducting an interview with members of the Galloping Coroners. Institutional and independent artistic identities are contrasted through clothes, postures, camera-­awareness, but most importantly through the patronizing questions and the indecent or simply irrelevant replies. After a comment by a band member – ‘You were not born to just stroll on the streets, like a fucking spider’ – the reporter makes distressed glances at the cameramen and says: ‘We cannot record this.’ Both examples identify the media as gatekeeper while alternative voices are presented as a threat to good taste and the standards of socialist popular television. Apart from the discursive and the mediated space, (appropriations of) the public sphere also appears as real, physical space. In Péter Müller Sziámi’s Ex-Codex, for example, a lecture about the secret society of the Hashshashins

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takes place in a university auditorium (a public sphere), but instead of a student audience we see gnomes and well-­known underground musicians (starring as members of the Budapest Hashshashin sect) occupy the seats. The question of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ of the public sphere also appears in Rock Missionary featuring once again emblematic figures of the underground pop music culture. In one scene, Tamás Pajor is literally caught in a liminal position as he is refused entry into the Young Artist’s Club. Accused of previous misconduct and aggressive behaviour with other guests, he is stuck in the doorway, on the threshold of acceptance into this symbol of the official public sphere.

Staging identity crisis Beside serving as a medium of performing dissent, underground rock provided a sensitive agency to address identity crisis. The following analysis will bring to light differences between both musicians and directors as to how they staged and represented the quest for a new identity. Xantus’s Eskimo Woman Feel Cold, Rock Missionary and Bódy’s The Dog’s Night Song are the most relevant films in this regard. At the centre of Eskimo Woman is a young frustrated wife who falls in love with an internationally renowned pianist and begins to pursue a musical career, initially, of her own. She first appears on stage in a blues club populated by representatives of the uneducated working-class young men. Marietta Méhes performs in front of a half-­drunk, all-­male audience enjoying the ‘hard-­as-stone’ blues sounds with loud cheers, wild dancing and headbanging. The clothing style of the ragged youth subculture also appears: leather jackets foreground the fans’ explosive masculinity, while Méhes’ sexy, tight dress and heavy make-­up emphasizes femininity as a sexually explicit spectacle. In later concert scenes the music becomes more refined and lyric-­centred and so does the audience. The distinction Szemere makes between the herd mentality, masculine values and heroism of working-­class marginality and the middle-­class followers of avant-­garde rock (Szemere 2001, 40–42) is well illustrated here. As for the bohemian current of the underground – represented by the young marginal intelligentsia and artistic-­minded college students with nonconformist lifestyles and liberal values – music embodied resistance to undemocratic and paternalistic institutions and conditions. Involvement in the communal dynamics of the performance also showed remarkable differences with ragged crowds demanding traditional entertainment, and more willing for wild partying. In latter

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concert-­sequences featuring bohemian audiences, the spectators are static and act as cold observers of the performance while the stage seems a self-­contained space, almost like the extension of the private spheres of music: the recording studio, or the rehearsal room. The informal atmosphere – a feature of actual concerts – is further emphasized when Méhes leaves the stage to talk with her husband, as if she walked into a kitchen from a living room. This spirit of intimacy and melancholy was in stark contrast with past ideals of art characterized, according to Pál Hegyi, as ‘heroic activism hoping to transform the world from upside down, the optimism of the utilitarian-­productivist type, and also the object-­fetishism and antiseptic aesthetics of naive-­technicist salvation’ (Hegyi 1983, 18–19). Pointing to differences in the motivation, participation and sociocultural background of fans makes Eskimo Woman a credible portrayal of a 1980s Hungarian subculture. It also serves specific narrative purposes. The fact that the protagonist finds her own voice while performing in front of avant-­garde rock fans identifies her emerging artistic sensibility. Xantus draws on traditions of the Künstlerroman and tells the story of Méhes as the maturation of an underground female musician in a male-­dominated marginal culture. The maturation of the artist, nevertheless, is inseparable from the identity crisis she experiences through the irreconcilability of her love towards her husband and her lust for the composer. The agency of sensibility is most intense as she drifts ever closer to a nervous breakdown. With Méhes’ real-­life stage persona in mind, Xantus connects her frustrated voice and neurotic singing to her emotional anxieties: coldness is presented as the quality of the unalienably human. Her stage appearance in The Dog’s Night Song follows a similar path. At one point, she quits a loveless marriage and leaves her husband who, as she claims, ‘can’t even fuck’ her, much less make love to her. The husband’s neglect points beyond masculine impotence, and reveals the disfunctionality of bodily communications at large. Even in those relationships where sexuality is present, it fails to offer much joy. Sexual acts are characterized by certain animalism as males take their female partners from behind, forcing them into a sexual position of subordination and vulnerability, not allowing for facial communication. Such representations point to the vegetative state of private life and portray the other person not as an emotional partner but an object of sexual satisfaction: sexuality epitomizes emptied human contacts. After running away from home, Marietta soon finds herself on stage performing the Committee’s ‘Love’ (Szerelem), an ecstatic song repeating the

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lines ‘Here comes love again / My palm is sweating again / For what? For what? For what? / Love, Love, Love / You must spit – phew.’ Deprived of sentimental and romantic qualities, love is identified as something overpowering, a thing that animates but also annihilates. Unlike in love poetry, where it secures the affective integrity of the private life against a disintegrating world, love here is regarded as an unalienable quality of existence but also the cause of the fractured self. This unconventional notion of love is emphasized by the increasingly maniac singing and aggressive stage moves culminating in a vocal orgasm or, maybe, death. Taking into consideration the nature of the performance, I would conclude that ‘Love’ is not a song against love, but against the naivety of popular love songs. This subversive attitude permeates Ice-­cream Ballet, especially in the concert footage presenting band members as extravagant guests at a house party rather than musicians in the traditional sense. Some musicians wear ice-­skates or dance around bottles of alcohol, occasionally jumping to the microphone for their lines, Wahorn sings lying on the stage with his bare buttocks being spanked with a giant fly swatter, and a young girl joins in at some point. The chaotic stage choreography, the loosely structured and repetitive songs openly question traditional notions of pop music as a means of pleasure and recreation. From infantile playfulness to subversive provocation, all standards of the pop industry are violated as the stage is reappropriated for an avant-garde happening. While Eskimo Woman makes direct allusions to the stage career of Marietta Méhes and her choice to leave Hungary, Rock Missionary documents Tamás Pajor in the most dramatic stage of his quest for an identity. The lead singer of the band called Neurotic epitomized the raw power of music for Xantus, whose project to make a rockumentary about the non-­compromising life of Pajor was challenged by life itself: the sudden religious conversion of the protagonist. A lasting inspiration for generations of lyricists, the lines of Pajor are unique in Hungarian pop music, while his self-­destructive lifestyle easily stood comparison with the eccentrics of Western rock stars that earned them world fame and an early grave. Xantus recalls Pajor’s religious conversion as follows: ‘As if he had nothing to hang on to except for emptiness, he now discovered an orientation point and built a new world around it. This, however, did come with a loss of personality’ (Barabás 1988, 22). Pajor’s relentless pursuit of the star-­image, his emotional exaltation on stage, and aspiration to serve as a ‘missionary of rock’ secured him a unique position within the alternative music scene, but also made powerful enemies in the state-subsidized pop scene. He instinctively realized that rock music can mobilize crowds and serve as a source of ecstatic communal

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spirit, but he also saw that to achieve such an aim, performances require professional sound equipment, sophisticated lighting gear, committed organizers, etc. Judging by the quality of his songs and his magnetic stage presence, Pajor understood much better the values of rock than either official pop stars or those in control of material and human resources. In his case, disagreement with the world was primarily a result of a disagreement with a hypocritical music industry. Xantus also emphasises this point: ‘Hungary is no place for rock’n’roll. A person with such explosive passions that even people near the back of the concert hall will pay attention cannot exist in an environment where amps are turned down at 10 or 11 pm because neighbours want to sleep. Genuine rock’n’roll carries a level of deviance a country with disciplined sleeping routines cannot tolerate’ (Barabás 1988, 24). Rock Missionary captures Pajor’s faith and dedication to motivate people. His quest for identity was an exalted quest for an audience. Although he radically renounced his past hedonistic self and gave up the role of the missionary of rock, he never rejected his dedication to affect people through music: the Christian song he performs on the street as a rock missionary at the end of the film proves the power of this belief. In the previously discussed film, the focus on personal anxiety lacks authorial self-­reflexivity, except for The Dog’s Night Song in which Bódy impersonates a fake priest and a member of a secret sect. He is exposed in the scene when dancing ecstatically in a music club on his own. His appearance on stage seems a symbolic gesture. This motif of problematized identity, nevertheless, passed critical attention until 1999 when Bódy’s association with the Hungarian and East-German secret police was revealed. This information put The Dog’s Night Song into a new light with András Bálint Kovács describing it as an ‘encrypted confession’, a ‘message in the bottle’ (Kovács 2002, 278) that illuminates certain elements of the narrative and also his suicide in 1985. Regarding the film as the secret communication of a self fractured beyond words supports my previous assumptions about identity crisis as the necessary precondition of sensibility.

The transgressive politics of the music video Although sharing the fractured narrative structure and disintegrating plotline of Bódy’s film, The History of the Pronuma Pack and Ex-Codex no longer feature individual heroes but countercultural communities and the generational experiences of disorientation. Cinematic self-­documentation involves rich

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references to music, however, tight budgets, technical constraints and poetic preferences for amateur filmmaking no longer allowed scripted concert scenes to be shot. As an alternative, filmmakers introduced recorded music over images or artists performing songs at various locations. These movie segments today appear on social media as music videos of specific underground songs. The case of Ice-­cream Ballet remains unique. Although budgets allowed for the recording of an entire concert, filmmakers decided to combine live performances with additional material showing band members at Lake Balaton, a popular Hungarian holiday resort. The second half of the film looks like a series of music videos. Shot on video, filmmakers heavily relied on solarization – a popular effect of early video art achieved through the oversaturation of certain colours on specific areas of the screen and creating otherworldly effects, as if the image was radiating ‘nuclear energy’.3 This effect is most prominent in ‘Female Brain’ (Női agyvelő‘), a satirical song about a telephone waiting for connection. The video combines concert footage, on-­location shots of the musicians jumping into the water holding a cardboard box telephone, performing Hungarian folk dance, close-­ups of a brain, etc. Other music video-­like sequences share this surreal atmosphere achieved through the collage of unrelated images (war footage, a sponge heart being squeezed, band members wrestling in the dirt). Even the video of the song ‘Milarepa Version’ (‘Milarepaverzió’, an expression without meaning) is surreal, despite the fact that the dynamic collage of previous videos is replaced here by a static composition featuring two of the band’s singers clinking glasses and drinking liqueur on the beach while holiday-­makers enjoy the summer in the background. By rejecting established formats of music videos (performance-­based, the narrative-­based or the concept-­based styles) these sequences expand the previously discussed ‘transgressive politics of the stage’ towards the ‘transgressive politics of the music video’. This is the case in Pronuma Pack featuring the pre-­ recorded song ‘Bon bon si bon’ by Európa kiadó during its main title sequence. The heavy beats, the onomatopoeic words imitating drums, repeated by background vocalists in the manner of tribal chanting and the frantic voice of Jenő Menyhárt shouting ‘This is a very very tough, tough world’, is accompanied by images of Budapest’s busy streets shot through the back windshield of a car. The throbbing music and the shaky camera create disturbingly unsettled atmospheres, while the lack of narrative explanation about the destination further emphasizes the feeling of instability. The placement of the camera allows a view not of what is ahead but of what is behind, a clear reference to a passenger

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lacking control, possibly an allusion to a generation forced into a passenger seat, without control over one’s life. The aimless trip through the city calls to mind the film, Little Valentino in which purposeless rides were the central motifs of stagnation. By the same token, the generational experience of being ‘on the road to nowhere’ is also emphasized by the chanting of nonsensical words and contradictory lines, such as ‘There are too many policemen, there are too many spies / there are too few whores, there are too few pimps / There are too few policemen, there are too few spies / There are too many whores, there are too many pimps.’ Filmmaker and songwriter join hands to capture an unsettled existence through visceral impulses, the nervous wobbling of the camera, the sense of urgency, the almost hysterical voice of the lead singer and the ambiguous lines. In the manner of Jeles’ proposition to seize the ‘phenomenological flakes’, or symptoms of everyday life, this musical sequence reveals a world of raw forces and instincts and its citizens’ identity crisis. The cast of Ex-Codex consists almost exclusively of musicians, a feature that firmly places the film within the subcultural context and ascribes to it qualities associated with community filmmaking. Despite the high number of musicians involved in the project, music is underrepresented or appears in a fragmented form. The sole exception is Mihály Víg’s performing his own song ‘Animals’ (‘Állatok’) on an acoustic guitar. As opposed to the energetic visual atmosphere of the previous example, here cinematography is minimalist: the static camera shows in a single take two half-­naked men (one kneeling, the other sitting cross-­ legged with a guitar on his lap) treating – as we learn from a brief conversation at the beginning of the clip – a severe hangover with brandy, cigarettes and a sunray lamp. Cinematographic simplicity and the focus on non-­heroic and undramatic moods of life appeals to the genre of the home video, while the blue light emanating from the lamp that throws the shadow of the two men on the wall (resembling a sexual position) emphasizes the conceptual nature of the visual design. Despite this subversive hint to the eroticized nature of male bonding, the relaxed composition is in harmony with the mellow tunes and the soft singing. The song itself is a collage of dreamlike images about the Jack of clubs, the Queen of diamonds and the King of hearts, about eating ice-­cream, a Christmas tree, and a thoroughbred in a stud farm ready to jump. Alternating between philosophical sentences (‘I can see now with eyes closed / Where things lost dwell’), fantastic visions (‘the King of hearts left on a bus’), and plain descriptive parts (‘you are pulling a Christmas tree on the boulevard’) the song balances between a trivial poetic exercise and intuitive artistic excellence. The

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double presence of the ordinary and the unique in both images and text accentuates Víg’s quest for the sublime in the everyday. Given the fact that in these years, his band Trabant defined itself as a ‘living-­room studio band’ resisting the exclusionist attitudes inscribed within the distribution of the sensible, this segment is the most authentic music video of a closeted subculture.

Post sensibility: the afterlife of new sensibility By the late 1980s the Budapest underground scene ceased to be a novelty and owing to the increasing consumerism and westward orientation of popular culture, it remained marginal with continued popularity among a niche audience. In addition, decreasing governmental influence over the public sphere weakened the legitimacy of neo-­avant-garde artists with dissident political views. Although filmmakers showed less interest towards music as social-­political commentary, certain features of the cinema of new sensibility appeared in future productions. Most notable is Béla Tarr’s Damnation featuring Ágnes Kamondy’s stage appearance in a salon. Shot in Tarr’s distinctive style with a slowly tracking camera, the performance of Víg’s ‘Over and Done’ (‘Kész az egész’) by Kamondy, an iconic underground musician, supports the melancholic performance with the qualities of art cinema and raises personal agony to the level of universal relevance. In the scene, the desolate singer leans against the side of the stage, holding a burning cigarette above her head and singing with eyes closed: Over and done Everything is over Everything ends And there’ll be no other There’ll be no good Never again Unlikely ever again

With such a low-­key composition and against a dark background, Kamondy’s illuminated figure – and later her face – carries all visual information. It becomes the stage itself, the stage of bare existence seemingly annihilating everything it possesses. Yet, her face and voice appear as the face and voice of bareness: an unalienably human face and voice that defies the envisioned nihilism. Such defiance lacks optimism, yet renders legible a pledge to life itself as the last part of the song suggests:

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Over and done, without an end There’s no end. It can’t fade and it won’t fade Ever again Unlikely ever again Likely never again.

Kamondy’s singing induces a sensibility similar to the one Wahorn spoke of in Ice-­cream Ballet when describing his artistic commitment as ‘the ultimate enlightenment at the gates of total ruination’. In fact, I believe Tarr’s entire oeuvre builds around this sensibility and serves as the foundation of his long-­standing collaboration with Víg as composer. András Monori Mész’ Meteo also employed seminal 1980s underground musicians: László Kistamás starred in the main role, László fe Lugossy and Erzsébet Kukta (of Committee) appeared on stage in an underground club, while János Másik composed the film score. In addition, Meteo took for granted the social-­existential uncertainties present in the already discussed films. Nevertheless the film lacked direct political commentary which is unconventional for a film with the highest box-­office figures (57,000 tickets sold in 1990) (Varga 2016, 133), screened at the period of vast political changes sweeping through Eastern Europe. In Mész’s vision of the region post-­apocalyptic functions as a synonym for post-­communist. It is again the stage, where an industrial avantgarde band performs, which expresses the extent of the value crisis in the world. In aesthetic terms, industrial rock is an extreme case of questioning music’s appeal to beauty and harmony. The metallic sounds, distorted vocals and broken melodies fit the industrial setting of the film but, more importantly, music itself is the agency of the angst and disorientation post-­apocalyptic existence is founded on. In Meteo’s there is neither community nor individuality. Characters are stripped to the bone – some purposefully decline to eat – and to bare survival strategies, they are defined (as Eastern European) through their reaction to a disintegrating world. Some escape into a fantasy world, others immigrate to a world they always fantasized about while still others use their local knowledge to cope in the post-­apocalyptic environment. While Mész and Tarr expand on new sensibility’s preoccupation with the quest for meaning in the face of nihilism and use it to expose regional and universal scenarios of value crises, Miklós Ács’ Nice and Big, portraying the life of a young couple squatting on the top floor laundry room of a high-­rise building, foregrounds intimacy. While the other two films enjoyed mainstream success,

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Ács’s non-­budget film belongs to the margins of not only Hungarian cinema but marginal film culture at large. In its appeal to international punk/new wave music, it speaks of the generational experience of unhomeliness that reaches beyond national borders. Offering a musical collage of Anglo-American punk songs and those of Control Group, a seminal Budapest underground band, Nice and Big points to music as the lingua franca of non-­conformist subcultures in the East and the West. New sensibility’s preoccupation with stylistic experimentation is also crucial for Ács; the handheld camera, conceited camera movements, imperfect sound, provocative monologues, and naturalist depiction of bodily needs and urges follow from avant-garde aesthetics flavoured with the immodest energies of punk. The film’s honest rawness, conveyed often through music, foregrounds cosmic loneliness as the unalienable quality of the self, while the experience of total social alienation erases the notion of homeliness associated with large housing estates in official propaganda. As such, the spatial allegory of consensus became the lived reality of dissensus.

Conclusions The afterlife of new sensibility points not only to key features of the alliance between cinema and the music underground but attributes sustained relevance to this strand of cinema. These fragmentary, instinctual, estranging films portrayed a different Hungary than the well-­rehearsed and socially committed cinema of the previous decades. New sensitivity acquired a critical agency by focusing on ‘existing socialism’, its non-­egalitarian public sphere, and deepening value crisis. To be more exact, it performed its disengagement with utopian socialism through featuring musicians, songs, lyrics, and stage acts which were invisible in state-­subsidized popular culture. When someone went to the concert of an underground band, s/he did not just make a choice for an evening of entertainment, one made a choice for life, a life with a high value for dissensus.

Special note This work was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, project number NN 112700, entitled Space-­ing Otherness. Cultural Images of Space, Contact Zones in Contemporary Hungarian and Romanian Cinema and Literature.

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Notes 1 In a round-­table discussion, László Beke originates the meanings of sensibility from an ideological vacuum: ‘the faith in cinema as a medium of creating something unique and, furthermore, the belief that we are the ones who will create it has altogether disappeared. What remains is sensibility’ (Szilágyi 1985b, 20). 2 Galloping Coroners (in Hungarian Vágtázó halottkémek) has been praised by Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra and Einstürzende Neubauten. 3 This technique first appeared in the music video of ‘Ashes to Ashes’, directed by David Mallet and David Bowie, the latter being a seminal influence on the Budapest underground music scene.

References Barabás, Klára. 1988. ‘A drog helyére beült a Szentlélek – Beszélgetés Xantius Jánossal’, Filmvilág 31.7, pp. 20–25. Csatári, Bence and Jávorszky, Béla Szilárd. 2016. ‘Omega: Red Star from Hungary’, in Ewa Mazierska (ed.), Popular Music in Eastern Europe. Breaking the Cold War Paradigm. Palgrave: London, pp. 149–169. Gelencsér, Gábor. 2002. A Titanic zenekara. Budapest: Osiris. Hegyi, Lóránd. 1983. Új szenzibilitás. Budapest: Magvető Kiadó. Klaniczay, Gábor. 2003. Ellenkultúra a hetvenes-­nyolcvanas években. Budapest: Noran Könyvkiadó. Kovács, András Bálint. 1983. ‘Ipari rituálé és nyelvi mítosz: Beszélgetés Bódy Gáborral.’, Filmvilág 26.6, pp. 10–13. Kovács, András Bálint. 2002. A film szerint a világ. Budapest: Palatinus. Pápai, Zsolt. 2009. ‘Mellérendelő kapcsolatok. Az intézményesülés kérdései és a nyílvánosság problematikája a magyar új érzékenység filmjeiben’, in. Gelencsér Gábor (ed.) BBS 50. A Balázs Béla Stúdió 50 éve. Budapest: Műcsarnok-Balázs Béla Stúdió, pp. 143–155. Péter, Jósvai. ‘Dog’s Night Song. Gabor Body – in the centre of gravitation.’ https:// bodygabor.hu/read/?id=124, accessed 15 June 2017. Peternák, Miklós. 2014. concept.hu/concept.hu. A konceptuális művészet hatása Magyarországon. The Influence of Conceptual Art in Hungary. [Bilingual edition]. Paks-Budapest: Paksi Képtár-C3 Alapítvány. Ranciere, Jacques. 2011. ‘The Thinking of Dissensus: Politics and Aesthetics’, in Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp (eds), Reading Ranciere. London: Continuum, pp. 1–17. Réti, Zsófia. 2016. ‘ “The Second Golden Age”: Popular Music Journalism during the Late Socialist Rea Of Hungary’, in Ewa Mazierska (ed.), Popular Music in Eastern Europe. Breaking the Cold War Paradigm. Palgrave: London, pp. 149–169.

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Seszták, Ágnes. 1988. ‘Hová vágtáznak a halottkémek? Beszélgetés dr. Grandpierre Attilával’, Mozgó világ 14.7, pp. 86–94. Szemere, Anna. 2001. Up from the Underground: The Culture of Rock Music in Postsocialist Hungary. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Szilágyi, Ákos. 1985. ‘Milarepaverzió. Kerekasztalbeszélgetés’, Filmvilág 27.7, pp. 18–27. Szilágyi, Ákos. 1985. ‘Az elmesélt én Az “új érzékenység” határai’, Filmvilág 27.7, pp. 27–29. Szőnyei, Tamás. 1992. Az új hullám évtizede 2. Budapest: Katalizátor Iroda. Varga, Balázs 2016. Filmrendszerváltások. Budapest: L’Harmattan.

7

Socialist Night Fever Yugoslav Disco on Film and Television Marko Zubak

I remember a party at my friend’s flat, an opera singer. Some 500 people showed up. It was winter. The hall was full, outside 100 more waiting. Some held the elevator doors and made their own party there. The police arrived and tried to bring order, but needed half an hour just to break through. Once inside, we had to make a runway so they could approach the owner. They took her information, but could not get outside for another hour. Boban Petrović, in: Pezo 1982: 65 This chapter deals with the visual legacy of the remarkable, yet ignored Yugoslav disco culture that thrived in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside more renowned punk and new wave scenes. While not always taken seriously, disco presents an important historical phenomenon with great cultural impact and range. The loaded concept includes several interrelated elements: the music genre which revolved around a four-­on-the-­floor beat; the specific space (discotheque) organized around the playback of recorded music; and the practice of dancing established therein (Lawrence 2006: 128). Born in the early 1970s in the gay clubs of underground New York, by the latter part of the decade disco became a commercial industry, increasingly despised by rock critics for its supposedly cheap, repetitive production values and shallow semantic arsenal. Stigma soon pervaded academia as well, and survived for over two decades. The genre was not rehabilitated before the new millennium, when scholars rediscovered disco’s progressive origins and then went on to reassess its more conventional manifestations (Lawrence 2003; Echols 2010). One aspect of disco still needs to be mapped though: the genre’s fascinating ability to spread beyond its homeland and be adopted in various settings.

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Yugoslav disco presents a case in point.1 Despite its acquired ‘capitalist’ reputation, disco in the late 1970s entered this unorthodox socialist state which prided itself for its specific self-­management brand of socialism with relatively open borders and increased lenience towards cultural market forces (Zubak 2016). Context proved certainly beneficial for the growth of rich Yugoslav pop-­rock culture whose strong Western imprint and developed infrastructure made sure that disco was warmly welcomed by the local media, music labels and disc jockeys. However, the existing overviews of Yugoslav popular music ignore its disco episode. To this day, for most aficionados of local pop music, Yugoslav disco is still something elusive, absent from the popular canon. If anything, the period is known for the emergence of another sound, that of punk and new wave, which pushed Yugoslav pop-­rock to its creative peak. At least that was the narrative created by the Yugoslav rock critics, who grew up with these scenes and helped to mythologize them (Glavan 1983: 15). Influenced by progressive Western music inkies like New Musical Express, they were sceptical towards disco as a whole, let alone to its Yugoslav version. Discovering Yugoslav disco required a change of perspectives. The label itself was invented only recently by a community of crate diggers who tried to classify the sound they came across when looking through discarded records in their search for forgotten dance floor gems to use in DJ sets. Unlike historical gatekeepers, they did not have any biases towards the genre. More importantly, they did not care for the typical categories used for so long in the treatment of Yugoslav pop culture. Their decade-­long endeavour cut across the usual boundaries between mainstream estrada (show business) and underground rock and documented disco’s traces across the whole Yugoslav musical spectrum (Zubak 2015). This ambivalent nature in particular makes Yugoslav disco a paradigmatic product of late socialism, embodying many features of the era. The present chapter takes up this understanding and treats Yugoslav disco as a complex phenomenon which cannot be reduced to the musical realm. Like its US archetype, Yugoslav disco developed a rich visual language that attached specific images, ambience and behaviour to the musical grooves. I will show how Yugoslav cinema and television helped articulate this fascinating imagery, revealing in the process complicated realities of the era. As they processed disco through late socialist filter, both introduced new aesthetical, media and pop-­cultural patterns with potential for transgressions and jeopardizing of social mores.

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Disco at the movies: visions of Travolta Throughout pop-­cultural history, film and television have exploited numerous musical genres. Only in the case of disco, however, the link proved formative, affecting its overall perception and evolution. Virtually every overview of the genre grants a special place to the story of Italian-American dancer Tony Manero, brilliantly portrayed by John Travolta. John Badham’s classic from 1977 is widely considered to be both a point when disco turned into mainstream, but also when its normalization began (Lawrence 2003). Backed by the pre-­released soundtrack packed with Bee Gees hits, Saturday Night Fever spurred disco’s global rise, turning it into a large-­scale business. At the same time, critics showed how the iconic film distorted disco’s early participatory ethos where escapism went along with empowerment of disenfranchised social groups. Saturday Night Fever, the argument goes, conveyed the hetero-­sexualized view of disco which prioritized glamorous interiors over inclusive communal experience and experimental sexual practices (Mankowski 2010: 46). And it was this schematic, exploitative mould of disco which crossed the East–West divide in the late 1970s, captivating Yugoslav audiences who for the most part remained unaware of the culture’s queer origins, yet welcomed its consumerist hedonism in a clear reflection of the country’s ongoing ideological disarray (Zubak 2018). It is hard to exaggerate the impact that Saturday Night Fever had on the Yugoslav disco boom. The new exciting beat had already entered local soundscape, but now there was a clear image to attach it to. Here, as in the rest of the world, Tony Manero and the Bee Gees remained the face and sound of disco culture, a clear blueprint against which its local variants could be measured. The screening itself was well prepared. Just like in the US, Belgrade’s PGP RTB record label pre-­released the licensed edition of the soundtrack prior to the premiere (Saturday Night Fever, 1978). And fans could read about the huge success of the movie which entered local theatres in the summer of 1978, charming Yugoslav masses in the same manner as it did in the rest of Europe. Only in Serbia, more than 300 000 people saw the film (Kinematografija 1980: 445). Over the next year, the media created an unprecedented hype which turned its protagonist into a new youth idol. ‘The Travoltization of the Balkans gives reasons to think’ – contemplated rock critic Petar Popović as the new star appeared on numerous covers of mainstream magazines which published Travolta’s biographies and interviews, blurring the line between the actor and his

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act (Popović 1978: 23). A few young film critics, on the other hand, rebutted claims that the movie amounted to a superficial exploitation of yet another music fad. Music magazine Džuboks praised its soundtrack, Travolta’s performance, and the film’s cut-­up editing that evoked the disco beat (Pajkić 1978: 67). Others wrote sociological profiles of the main hero and the generation he stood for, exploring issues of representation and legitimization of his life chances (Starčević 1978: 40). The unparalleled success of Saturday Night Fever prompted Yugoslav film distributors to include in their repertoire a range of similar movies that less ambitiously fed off disco ambience. Yugoslav audiences could soon watch a variety of disco films ranging from Thank God It’s Friday (1978) with Donna Summer to the Village People’s pseudo-­biography Can’t Stop the Music (1980). Blaxploitation Disco Godfather (1979) or skate romance Roller Boogie (1979) spread the culture through image as much as music. There were European examples as well like Ian Sharp’s Music Machine (1979) or Oscar Righini’s Disco Delirio (1979), promoted under the title Travoltiada, which became a synonym for increasingly popular dance contests.

Themes from the local dance floors Yugoslav cinema never produced its own disco flick, centred on disco milieu or individual dancers. The period, however, witnessed the influx of disco scenes in major feature films. By the late 1970s directors began using dance floor pragmatics to illuminate neuralgic points of the country’s social landscape. The trend preceded Saturday Night Fever in a clear testament that discotheques had existed in the country for a decade already.2 By all accounts 1977 proved to be the year of Yugoslav youth film with three coming-­of-age teenage dramas topping local box-­offices.3 Incidentally all three films positioned discotheques as an integral part of the urban youth experience, with scenes that likened dance floor with echoes of disco music. The first, Zoran Čalić’s Lude Godine (Foolish Years, 1977) was the inaugural part of the popular film series in which a didactic tone still prevailed over cheap comic relief that would soon overwhelm the franchise. Not by accident, this drama about adolescent sexuality starts off at the special disco programme designed for minors where the future couple meets for the first time. Behind the opening credits, we see Boba at the bar, introducing the discotheque as a place of

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pop-­cultural consumption and romantic excursions. Mesmerized by the girl at the podium, he carelessly pours bottles of local cola into the glass, at which point his friend asks him if he would pay in foreign currency. In the third sequel (Ljubi, ljubi, al’ glavu ne gubi / Love, Love, But Don’t Lose Your Head, 1981), the motive receives a generational twist. Now it is Boba’s father who is dancing silly at an open-­air terrace disco. Suffering from a midlife crisis, he flirts with German tourists and orders expensive drinks. Bahrudin Čengić’s social drama Pismo glava (Head or Tails, 1983) turns the pose into an unwritten rule as the barman in the disco mocks the customer who ordered domestic brandy, pointing out that they serve only whiskey. Regarding the dancing, the action in Foolish Years is lame at best with the old gender paradigm still in place. The partner of a girl who is the object of Boba’s attention reacts to his stares in an old-­fashioned sexist manner, by slapping her on the face. Gender dynamics shift significantly in the biggest blockbuster of the year, which featured one of the longest disco scenes of the Yugoslav cinema. Dejan Karaklajić’s Ljubavni život Budimira Trajkovića (Beloved Love, 1977) tells the story of a teenager whose father is a bridge builder and is thus forced to move from place to place, never having a chance to experience his first love until he settled in Belgrade. In search of romance, Budo hesitantly heads one evening to the discotheque. At the entrance, he meets his friend Zvone who, unlike him is on familiar terrain, knows the bouncer and provides him with a free entry into this mysterious world. Here Karaklajić codifies the discotheque as an emblem of contemporary urban life, unknown to a provincial kid like Budo. Hearing that he is from the countryside, the bouncer shouts a friendly warning: ‘Careful! No folk dances allowed!’ Indeed, there is nothing folkish in the dance that follows. After a close-­up of a disco ball, a mass of exuberant dancers appears on the screen. They are still teenagers, but the podium is now full of energy. Standard gender roles do not apply as the camera catches the king of the dance floor whose vibrant moves reveal a new sensibility. Dancing is individual and openly sexualized. The scene zeroes in on a young female body in motion, her hips glide sensually, covered in tight jeans. She dances alone, with closed eyes, almost in a trance. Deafening music builds up the atmosphere, but this all seems too loud and too dark for Budo. His provincial ears and eyes find this an inappropriate setting for the desired romantic affair. Zvonko tries to explain that a nightclub is not a place for love, but for a one-­night stand. In vain: on Budo’s insistence, the two friends move to the old-­style suburban dance hall. This narrative sequence is in clear

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contrast to the real historical progress where discotheques replaced such dance halls during the 1970s. Indeed, as if a whole decade has passed in a matter of seconds as all chaos and excitement suddenly disappear. Everything in the dance hall, from the neatly organized tables to the traditional dance in pairs, looks like it hails from some distant era.4 Historical order is restored again with Budo’s following visit to the disco. Now with a girlfriend, his confident dance suggests that he has learned the ways of the city. The same theme, albeit from a different angle is also explored in Goran Marković’s remarkable debut from the same year that looks at the shadier side of a socialist upbringing. For juvenile delinquents from his Specijalno Vaspitanje (Special Education, 1977), the discotheque is an embodiment of a modern and desirable, yet unattainable life: when one of the inmates receives a mysterious disco record, the youngsters steal a gramophone so they could turn their dormitory room into an improvized nightclub, with a DIY light-­show. In his second film Nacionalna klasa (National Class, 1979), Marković replaced the imaginary with the real-­life Belgrade discotheque Cepelin, frequented by the main hero Floyd. Played by Dragan Nikolić, Floyd is an aspiring, twenty-­ something rally driver whom early reviewers compared to some sort of local version of Tony Manero (Tirnanić 1979). Like Tony, Floyd lives on the outskirts of the city and does not care much for social rules. Charming and eloquent, he dreams of a better life with his only goal being to win the upcoming race. Marković graduated from FAMU as a member of the Prague film school of Yugoslav directors which came to prominence during the 1970s. Dropping the moralist overtone of the aforementioned youth films, Marković’s insider perspective reveals discotheque as the home of shady characters and petty crimes. On his way to the DJ booth, Floyd crosses paths with youths engaged in drug abuse. Later, he arranges there an exchange of urine with a kidney patient, in order to skip military service. Throughout the movie, Floyd’s machismo dominates the screen. In a faithful re-­enactment of Tony Manero’s antics, he waltzes through the discotheque, observing dancers preoccupied with communal bodily release. With just a touch of irony, the title song portrays him as an irresistible lady-­killer, a real-­life Travolta: ‘Who’s that cool cat, flirting with the chicks? Floyd! Floyd! Floyd! (He) lives crazy! He loves crazy! Who could resist this maniac?’ (Nacionalna klasa, 1979). But amidst all the testosterone, Floyd’s friend DJ Sinke, who runs the illicit drug transactions, is portrayed as gay,

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stripped of all feminine or humorous traits that typically accompanied gay film characters. With no particular knowledge of disco’s roots, Marković’s intention was to document the new urban social landscape, rather than provide a comment on the (sub)culture. Slovenian art-­house director Boštjan Hladnik made a more obvious step in appropriating disco’s queer ethos. Educated in Paris, Hladnik was influenced by the French New Wave and became a champion of modernistic film trends. In the 1970s he began making a name for himself as the king of Yugoslav sexploitation, inclined to provoke, among others with extensive use of gay themes. While inferior to his earlier masterpiece Maškerada (Masquerade, 1971), his campy black comedy Ubij me nežno (Kill Me Gently, 1979) had enough shock value to confirm this reputation. The film’s extravagant setting and phantasmagorical storyline set it aside from the typical visions of Yugoslav cinema. The line between reality and fantasy disappears as a series of murders occurs in a coastal Mediterranean villa, inhabited by Aunty, an elderly female translator of trash literature. Deliberately naive scenery contributes to the surreal atmosphere which parodies pulp conventions in a decadent pastiche of numerous films and cinematographic references (Štefančič 2008, 54–55). In one of the fantastic bizarre scenes from the translator’s imagination, Hladnik stages a full-­scale group disco scene from Saturday Night Fever. Next to a life-­size poster of Travolta that hangs on the wall, Aunty takes up his role in the dance formation. She offers her version of Tony Manero’s hustle as English disco tune adds to the overall ectopic feel of the moment. ‘This is good disco!’ – exclaims one of the many motorcyclists who joined her in a collective frenzy on the hall staircase. Their suggestive moves in leather biker suits enabled Hladnik to create gay choreography and subversively co-­opt disco’s origins. Interestingly, the thread that runs through much of the local criticism of the genre, namely disco’s juxtaposition to other, more acclaimed music genres is underrepresented in Yugoslav cinema. An unlikely contribution was made by Slobodan Šijan in his youth TV drama Kost od Mamuta (Mammoth Bone, 1979), which follows a high-­school dropout who tries to make it in the music business with his older friend, played by prominent singer songwriter Đorđe Balašević. In a memorable scene, the two attempt to refresh their out-­dated act with a couple of female disco dancers, but eventually stick to the acoustic guitars, only to be overwhelmed by the upcoming punks.

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Sound from the local dance floors The review above was purposely limited to the dance floor scenes with appropriate musical background.5 Snippets of dance film action were usually backed by instrumentals that might not deliver in New York’s Loft or Sanctuary, but exhibited strong disco-­funk influences. Moreover, in most cases, the music came from speakers, supposedly spun by disc-­jockeys, rather than being played live. Tracking down their authors amounts to a short who’s who of Yugoslav film music and shows a wide spectrum of artists from different backgrounds who explored the genre and were, in turn, affected by it. Acclaimed Yugoslav film composers, such as Bojan Adamič and Janez Gregorc, tapped into dance floor music, creating soundtracks coloured with catchy 4x4 beat (Heads or Tails; Kill Me Gently). Not all such tracks involved dancing. Alfi Kabiljo’s intro for Fadil Hadžić’s drama Novinar (Journalist, 1979) remained stripped of the suitable context.6 But there were many others, written specifically with dance podium in mind. Prog-­rock keyboard champ and the leader of Korni grupa, Kornelije Kovač, was a prolific film composer in his own right (Ovozemaljski raj, 2017). In the two dance scenes from Foolish Years series, he offered his personal take on a proto disco-­funk sound, with a hum of electronic synth. In terms of their dance floor appeal, both tracks, however, leave something to be desired, matching the subdued dancing seen on the screen. In the club context, Milivoje Marković’s background score for Budimir’s discotheque in Beloved Love was more convincing. Its author was a renowned jazz saxophone player who composed a number of groovy action film scores. His famous theme from World War II TV series Otpisani (Written Off, 1974) had nothing to do with dancing, yet clearly echoed Philly sound of Isaac Hayes whose licensed records were issued by PGP RTB where M. Marković worked as the editor. One other American disco pioneer made a more conspicuous screen appearance, if in name only. The Yugoslav edition of Van McCoy’s seminal album Disco Baby came out in the same year as the American original. The attractive cover of his following LP The Real McCoy made juvenile delinquents from Special Education refurbish their room into a nightclub. In the actual scene, however, Van McCoy’s track had to be replaced with the sound-­alike since the production crew lacked copyrights. Zoran Simjanović, another A-list film composer, supplied a credible surrogate, arguably closest to the desired disco vibe, a feat he would later repeat with dance instrumentals in Šta je s tobom, Nina

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(What’s Up, Nina, 1984) and Maturanti (Graduates, 1984). Back in the 1960s, Simjanović played in the band Elipse whose rhythm ’n’ blues gig from the title sequence of The Naughty Ones remains the first celluloid document of local club culture. The experience made a profound impact on Simjanović. After completing music studies, he revamped his music career and specialized in writing production scores, from TV commercials to theatre music (Simjanović 2015; Vasiljević 2016). Following Special Education, Simjanović rejoined G. Marković on his second project, creating arguably the funkiest soundtrack of Yugoslav cinema. Marković’s simple guidelines merely asked for a modern score, preferably with a few potential hits. Yet, inspired by Donna Summer’s I Feel love, Simjanović decided to cut half of the tracks in disco beat. He made sure that performers included the likes of Oliver Mandić and Slađana Milošević with the proven appetite for dance grooves. All tracks were recorded in PGP RTB studio with the help of a well-­rehearsed horn section which practiced at the time with a group of American musicians and helped violinists to master the groovy riffs. In a strategic move that evoked promotion of Saturday Night Fever, the soundtrack for National Class was issued on vinyl ahead of its premiere, becoming one of the first LPs of its kind. Unfortunately, in too small circulation to make a huge immediate impact, especially since Dado Topić who sang the title hit track was not too keen to promote the film since he released his own album around the same time. Nevertheless, its funky tune and witty lyrics made Floyd over time a Yu discofunk standard, recognized as such long before crate diggers rediscovered the genre.

Disco on the small screen At the height of disco fever, Belgrade’s Jovan Ristić directed musical documentary Pjevam danju, pjevam noću, (I Sing All Night, I Sing All Day, 1981) in an obvious response to Abba: The Movie (1979) and its bread of disco schlager. Centred on the biggest Yugoslav pop-­star of the era, Zdravko Čolić, the film tackled similar questions of fame and fan culture. And, like its inspiration, it merged interviews with footage from Čolić’s big concert tour. In the best scenes Ristić captures Čolić waltzing on the stage, reminding the viewers that his popularity had a lot to do with the dance grooves that pervaded his mainstream repertoire. Indeed, if Floyd was Travolta’s celluloid substitute, Čolić was his

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estrada avatar. But despite this cinematographic interlude, the medium that visualized estrada’s love affair with disco was television, not film. And Ristić himself was among those responsible for televising the genre. His diverse track record conveys eclecticism typical of Yugoslav disco, with credits stretching from the first local rock’n’roll TV programme Koncert za ludi mladi svet (Concert for Crazy Young World, 1967–69) to a number of variety entertainment shows (Perić 2017). At the time when pop singers were jumping on the disco bandwagon, TV directors like Ristić or Zagreb’s Anton Marti made use of the culture’s kitschy dress codes and obsession with dance. Glamorized studio interiors with snazzy light effects provided stars like Čolić with the fitting context to showcase their dance moves and flamboyant outfits. One such sequence even made it into Ristić’s documentary. Originally a segment from his Sedam plus Sedam (Seven plus Seven, 1978) show, it featured Čolić in the studio dressed in a silver overall as he delivers an English disco tune which he recorded in an unsuccessful attempt to conquer the Western market under the ill-­conceived alias Dravco (‘I’m Not a Robot Man,’ 1978). He is accompanied in the studio by the same female dance troupe Lokice that joined him on his nationwide tour. Named after their founder and Yugoslav free-­style prima donna Lokica Stefanović, Lokice became a recognizable TV face of the Yugoslav dance craze. Together with other troupes that followed their example they introduced choreographed dance acts as regular components of televised pop performances. From studios to broadcast music festivals, singers could be seen dancing as they probed the line between sexual objectification and empowerment. On special occasions euro-­disco stars like Raffaella Carrà made guest appearances. German sensation Boney M performed on a Zagreb TV show as early as 1977, a whole year before the group included five concerts across the country on their ground-­breaking Eastern European tour (Svjetla pozornice, Limelight, 1977). Unlike seasoned TV professionals who fitted disco’s inventory within the established television codes, a group of young Belgrade TV directors moved away from typical patterns in the early 1980s. They took advantage of the more liberal climate that ensued after Tito’s death, allowing for creative ideas to pervade cultural television programmes. Music productions in particular enabled them to explore innovative approaches to the medium and set new standards of visual entertainment. Not all were disco related. Branimir Dimitrijević and Boris Miljković aestheticized the new wave scene with their famed TV weekly show, Rokenroler.

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Closer to the genre came Stanko Crnobrnja’s Beograd noću (Belgrade at Night, 1981), though it would be a stretch to label it as a pure product of disco culture. This hour-­long TV musical used Oliver Mandić’s early discoish tunes to create a Bowie-­inspired futuristic tale whose rich visuals anticipated contemporary aesthetics of modern video-­clips. Each frame in this highly stylized studio production was carefully prepared, and showcased a modern understanding of the medium. Surreal painter Kosta Bunuševac provided glitzy costume designs that featured Mandić cross-­dressed as an attractive female, with no humorous end. Everything else was quite naive and acceptable, but Mandić’s sophisticated camp act caused a big public outrage. Scandal dragged for months until the production was awarded at the Rose d’Or at the Montreux TV festival (Miličević 1981: 27). Acclaimed international prize granted the show the needed legitimization and silenced the controversy that at one point threatened their authors with legal action.

Boban Petrović’s TV Party Following the success of Belgrade at Night, music TV specials based on a single artist were not a novelty anymore, and one of these turned out to be the finest Yugoslav TV disco product. Centred on the quintessential Yugoslav disco album, Žur Bobana Petrovića (Belgrade Petrović’s Party, 1983) showed a raunchier side of local disco, away from the sanitized estrada interpretations. Born in Belgrade in 1953, Boban Petrović, like many of the early Yugoslav disc jockeys, ran a number of discotheques throughout the 1970s, earning a reputation for organizing wild parties across the city. Drawing from his Western experiences, he acquired a taste for the Afro-American grooves of the likes of Curtis Mayfield and Sly Stone. In the mid-1970s, with his band Zdravo he began to play his own version of disco-­funk, which, despite rock roots, differed from the new wave contemporaries – not least due to the attractive back vocals by three Zairian girls, daughters of the country’s ambassador to Yugoslavia. For Petrović, music was not some virtuous artistic or intellectual pursuit (Vukčević 2009). His message was more straightforward: stir positive emotions and invite people to dance (‘Disko je prava stvar’, 1977). Petrović brought this escapist poetics to its extreme in his solo LP Žur (The Party, 1983) whose recording presented a business enterprise in itself. With money earned from the clubs, he produced part of the record in New York where he employed session musicians

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to create the desirable disco sound. Released in a relatively small circulation, the album was praised for its audio quality, yet received limited radio time and mild reviews. Expressing widespread distrust to disco, Džuboks magazine called it a subpar, generic record, unable to raise standards of the genre (Trbojević 1981: 55). Seeking other means of promotion, Petrović turned to television. His songs already provided the background for the party scene in the film Nedeljni ručak (Sunday Lunch, 1982), directed by Milan Jelić who scripted disco scenes in Beloved Love and Graduates. A planned special would extend this insight to over 20 minutes and visualize a vivid night outing of the Belgrade’s golden youth. While essentially a string of video clips glued together by a loose narrative, Boban Petrović’s Party provided a perfect proxy for the missing yu-­disco feature. Its director, Mihajlo Vukobratović, was another young protégé of the Belgrade TV with a few interesting projects behind him, such as the broadcast of the Classix Nouveaux concert. With the small crew he made the most of Petrović’s reputation and staged a party in a rented villa, opening its doors for the occasion. Each of the four nights while the shooting lasted, hundreds of people showed up. Among them, only a few came with purpose and a defined role. All others were Boban’s friends who responded to his invitation and acted accordingly. ‘The party was real and always lasted more than the shooting. Most of those who came were poorly paid, but we supplied them with whiskey and chocolate’ – Boban recollected (Pezo 1982: 65). The crowd that gathered proved uncontrollable, and did not allow for careful framing. In the reverse of Mandić extravaganza, semi-­documentary footage had to be shot first, and used afterwards to create a story. Aside from a few staged scenes, the camera spontaneously recorded complex party dynamics under technically challenging lighting. This created darkened, almost voyeuristic ambience where youths merged sensation and sociality to form lascivious community on the villa’s dance floor. The album songs, in turn, secured enough subtext for a loose plot set around the love triangle: Petrović, a reputed ladies man, is torn between his girlfriend and a new bombshell he just invited to the party ‘where she would become an easy catch’.7 His everyday lyrics stripped of rhyme spoke of passion that ends in sexual encounters. As the atmosphere heats up, provocative images of mischief and nudity revisited themes of decadency that were often used in attacks against disco by its ‘progressive’ new wave adversaries. Petrović, however, saw it differently, and happily elaborated a philosophy he built around the party. Whereas crowds at rock concerts passively focus on performers, the party is democratic as it allows everyone to actively

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create their own enjoyment. Pending the screening, Petrović announced plans to start organizing massive parties in concert halls as the new form of nightclubbing, empowering for those involved (Pezo 1982). Problems with editing caused delays and pushed the timetable until the show was eventually scheduled for the New Year’s Eve of 1983. A week before, the final edit was pre-­screened for the editors, who left the room shocked by what they had seen. The schizophrenic cultural landscape confronted them with a dilemma. In fear of potential scandal, they considered cancelling the screening altogether. Yet they were equally afraid of being labelled as censors if the word spread that they had called it off. Especially since Boban ensured that the show drew strong media interest beforehand (‘Poziv na Žur’ 1980: 12). Eventually, a compromise was reached: the programme moved from prime time to 3.30 am, when people would presumably be asleep or under some kind of influence, reducing the chances of negative reactions. Indeed, broadcast in the early hours of the morning, the show was seen by only a few people. And there were no reruns, despite this being a standard for late night New Year’s shows. Consequently, Boban Petrović’s Party remained forgotten for over two decades, emulating the wider story of Yugoslav disco – The Belgrade TV Archives even lost the original tape. An unlikely after-­life, however, preserved this key visual document of Yugoslav disco to this day. Its only surviving copy was broadcast on Swedish television, which bought the programme at MIDEM Fest in Cannes and showed it as part of its Fönster mot TV-Världen (Windows to the World) programme. The baffled announcement of the host Åke Wihlney proved he was not acquainted with the ongoing late-­socialist debauchery: ‘I did not expect such a thing from Yugoslav television’ (Žur, 2008).

Conclusion In the late 1970s and early 1980s, disco beat, dancing and club ambience found their way into diverse Yugoslav film and TV productions from blockbuster features and prime time shows to experimental films and late-­night New Year specials. The readiness with which they greeted disco’s escapism that had so little in common with traditional socialist ideals illustrates the transformation through which Yugoslav society went through since the arrival of local rock’n’roll, two decades earlier. Channels of pop-­cultural transfer multiplied in the meantime and drastically reduced the time gap required for the Western impulses to

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receive their Yugoslav ‘echo’: just nine months passed between the New York and Yugoslav premiere of Saturday Night Fever. Dance film scenes, in turn, allowed film directors to document the emergent urban scenery and comment on the controversies of the day, from the urban– rural divide and mounting consumerism to the black economy and sexual transgressions. The latter in particular supplied them with a favourite theme, enabling more liberal views. Machismo was almost palpable, yet individual actors managed to question gender norms, (un)consciously revisiting the culture’s origins. Disco’s impact proved even greater on the small screen, helping to change the medium. Estrada’s take on disco conveyed the scope of decadence which engulfed prime time televised entertainment. Smaller musical productions, on the other hand, used the genre to develop innovative visual language that pushed the boundaries of the medium. As a whole, disco’s visual traces, just like its music core, were ambivalent and eclectic in terms of their authors as well as the content. A range of different actors, from pop stars to jazz virtuosos helped visualize the disco beat. Directors who shot dance scenes easily switched between mainstream and innovative productions, while the youths seen on the dance floors were stylistically undefined, with fluid identities impossible to subsume under a single subcultural code. In this way, disco embodied complicated entities of the whole late socialist era that go beyond the Cold War dichotomies of oppression and dissent. Pointing to the vast grey areas in between, they help to reframe existing discussions on socialist popular culture.

Notes 1 This chapter builds upon my existing research on Yugoslav disco, so far exhibited as a gallery project in Zagreb and Belgrade. A number of film directors, composers, singers, dancers, DJs, scholars and journalists shared with me their experiences and testimonies which contributed to this text. These include (in alphabetical order): Jovan Bačkulja, Dragan Batančev, Goran Marković, Boban Petrović, Zoran Simjanović and Lokica Stefanović. In addition, the writing of this chapter was helped by the Croatian Science Foundation’s project ‘Croatia in the 20th century: Modernization in the context of pluralism and monism’. 2 First club dance scenes with rhythm and blues music appeared in Yugoslav cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s with films such as Vojislav Rakonjac’s Nemirni (The Naughty Ones, 1967) and Pre istine (Before the Truth, 1968) or Vuk Vučo’s Moja Luda Glava (My Crazy Head, 1971).

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3 Great overview of the recurring themes, directors and approaches in Serbian and Yugoslav youth film is available in Vojnov (2009). 4 Two years earlier, Bogdan Žižić’ feature Kuća (The House, 1975) about widespread corruption anticipated the theme in a scene where an elderly business manager visits discotheque for the first time and, unlike his much younger wife, is puzzled by the loud noise and individual dancing displayed before him. 5 To this end, this analysis excluded a number of existing club film scenes with punk and new wave music which warrant a separate discussion. 6 See the seminal study of key Croatian film composers, including Alfi Kabiljo or Tomislav Simović who wrote the dance floor music for The House, by Paulus (2002). 7 This sole external scene was ‘pre-­rehearsed’ during the pre-­production when Boban persuaded a girl he had just met to come to his apartment and take off her clothes to prove that she would be fitting for the role in the show.

References Echols, Alice. 2010. Hot Stuff. Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. New York: Norton and Company. Glavan, Darko. 1983. ‘Na koncertu lekcije iz sociologije’, in David Albahari (ed.), Drugom stranom: Almanah novog talasa u SFRJ. Beograd: IIC SSO Srbije, pp. 15–19. Kinematografija u Srbiji – Uporedno SFRJ 1978. Beograd: Institut za film, 1980. Lawrence, Tim. 2003. Love Saves the Day: A History of American Music Culture, 1970– 1979. Durham, NC and London: Duke. Lawrence, Tim. 2006. ‘In Defense of Disco (Again)’, New Formations 58: 128–146. Mankowski, Diana L. 2010. Gendering the Disco Inferno. Sexual Revolution, Liberation and Popular Culture in the 1970s America. University of Michigan: PhD thesis. Miličević, Predrag. 1991. ‘Neki su se zatrčali’, Radio TV revija 742, 15 May. Pajkić, Nebojša. 1978. ‘Groznica subotom uveče’, Džuboks 51. Paulus, Irena. 2002. Glazba s ekrana: hrvatska filmska glazba od 1942. do 1990. Zagreb: Hrvatski filmski savez. Perić, Marko. 2017. Koncert za ludi, mladi svet. Beograd: RTV Srbije. Pezo, Zoran. 1982. ‘Ružičasta žurka Bobana Petrovića’, Start 362. December 4. Popović, Petar. 1978. ‘Ni crno ni belo’, Zdravo 61, 4 September. ‘Poziv na Žur’, 1982. TV Novosti 935, 26 November. Simjanović, Zoran. 1996. Primenjena muzika. Beograd: Bikić kompanija. Starčević, Ivan. 1978. ‘Ne tupi Travoltu’, Start 251, 6–20 September. Štefančić, Marcel, jr. 2008. Maškarada. Strađne fantazije slovenskega filma: 1948–1990. Ljubljana: UMco. Tirnanić, Bogdan. 1979. ‘Sve je plaćeno’, Nin 1476, 22 April.

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Trbojević, Slobodan. 1981. ‘Boban Petrović: Žur’, Džuboks 128, 20 November. Vasiljević, Maja. 2016. Filmska muzika u SFRJ. Između politike i poetike. Beograd: HERAedu. Vojnov, Dimitrije. 2009. ‘Dani Mladosti’, TFT: teatar, film, televizija, 4: 47–57. Vukčević, Predrag. 2009. ‘Boban Petrović. Žur’, www.popboks.com/article/7019 Zubak, Marko. 2015. Ostati živ. Socijalistička disko kultura / Stayin’ Alive. Socialist Disco Culture. Zagreb: 2015. Zubak, Marko. 2016, ‘The Birth of Socialist Disc Jockey: Between Music Guru, DIY Ethos and Market Socialism’, in Ewa Mazierska (ed.), Popular Music in Eastern Europe: Breaking the Cold War Paradigm. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 195–214. Zubak, Marko. 2018, ‘Yugoslav Disco: The Culture of Late Socialism’, in Danijela ŠpirićBeard and Ljerka Rasmussen (eds.) Made in Yugoslavia: Studies in Popular Music, pp. 000.

Discography Dravco. ‘Light Me’ / ‘I’m Not a Robot Man.’ Atlantic ATL 11 194, 1978, 45rpm. Kabiljo, Alfi. Velike filmske teme. Jugoton ULS-1047, 1983, 33⅓ rpm. Kovač, Kornelije. Ovozemaljski raj. Croatia Records 2CD 6074181, 2017, 2×CD. Petrović, Boban. Žur. ZKP RTVL LD 0722, 1981, 33⅓ rpm. Petrović, Boban. Žur. Mascom Records MCR CD O88 , 2008, CD. Simjanović, Zoran. Radio i TV Trezor Zorana Simjanovića. Multimedia Music CD 038, 2015, 13×CD. Various. Saturday Night Fever (The Original Movie Sound Track). PGP RTB 2LP 5921/5922, 1978, 33⅓ rpm. Various. Originalna muzika iz filma Nacionalna klasa. PGP RTB LP 55–5343, 1979, 33⅓ rpm. Zdravo. ‘Disko je prava stvar’, PGP RTB S 51787, 1977, 45rpm.

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Disco Polo and Techno According to Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz Ewa Mazierska

This chapter discusses two documentary films directed by Maria ZmarzKoczanowicz about dance music popular in postcommunist Poland, Bara bara (Hanky Panky, 1996), concerning disco polo and Miłość do płyty winylowej (Love for a Vinyl Record, 2002) about techno. My argument is that, by comparing the producers, fans and textual characteristics of these two genres and referring implicitly to a romantic ideal of music, Zmarz-Koczanowicz construes disco polo as a lower genre than techno. Before I move to the films, I will introduce briefly the history of music documentaries in Poland and the director.

Music documentaries in Poland Poland, being the largest satellite state of the Soviet Union, was also the largest producer of fiction and documentary films in this region and it has a sizeable number of documentary films concerning popular music, most importantly pop rock. However, up to the 1980s, their proportion was relatively low and they rarely offered a deeper insight into popular music (Pławuszewski 2015), which can be seen as a reflection of the specific bias of Polish documentary cinema, which regarded high art as a worthier subject of filmmaker’s investigation than popular culture. Initially, the films were reports from large music events, in several minutes trying to introduce the artists and their audience and comment on the new fashion of ‘big-­beat’, often in a patronizing manner, complaining about the unoriginal character of the music and their uncritical fans (ibid., 105–109). With the passage of time, the offer increased, to also include portrayals of the artists and experimental films. The breakthrough was Sukces (Success, 1968) by Marek Piwowski, one of the most original Polish filmmakers, about

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Czesław Niemen, who by this point was the greatest star of Polish popular music. The film, despite not using any voice-­over, proved that a documentary film can be an artistic endeavour made from a distinct authorial perspective, on this occasion marked by an ironic attitude to the represented artist, who wants to be seen as an autonomous, authentic artist indifferent to the entrapments of fame, but comes across as conceited and somewhat lacking in intelligence (Mazierska 2016, 18–20). The next decade brought more documentary films about music, but a true explosion of music documentaries took place in the 1980s, when Polish rock enjoyed a period of renaissance and the government encouraged filmmakers to make popular films (Hučkova 2015: 405). Some films such as Koncert (Concert, 1982) by Michał Tarkowski and Fala (Wave, 1985), directed by Piotr Łazarkiewicz, were even full-­length, to allow them to be presented in the cinema not as an addition to the main feature, but as the main feature. It is in this period that pop-­ rock started to be seen in Poland as a lens through which to examine some wider cultural, social and political phenomena. The trajectory of Polish music documentary is not very different from that in the United States or the UK, as until the 1970s filmmakers usually limited themselves to shooting live events. As Robert Edgar, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs and Benjamin Halligan argue, on such occasions ‘the camera engaged in reportage, the musicians primarily engaged in the live delivery of their music’ (Edgar, Fairclough-Isaacs and Halligan 2013: 3). Against this background, Success can be seen as a pioneering film not only in the Polish or Eastern European context, but globally as well. Similarly, Polish music documentaries of the 1980s not only followed in the footsteps of films such as Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock (1970), but can be seen as an attempt to create its own version of the music documentary as a political film. In her films about music Zmarz-Koczanowicz combines two models – one proposed by Piwowski and one developed in the 1980s by directors such as Tarkowski and Łazarkiewicz.

Zmarz-Koczanowicz: a liberal ironist Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz (b. 1954) is one of the most renowned documentary filmmakers in Poland. She started her career in the 1980s and continues making films to this day. In the booklet, accompanying the DVD box set of her films we

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find an essay, written by Tadeusz Sobolewski entitled ‘A Liberal Ironist’. It is difficult to find a label better describing the art of this director. The term harks back to a strand in contemporary philosophy associated with Richard Rorty and I argue that the two pillars of his philosophy are also present in ZmarzKoczanowicz’s films. One is liberalism with its edification of the idea of freedom, which typically includes freedom of speech, the press, religion, as well as the free market. These ideas were opposed (at least in official discourses) in Poland of state socialism, hence her films from this period are critical of the system. The second pillar is ‘ironism’, understood as a conviction about the contingency of meaning. For the ironist there are no absolute truths and his/her goal is to demonstrate the provisional character of human judgements. In the case of Zmarz-Koczanowicz this takes the form of making her interviewees contradict each other or revealing the unsuitability of certain texts or pronouncements to their contexts. From this perspective Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s cinema follows in the footsteps of the previously mentioned Piwowski and Wojciech Wiszniewski. All these directors avoid any off-­screen commentary, allowing the world to reveal its absurdity, even if this happens thanks to careful editing of words and images. Although there is common ground between socialism and liberalism, there is also a tension between these two positions. Socialists reject the free market and are not ironists or at least do not stop at irony, but argue about the rightness of their ideological position: that of socialism. They regard the freedoms so precious for liberals of little value, if they do not go in hand with introducing economic equality and abolishing alienation of labour: they are just luxuries which higher classes can enjoy to render their social domination complete rather than obstructed by any old ideology, such as religion or patriarchy. Moreover, liberals tend to be individualists; they do not like crowds and what is known as crowd mentality, whereas socialists cherish communal spirit. Not surprisingly, Sobolewski positions Zmarz-Koczanowicz not only as a postcommunist, but also post-Solidarity filmmaker, because Solidarity slogans and values of solidarity and communality do not appeal to the director. Indeed, her films from the 1980s, such as Każdy wie, kto za kim stoi (Everyone Knows Who Stands Behind Whom, 1983) criticize the herd mentality, bred by the system of state socialism (Sobolewski). Similarly, her films made after the collapse of state socialism, such as Kocham Polskę (I Love Poland, 2008), criticize nationalism and promote individualism, frequently through focusing on stories of famous artists and dissidents who are, inevitably, seen by the directors as individuals or members of

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an exclusive club, as in Jerzy Grotowski. Próba portretu (Jerzy Grotowski: An Attempt at the Portrait, 1999), about an eminent Polish theatre director or Profesor. O Leszku Kołakowskim (Professor: About Leszek Kołakowski, 2005). By and large, Zmarz-Koczanowicz feels more in tune with individuals belonging to the cultural elite than with the (less educated) masses. This might be one reason why music plays an important role in her films, as it is a subtle, yet effective way to convey opinions, values and lifestyles. By presenting in a certain way producers and fans of specific music genres, Zmarz-Koczanowicz criticizes or advocates more general ideological positions, avoiding a heavy-­handedness of overtly political films. It shall be mentioned that a large proportion of ZmarzKoczanowicz’s films were produced by the Polish state television at the time when the government was dominated by Platforma Obywatelska (the Civic Platform), a party with a strong neoliberal and pro-European programme, as well as a distinct bias against the province and what is captured in English as ‘plebs’: uneducated masses. When the Civic Platform lost the election in 2015, giving way to more Euro-­sceptic and less liberal Prawo i Sprawainto (Law and Justice), Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s ceased her cooperation with this institution, widely seen as reflecting the programme of Law and Justice.

Hanky Panky: consumer as king Hanky Panky examines the phenomenon of disco polo, which started in the late 1980s and peaked in the second half of the 1990s, around the time ZmarzKoczanowicz made her film. It is a type of dance music, consisting of songs of standard length with lyrics written in Polish and melodies influenced by Italo disco and Polish folk. Disco polo music was also initially a folk music due to its textual characteristics and reception. It drew on interwar songs, played by street bands and was performed during country events, such as weddings, picnics and festivals by artists who had no record deals and gained fame solely thanks to live performance rather than being promoted in the media (Filar 2014; Borys 2015). As its popularity grew, however, it also became appreciated by people living in the cities. The main representatives of this genre are Bayer Full, Boys, Fanatic, Milano and Shazza, all achieving the height of their fame in the 1990s. Symbolic from this perspective is a concert given by the disco polo stars in the Congress Hall of the Polish Palace of Culture in Warsaw in 1992 (Borys 2015). The popularity of disco polo in this period is also reflected in its rendering in two

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Polish fiction films: Kochaj i rób co chcesz (Love and Do What You Want, 1997) by Robert Gliński about a fictitious star of this genre and in Disco Polo (2015) by Maciej Bochniak, which, although made 20 years later, also concerns the 1990s. Although a Polish genre, disco polo shares similarities with pop-­folk music produced elsewhere in Eastern Europe, such as turbofolk in the Balkans and the mulatós in Hungary. The growing popularity of disco polo led to a backlash from the metropolitan elites. Symptomatic of this perspective is an article, published in 1996, by the eminent film critic Tadeusz Sobolewski, the same Sobolewski who praised Zmarz-Koczanowicz for her liberal ironist credentials and inspired by her revealing to him that she started her work on what became Hanky Panky. In this article, entitled ‘Empty Beach’, disco polo is presented as a symbol of the malaise of Polish culture and society post-1989. The author presents it as a form of entertainment which contaminated and displaced a dissident culture of artists such as Wajda, Kieślowski and Zanussi, who during state socialism offered both a utopian moment and a deeper engagement with reality (Sobolewski 1996: 5).1 Sobolewski’s fear of contamination, which evokes Adorno’s critique of mass culture, appears even stronger than that of emptiness. This is, in my view, due to the fact that contamination of the ‘popular high culture’ with a disco polo brings also a risk of displacing and rendering obsolete the old-­style cultural critic (like Sobolewski) as a gate-­keeper to the arcane knowledge of what is true and great. Predictably, although this article is ostensibly devoted to disco polo, the author writes almost nothing about this music as a specific genre. For Sobolewski the songs and stars of disco polo are interchangeable, in the same way jazz compositions and jazz musicians were interchangeable for Adorno. Implicitly, in his article, Sobolewski edifies values such as a desire for self-­ expression (rather than satisfying a consumer) and criticism of social reality, which can be regarded as anti-­capitalist. By the same token, he reveals an interesting paradox pertaining to this genre, which was subsequently picked up by other researchers. On the one hand, in the 1990s disco polo was associated with the Polish province, populated by uneducated masses of the ‘homo sovieticus’ type, unable and unwilling to adjust to the new reality of parliamentary democracy and market economy. On the other hand, it was a genre capturing the new entrepreneurial spirit released by the fall of state socialism or even the early attempts of neoliberalization of the Polish economy in the 1980s (Borys 2015). The trajectory of people involved in disco polo industry, from recording music in their bedrooms or garages to making music in professionally equipped studios

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and from trading cassettes at bazaars on foldable stalls2 to selling them wholesale can even be regarded as an enactment of the ‘American dream’ moved to a postcommunist Polish context. However, fulfilling the ‘American dream’ of full neoliberalization was not an objective of the Polish cultural elites who opposed state socialism in the 1970s and 1980s, and whose voice Sobolewski represented. Their ideal was to have full freedom of expression combined with promotion of and protection of high culture by the state. The hostility to disco polo in part resulted from the challenge it posed to this ideal and programme. ZmarzKoczanowicz’s film, in my view, reflects this anxiety. Hanky Panky is one of the longest films in Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s career, lasting 65 minutes and consisting of interviews with leading representatives of disco polo industry, fragments of their performances, as well as presenting spaces where this genre is produced and consumed. One of the interviewees is Sławomir Skręta, who set up the record studio Blue Star, the first to specialize in producing cassettes and CDs with this music. He is also credited with inventing this term in 1993 (Filar 2014). Two other principal interviewees are Sławomir Świerzyński, leader of the band Bayer Full and Marlena Magdalena Pańkowska, performing under the artistic pseudonym Shazza. Throughout the film disco polo is presented as a lucrative business. Skręta explains the rationale for setting up Blue Star in terms of filling a gap in the market, rather than promoting music which he particularly enjoys and neither of the performers mentions their attachment to this music. Its importance is explained by its value to their fans rather than the artists themselves. The musicians talk with pride about the letters which they receive from their fans, including children, who confess that disco polo accompanied them in happy moments, for example when an unemployed father got a job or a sick relative recovered from illness. We also learn that prisoners tend to be disco polo fans. In particular, Wolność (Freedom) by Boys is presented as an absolute favourite of the radio station in the Białołęka prison.3 We also see a secretary working in Blue Star, negotiating a deal with a customer, wanting to book a band for a wedding. The discussion can be compared to that negotiating the sale of any other commodity. The artists, most importantly Shazza and Świerzyński, reveal how making disco polo music saved them from performing more mundane jobs, such as in the case of Shazza entering data onto a computer, and Świerzyński working as a gardener in the United States, cutting grass in the houses of rich people. It is not mentioned that Pańkowska and Świerzyński have musical education to college level. A disco polo musician thus comes across not as an

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autonomous artist or a professional with high capital, but as an amateur, who makes up for deficiencies in his or talent and education with his smartness. This happens by following certain well-­established recipes for success, such as projecting an image of success irrespective of one’s actual situation, rather than creating one’s own unique path to attainment. This point is reinforced by the film’s mise-­en-scene. The camera focuses on images of success achieved by the people linked to disco polo. On numerous occasions we see a villa where Blue Star studio is located and the background of one of the interviews is most likely a car showroom, with several expensive cars behind the back of the interviewee. Zmarz-Koczanowicz also suggests that money generated by disco polo is of a nouveau riche type. This point is most conspicuously made by showing in close-­up garden ornaments in front of Blue Star studio, which include clay gnomes, traditionally associated with bad taste and large clay dogs which can be seen as bad taste multiplied. By contrast, there are no images showing disco polo artists in their private, domestic space, which might soften their image as shrewd entrepreneurs. Producing disco polo music comes across in Hanky Panky as a Fordist production: it consists of filling the same formula. As Świerzyński explains in the film, musically disco polo is based on polka, with an emphasis on ‘snare drum and pedals’ and ‘janizary clinking and clanking’. Lyrically, the songs draw on the uhlan (Polish light cavalry) imagery and evoke traditional ideals of Polish femininity and masculinity, harking back to the period of Poland’s partitions. A female protagonist of a typical disco polo song is beautiful, tender and devoted to her family, not unlike the Polish Mother. The man is ready for battle (a sabre is a common motif of disco polo songs and videos) and has a penchant for strong alcohol. Disco polo makes reference to the tradition of the Polish nobility, but suggests that all Poles (or all listeners to disco polo songs) are descendants of this culture. Some of these elements can be regarded as pan-Slavic which explains the popularity of this genre beyond the Polish border, most importantly in Ukraine. The lyrics of disco polo songs have to be simple and easy to repeat so that the audience can sing along with the musicians, as disco polo is meant to be consumed by people dancing and enjoying themselves. The early success of the Beatles was partly due to the simplicity of their lyrics, and it will not be difficult to demonstrate that lines such as ‘Bara bara, riki tiki tak, If you love me, give me a sign’ are not miles away from ‘She loves you, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know that can’t be bad.’ However, the simplicity of disco polo in Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s film is explained by crude exploitation of naive fans by

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producers of disco polo. This connection is shown by images from a bazaar where we see many traders from the East, some looking Oriental, perhaps Romani, playing disco polo songs on the keyboard which reduces the music to a few badly performed accords. Those who trade in disco polo, not unlike musicians themselves, lack emotional attachment to their fare and are ignorant about what it contains, as shown in an episode where a woman selling cassettes on a stall, reads in a monotonous voice the titles from the cover, without making any suggestions as to which ones are most suitable for her customer. Disco polo is presented as music which accompanies communal events rather than exists for and by itself, as is the case with music created by romantic artists. It is used for weddings, family picnics and political rallies. It helps to achieve extra-­musical objectives, such as celebrating a family gathering or presenting a politician in a positive light. The only exception is the previously mentioned concert in the Congress Hall at the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. The venue, however, bears association with the old political order – here the most important musical events took place during the period of state socialism. The fact that the cream of disco polo performs there points to the fact that it is backward rather than forward looking. Moreover, even in the Congress Hall a disco polo concert has the atmosphere of a picnic, attended by families with children and the children are encouraged to climb onto the stage and perform with the artists. That disco polo reassures, tranquilizes, and unites families and society as a whole, is most conspicuously made in one of the greatest hits of Bayer Full, which includes the line ‘All Poles Are One Family.’ Music often plays such a role and it can be seen as its noble aspect. Take Beethoven’s Ode to Joy with the line ‘All men are brothers’. Building communities is also, as Richard Dyer argues, a characteristic of disco; hence the utopian potential of this genre (Dyer 1992: 156). However, in a postcommunist context and from the perspective of a neoliberal ironist, it is regarded with suspicion. Andrei Zhdanov, the chief theorist of socialist realism, subsequently quoted by Theodor Adorno and Jacques Attali, praised music with ‘profound, organic ties to the people’ and which ‘serves the people’, as opposed to a decadent music which ‘caters to the highly individualistic emotions of a small group of aesthetes’ (quoted in Attali 2006: 7). Zmarz-Koczanowicz also draws attention to the sexual nature of disco polo performances, especially female singers. The camera lingers on the legs and bottoms of the singers, bringing to mind some of Marek Piwowski’s films, most importantly Hair (1972). This aspect is also underscored by the title of the film,

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taken from a song by the band Milano, which is also a colloquial and semi-­ vulgar description of a sexual act. Again, eroticism, as Dyer argues, is a crucial characteristic of disco and the author claims that the advantage of disco is that its eroticism focuses on the whole body, rather than being disembodied and cock-­oriented, as is the case with rock (Dyer 1992: 152–54). However, the way Zmarz-Koczanowicz draws attention to the eroticism of disco polo spectacles renders them sleazy, most importantly by showing the female artists at their less attractive angles. The director also points to the perceived contradiction between the eroticism of disco polo on the one hand and its family-­friendliness and Catholicism on the other. It appears that the artists are asked to explain themselves for their readiness to ‘serve two gods’: sex and the Catholic patria. Świerzyński’s answer to this criticism is that disco polo is heterogeneous and different sections of the audience relate to its different aspects. The connection of disco polo to Polish politics receives special attention in the film. It is discussed by Świerzyński and the leader of the main Polish peasants’ party, Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (the Polish People’s Party, the PSL) and the former prime minister Waldemar Pawlak. Świerzyński admits that he is himself a member of the PSL and regards it as a natural thing that disco music is used by politicians from this party, given its country origin. He also refers to the well-­ known (and widely criticized) fact that this music was also used in the presidential campaign of Aleksander Kwaśniewski, the most successful Polish politician, representing the old regime and for a while we see Kwaśniewski surrounded by disco polo artists. Świerzyński adds that this is also the favourite music genre of the most famous politician from the Solidarity camp, Lech Wałęsa, but this fact is played down in the media. Indeed, it is also played down in Hanky Panky. We do not see Wałęsa or any other Solidarity politician connected to this music. In my opinion this is because the link of Solidarity politicians with disco polo was embarrassing for cultural elites, who wanted the state to protect what they saw as high culture. Instead, Pawlak talks at length about the value of disco polo, drawing attention to its vernacular character, unlike other genres of popular music in Poland, such as rock, which was merely an imitation of Western music. In defence of disco polo Pawlak also mentions that drawing on folk motifs in music is nothing shameful; it was done before by Chopin. The symbiosis between disco polo and the PSL is made most explicit by awarding Pawlak a special medal for popularizing this music. Tracing the genealogy of disco polo takes a large part of Hanky Panky. Although on no occasion is it stated explicitly that its producers plagiarize

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foreign hits or that this music serves as ersatz of a foreign product of a higher class, such suggestions are implied by beginning the film with a group of young people dancing to the sounds of Macarena, a hit by Spanish band Los del Rio. Such framing underscores the derivative character of disco polo. The interviewees themselves offer a different genealogy of disco polo, mentioning American blues, country and Elvis Presley, and Polish hits of the 1970s such as Tyle słońca w całym mieście (So Much Sun in the Town) by Anna Jantar, a legendary singer with a significantly higher position in the pantheon of Polish popular music than the stars of disco polo. However, this explanation is cut short, suggesting that ZmarzKoczanowicz is not interested in such a narrative which might edify this genre. Overall, the film uses all means at its disposal to render disco polo as bad music and bad culture, combining the worst aspects of the old and new times.

Love for a Vinyl Record: in search of musical and personal autonomy Love for a Vinyl Record also takes issue with music that is produced primarily for dancing: techno. However, unlike disco polo, which is a vernacular genre, techno is an international phenomenon, originating in Detroit and then spreading to Europe, with Berlin becoming one of its main centres. It is an urban music, because it needs infrastructure which can only be found in large cities, such as large clubs, set in old factories or warehouses, where raves can take place. Techno favours instrumental music; when it uses human voice, it distorts it, so that it sounds like one of the instruments (Thornton 1995, 75). This renders techno a particularly transnational genre, as not knowing the language of the performers is not an obstacle to understand it. While there is disco polo, there is no ‘techno polo’ and at no point in Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s film is the Polishness of techno discussed. The DJ in techno plays a privileged role, choosing records and presenting them in a specific order, often distorting the original sound by manipulating the record. Most likely Zmarz-Koczanowicz made a film about techno in Poland because at the time of its production, namely at the turn of the century, it started to be seen as an important cultural and social phenomenon, in the same way disco polo was seen several years earlier. Moreover, one can observe also a certain fit between the promotion of techno as a music for young Poles and Polish efforts to join the European Union, which took place about the same time as

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Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s film was made, culminating in 2004, when Poland achieved this goal. In Love for a Vinyl Record she follows the same formula as in Hanky Panky. The film consists of interviews with the principal protagonists of the Polish techno scene, and scenes showing consumption of this music. However, the film is much shorter and certain aspects of techno are completely omitted from the narrative, maybe due to budgetary constraints or because the director intentionally avoided exploring certain aspects of techno. An important difference in the way Zmarz-Koczanowicz represents these two genres is conveyed in the titles of the films. ‘Bara bara’, translated into ‘hanky panky’, is a colloquial expression, verging on vulgarity and referring to sex. It points to disco polo being a low, ‘body genre’, not unlike disco at large. Love for a Vinyl Record, on the other hand, points to a much nobler attitude to music on the part of techno producers and consumers. This difference is confirmed in the interviews with three leading Polish DJs, specializing in techno, who use artistic pseudonyms Angelo Mike, Insane and Edee Dee. Unlike the stars of disco-­polo, they hardly talk about their involvement in techno as a form of business, but ponder on it as a form of art and quasi-­religious experience. They claim that techno allows them to escape mundane life and access the core of their existence. Thus, paradoxically, although techno uses complex technology, it is a means of regaining lost innocence. The fusion of technology and nature is underscored in an episode where Angelo Mike says that we decide ourselves what is music and illustrates this fact by mentioning that a bird singing against the background of a moving train creates a perfect sound. Techno is like a bird singing combined with the noise emitted by a train: it has a purity of nature and the intoxicating rhythm of industry. While production of disco polo was framed by Zmarz-Koczanowicz as a Fordist, conveyor belt industry, undertaken in a studio and leaving little scope for individualism and virtuosity, success in techno is based on combining hard work with a desire for personal expression. This aspect is highlighted by Edee Dee, who mentions that every day he spends long hours practicing DJing and other skills required to be a successful techno artist. The virtuosity is accentuated by close-­ups of DJs’ hands touching the records, especially Edee Dee’s. This contrasts with the way the performance of disco-­polo artists was presented by Zmarz-Koczanowicz, where cameras, in a highly objectifying way, focused on the legs and bottoms of female performers. The interviewed DJs also evoke a concept of research, of making music as a form of learning about music, which

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brings association with Brian Eno’s take on a ‘studio musician’ as a new type of musician (2011) and of postmodernism as a period when the boundary between art and science melted, as presented in the famous essay by Susan Sontag, ‘One culture and the new sensibility’ (1994). The idea that a DJ is not an artist in the old sense, namely somebody producing artefacts from scratch, is presented as an advantage as it allows him to remain mysterious and at some distance from the audience. DJs cast by Zmarz-Koczanowicz reject the idea of a pop star, regarding stardom as vulgar and an obstacle of cultivating one’s love of music. In one episode we see Edee Dee in a large room, where a boy, perhaps his brother, plays classical music on piano. At one point the boy is asked to play something more contemporary and dynamic. The boy comes across as a musical prodigy and one wonders if Edee Dee was not like this boy one day, by moving from classical music to techno. Such a connotation adds prestige to techno by suggesting that it is an extension of classical music, an idea espoused by some authors examining this genre (for example, Stoppani de Berrié 2015). We also get the impression that techno artists work mainly in the privacy of their homes, not unlike romantic artists. This is confirmed by Edee Dee, who mentions his ‘little room’, where he can play any music he wants. The interiors where techno artists dwell and make their music have little furniture and are decorated in oriental sculptures and masks. They have connotations of informality, art and a certain affluence, contrasting with the nouveau riche lifestyle of disco polo stars, as shown in Hanky Panky. The importance of money is played down by the Polish DJs. Edee Dee mentions that techno DJs belong to two categories: those who do it because they have money and those who do it because they want to learn about music. He places himself in the second, higher category. Angelo Mike, somewhat less idealistically, admits that the great popularity of techno in Poland led to interest in this genre by the music establishment and this resulted in its commercialization. Techno became a business, not unlike disco polo. However, disco polo songs, as presented by Zmarz-Kocznowicz in Hanky Panky, were written with the intention of affording their producers and promoters a comfortable life. In the case of techno, profit appears to be an unwelcome by-­product of its development. Similarly as having little to do with money, techno artists are presented as being apolitical. Angelo Mike mentions that he knows nothing about politics and only recently learnt that there was a recession in Poland. He describes fans of techno as new hippies who escape a bourgeois existence marked by pursuit of family and money. At the same time, however, he states with pride that their audience consists

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mostly of ‘serious people employed in serious firms’. He also mentions that techno events have elitist characters; the guests are selected on the spot and so-­called ‘track-­suit trouser man’ (dresiarz) is not allowed to enter. The term dresiarz connotes an unruly working-­class man and a provincial, the Polish equivalent of the British ‘chav’. The DJ adds with regret that in some cases a selection of audience is not possible. The implicit assumption is that techno events are for representatives of higher classes. The concept of class is also evoked obliquely by mentioning Europe. The clubs where techno is played are described as ‘European’. This term is implicitly contrasted with ‘Polish’, which means provincial and ‘chav’. In this way there is a fit between techno artists and their fans. They are also connected by their individualism. Although techno raves gather thousands of people, Angelo Mike claims that the music does not connect the dancers with each other, but with their inner selves. They dance and experience music solo. The film finishes with an image of Polish techno fans attending Love Parade in Berlin, which used to be the largest festival in Europe dedicated to electronic dance music. This image can be also read as a symbol of Polish road towards the European Union. The ending to Love for a Vinyl Record can be compared to the beginning of Hanky Panky, where we saw some people dancing to the disco hit Macarena, as both point to the international connections of the respective phenomena. However, the connotations of these two episodes cannot be more different. In Hanky Panky foreign music is brought to Poland for Poles to engage in some kind of mimicry. In Love for a Vinyl Record Polish techno fans are part of a colourful crowd, engaged in a cosmopolitan event, where there are no ‘natives’ and ‘guests’; everybody is European and equal.

Conclusion Zmarz-Koczanowicz construes disco polo and techno as contrasting genres. The first comes across as utilitarian, politically-­engaged, produced by semi-­amateurs, and addressed to provincials with low musical education. Techno, on the other hand, within the boundaries of popular music, represents high art, because it requires advanced skills from its producers and a special attitude from its fans. It is produced and consumed for the sake of music alone, as well as being politically neutral, urban and cosmopolitan. I argued that in her take on disco polo and techno the director represents the voice of a metropolitan cultural elite, threatened by the possibility of neoliberalization of popular culture (or indeed

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any culture) and if not usurping the hegemonic voice of the centre by the province, then at least denting its position as a trend-­setter. Moreover, even though Hanky Panky is made from the perspective of somebody alien and hostile to disco polo, it manages to undermine, to some extent, the dominant discourse on the people living in the countryside as being locked in the past by showing that they possess entrepreneurial spirit and are not only able to create surplus value from their work but sell it more widely.

Notes 1 In his assessment of Polish cinema Sobolewski draws on the discourse of Polish romantic literature, which rendered this art autonomous, yet important for preserving Polish culture during the time of partitions, when Poland lacked sovereignty. 2 The link to bazaar and commercialism is reflected in the early name of this genre: ‘muzyka chodnikowa’ (pavement music), as the stalls with cassettes were often folded on street pavements. 3 This song is used also in another documentary showing the backwardness of provincial Poland, Trzynastka (Thirteen, 1996) by Ewa Borzęcka, about a single mother of thirteen children. In it, the children sing in an untuneful voice the song which is a story of a boy who ended up a borstal.

References Attali, Jacques. 2006. Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Borys, Monika. 2015. ‘Polski bayer. Obrazy disco polo w latach 90’, Widok: 2. Dyer, Richard. 1992. ‘In defence of disco’, in his Only Entertainment. London: Routledge, pp. 149–158. Edgar, Robert, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs, and Benjamin Halligan. 2013. ‘The Formats and Functions of the Music Documentary’, in Robert, Edgar, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs, and Benjamin Halligan (eds), The Music Documentary. London: Routledge, pp. 1–21. Eno, Brian. 2011. ‘The Studio as Compositional Tool’, in Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner (eds), Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. London: Continuum, pp. 127–130. Filar, Witold. 2014. ‘Fenomen disco polo w kontekście polskiej kultury popularnej lat 90’, Kultura Popularna, 1, http://kulturapopularnaonline.pl/abstracted.php?level=4&id_ issue=875591, accessed 15 June 2016.

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Hučková, Jadwiga. 2015. ‘Opowieści naocznego świadka. Kino pomiędzy wiosnami Solidarności’, in Małgorzata Hendrykowska (ed.), Historia polskiego filmu dokumentalnego. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, pp. 361–469. Mazierska, Ewa. 2016. ‘Production, Consumption, Power, and Humor in the Films of Marek Piwowski’, Journal of Film and Video, 2, pp. 14–28. Pławuszewski, Piotr. 2015. ‘Kino mocnego uderzenia: Polska muzyka rockowa w polskim kinie dokumentalnym lat 60. i 70.’, Kwartalnik Filmowy, 91, pp. 105–120. Sobolewski, Tadeusz (year not provided). ‘Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz – A Liberal Ironist’, an essay added to a DVD of Zmarz-Koczanowicz’s films. Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne. Sobolewski, Tadeusz. 1996. ‘Pusta plaża’, Tygodnik Powszechny, 31, pp. 1 and 5. Sontag, Susan. 1994 [1965]. ‘One culture and the new sensibility’, in her Against Interpretation. London: Vintage, pp. 293–304. Stoppani de Berrié, Isabel. 2015. ‘ “Escape and Build Another World”: Relocations in Classical Minimalism and Minimal Techno’, in Ewa Mazierska and Georgina Gregory (eds), Relocating Popular Music. Houndmills: Palgrave, pp. 104–125. Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. London: Polity.

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Musical Variations in Karpo Godina’s Alternative Cinema Andrej Šprah

The Slovenian film director, director of photography, scriptwriter and editor Karpo Godina is one of the most prominent cineastes of Slovenian cinema and the radical filmmaking of former Yugoslavia. In his oeuvre, music has always held a very important place. Its role was especially pronounced in his short works, which often interlace fiction, documentary and experimental elements. They thus belong to the broader body of Yugoslav alternative cinema, comprising of radical, unconventional, avant-­garde filmic explorations in the Yugoslavia the late 1950s and the early 1970s. In this context, music appears in Godina’s films in a distinctly multi-­layered way, subject to certain aesthetic, social and political imperatives that shaped the filmmaker’s creative decisions. My analyses will include three levels ascribing to music a transfiguring, a performative and a narrative function. Based on this, I analyze the music according to the creative approach ranging from the functionalistic through formalistic to the combination of the two. I furthermore take into consideration different aspects of sound sources, such as diegetic, non-­diegetic and their hybrid. In addition, I examine the music genres that include both traditional folk melodies and songs arising from the international and the local rock subculture. Finally, I also tackle the effects of music that importantly contributed both to the aesthetic and the social and political subversiveness of the discussed films.

Karpo Godina and the Yugoslav context The direct connection between Karpo Godina and the concept of film as an act of resistance originates in the fact that his filmmaking belongs to the core of the New Yugoslav Film, better known by the somewhat pejorative name ‘the Black

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Wave’. Godina’s entire film oeuvre consists of 18 short films, nine medium length films and four feature length films. As a director of photography, he worked on 21 features by directors from the entire Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Film history places him among the key figures in the cinema of former Yugoslavia due to both his own works, which in this period consisted mostly of short films, and his collaboration with such prominent names of the new cinema as Želimir Žilnik, Branko Vučićević, Bata Čengić and others. The creativity of new wave filmmakers was underpinned by a subversive charge of social critique expressed both directly and through the use of elements that point out the contradictions of socialist reality indirectly. The first group included, on the one hand, filmmakers who ironized the symbols, slogans, watchwords and the heroic iconography of war and the socialist revolution, including Dušan Makavejev, Živojin Pavlović, Želimir Žilnik, Lazar Stojanović, and, on the other hand, those directors who drew on the ‘aesthetic of the repulsive’ and ‘drastic images’ as elements of a ‘destructive associativity of film art’ (Pavlović 2012), such as Aleksandar Petrović, Žilnik, Đorđe Kadijević, and Pavlović himself. Indirectly, the critique was manifested in an ‘excessive’ visuality of hermetic modernism of some works by Makavejev, Vojislav Kokan Rakonjac, Puriša Đorđević, Ljubiša Kozomara, Gordan Mihić, Jovan Jovanović and others. An important factor in undermining the established beliefs and imposed truths about the socialist reality was also the use of music. Its role was manifested in various approaches. Perhaps the most frequent was the use of revolutionary and combative songs, which, in line with the new, disdainful contexts, became a tool of mocking glorification of the recent heroic past. We come across such use in certain works by Makavejev, Pavlović, Žilnik, Kadijević and Stojanović. The second approach involved featuring popular folk songs, often performed live in dives in which the film characters find themselves. The filmmakers thereby drew attention to the intense differences between the urban and the rural environment, tradition and progress, with people swearing by the first much more than the authorities cared to show. The most characteristic examples of such use of music can be found in the works of Petrović, Pavlović, Žilnik and Makavejev. The third approach was related to the music of the developing subcultures and the genres that had not long before still been considered unacceptable in socialism, that is, jazz and rock. With their use, films directly took up the current rebellious impulses that were concordant with the culturally and socially unacceptable subcultural movements of capitalism. We come across such engagement especially in the works of Pavlović, Rakonjac and Jovanović. Perhaps even more

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intense than the distinct subversive use of only one music genre was the combination of different approaches with which the films built a complex kaleidoscope of resistant musical infrastructure as an indispensable act of social critique. In this context, Godina’s approach is characterized by a subtlety in which he managed to distribute the critical sting aimed at the social pathology of socialist reality across various film elements. His films stimulate viewers to an engaged reception, making them themselves connect the hints in the ‘narrative’ – which often evades clear explanations – into a credible whole. In view of Godina being a complex auteur, having worked as a scriptwriter, director, cinematographer and editor, the visual share of his subversiveness comes as no surprise. It is more remarkable that music also became a vehicle of critical charge of his films. Godina explicitly declared his commitment to music and proven his awareness of its social role in his second feature film Rdeči Boogie ali Kaj ti je deklica (Red Boogie or What is the Matter Girl, 1982). Focusing on a music group with the mission of motivating young people for the postwar construction of a new Yugoslavia, the film deals with the problem ‘decadent Western’ jazz music holds for socialist youth. In the framework of this intervention, we can also interpret the film as a specific director’s dialogue with his period of musical research within experimental filmmaking.

Music in Godina’s short films Broadly speaking, music in Godina’s cinema plays transfiguring, performative and narrative functions. The first function belongs primarily to the music of the cineaste’s ‘amateur’ period, in which he made films without words and only added musical accompaniment from different sources – Divjad (Game, 1965), Blues No. 7 (1965), A.P. (Anno Passato, 1966) and Pes (Dog, 1966) – and which ended with the score of Gratinirani možgani Pupilije Ferkeverk (The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk, 1970). In these films, the pre-­existing music seems to be an illustration of the visual material, but it is precisely the choice of music that becomes the decisive factor of contextualizing the whole, whereby it obtains its final meaning. The performative aspect of music is present in Fobija (Phobia, 1965), Sonce, vsesplošno sonce (Sun, Universal Sun, 1968) and Piknik v nedeljo (Picnic on Sunday, 1968), films without dialogue, in which the ‘found’ music itself assumes the role of the key bearer of the film’s meanings. The narrative function

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of music is present in the works of Godina’s ‘documentary’ period, including Zdravi ljudi za razonodu (Litany of Happy People, 1971) and O ljubavnim veštinama ili film sa 14441 kvadrata (On the Art of Love or A Film in 14441 frames, 1972). Here, music composed for the film comments on the work’s audiovisual narrative level. On the basis of this division, I focus on three works, Picnic on Sunday, The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk and Litany of Happy People, each exemplifying a specific function of music. According to commentators of Godina’s oeuvre, this selection comprises of representative works from individual phases of his filmmaking, which won acclaim in Slovenia and abroad,1 while Silvan Furlan calls attention to their poetical aspects: Picnic on Sunday as a sort of an homage to the French film impressionism of the 1920s, The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk as a film ‘manifesto’ in support of modern theatre and poetry, and Litany of Happy People as a poetical filmic and photographic collage about the life of various national communities in Vojvodina or as a metaphor of an ‘ideal’ Yugoslavia pervaded with a ‘healthy’ ironical distance of course. Furlan 2010, 14

By comparing the selected films, I will take issue with music’s subversive potential. I start with Holly Rogers’ observations about the difference between music in mainstream and experimental cinema. She considers the latter as one that emphasizes moments of significant audiovisual revolution and transformation: in particular, occasions when music and/or sound have been used in surprising, subversive and/or politically charged ways by these operating outside of the artistic and financial aesthetics that drive dominant commercial cinema. Often, these filmmakers work alone or in small collaborative groups to produce social, political or gendered forms of discourse, films that highlight their materiality by eschewing the audiovisual immersivity of mainstream fiction features to encourage a critical distanciation between audience and work. Rogers 2017, 4

The opposition between music in mainstream and experimental cinema often refers to the modes of interaction between visual and sound elements. Typical for the first is the role of music as a complement to the visual segment that emphasizes certain narrative or emotional factors. An equally indispensable element is rhythm, with which music can meaningfully complement the film’s atmosphere, dynamics and narrative structure. Although we can come across

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cases of a discordant use of music in mainstream cinema, the predominant ideal is music as a factor of the coherence, complementariness, synchronicity and integrity of creating meaning. Contrary to the tendencies towards music as a link in the hierarchy of meaning, in experimental cinema, music is most often identified with a tendency towards plurality. It is associated with the concepts of discord, distance, dissonance and decontextualization as factors of rejecting the vision of one single meaning. The music often becomes the bearer of heterogeneity, which Maureen Turim defines with the term avant-­garde soundtrack: Through such principles as extreme disjunction, autonomy, an attack on sonic iconography, an attack on programmatic, dramatic musical structures, a play with the blending of categories of words, noise and music, the avant-­garde sound track defies analysis as an element of signification within a system, and forces us to consider the radical plurality of the text. Turim 1985, 35

Due to the distinct heterogeneity, the use of music in the discussed films by Karpo Godina could also be placed in this category.

Picnic on Sunday: a world of idyll and expectation The question of music as a performative device in Picnic on Sunday refers both to the sound dimension of the film and its entire structure. This experimental fiction film shows free-­time activities of elderly people in nature. The idyllic images are accompanied by a musical motif of a folk song entitled ‘Vsi so prihajali (All Were Coming)’, performed ‘live’ by a violinist and a clarinettist. The leisurely routine of Sunday rest is disturbed by the arrival of a young beatnik meeting a girl swimming naked in the stream. The young couple immediately surrender to their passions, which disturbs the activities of the others, especially the musicians, who switch from a slow folk ballad to an intense rhythm of a circle dance. As a consequence the ‘conductor’ wakes up and orders the musicians to return to the previous melody. This attempt at establishing the normal state is interrupted by a gunshot fired by a man dressed in hunting attire. For a moment, everything falls silent and it seems that the ‘picnic’ is over, but the beatnik appeases heightened passions and things return to how they were: musicians continue with the standard motif, the conductor returns to his rest and the young couple to their playful dalliance; only the elderly ladies leave indignantly.

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The film’s sound dimension is entirely diegetic. Both the music played directly on set and other sounds – the chirping of the birds, the sounds of water, the gunshot, the silence, amorous giggling, etc. – belong to the action we see on the screen or hear coming from outside the frame. What is most telling is the relation between on-­screen and off-­screen sound, which in some places alternate in counterpoint, while at the film’s conclusion the sound shifts outside the frame altogether. Equally important is the relation between the volume of individual sounds. Towards the end of the film, the amorous exuberance of the young couple gets increasingly louder, while the music shifts to the background. And just when it seems that their playfulness will completely drown the musical motif, the latter again reaches its original level of volume in the final part when the picture is ‘frozen’ into a photogram. According to these facts, we can define the film’s sound conception as formalistic in the sense proposed by P. Adams Sitney who asserts that, in the formal sense, the use of sound material in an experimental film comes into its own when the ‘film has been conceived as a careful audiovisual synthesis’ (Sitney 2002, 62). Even though there is tension or even opposition between different sound sources in the film, their range is not antagonistic to the film’s visual side. The film is defined by the sound dimension because the action is strongly subject to or conditioned by it. Music in Picnic on Sunday plays a key role. Its performative aspect can be seen in it steering the film’s subtle meanings. The music, which is initially ‘synchronous’ with the idleness of a Sunday afternoon, immediately responds to different, more passionate ways of spending one’s free time. However, it soon returns to the established frameworks and thus, instead of following the intensification of the young couple’s exuberance and the unease it arouses in the others, it moves further and further away from this line of meaning. By persisting in the melancholy of the initial melody, it relativizes the rest of the audiovisual field or, alternatively, establishes an opposition to it. Such a role is in line with the presupposition of Holly Rogers, who stresses that ‘experimental audiovisuality is produced not only via an innovative soundworld in and of itself but also through the ironic, jarring or culturally subversive placement of popular songs, familiar classics and pre-­existent film music against the moving image’ (Rogers 2017, 12). The music of a known folk classic, which by the conductor’s order does not follow the excitement of the young couple’s amorous rapture, but remains closed in its traditional ossification, is the agency of persistence which emphasizes the rootedness of established practices. On the other hand, the beatniks’ amorous playfulness, which tries to drown it, announces the more liberal generation of

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the new times. And perhaps also the more colourful, subcultural phase of Godina’s cinema, beginning with The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk.

The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk: the intangible world Godina’s tenth short film is his first colour work and an experimental attempt introducing a new practice of using the static camera and basic editing, which became the hallmark of his subsequent short films. It is also a work that, on all its creative levels, focuses on concurrent developments in Slovenian progressive culture. The title is based on the name of the avant-­garde theatre group Pupilija Ferkeverk, whose prime members ‘play’ themselves in the film. Beside people from alternative theatre, artistic figures important to the avant-­garde literary scene of the time also appear in the films as does Problemi, an alternative magazine for thought and poetry, that the protagonists ‘read’ in the film and that is one of the products – along with cigars, soap, Coca-Cola and LSD, – ‘advertised’ by the film. One of its main targets was obviously consumerism, as evidenced by the ironical postscript to the screenplay: ‘The purpose of this film is to accelerate the tendency to consume the greatest values of twentieth-­century civilization. At the same time, it intends to open new markets, both internal and external, for a high-­quality production of consumable goods by our industrial socialist companies.’ The graphic image was the work of Slobodan Mašić, who was responsible for many provocative magazine/book covers and posters, including the credits for feature films by Želimir Žilnik, Bata Čengić and others. For the soundtrack, the director chose ‘On the Boards’, a psychedelic song by Rory Gallagher’s blues-­rock band Taste. The film was shot on the saltworks on the Slovenian coast, which, due to the abandoned, half-demolished buildings in the background, came across both as idyllic and post-­apocalyptic. In front of a static camera, standing on the same spot throughout the film, unfold scenes of dancing and pantomime performed by five male figures. The only female character is a bare-­breasted girl, who, in most of the scenes, swings on a swing located between the inside and the outside of the frame; only sometimes can we see all of her (completely naked) body. The action takes place in shallow water during daytime, in different weather conditions, different states of the sea surface and varicoloured atmospheric light. The protagonists, partly or fully undressed, individually or collectively enact the

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situations thematized by the intertitles with a unique graphic design. They include commands (‘believe’, ‘inseminate’, ‘gobble LSD’) and concepts (‘dictatorship’, ‘suicide’, ‘death’, ‘love’, ‘God’). Across the moving images of the action and the static pictures of the intertitles resounds the soundscape of the selected song, whose lyrics highlight the unbearable loss and the hopelessness of situations one cannot face. The collage series of scenes is characterized by a similar visual charge, nevertheless those where the music falls silent stand out. This happens twice, the first time in the earliest ‘speaking scene’, in which, following the command to ‘believe’, the actor furiously gesticulates and silently roars at the indifferent camera. The second scene with silenced music features the caption ‘death’ with protagonists playing drowned people at the end of the song resulting in an ‘empty’ frame – a moment without protagonists or sound, with the empty swing and a slightly rippled sea. In such a context, the transfiguring role of the film’s music is reflected in the combination of all three levels of the audiovisual sphere: the photographic images, the graphic inserts, and the sound. Here music is used quasi-­functionally in line with Sitney’s definition: The functional position rests on the assumption that music (or words) intensify the cinematic experience, even when the film has been shot and edited without consideration for the sound. The functionalist hires a composer after his film has been edited; at his most casual, he finds a piece of recorded music that ‘fits’ his work. Sitney 2002, 62

The director of The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk talked about choosing the song ‘On The Boards’ from two hundred LPs he had received from the music editor of Radio Belgrade. ‘I added music when I already had a rough cut. Then, I did the fine tuning to its rhythm’ (Godina 2013). The music added in the editing process is also the film’s only sound. This means that it is entirely non-­diegetic and functions along the lines of Maureen Turim’s definition: ‘Beyond merely corresponding thematically to the movement of the diegesis, nondiegetic music functions importantly for pacing and rhythm, punctuation and liaison in ways that are more abstract than merely the diegetic mood or action’ (Turim 1985, 32–33). The selection of the psychedelic blues-­rock song to a large extent fits the film’s protagonists, whose world view and appearance, in line with the spirit of the time, clearly belongs to the hippy subculture.2 A close connection with psychedelia is also manifested in the film’s explicit propagation of LSD

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consummation, as evidenced by the recommendation in the intertitles and the swallowing of drugs by the film’s only female protagonist. Decisive for the interpretation of the role of music in the case under consideration is whether we consider music as an integral part or as an accompanying element of the films. Even though the filmmaker himself tells us that the music was chosen subsequently and added in the editing phase, the film’s script presupposed music as the above analyzed ‘silent sequences’ suggest. The key question of the selection itself is the surprising decision to opt for a song the vocal dimension of which is much more concrete than the purely instrumental variation of a musical motif. Although relatively hermetic, the lyrics are still specific enough to be ascribed a more important function in relation to the film’s visual field than merely the role of a musical background and the conveyer of the editing rhythm.3 I therefore consider music an integral element in the context of the fundamental principles of Turim’s vision of relation between music and other filmic elements in avant-­ garde cinema. Especially regarding ‘the tension between order and anarchy, between serial foundations and process theoretics of chance and expressivity’ (Turim 1985, 41). In The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk, this tension is released via the transfiguration of artistic or cultural circumstances in which the film originates and is, at the same time, its composite part. The transfiguring role of music is thus conceived in the broader framework of the film’s ideal origin, that is the creative principles of the neo-­avant-garde Pupilija Ferkeverk Theatre. One of their key activities was the process of their creative shift from the ‘theatre of poetry’ to ‘physical theatre’. In the first form, the artists saw in poetry ‘the only sacred text of this world’, while, in the second form, ‘poems gave way to movement, screams, banal language of everyday consumerism and demagogic political droning’ (Svetina 1986, 97). In Godina’s film, this concept is taken up in the form of a ‘polemic “dialogue” between a spontaneous autogenous physicality and a hoarse, hushed language’ (Milohnić 2009, 17). But, at the same time, the fact that the film’s protagonists were not ‘merely’ members of the theatre, but also prominent poets who profusely published their works in magazines proves that they did not completely renounce the poetic and social role of poetry. This allows me to ascribe the lyrical component of music the function of aesthetic intervention – that transforms the hushed language into spoken language and gives poetry back its expressive power. Such creative strategy puts the film’s visual field into relation with physical theatre enacted by the protagonists in the diegetic field and the theatre of poetry whose

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non-­diegetic place is now assumed by a blues-­rock song and Rory Gallagher’s lyrics. At the fundamental level, music by all means functions as a ‘formal matrix dictating the film’s rhythm’ (Meden 2016). On another, more subtle level, it transforms the diegetic banalization of consumerism and authoritarianism into the symbolical order of poetry and its subcultural social role.

Litany of Happy People: people in colour, the world in a shambles The narrative function of music in Litany of Happy People originates in the dialogic structure between sound layers and the film’s visual dimension. Shot with a static camera in the style of The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk, this film features members of different nations in villages of Vojvodina, a former autonomous province and the most multinational area of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.4 The representatives of various nations, whose origin is already marked by the colour of their dwellings, are, either individually, in pairs or in groups, filmed in front of their houses. On the soundtrack, these peculiar tableaux are developed by the presentation of minorities on two levels – firstly, by the priest of the religion each community belongs to and, secondly, by verses of the film’s musical accompaniment. The conveyances of the priests and other members of the minority groups belong to the diegetic field, while the musical interventions are wholly non-­diegetic. The music written especially for the film is performed by brothers Predrag and Mladen Vranešević. The key meaning of the music is ascribed to the conclusions of the presentations of individual nations. The lyrics are different, but they always include the phrase ‘we love them /. . ./ and they love us’, as an expression of love and peaceful coexistence among the nations. However, music includes a much broader range of meanings as pointed out by Nora M. Alter: ‘Non-­diegetic music, however, contradicts the logic of this filmic genre, for it does not belong to the ostensibly factual representation of the diegesis. Hence the non-­diegetic music layer in non-­fiction essay films produces a tension not only between the on-­screen and the off-­ screen, but also between the real and the imaginary’ (Alter 2012, 25). In Litany of Happy People, categorized as documentary and experimental or even documentary and essayistic film, music assumes the role of a commentary. It is a specific all-­knowing voice, a non-­diegetic voice-­over, rendering legible a system of knowledge that is different to the one given in the diegesis. On the

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soundtrack a folk melody alternates with rock guitar or organ inserts. Contrary to the words of church dignitaries pointing out the spiritual or physical values of their congregation, the song lyrics sometimes sum up what has been said and/or shown and sometimes express a generally accepted opinion about particular minority – all with an exceptionally ironical tone. One such typical lyric ‘describes’ the Hungarians: ‘The house is green, / the grass is green, / the beard is green, / the bride is green, / but the sky / isn’t green!’ Another apt example appears at the middle of the film where the title also appears. The Slovak priest points out, among others, the health of his people: ‘As far as the health of our people is concerned, I must say they’re physically and mentally absolutely healthy.’ The sung response to his words, accompanied with a high-­pitched guitar riff, goes: ‘I am a healthy guy, so straight, oh my! And blue as the sky.’ The music then takes up a lighter folk melody and the text continues with ‘Look at them, bright as the sun, healthy people, ready for fun’, which becomes a refrain. In addition to the descriptions or comments on national minorities, the music also assumes the role of the film’s graphic part, since the film’s title, the presentation of the production house and the ‘end credits’ are entirely sung. The film’s approach to music is functionalistic, but formalistic elements can also be detected. The creative process was similar as already seen in The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk, since the music was conceived on the basis of a rough cut of the shot material, while the director later ‘mostly cut things off to fit the beat of the music’ (Godina 2013). The fundamental difference is that in this case music is original and was composed especially for the film. In some places, it establishes a synthesis with the diegesis, but most of the time it contradicts it. We can therefore speak of the combination of a functional and a formal approach. The latter is manifested primarily where the sung lyrics assume the role of other elements – diegetic commentary, text, production design, etc. This is especially emphatic in places where the very structure of the film deviates from the predominant style of presenting content. The first deviation concerns the presentation of ethnic groups, namely the Romani community (continuously referred to with the politically incorrect term Gypsy) who are not introduced by a priest. In this case, people introduce themselves, pointing out the significance of horses for their community. The presentation then continues in the ‘musical commentary’, which acts as an affirmation of the Romani’s image. The second deviation concerns the female voice in the film. Even though a diegetic female voice appears only twice, it has a greater weight than that of the male. On the one hand, the men who talk are, as a rule, either church dignitaries or figures pointing

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out certain general presuppositions of life in the particular community. The only woman we hear is an elderly Hungarian who is full of energy and humour, despite her old age. On the other hand, the only diegetic music in the film is a song sung by a choir of Rumanian old women. This is also the moment of the film in which the diegetic and the non-­diegetic field come closest to one another. In these convergences and divergences, we can recognise a specific form of dissonant harmony, which ‘occurs when music and image work in an active opposition to one another, clashing against a ‘precise point of meaning’ (Rogers 2017, 188). In Litany of Happy People, the key contradictions are established precisely in the relation between image and music. The initial image ‘portraying’ uneasily, stiffly (in most cases also silently) posing people in awkward traditional clothes is accompanied by playful, waggish music of various genres that often subverts – with both sound and words – what we see. In the broadest sense, the selected music genres is contradictory as the rock overtones that flavour traditionally sounding music is unsuitable to the strictly rural environment. The selection of compositions by the Vranešević brothers goes deeper than the opposition of rock subculture and folk culture. Their Novi Sad-based band, Laboratorija zvuka, was one of the most controversial rock formations in former Yugoslavia, and initiators of the alternative music scene. Together with other initiatives coming from the field of literature, film, media, and the fine arts, this scene set out to mobilize culture as an indispensable element in the dissolution of Yugoslav totalitarianism.

The dissolution of conventions and relations The role of music in Picnic on Sunday refers, above all, to the examination of the relation between different generations. The film features character types to which the musical dimension adds a historical tone, as do the setting and the style of filming which is a homage to impressionistic iconography. The decisive intervention in the initial (petit) bourgeois idyll is brought about by the younger generation, which, on the one hand, represents light-­heartedness, harmony and openness to differences, and, on the other hand, a free attitude to sexuality. Their youthful vivacity has an effect on the older people, but especially on their peers who immediately give in to the influence of the new. Nevertheless, tradition still prevails. Although part of the generation that ‘belongs to the past’ leaves the

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scene and it seems that the free jauntiness will drown the folklore, the film ends with the preservation of undecided social relations. The possibility of musical subversion is indicated primarily in those moments of the film when the motif, rhythm or volume of the music change, thus opening up all the dimensions of its social conditions. But, here, music is still subservient to authority controlling its subversive possibilities. In The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk, the role of music is perhaps most closely related to the film’s visual field. Aesthetic subversiveness is reflected both at the level of content and of form. On the first level, the film represents a rebellion against authorities, such as the state, party, nation, church, market, and at the same time also against the system of art, such as poetry, theatre, and their established aesthetics. The mode of address in this film draws on the radicalization of the techniques of physical theatre, which announced both the crisis of ideology and the crisis or even the death of the ‘literary, only aesthetically functional theatre in Slovenia’ (Taufer 1969, 635). An equally crucial formal choice is the static shot which signifies the dissolution of the conventions of cinema and negates the conception of film as a medium of dynamism. At the same time, movement within a shot becomes exceptionally significant, the vital element being the swinging movement of the female protagonist between the frame and the out-­of-the-­frame. These alternative approaches undermine and question the fundamental aesthetical categories of film as the art of motion and time. Thus, music starts to dictate the rhythm of changing images, while, representing a form of time that is not continuous, but advancing through interruptions and reproductions. With the help of music, the film subverts the established representation of temporal and spatial relations and introduces anaesthetics of instantaneousness and interruption. The political subversiveness of Litany of Happy People is not related merely to the ironizing of the slogan ‘Fraternity and Unity’. The filmmaker himself points out an article that ‘gives an accurate analysis of the film’s mimicry, its use of a beautiful form to hide the subversive content: the disbelief in Yugoslavia’s chances of survival’ (Godina 2013). What is also important, however, is that the film draws attention to the role of the church and religion in the history of the bloody conflicts that took place in former Yugoslavia. Also, central is the use of music in the role of the agency of uttering. The only nation that is present in the film, but not seen, is the Serbian – the musicians. They not only represent the fraternally disposed heralds of love for other nations and nationalities, but are also the ‘voice of knowledge’ in which both the (superior) position of ‘the one

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who knows’ and the position of the one who has the possibility to ‘tell’ are reflected. Although it would perhaps be pretentious to see in this film the prediction of the horrific events of the 1990s, we can still detect traces of scepticism about the vision of general justice and equality. At the same time, the film’s peculiar anticipation of the upcoming events could also be seen in its relation to the military and strategic geopolitical community that most of the presented minorities belong to, which is conveyed through the refrain in the film’s end credits: ‘Let the Eastern Block as a whole / be buried deep in a hole.’

Conclusion In Karpo Godina’s films the music proves to be one of the fundamental factors in conveying meanings. The choice of music is similarly variegated as the other formal and content-­related decisions, while its use is often unusual. On the one hand, we can thus ascribe it the quality of the catalyst deepening the possibilities of interpretation where the broader context is not directly evident. On the other hand, its unconventionality intensifies the subversive potential of films. Some of his radical decisions that have secured him a place in the Pantheon of Slovenian and Yugoslav alternative cinema were certainly ‘musically conditioned’. In this area I thus see not only an intense cooperation with concurrent developments in the musical subculture, but also the highlighting of the significance that a daring combination of the film’s visible and audible pole can reflect.

Notes 1 Picnic on Sunday won awards at festivals in Zagreb, Belgrade, Krakow and Paris; The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk was awarded in Zagreb, Belgrade and Oberhausen; and Litany of Happy People in Belgrade and Oberhausen. The last two films were banned together with On the Art of Love or A Film in 14441 frames and the omnibus Nedostaje mi Sonja Heine (I miss Sonja Henie, 1972). 2 This is undoubtedly also evidenced by the reflection of one of the movement’s key actors Ivo Svetina: ‘We believed our words, verses, poems because they were the only means (and weapon) that we, brothers and sisters of “flower children”, dared take up, and we believed that, with it, we could stand against the rule of dialectical materialism, which precisely in the late 1960s started to face anarcho-­liberalism, technocratism and the springs that sprung in Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia’ (Svetina 2009, 10).

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3 The last strophe of the song goes: ‘Somehow the world is a gone, / Please give me the keys, / And open the door, / Where is the floor? / I don’t know what it means, / It’s too much to bear. // It’s too much to bear.’ The entire lyrics are available at: www.lastoftheindependents.com/boards.htm. Accessed on 9 September 2017. 4 The film features six of the most numerous ethnical groups even though, according to the director, there were 31 national minorities living in Vojvodina at the time.

References Alter, Nora M. 2012. ‘Composing in Fragments: Music in the Essay Films of Resnais and Godard.’ SubStance 41 (2): 24–39. Furlan, Silvan. 2010. ‘Ali je bilo kaj ‘avantgardnega’? Pregled slovenskega ‘neparadigmatičnega’ filma do srede osemdesetih let.’ Kino! 11/12: 11–18. Godina, Karpo. 2013. ‘Interview with Karpo Godina.’ Interview by Maja Krajnc, and Gary Vanisian. In On the Cinema of Karpo Godina Or a Book in 71383 Words, edited by Filmkollektiv Frankfurt, 19–89. Frankfurt, M.: Filmkollektiv Frankfurt. Meden, Jurij. 2016. E-mail correspondence, 15 June. Milohnić, Aldo. 2009. ‘Nekaj uvodnih besed o perverznežih, degenerirancih, sadistih, skrunilcih kruha, ljubezni in domovine.’ In Prišli so Pupilčki: 40 let Gledališča Pupilije Ferkeverk, edited by Aldo Milohnić, and Ivo Svetina, 17–23. Ljubljana: Maska, Slovenski gledališki muzej. Pavlović, Živojin. 2012. ‘Drastična filmska podoba.’ In Prekletstvo iskanja resnice: filmska ustvarjalnost in teorija Živojina Pavlovića, edited by Andrej Šprah, 171–176. Ljubljana: Slovenska kinoteka. Rogers, Holly. 2017. ‘Introduction.’ In The Music and Sound of Experimental Film, edited by Holly Rogers, and Jeremy Barham, 1–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sitney, Adams P. 2002. Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Svetina, Ivo. 1986. ‘Prispevek za zgodovino gledališkega gibanja na Slovenskem – Pupilija Ferkeverk.’ Maska 4/5: 86–101. Svetina, Ivo. 2009. ‘Zakaj se je Pupilja vrnila?’ In Prišli so Pupilčki: 40 let Gledališča Pupilije Ferkeverk, edited by Aldo Milohnić, and Ivo Svetina, 9–14. Ljubljana: Maska, Slovenski gledališki muzej. Taufer, Veno. 1969. ‘Eksperimentalno gledališče v Križankah: Pupilija, papa Pupilo in Pupilčki.’ Naši razgledi 215: 635. Turim, Maureen Cheryn. 1985. Abstraction in Avant-Garde Films. Michigan: Ann Arbor.

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Polish Music Videos Between Parochialism and Universalism Ewa Mazierska

This chapter presents a brief history of Polish music video, from its beginning in the 1960s to the present day, taking into account its presence on television, at festivals and on YouTube. It also identifies two approaches to producing music video in Poland, which I describe as ‘parochialism’ and ‘universalism’. The former is informed by a desire to engage with Polish history and national identity; the latter to adopt and rework international trends and, as much as possible, to erase any sign of ‘Polishness’. Before discussing specific examples, I shall first present the state of research about Polish music video.

State of research on Polish music video Writing about Polish music video, as about music videos in Eastern Europe in general, poses a significant challenge, which results from two interconnected factors. One is the sheer amount of material and the fact that it is not properly catalogued or archived, unlike Polish fiction and documentary films. There are probably tens of thousands of Polish music videos, but these are not listed in the most comprehensive database of Polish screen productions, filmpolski.pl. For example, if we check the information about the most famous Polish producer of music videos, Zbigniew Rybczyński, we read in his biographical note that he is a ‘cinematographer and director of animated and experimental films’. Information about his music videos is buried further in the text and his filmography doesn’t include even one music video. It appears as if between 1981 and 2006 Rybczyński did not make any films, although during this period he actually produced music videos for artists such as John Lennon, Lou Reed, Chuck Mangione and Pet Shop

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Boys, which are his commercially most successful works. Yach Paszkiewicz, arguably the most prolific Polish producer of music videos (Laskowski 2016), exists on this database only thanks to a handful of documentary films, rather than several hundred music videos he produced during his career. Many Polish music videos are available on YouTube, but one needs to know what one is looking for to find them. Even when this happens, important details are missing in their description, such as the date of production, the name of the director and crew, location and budget. On many occasions it is impossible to establish whether this is an ‘official video’, commissioned by a television or record company or a fan-­made product. Instead, we get a date of publishing the film, the number of views and ‘likes’ and on occasion fans’ comments. This is a valuable source of information, but needs to be contextualized. In particular, the number of views does not reflect the true popularity of old songs and videos (made in pre-­digital times), because they do not capture the views and the ‘likes’ the videos enjoyed at the time of their premiere. If anything, it allows us to check how specific artists and genres fared after the passage of time. These problems are reflected in the scarcity of research on Polish music video. Such neglect can additionally be attributed to the dominance of the auteurist paradigm in scholarship about Polish and Eastern European cinema. As music videos (with few exceptions) are not seen as an ‘auteurist endeavour’, they have attracted little attention from Polish film and media scholars, especially those of the older generation. Other factors contributing to this neglect is the semi-­ professional character of many music videos (while in Poland there used to be a cult of professionalism, often measured by the number of certificates brought by the artist) and the opinion, transmitted from the West, that a music video is a form of advertising. This can be seen in the context of the hostility towards any form of commercial art, pertaining to the period of state socialism. Finally, the fact that in music video the visual and musical aspect is more important than the literary content, might put off those historians and critics who favour the analysis of the literary content of film, who are arguably in the majority of the historians of Polish cinema. Music videos are also practically ignored by Polish popular music scholars, who prioritize the analysis of songs and also treat them from an auteurist perspective, as an emanation from the personality of a specific singer-­ songwriter. In this context, music video is seen as a ‘secondary’ product in relation to music and lyrics of the song, hence not worthy of consideration.1 Another, connected factor, is a perception that music video is a Western or more precisely, an Anglo-American genre.

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Consequently, most literature about music video published in Polish, tried to familiarize readers with the history and specificity of this genre, without including any Polish material. This is the case of the only book, published on this topic in Poland, Urszula Jarecka’s Świat wideoklipu (1999), which includes an eight-­page long appendix of titles of music videos used by the author (281–88), about three hundred in total. However, there are no Polish examples among them, suggesting they do not merit consideration. A similar approach is taken by the majority of Polish authors writing popular and (semi)academic articles about this genre, including myself (for example, Przylipiak 1990; Mazierska 1993; Piątek 1998; Topolski 2013). That said, this situation started to change in the last decade or so. For example, the popular magazine Kino has published several reports from Camerimage Film Festival, which is in part devoted to this form, as well as a short piece summarizing the Polish history of this genre, authored by Iwona Cegiełkówna (Cegiełkówna 2007). When searching for this topic, I also encountered a recent MA thesis devoted to Polish music videos. Symptomatically, the author of this thesis, Łukasz Laskowski, also adopts an auteurist approach. His focus is music videos of the leading Polish director of this genre, Krzysztof Skonieczny and he treats his productions the way films directed by Wajda or Kawalerowicz were treated by Polish film scholars – as ‘their’ films, rather than, a consequence of cooperation by various actors (Laskowski 2016). The scarcity of research about Polish music video means that I feel excused for not providing an extensive history of the phenomenon, but my personal history of the encounter with this phenomenon.

Art, rather than commerce Western literature about music video emphasizes its commercial character. In one of the first essays devoted to music videos, Peter Wollen maintains that it represents the ‘breakdown between programme and ad’ (Wollen 1986, 168). Steve Reiss and Neil Feineman begin their book about music videos by saying: ‘No art form is as schizophrenic as the music video. In part a commercial and in part a short film, it has flaunted the line between art and commerce, undermined narrative and character development, and shortened an entire generation’s attention span’ (Reiss and Neil Feineman 2000, 10). Railton and Watson elaborate on these assertions, pointing to a large number of directors of music videos who also made advertisements for other products, for example ‘Hype Williams, who

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has directed music videos for artists such as Beyonce, Ashanti, Janet Jackson and Pharrell, has also made commercials for Nike’ (Railton and Watson 2011, 2). Such examples are not meant to undermine the artistry of specific music videos, only to illuminate certain aesthetics of music videos, such as their limited narrative content, rejection of linearity and focus on visual style. If anything, they are supposed to prove that their producers work to the highest standard, despite budgetary constraints. In the Polish context, by contrast, a different connection is underscored: between music video and experimental art. The spiritual father of Polish music video is admittedly Józef Robakowski, who is also a pioneer of experimental cinema and video art in Poland. His first experimental film, made in 1962, entitled 6,000,000 (a reference to a number of Jews who perished in death camps during the Second World War), is a compilation of fragments of Holocaust-­era documentaries. In due course, such compilations would be widely used in Polish music videos produced in the 1990s, including in the work of Paszkiewicz. In an interview from 1994, Paszkiewicz states explicitly that Robakowski was his artistic father. Robakowski taught Paszkiewicz how camera can be used in an innovative way and organized in his house, together with his then wife, Małgorzata Potocka, screenings of video art, including the work of the previously mentioned Zbigniew Rybczyński (Paszkiewicz 2014). Rybczyński, who is known, among other things, for directing the video to Imagine by John Lennon (1986), is celebrated in Poland mostly as the creator of innovative animated films and a multimedia artist (Rutkowska 1992). His work as a director of music videos is seen largely in this context, which includes experiments with digital technologies. By contrast, the commercial value and potential of Polish videos is played down. In an article, published in 2007, Iwona Cegiełkówna explains this lack of interest in the fact that the majority of Polish videos by this point were made on the cheap, because the record companies which paid for their production did not believe that they add much value to the product (Cegiełkówna 2007, 48). Since then, however, the situation has changed considerably. The examples I will analyze in the later part of this chapter made the songs great hits.

Polish music videos on Polish television and on festivals It is difficult to establish the date of production and release of the first Polish music video. However, music clips based on a specific script, rather than merely

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filming an artist performing during his or her concert, were produced by Polish television as early as the 1960s. Many of them were produced by Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych (Documentary Film Studio) for pop-­rock artists such as Filipinki, Breakout, Czerwone Gitary and Skaldowie, as well as estrada singers such as Maria Koterbska and Jerzy Połomski. Such clips filled numerous programmes about popular music on Polish television. On occasion, they were also presented as free-­standing productions, filling gaps between specific programmes. Although on many occasions they were witty and innovative, they were also anonymous, in contrast to fiction and documentary films.2 What was characteristic about most of them was their touristy character. They presented the most attractive parts of Poland, such as the Baltic coast, the Mazury lakes, the Tatra mountains and the picturesque ruins of castles and alluded to the pleasures of tourism and holidaymaking. The most attractive musicians for such productions appeared to be the band Skaldowie. This might be explained by the fact that it was a leading ethno-­band in Poland, whose songs drew on Polish folklore, especially of the Tatra mountains and conveyed an optimistic vision of the world. For example, in the clip to Medytacje wiejskiego listonosza (Meditation of a Country Postman, 1969) members of the band, clad in postmen’s uniforms, deliver to attractive young women objects which make their seaside holiday more pleasant, such as sun hats, flowers, and even small ducklings. In the last scene of the clip the band is shown driving a lorry on the beach. In Wszystko mi mówi, że mnie ktoś pokochał (Everything Tells Me that Somebody Fell in Love with Me, 1968) the band jumps into the water from a boat, together with their guitar, to enjoy water sports. The clip finishes when a young woman retrieves their guitar from the sea. In Kulig (Sleigh Ride, 1968) Skaldowie travel in a sleigh during the winter landscape of the Polish mountains. On this occasion the clip is part of a 28-minute music film, directed by Stanisław Kokesz, in which a series of clips presenting Polish stars were joined together by a thin narrative about an absent-­minded tourist, played by one of the greatest male stars of the 1960s, Bogumił Kobiela. In Breakout’s Gdybyś kochał hej (If you Loved, Hey, 1969), the band performs in an old-­style village, complete with a windmill and a well, from which the singer, Mira Kubasińska, with her hair made in braids, draws buckets of water. It should be mentioned that, unlike Skaldowie, Breakout was not an ethno-­rock band, but a much edgier, blues-­rock formation. It could be suggested that producing such a clip to their arguably most ‘ethnic’ song performed an operation of changing their image to become more innocuous and even ‘patriotic’. Simon

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Frith points out that one of the innovative aspects of video production is that performance is not restricted to usual performance settings. While many videos show performers on stage or in a recording studio, others move them out of a musical context and into the everyday (the street, the home) or fantastical world (the dream, the wilderness) (Frith 1996, 225) and juxtapose two or more settings. Indeed these early Polish videos took performers off the stage and into unusual settings. However, they were usually restricted to one setting, typically presented in long takes and long shots. Such aesthetics reflected the technological limitations and economic restrictions of this period. That said, some of these videos, most importantly those for the Meditation of a Country Postman by Skaldowie, tried to add dynamism to these mini-­films by placing performers on fast-­moving vehicles. The framework in which music clips were broadcast changed in October 1982, when Polish television launched ‘Top of the Pops’: the first Polish television programme made of music clips (known in Polish as teledyski). It showed the most popular Polish songs of the week, chosen by the audience. The first song/ video which won this poll was Co mi panie dasz (God What Will You Give Me) by the band Bajm. Unlike the clips from the 1960s which were shot on location, the vast majority of the videos in this programme and in subsequent versions of the Polish ‘Top of the Pops’ were shot in the studio, with rather modest sets, as was the case with God What Will You Give Me. The overall impression was of a static film, devoid of any narrative, whose only goal was showing the singer at his/her most attractive. The only exception from this rule was the video to Ten wasz świat (This World of Yours) by the punk rock band Oddział Zamknięty, which was shot on location in Warsaw and showed the band on top of a mound of gravel, against some box-­like apartment blocks. This music video broke with the tradition of showing Poland at its most attractive and instead moved towards the aesthetics of ‘dark tourism’. Over the next few years videos presented in this programme became more complex. Instead of using one location, it used multiple sets, although typically shot in the studio. Instead of showing one artist performing in the same costume, there were artists appropriating multiple personas. The camera also became more mobile, its angles more versatile, and a continuous shoot was on occasion broken by freeze frames, making the videos more dynamic. The artists became accompanied by other performers, which suggested an attempt to create a story, but the narratives to Polish 1980s videos remained minimal. Another development was including dissolves and optical illusions.

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Most of these changes can be observed in videos to the songs Diabelski krąg (The Devil’s Circle) and Prorocy świata (World’s Prophets) for Bajm and Lipstick on the Glass for Maanam, all made in 1984. In The Devil’s Circle the singer, Beata Kozidrak, appears locked in a huge glass ball; in the second she wanders through rooms with cabinets filled with curiosities. In Lipstick on the Glass the main artistic device is juxtaposing close-­ups of lips with that of full bodies. These videos were typically of a lower standard than ‘the best of the West’ (Laskowski 2016), but the difference was not huge and the aesthetics matched what was fashionable at the time in the UK and the USA. Near the end of the decade some videos came across as very developed according to some of these criteria. For example, in 1987, the year ‘Top of the Pops’ was discontinued, a video to Aleja gwiazd (Stars’ Alley) by Zdzisława Sośnicka, one of the greatest hits of the second half of the 1980s, has a very large cast of actors, singers, dancers and extras clad in costumes from different historical periods, with the prevalence of the middle ages, moving on a chequered floor, as if they were figures in somebody’s game of chess. Among them is Sośnicka, stylized as a queen of this eclectic court. The editing is dynamic, especially in the first part of the video. In the last part there are fireworks; rendering this mini-­film literally and metaphorically, flashy. This video epitomizes the ambitions of the Polish television from the early 1970s onwards, to produce breath-­taking spectacles. The possible consequences of introducing ‘Top of the Pops’ to Polish television was the rise of the status of photogenic (or rather videogenic) female stars and closing the gap between pop and rock, and music for older and younger adults. This confirms the view of Simon Frith that video is ‘an empowering medium for female acts, whatever the sexist or “objectifying” visual elements involved’ (Frith 1996, 225). For example, the previously mentioned Zdzisława Sośnicka was, before Stars’ Alley, regarded as a parochial estrada singer with little appeal to young audiences. However, in this video, whose music was produced by the leader of rock band Budka Suflera, Romuald Lipko, she reinvented herself as a Polish Mariah Carey of sorts. The success of Stars’ Alley was also a factor in casting her in Pan Kleks w kosmosie (Mr Kleks in Space, 1988), the last part of the popular SF franchise for children, where she looks very much like a queen in the Stars’ Alley video. Despite the termination of ‘Top of the Pops’, music videos did not disappear from Polish television. On the contrary, they grew and became more accessible thanks to the proliferation of satellite television. This allowed Polish viewers to

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watch more foreign and domestic products. From the perspective of the latter, of special importance is the channel Polsat, which in 1995 started to broadcast the programme ‘Disco Relax’, devoted to videos of a specifically Polish genre, disco polo. Another important event was the setting up in 1997 of Poland’s first channel, broadcasting music videos 24 hours a day, Atomic TV. In 2000, this channel was renamed MTV Polska (Laskowski 2016). Inevitably, creating space for music videos led to an increase in their number. The 1990s thus can be regarded as the decade when this genre matured in Poland, which is reflected in a desire on the part of some of the producers to create something like a ‘Polish style’ of music video. In the following decade the main platform for presenting video became the internet, especially YouTube, a ‘maxi-­television’, with millions of channels, devoted to specific genres, artists and tastes. Apart from the television and the internet, Polish music videos also penetrated a different space: the space of festivals. Since 1989 Poland has a festival devoted to this genre, ‘Yach Film’, set up by the previously mentioned Yach Paszkiewicz, first in Bydgoszcz, then in Gdańsk and finally in Opole. From 1991 it has given awards for the best music video produced in Poland (Laskowski 2016). On top of that, the Camerimage Festival, an international festival devoted to the art of cinematography, since 2008 has had a competition for the best music video. However, in this festival Polish music videos do not fare particularly well. Only once, in 2010, did a Polish video receive the main award – for the song Zabawa w chowanego (Peekaboo) by Kora, directed by Bartek Ignaciuk.

Polishness of disco polo and ‘intelligent rock’ videos As with practically all cultures which can be described as peripheral, in this case in relation to the Anglo-American centre, in Polish popular music and videos we can observe two tendencies, which can be described as localism (or parochialism) and universalism. The proponents of the first tendency target local audiences: those belonging to a specific nation or its subcategory. This tendency is most widely associated with disco polo, as conveyed in the very name of the genre. In the late 1980s to early 1990s disco polo, a type of pop-­folk music, achieved huge popularity despite being ignored in the state media, largely thanks to the informal distribution of cassettes with the music sold straight from the pavement. In the second half of the 1990s, as mentioned previously, its popularity was recognized and promoted by the private channel Polsat. Later the main platform broadcasting

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such videos became YouTube. Commercially, this is the most successful genre of Polish music existing on this platform, as demonstrated by the fact that the first three most watched Polish music videos on YouTube represent disco polo (Dark 2017). There are several motifs which recur in disco polo videos, such as life in the Polish provinces, with a specific focus on celebrating private and public holidays, as well as just having fun, and the difference between dream and reality. The dream typically focuses on exotic travels and finding love. Another factor unifying disco polo songs and videos is their optimistic tone. For example, if they contain a love story, there is a happy ending. Of course, disco polo is not a monolithic genre and it has changed significantly since its early successes in the 1990s and this transformation is reflected in videos to this music. To demonstrate it I look in detail at two videos from the 1990s, Bo wszyscy Polacy to jedna rodzina (Because All Poles Are One Family) by Bayer Full and Bierz co chcesz (Take What You Want) by Shazza and two from the recent years, Przez twe oczy zielone (Because of Your Green Eyes, 2014) by the band Akcent and Ona czuje we mnie piniądz (She Senses Money on Me, 2015) by Łobuzy. Because All Poles Are One Family combines two types of material. One shows the performers, Bayer Full, singing the song at the Sala Kongresowa, together with other stars of this genre, such as Shazza. The second is documentary footage presenting crucial personalities and moments from Polish postwar history, such as the leaders of the Party, Władysław Gomułka and Edward Gierek, and the police crushing political demonstrations. By the same token, the found footage draws on the dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’, pertaining to the dominant discourse about this period, according to which the authorities were ‘them’ and the ‘people’ were ‘us’. However, the combination of lyrics and images leads to ambiguity, as the lyrics state that ‘all Poles are one family’, irrespective of their political affiliations or whether they live in Poland or abroad. The song encourages one to overcome the old political divisions and celebrate unity. In the video to Take What You Want, we see Shazza playing a shopping assistant in a provincial bakery. Her daily activities are juxtaposed with the performance of a song by Shazza stylized for an Egyptian priestess. At some point we also see her dining in an elegant restaurant with a well-­dressed, upper class man. We can gather that this part of the video represents the baker’s dream about exotic lands and love. The conflict between dream and reality is resolved when the bakery is visited by a man of humble class, as suggested by his clothes, yet physically attractive, who hands the woman a bunch of flowers. The last part

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of the video shows two versions of Shazza leaving the scene. The upper class ‘Shazza’ does it with a wealthy man, who drives a Mercedes; the baker with the man who brought her flowers in an old, battered car, possibly a Skoda, overloaded with junk. It appears that using one’s imagination is not the only way to achieve happiness; one can find it in real life, in one’s own milieu. This is also the message of the vast majority of disco polo videos. Because of Your Green Eyes is the most popular disco polo song on YouTube and the most popular Polish music video available on this platform, with over 128,000,000 hits reached by November 2017. On this occasion the video tells the story of a man, played by the leader of the band, Zenon Martyniuk, who falls in love with a woman with the eponymous ‘green eyes’ in a restaurant, where he is a guest and she works as a barmaid and waitress. He brings her a red rose and writes her a love letter. Subsequently, the couple take a stroll in Warsaw’s Old City, get married and disappear in his (Western) car. What indicates that this video was made in the 2010s rather than the 1990s is its visual style which betrays the use of digital technologies. It begins by showing the singer recording the song against a background of cameras and the effect of a rolling film reel. Later the screen is split into several parts to show what happens in the narrative and how this is rendered in the song, which is simultaneously composed by the singer. There are also changes in the colour scheme, from almost black and white into colour, to underscore the difference between the story told in the song, presented in colour, and the story of its creation and recording, which is in black and white, indicating that art production consists of reducing reality to its most basic elements. In one scene the owner of green eyes steps from ‘reality’ into the studio where her suitor sings about her and at the same time her dress changes, from dark into white, which gives the impression that the barmaid turned into a bride. There is also a motif of soap bubbles, which the singer touches in the studio and which are also produced by some street performer in Warsaw’s Old City, where part of the story is set. Soap bubbles normally stand for ‘pie in the sky’: dreams which have no chance to be fulfilled, but their double existence might suggest that these dreams come true. Ultimately, the song can be interpreted both as a story about an affluent man falling in love, and about a musician writing a song and making a video about falling in love in the style of disco polo. Although the video is self-­referential, as is the case with many music videos, it does not distance the viewer from the romantic tale, rendering the song optimistic. It is also worth mentioning that Martyniuk, who was in his mid-­ forties when playing in this video, does not look like a rock-­star, but rather like a

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provincial businessman, judging by his formal clothes. In my opinion, this adds to the feel-­good, optimistic character of the video by suggesting that it is about ordinary people finding happiness. Finally, this video of She Senses Money on Me was described as a parody of disco polo, but it is rather a parody of hip hop video made in a disco polo style, containing all the typical ingredients of a hip hop piece. Told in the first person, it is a story of a rich man, possibly an Arab (as suggested by the head gear worn by the male singers) who, thanks to his money, has no problem going to the fashionable clubs, where he is approached by attractive women who ‘sense money on him’. This unsentimental attitude to money and women who are after a man’s money, betrays the hip hop approach, according to which all women are sexual and predatory ‘bitches’. Moreover, unlike disco polo videos from the 1990s, which were ‘family-­friendly’ and coy in representing sexuality, on this occasion the sexual images are explicit. This connotation is reinforced by the use of cars. The setting is a car wash, where a group of scantily-­clad women wash cars and at the same time are covered in foam, adding to the erotic character of the video. It is worth mentioning that at the beginning we see three small Fiats driving to the car wash, but there they change into luxury cars. By the same token, the makers of this work play on a typical trope of disco polo, namely the dichotomy of reality and dream, as in the video for Shazza’s song and use cars to present it. The singers use the gestures of hip hop artists, as if they wanted to invade the space of the listeners, yet they do not rap, but sing in a typical disco polo style. This hip hop – disco polo hybrid, which in two years since its upload managed to attract 70,000,000 views on YouTube, demonstrates the vitality of the disco polo genre and inventiveness of its videomakers, which is still rarely acknowledged by the authors writing about this genre.3 The She Senses Money on Me is not the only disco polo-­hip hop hybrid, which attracts millions of YouTube views. Such examples are frequent, while examples of crossing disco polo with other genres (such as punk) are extremely rare. I will explain this situation by the fact that both genres are seen as somewhat ‘underground’ and rejected by metropolitan elites (although disco polo much more than hip hop) and for this reason can be regarded as authentic. The second type of music video I want to consider here concerns a genre of music that I label as ‘intelligent rock’ (taking cue from the term ‘intelligent dance music’). I refer here to artists who are widely appreciated not so much because of the quality of their music or an attractive stage persona, but because of the quality of their lyrics, which are seen as sophisticated, and engaging with issues of importance

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to the country. In the 1990s, this description fitted particularly well the band Kult and the solo productions of its leader, Kazik Staszewski. The videos to Kult and Staszewski’s songs reinforced the ideas conveyed by their lyrics and added coherence to the band’s productions. Many of them were produced by the previously mentioned Yach Paszkiewicz, who during this decade was the most prolific and best-­known filmmaker specializing in this genre. Among Kult’s best-­known videos are Hej Czy nie wiecie (Hey Don’t You Know, 1987), Polska (Poland, 1992) and Celina, all produced by Paszkiewicz. The song Hey Don’t You Know can be seen as a protest song against the Polish authorities, known for their abuses, especially in the context of martial law, imposed in Poland in the early 1980s, but also against everybody who holds political power, as conveyed by the chorus: ‘Hey, don’t you know, you don’t have power over the world.’ The whole video consists of archival footage, showing speeches of political leaders (beginning with a speech by Leonid Brezhnev), military parades, state visits of dignitaries and scenes of the army and police suppressing anti-­ government demonstrations, as well as images of Polish streets during martial law. Of course, the message concerns not only the brutality of state socialist regimes, but also their hypocrisy. Some viewers accessing this video on YouTube, where it has over 6,500,000 views (which is a very good result for Polish rock videos), expressed their surprise that such a work was broadcast in the 1980s, given its message. My response is that it was produced near the end of the decade, when the collapse of the old system was in sight and this reflected the fact that, as a minor genre, music videos were less heavily censored than other screen genres. Hey Don’t You Know was most likely inspired by the work of Paszkiewicz’s mentor, Józef Robakowski, most importantly his video to Czarna Data (Black Date) by the band Moskwa, which used found footage of military parades, screened in slow motion. However, while in Robakowski’s work form is more important than content, as the artist manipulates the image to show its materiality, in Hey Don’t You Know the political content is foregrounded. The video to Poland, also produced by Paszkiewicz, shoots the band moving through the coastal town of Gdansk (known worldwide as cradle of the Solidarity movement), privileging places of neglect, such as those of the railway station and suburban railway. These shots are juxtaposed with Staszewski singing about walking the streets covered in the vomit of drunkards and on the dirty beach smelling the oil-­infested Baltic sea. The film is shot on a 16mm camera, which amplifies the message by offering grainy discoloured images, changing an attractive background into a sea of amorphous greyness. Staszewski’s unshaven

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square face and ordinary clothes complete this picture of Poland as a land of alcohol abuse and neglect. Yet, the chorus of the song stubbornly pronounces ‘Polska, mieszkam w Polsce’ (Poland, I live in Poland), which announces the band’s identification with their country, even patriotism. It is indeed the love of one’s country which makes the band angry about its decay. While Hey Don’t You Know problematizes the political history of Poland, Poland looks at the Polish social and cultural landscape, Celina, as its title suggests, taking issue with the private sphere. The titular Celina is a provincial femme fatale with a penchant for alcohol and fun. The province in this case, however, does not refer to the Polish countryside, but more likely to provincial Poland of districts such as Praga nad Bródno in Warsaw, on the left bank of the Vistula river, as suggested by the pronunciation, especially of the word ‘Celina’. The video shows a party, in which people drink heavily, dance, kiss and take off their clothes. The colours are garish and the pace is accelerated, which underscores the lack of moderation on the part of the participants of this event. The band is among these people, clad in bright, old-­fashioned attire, as if suggesting that they also belong to this culture. The scene from the party is edited with a fragment taking place outdoors, showing a man chasing a woman and stabbing her. All in all, the video is a critical, yet also humorous, take on Polish culture, known for its excessive drinking and violence. The last video I want to discuss here comes from 2007, Koledzy (Friends, 2007) to a song by Wojciech Waglewski and Maciej Maleńczuk, two musicians, who are strongly identified with ‘intelligent rock’. It presents Waglewski and Maleńczuk as two older singers, dressed in solemn black suits drinking alcohol and musing on their friendship. They are served by a younger woman, who subsequently disappears into the background, where she performs a dance. In the background we also see some musicians with wind instruments. The video has a nostalgic feel thanks to being shot in sepia, and being composed of static shots, which give an impression of browsing through an album with old photographs, suggesting that the film recreates a Poland which belongs to the past. While this video can be complimented for its ascetic elegance, it also illuminates that by this point the type of Polish music and music video art which mocks the Polish penchant for alcohol, its provinciality and mild patriarchalism, had reached its end. By the same token, it acknowledges that the creators of the ‘intelligent rock’ of the 1990s reached a crisis point and has no obvious successors. This genre is stuck in the past, while disco polo, as I demonstrated earlier, develops.

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Electronic and alternative videos While producers of disco polo and ‘intelligent rock’ videos try to capitalize on their knowledge about Polish history and national character and their target audience are Polish listeners, creators of videos to Polish electronic music, in common with those of videos to this genre made elsewhere, gravitate towards universalism. This tendency is encapsulated by (most likely) the first Polish video to the electronic piece, Ucieczka z tropiku (Escape from the Tropics, 1984) by Marek Biliński, who is also hailed as the first fully-­fledged electronic musician in Poland (Szubrycht 2016). The video juxtaposes, on occasions dividing the screen into several parts, shots of a man operating a console (Biliński himself) with footage of crashes of vehicles, mostly cars, but also helicopters and space ships, taken from disaster films. The video suggests that the man, later presented as an employee of the ‘Department of Catastrophe’, is responsible for these disasters. The video underscores the power of computers which can control the whole universe remotely. As in science fiction films, the reality in this mini-­ movie is transnational, with English functioning as the lingua franca, and the question of Poland and Polishness is excluded from the film. Despite the tremendous success of this production, electronic videos disappeared from the Polish media till the 2000s. The main reason for this situation was the lack of interest on the part of Polish television, which, as I already indicated, was chiefly interested in ‘videogenic’ stars. When I contacted Władysław Komendarek, one of the first Polish electronic musicians, who was a solo artist, as well as a member of the alternative band Exodus, asking him why there are no videos to his music on YouTube up till the 2010s, he responded that there was never any money available to produce them, which confirmed my hypothesis. However, this should also be seen in the context of the posture adopted by electronic musicians in Poland (as well as elsewhere), namely as ‘pure’ musicians, distrustful of showmanship and celebrity. By the time YouTube became the main platform for music videos, electronic music itself significantly changed in Poland in comparison with the 1980s. The genre fragmented into hundreds of mini-­genres and electronic instruments invaded rock productions, raising the question whether a particular band can be labelled electronic or not. Such problems are of little interest to this chapter. What I want to argue, however, is that in the era of YouTube, gravitating towards electronic music in Poland goes hand in hand with production of videos whose imagery and message is universal, as it was in the 1980s. To illustrate this, let’s focus on two videos: one to

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Colonization of Time (2014) by Komendarek and one to Town of Strangers (2013) by Bokka. The examples which I used so far dealt with specific, social and material reality – they represented real people and events. Colonization of Time, by contrast, deals in abstractions. The musical piece is entirely instrumental; it is an ambient piece in the style of ‘cosmic music’, popular in the 1990s and still produced by many electronic artists all over the world. It begins with images of a pulsating line, piercing a black-­green-orange background, which slowly changes. One can think about sound or light travelling through space, which provides a modern concept of time. Subsequently the line is broken into many smaller lines, most likely signifying the birth of galaxies and planets. After that, we see more familiar shapes of objects populating the Earth, including people running to catch a bus and a naked woman, but they are all reduced to contours – abstractions. Louder sounds punctuating the beat-­less music are accompanied by changes of images, for example a distinct shape being broken into lines or points. The way Colonization of Time works brings to mind the concept of synaesthesia, as used by Nicholas Cook and in particular the type described by him as ‘conformance’, namely relations of similarity (Cook 1998: 100). Allan Cameron, drawing on this concept, uses as an example Ryoichi Kurokawa’s video for Aoki Takamasa’s track Mirabeau (2006), in which the glitchy rhythms are ‘mirrored by Kurakowa’s abstract black and red shapes, which pulse and contort in time to the music’ (Cameron 2013: 757). Cameron argues that such videos show how sound and image converge as data (ibid.: 758). Needless to add that such a project is not nation-­specific; it is instead universal. Town of Strangers comes from the self-­titled first album, recorded in English and released in 2013, to much critical acclaim. Music journalists have defined the record as an ‘exciting mixture of synth pop, dream pop, shoegaze and psychedelic electronica’ (Świąder 2014). The first single of Bokka’s debut album was Town of Srangers. It was mastered in London by Mandy Parnell, who had been working regularly with artists such as Björk, Sigur Ros, Little Dragon, Depeche Mode and Paul McCartney, among others. The music video reflects these influences. It presents the story of a boy of about ten years old who feels a special affinity to birds, as shown by him climbing the roofs and being locked in a dovecote, most likely by a hostile parent. In the last part of the video we see the boy building something from pieces of wood and rope, which turns out to be wings. The video finishes with him jumping from the roof. Of course, the story of a young man who wants to be a bird is universal, bringing to mind the myth of Icarus. More

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importantly, the video, although most likely shot on location in Poland, shuns Polish landmarks or a specific way of presenting Polish landscape. Instead, it brings to mind a Scandinavian landscape or the dominant way to present it, which accentuates the vastness. Not surprisingly, many comments on this video, as much from Polish as foreign listeners, expressed surprise that the song and video is Polish, thinking that Bokka is a Scandinavian or Icelandic band. It should also be mentioned that of all the videos discussed in this chapter, Town of Strangers is the only one which includes full credits, including the director Dorota Piskor and scriptwriters Piskor and Tomek Ślesicki. In total, one can learn that about twenty people were involved in its production. The way it presents itself, as well as its popularity: over 5,000,000 views, exceeding most of the Polish films, testifies to the fact that by this point music video in Poland should be taken seriously.

The advantages of researching Polish music video In the first part of this chapter I stated that Polish music video is an under-­ researched topic in studies of Polish moving image and popular music. In my conclusions I want to point to reasons why such study will significantly add to the understanding of these two types of cultural productions in Poland. First, it will shed light on Polish cinema’s cult of Polishness, and its underdevelopment of what can be described as a ‘minor tradition’, namely traditions developed and preserved in the Polish urban province and in the countryside. My argument is that Polish videos, especially disco polo, demonstrated the vitality of this tradition, namely its ability to adopt and rework new influences. It also testifies to the ambition to appeal to the international audience, which is something Polish cinema is arguably not very successful at. At the same time, the study of music videos might shed light on the influence of a wider ‘media politics’ on the career of Polish music stars, especially the upsurge of Polish female stars in the 1980s.

Notes 1 The vast majority of books about Polish pop-­rock do not include information about music videos. 2 I tried to establish it by writing to the respective artists, but received no answer.

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3 Łukasz Laskowski is scathing in his dissertation about disco polo videos (Laskowski 2016).

References Cameron, Allan. 2013. ‘Instrumental Visions: Electronica, Music Video, and the Environmental Interface’, in Carol Vernallis, Amy Herzog, and John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media (Oxford: Oxford University), pp. 752–769. Cegiełkówna, Iwona. 2007. ‘Teledysk.pl’, Kino, 4, pp. 48–49. Cook, Nicholas. 1998. Analysing Musical Multimedia (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Dark, Martino. 2017. ‘Top 25 – polskie klipy na YouTube’, Popheart, 26 July, http://popheart.pl/2017/07/top-25-najpopularniejsze-­polskie-klipy-­na-youtube/, accessed 10 November 2017. Frith, Simon. 1996. Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jarecka, Urszula. 1999. Świat wideoklipu. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa. Laskowski, Łukasz. 2016. ‘Niosę dla was bombę: Wideoklipy Krzysztofa Skoniecznego na tle historii gatunku’, Masters Thesis, Gdansk University, 2016. Mazierska, Ewa. 1993. ‘Szaleństwo na sekundy’, Film, 9, pp. 8–9. Paszkiewicz, Yach. 2014. ‘Wideoklip jako sztuka komunikacji: Interview with Yach Paszkiewicz’, Prowincja: http://prowincja.art.pl/wideoklip-­jako-sztuka-­komunikacjiyachpaszkiewicz/, accessed 3 November 2017. Piątek, Tomasz. 1998. ‘Teledysk: nie wszystko jest sieczką’, Film, 9, pp. 116–117. Przylipiak, Mirosław. 1990. ‘Tam, gdzie rodzą się sny’, Film na świecie, 10, pp. 3–12. Railton, Diane and Paul Watson. 2011. Music Video and the Politics of Representation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Reiss, Steve and Neil Feineman. 2000. Thirty Frames per Second: The Visionary Art of the Music Video. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Rutkowska, Teresa. 1992. ‘Zbigniew Rybczyński – czyli siła techniki, toposów i wyobraźni’. In Marta Fik (ed.), Między Polską a światem: Kultura emigracyjna po 1939 roku. Warszawa: Krąg, pp. 259–267. Świąder, Jacek. 2014. ‘Bokka’, Culture.pl, http://culture.pl/en/artist/bokka, accessed 3 November 2017. Szubrycht, Jarek. 2016. ‘Marek Biliński: Między klasyką a kontrolą rzeczywistości’. In Marek Horodniczy (ed.) Antologia Polskiej Muzyki Elektronicznej. Warszawa: Narodowe Centrum Kultury, pp. 17–23.

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Topolski, Jan. 2013. ‘Kino/muzyka. Zbliżenia. Teledysk: bękart kina między reklamówką a filmem’, Ruch Muzyczny, 15: 18–19. Wollen, Peter. 1986. ‘Ways of thinking about music video (and post-­modernism)’, Critical Quarterly, 1–2, pp. 167–170.

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‘She Stole it from Beyoncé!’ Transnational Borrowing in Bulgarian Pop-­folk Music Videos and Audience Reaction to the Practice Maya Nedyalkova

The category of the music video presents a constant challenge to the idea of authenticity and originality. From the very beginning of MTV, the musical clip epitomized postmodernity – picking and mixing a variety of audio-­visual genres and traditions in an attempt to infuse them with new meanings or simply exploit their visual appeal. At the end of the 1990s John Mundy praised the unashamed recycling of audio-­visual traditions and the uninhibited experimentation, which characterizes contemporary music videos, as enhancing their ability to provide visual accompaniment to any musical style or mood. He maintained that the ‘pick-­and-mix’ nature of the genre celebrates diversity, freedom and the ability to construct alternative meanings, rejecting dominant ideologies (1999, 28). It is thus no surprise that the music video genre has travelled across borders. The opportunity to experiment enabled the music video form in Bulgaria to develop rapidly, following the formal end of state socialism in 1989. With the rise of the highly commercial pop-­folk genre, responding to the need to quickly fill in a void in local entertainment, a number of Bulgarian performers generously borrowed ideas from their Western counterparts. Videos from one of the most prominent genres in the country, however, still divide public opinion (exemplified in entertainment news articles, comedy shows and forum comments). Bulgarian pop-­folk is criticized for its consumerist messages, sampled rhythms and scantily dressed performers. In addition, pop-folk singers like Mariya, Andrea, Aneliya and Galena borrow heavily from their American R’n’B and pop music counterparts, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Jason Derulo (to name a few).

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Importantly, Bulgarian pop-­folk music video remakes evoke comments on national character and culture. They seem to provoke heated discussions on forums and video-­sharing websites, focusing on ideas of intellectual theft and a perceived lack of creativity, not only in Bulgarian showbusiness, but on a more general national level. In this chapter, I will examine music video remakes appealing to domestic audiences with a mixture of familiar and foreign visual symbols and narratives as well as their role in creating new modes of cultural identification and (lack of) value. I begin with a brief history of the pop-­folk genre and a review of selected sources, followed by a clarification of the terminology used. I then move on to examples of pop-­folk music video remakes, in order to focus on a comparative case study. I provide a brief analysis of the formal elements of a pair of music videos: Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love (2003) and its pop-­folk version, Aneliya’s Taka me kefish (You Please Me So, 2011). I examine the mise-­en-scéne, cinematography, editing, dancing, lyrics and music in outlining the differences and similarities within the pair. On a textual level, I look for nation-­specific references and images, as well as cultural borrowings, revealing the levels of cultural translation present in them (Stam 2000, 54–76). Contextually, I employ inductive content analysis (Sudulich et al. 2014, 15) in investigating forum and video-­sharing platforms comments. I select particularly insightful or emotionally loaded quotes and examine their implications for pop-­folk audiences. What are viewers/online users noticing primarily in pop-­folk music video remakes? How do they conceptualize cultural borrowings? Where is aesthetic value placed and how does that reflect on the sense of cultural/national belonging? In the process of translation and analysis I anonymize the sample comments to ensure compliance with ethical standards. I conclude with observations on the culturally informed pop-­folk viewership position towards which critical comments point. In accordance with I.Q. Hunter (2009), I also believe that it is difficult to locate an instance of an audio-­visual form that is not building on a frame of reference and awareness of previous texts. Appropriation, thus, does not exclude originality and novelty, and should not be evaluated in necessarily negative terms. I am, however, interested in audiences’ motivations and interpretations in reading these pop-­folk music video remakes and in examining the implications for notions of belonging. My work relies on comparative textual analysis, theories of transnationalism, music video aesthetics and audience studies.

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History of the pop-­folk genre Anna Aleksieva and Dimitar Atanasov (2013) observe that the pop-­folk genre gained its appeal in situations of political and cultural transition when there was a particular need for a new cultural canon. The first instances of music, resembling contemporary pop-­folk, occurred mid-­nineteenth century, when the Bulgarian population was fighting for its independence and liberation from the Ottoman Empire. The genre, often also referred to as ‘chalga’ (a point which I will come back to later), was likely the result of the mixture of different Balkan people’s folklore, the influence of oriental culture as well as attempts at re-­negotiating one’s national identity within the culturally diverse Empire and modernizing entertainment music. Aleksieva and Atanasov find the blueprint of contemporary pop-­folk in 1840s–1850s songbooks (‘pesnopoiki’) which featured famous foreign melodies with translated lyrics. More often than not these were appropriated Turkish and Greek songs which, while presenting a stark conflict with the ideas of liberation and revolution, proved particularly popular, even among the most patriotic of Bulgarians. After the Liberation in 1878, however, in the process of legitimizing a Bulgarian national identity, the Ottoman origin of such music resulted in negative associations with ‘slave’ mentality. Thus, it was pushed to the cultural periphery of ‘stari gradski pesni’ (a particular type of everyday humorous or love songs) and wedding music (Aleksieva and Atanasov 2013; Bulgarian History 2014). Aleksieva and Atanasov also highlight the connections between the development of Bulgarian pop-­folk and analogous genres, evolving simultaneously in Greece, Romania, Serbia, Albania and amongst the Roma populations of the Balkans. Likewise, Eran Livni (2014) draws parallels between pop-­folk and ‘popular musics from other Balkan countries (including Turkey), Bulgarian canonic folklore, socialist Estrada, as well as global pop (especially Arabic shabaiya, Isreali Muzika Mizrahit, Indian Bollywood music, and Latin American Reggaeton)’. The prevailing consensus in academic circles is that, since its inception, pop-­folk has been characterized by genre fluidity, cultural permeability, mass appeal within its linguistically specific audience and a particular focus on the present, as a site for entertainment, romantic courtship and hopes for prosperity. In character, the music is uplifting, accessible and often playful or humorous, revealing some of the reasons for its mass appeal. The contemporary version of Bulgarian pop-­folk arose at the end of state socialism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Inspired by the relative ideological

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freedom which their Yugoslav and Greek counterparts enjoyed at the time, the first Bulgarian pop-­folk artists, Dimitar Andonov-Hisarskiya pop (the Priest from Hisarya), Konstantin Stefanov-Kotseto Slaninkata (Kotse the Salo), Radoslav Petrov-Rado Shisharkata (Rado the Pine Cone), Mustafa Chaushev, Toni Dacheva and orkestar Kristal (Crystal band), Sashka Vaseva, Sasho Roman, Volodya Stoyanov, Ilian Mihov, Gloriya, and Rumyana, to name just a few, brought a sense of dissidence and political opposition to postcommunist cultural norms. Their songs celebrated simple pleasures (for instance, having fun at the pub or the beach), praised borderline illegal entrepreneurial spirits (like pyramid schemes), mourned unrequited love, chastised social injustice (particularly, class separation) and commended attractive members of the opposite sex. The freedom of expression and playfulness, which the genre allowed, seemed an attempt to compensate for the decades of ideological correctness and restrictions under state socialism. Unfortunately, the popularity of pop-­folk performers with mafia circles, their consumerist messages and images of overly sexualized femininity undermined the subversive potential of the genre, lending its opponents fruitful grounds for criticism (Aleksieva and Atanasov 2013). Reflecting a newly adopted ethos of consumerism and individualism, pop-­folk was seen as engulfing every aspect of Bulgarian life and causing embarrassment in local intellectual circles with its emphasis on easy money and equally easy women (Sotirova 2013). Critics often failed to look at the origins, transformations or reasons behind the appeal of the genre, instead implying that it had been imposed onto young people who have no alternative role models or venues of entertainment other than the pop-­folk nightclubs. In the early days, pop-­folk music videos were of amateur quality, often shot on location in the restaurants and taverns or at the festivals where the singers performed. Resources were scarce, costume changes and storylines even scarcer, there was no professional lighting and post-­production work was minimal. It was not until the launch of the first pop-­folk-dedicated cable television channels in the late 1990s and early 2000s that investment in music videos increased exponentially, creating almost a ‘barrier to market entry’ (Maxwell et al. 2005, 260). Pop-­folk videos developed a glossy, advertisement-­like look, often featuring exotic locations, expensive cars, designer clothes and extensive CGI. As production companies encouraged performers to source their own videos, competition for external sponsorship and recognition intensified.1 By 2010 one of the most popular singers, Andrea (also known internationally as ‘Sahara’), was boasting a new music video for her collaboration with Romanian producer

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Costi, French DJ Bob Sinclar and American reggae fusion singer Shaggy, amounting to more than 100,000 US dollars (Kaleva 2010). Perhaps as an attempt to claim their place as part of global show business, outdazzle local rivals and display an awareness of video-­making trends, certain performers chose not only to collaborate with foreign talent, but also turned for inspiration to already existing and famous videos, remaking them for the purposes of their own genre and audience.

Terminology and sources Before I proceed to explore the nature of pop-­folk remakes and the response of local audiences, however, I need to clarify the main terminology and sources used to inform this chapter. While some authors employ the terms ‘pop-­folk’ and ‘chalga’ interchangeably, I opt for the former to describe the genre at hand, for a number of reasons. A review of the sources available demonstrates that the choice of terminology is also tightly linked to the analysis and interpretation of the genre’s development and value. As Livni explains above, pop-­folk draws on a number of mainstream musical traditions, much like contemporary pop music, which, in turn, signifies the commercial character of the genre and justifies the first part of the name of the term. In addition, most of the pop-­folk performers benefit from formal folklore music training and are aware of the local music traditions which the genre draws upon. As a result, the folklore element in ‘pop-folk’ is strongly pronounced and, perhaps, that is why it appeals to the local population. The term ‘chalga’, in contrast, is more specific and ideologically loaded. As Plamen K. Georgiev clarifies, it is derived from the Turkish word çalgı (meaning ‘a musical instrument’). The musicians, dubbed çalgıci, are self-­taught talented improvisers, who play from memory, usually adding their own distinctive beat or rhythm to the performed piece (2012, 54). While there are Bulgarian pop-­folk performers who fit the above description, ‘chalga’ appears too restrictive to accommodate all the modifications, cultural borrowings and innovations that the genre offers. A number of performers, both from the older and newer generation, also have formal music training and experience in other popular genres on which they draw.2 Furthermore, the term ‘chalga’ is often utilized in a derogative sense, stereotyping both performers and fans as backward, unintelligent and superficial (see Urban Dictionary). Livni acknowledges the ideological loadedness of the

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term, explaining that ‘people [in Bulgaria] attempt to legitimise musical texts by changing their generic label, calling them pop-­folk rather than chalga and thus keying speech and music performance toward navaksvane [catching up with Western culture]’ (Livni 2014, 29). While this rebranding of the genre makes sense from an ideological point of view, there is also an industrial perspective, which necessitates the use of ‘pop-­folk’ over ‘chalga’. With the establishment and growth of pop-folk television, radio station and YouTube channels, the professionalization of the genre requires a much more precise and inclusive description. While, in its essence, ‘chalga’ communicates a type of marginalized performed music, ‘pop-­folk’ signifies a mass-­media industry, encompassing not only the style of music, but also the type of music production companies, entertainment venues, print and online publications, live concerts and media channels involved in the production and development of this versatile and resilient music genre. As a result, when discussing the formal and contextual characteristics of music videos – themselves a product of the increased industrialization of the music industry – it seems ‘pop-­folk’ is the most appropriate term to employ. Most academic research readily acknowledges the embeddedness of pop-­folk in contemporary Bulgarian society as well as its cultural and economic adaptability. Aleksieva and Atanasov (2013), for instance, note: Probably because of its ability to mimic other genres, including musical styles that carry the stamp of intellectual acceptance, chalga manages to escape any attempts for limitation. What is more, recently we witness an attempt to officialise pop-­folk. It is illustrated by Sofi Marinova [a popular pop-­folk singer of the Roma minority] representing Bulgaria at Eurovision 2012 and by the European funding won by the emblematic chalga production company ‘Payner’ the year after. We are witnessing a process in which pop-­folk successfully leaves the sphere of cultural intimacy and becomes institutionalized in different ways, turning from a product for internal, ‘popular’ use to a brand for export, signifying contemporary Bulgarian music in general. Indeed, pop-­folk has been quick to adapt throughout the years, borrowing generously from pop, estrada, house, r’n’b, hip-­hop, rock and reggae, to name just a few, and promoting collaboration across music styles.3 Through its versatility, adaptability and persistence, it has received formal recognition in most national and even international media, earlier than it has in academic circles.

Many scholarly works glance over the transnational links between pop-­folk and other music traditions or pop-­folk’s implications for the political or

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intellectual maturing of the nation, preferring to focus instead on genres that are more critically acclaimed or conventional in representing Bulgarian culture. For instance, Claire Levy (1992, 2009) notes, respectively, the influence of British rock on Bulgarian popular music styles and the changes in local folk music through the rise of wedding bands and enthojazz. Similarly, Timothy Rice (1994) documents and interprets the history of folk music, song and dance in Bulgaria over a seventy-­year period of changes, while Donna A. Buchanan (2006) draws attention to Bulgarian folk music and its perceived essential role to the country’s democratization. However, there are also more nuanced accounts of music in Bulgaria. Gregory Myers and Anna Levy’s critical response to Buchanan challenges the idealized notion of indigenous folklore, offering, instead, a short account of Bulgaria’s varied transnational music genres before, during and after state socialism (2009). Claire Levy (2001) highlights the artificial dichotomy created between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and argues that pop-­folk is inherently world music, epitomizing the postmodern interplay between local and global, known and foreign, thus, advocating for cultural and aesthetic pluralism. Livni’s ethnographic study of chalga (used as an alternative for pop-­folk) reveals its role in Bulgaria’s transition from one model of national modernity to another (2014, 6). Like the abovementioned authors, I emphasize the interconnectedness of the pop-­folk genre with local and global cultures. Unlike all previous studies, I am less focused on musical specificity and more interested in the phenomenon of audiovisual imitation as a site of cultural production and social reaction. For the remainder of this chapter I provide a few examples of pop-­folk video remakes in order to contextualize my analysis of the formal elements of a pair of music videos: Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love (2003) and its pop-­folk version, Aneliya’s Taka me kefish (You Please Me So, 2011). I then investigate audience reactions, captured in social media comments and draw conclusions regarding the direct engagement, aesthetic understanding and erudition of pop-­folk audiences.

Pop-­folk music video remakes One of the ways in which pop-­folk remakes of Western music videos received greater media attention was through the Bulgarian TV show Gospodari na efira (Lords of the Air, 2003–). It focuses on comic TV blunders while also investigating more serious audience-­raised issues in politics, education, healthcare and the

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entertainment business. The show itself is a remake of the Italian Striscia la notizia (The News Slither, 1988–), parodying daily news, satirizing government corruption and exposing scams, with the help of local reporters who are also comedians. Scrutinizing informal pop-­folk music video remakes through a show that is itself a remake, reveals the irony and multiple levels of transnational appropriation in Bulgarian post-­communist culture. Importantly though, the show, much like social media, provides viewers with a public forum in which to discuss and react to local popular culture. By inviting direct communication and engagement, it promotes self-­reflexivity and a greater awareness of music genres amongst its audiences. Some of the remakes, exposed in Lords of the Air, include Mariya’s Neshto Krayno (Something Extreme, 2012), in which the singer performs in a desert and a CGI maze, remarkably similar to the ones in Chris Brown’s video for Don’t Wake Me Up (2012); Galena’s Chik Chik (Mnogo mi otivash) (You Suit Me So Much, 2012), featuring multiplied revolving fragmented female body parts, flashing neon signs and shapes, suggestively positioned female bodies and disco/ punk outfits, identical to Santiago and Maurizio’s short fashion film She’s Electric (2012); and Tatyana’s Pozdrav za bivshiya (Greetings to the Ex, 2014) which, with its male silhouettes hip-­hop dancing and scantily-­clad women twerking against bright orange and blue backgrounds, presented an almost shot-­for-shot remake of Jason Derulo’s Talk Dirty to Me (2013). Drawing inspiration from successful foreign audiovisual texts, regardless of the country of origin, is typical for a number of contemporary pop-­folk videos. For his Leka nosht (Goodnight, 2016) singer Konstantin copied the white mise-­en-scène, black leather jacket and sunglasses of French Maître Gims Brisé (2015) in which he, similarly, smashed a mirror with a baseball bat in slow motion. Andrea’s clip for Nay-­dobrata (The Best, 2014), featuring the singer carving her heart out for her male counterpart, who tortures and abuses her, is, likewise, based on Russian Anna Sedokova’s Serdtse v bintah (Heart In Bandages, 2014), released a few months earlier. This brief list of remakes signifies that unashamed recycling of visual imagery is frequent in the pop-­folk genre. Saul Austerlitz (2006, 7) maintains that, just like hip-­hop sampling, the borrowings from different audio-­visual traditions position musical clips within the pop culture continuum. By using and re-­using similar symbols, music videos contribute to the creation of a unique audio-­ visual language of artistic expression that manages to convey meaning in a matter of seconds. Similar images, sounds and forms influence the aesthetics of film, television and music videos (Weir 2004). They help recognize music that is

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sensual, aggressive, carefree or depressing, signifying a specific ethnic, class, age or gender group or musical genre. We comprehend the cultural and social content of the accompanying images in order to appreciate the whole work (Vernallis 2004, 191). In this way, Andrea’s Love Is Mine (2016) used the same Hollywood pool as Britney Spears’ Work B**ch (2013) and Chris Brown’s New Flame (2014) to promote a catchy, upbeat summer track, evoking a sense of glamour and fun in the sun, and building upon an already existing image in pop culture. While there are pop-­folk music videos with much more original narratives and visuals, the ones listed above should not be discarded as mere imitation, but reviewed as cultural appropriation for the purposes of the local market. Appropriating the visual styles of foreign music videos for the purposes of the Bulgarian entertainment industry reciprocates Hollywood’s fondness of remaking successful European films. Lucy Mazdon explains that the remake, together with the sequel and the adaptation, is a well-­known Hollywood form of production which attempts to counter the financial uncertainty of the film business. It is not necessarily inferior simply because it takes as a starting point a previously existing, successful text. Remaking is a diverse activity which holds the potential to entice artistic and business productivity and overcome cultural differences (Mazdon 2014, 208). Thus, by copying the style of already successful foreign music videos, Bulgarian pop-­folk performs the function of cultural translation, drawing links between different music genres and attempting to catch up with developments in contemporary global showbusiness. As my analysis shall reveal, the process often also serves the purposes of performer rebranding and helps bring attention to the versatility and growth of pop-­folk singers.

Beyonce’s Crazy in Love vs. Aneliya’s You Please Me So Aneliya released her video for You Please Me So, following her much publicized divorce from Bulgarian restaurant business owner and playboy Konstantin Dinev, in a period when she was trying to reinvent herself and restart her music career. Previously, the singer had become famous for her emotional ballads and edgy alternative look, refusing to bear too much skin or undergo any cosmetic surgeries, unlike most of her female colleagues. By drawing inspiration from an established American R’n’B and pop icon such as Beyoncé, Aneliya attempted to

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infuse glamour and sex appeal into her new public image. You Please Me So marked a switch from her signature brunette look to a lighter, blonde, and revealed a more tanned Aneliya, with a complexion very similar to Beyoncé’s. Crazy in Love, the lead single from Beyoncé’s debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), following her split from Destiny’s Child, was itself a symbol of change and reinvention. Its remarkable success4 helped establish Beyoncé’s future career as one of the most successful artists in contemporary pop music (Llewellyn Smith 2009). By opting to remake that particular video, Aneliya implicitly positioned herself as embarking on something different and levelling up with global performers. In this section, I present a brief comparative study between the two music videos, focusing on the mise-­en-scène, cinematography, editing, choreography, music and lyrics employed. I highlight nation-­specific references and images, as well as cultural borrowings and maintain that, while You Please Me So obviously draws on Crazy in Love for inspiration, each video features, respectively, certain typically American and characteristically Bulgarian elements, which render them innovative products of glocal entertainment traditions and postmodernity. Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love opens with a shot zooming along a road in downtown Los Angeles. From the very beginning, the video establishes an industrial-­ looking, edgy mise-­en-­scéne, with derelict buildings, city traffic and beautiful urban skylines. The image of the road, along which the singer struts confidently, brings up the idea of travelling, growing up and exploring different life-­paths, which was essentially what Beyoncé was doing at the time as well. It also conjures up the notion of ‘manifest destiny’ – the nineteenth-­century idea that the expansion of the United States across the American continent was pre-­destined and blessed by God himself (Mountjoy 2009). However, instead of fuelling American boldness and individualism, in this case the road seems to ignite female empowerment and race awareness, giving Beyoncé her confidence. A dynamic camera moves to catch up with her, voguing down on the floor, in a style, appropriating 1980s ball culture in New York (Baker and Regnault 2011). Much like Madonna in her video for Vogue (1990), Beyoncé brings what was once perceived as the cultural margins to the forefront of commercial showbusiness. Her outfit – a loose camisole, denim shorts and red designer heels – simple and casually sexy. The next shot reveals Beyoncé, posing for a photo shoot in a glamorous short khaki plunge dress on top of a skyscraper. She is both physically and metaphorically elevated by her global super-­star status. This is followed by another outfit change – a baseball hat, cropped jacket and a

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loose tracksuit – more dancing (this time the typical r’n’b and hip-­hop twerking, as part of a larger group of women) and flirty bubble-­gum chewing in the backstreet of an L.A. neighbourhood. Here Beyoncé epitomizes urban youth culture and the dynamics of street life at the heart of big American cities. The rapid and radical changes in location and costume position Beyoncé as the link between different social strata. She becomes the living symbol of the ‘American dream’ – overcoming her humble background in her rise to fame and riches, she challenges class, gender and race divisions in American society. Next, extreme close-­ups reveal Beyoncé’s sensual expression in an old American ‘muscle’ car, just moments before her on- (and off-) screen partner, rapper Jay-Z, sets it on fire. In those rare few moments, we are reminded of the horrors Civil Rights’ activists experienced in their confrontation with right-­wing groups, in particular the 1961 incident in Anniston, Alabama, where Ku Klux Klan firebombed a Freedom Riders bus (Noble 2003). Beyoncé emerges triumphant, however, like a phoenix in front of the flames, a living metaphor for African American resilience and courage. After having vogued on the ground and danced in front of the blazing flames, she summons the remaining two forces of nature – water and wind. Beyoncé kicks open a street fire hydrant, releasing sprays of water, under which she channels a sexier version of the Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen, 1952) famous dance number. She then dances in front of the wind streams of a stylized jet-­engine fan in a designer orange, pink and purple mini-­dress and over-­the-top golden jewellery. The dynamic and playful choreography is complimented by fast cutting, panning and tracking, interspersed close-­ups with medium close-­ups and wide shots. The cinematography and editing further the idea of Beyoncé representing a vibrant force of nature in her own right, overcoming social divisions in the name of (crazy) love. Aneliya’s You Please Me So is much smaller in scale, reflecting the nature and realities of the Bulgarian entertainment market and postcommunist culture. Almost the entire video is shot indoors. It also features less costume changes and dancing than Beyoncé’s clip. Instead of overtly challenging class and race divisions, You Please Me So sheds light on the permeability of culture and reveals the ‘Bulgarian dream’ of catching up with the perceived advancements of the Western world. The video opens in an underground garage, located in one of the new shopping centres in the capital city of Sofia (Iliev 2011). Indeed, American-­ inspired malls have proliferated, following the end of state socialism and the

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privatization of public land and buildings. Perceived as providing a direct link with Western culture, newly established shopping centres epitomize the exact opposite of shops existing before 1990. They feature expensive designer brands, a huge variety of products, services, food and drink as well as multiplex cinema chains. Everything is geared up towards entertainment and consumption. Young people embrace the materialistic attitude, often connected with excessive shopping, in an attempt to imitate what they associate (through media and films) with a ‘Western lifestyle’. So, the fact that Aneliya’s video takes place in the underground parking space of a Bulgarian shopping mall hints subtly towards the political, economic and cultural changes that the country has undergone in the last three decades. The video also features an aircraft hangar and an all-­glass business building. Noticeably missing are the urban landscapes and realism of Beyoncé’s video. Instead of the old American ‘muscle’ car, Aneliya’s song showcases three brand new sports automobiles, advertizing a local car rental business on their number plates. This clever product placement underscores the commercial character and economic resilience of the pop-­folk genre. The flashy cars are not set on fire, like in Beyoncé’s video, but come to symbolize the higher social status towards which most of Bulgarian society has been aspiring, since the shift to the market economy. Thus, Aneliya’s video is more about fitting in and catching up with established capitalist countries than challenging a status quo. Even though the video features less camera movement and little synchronized choreography, Aneliya visibly mimics Beyoncé’s hair-­tossing and flirtatious smiles. The singer shifts between a little black plunge dress and an orange and pink ensemble, remarkably analogous to Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love final costume. She similarly wears an excessive amount of golden jewellery. However, unlike Beyoncé, Aneliya also puts on display her leopard-­print high-­heel boots – a provocative accessory, often associated with pop-­folk singers’ lack of fashion sense (Kirilova 2012). Aneliya’s costumes draw links between two different genres and cultures, attempting to overcome the stigma of pop-­folk’s perceived inferiority, but also displaying close links with the genre’s roots. Ultimately, her costumes signify the permeability and mixing of cultures. Next, she is inside one of the cars, suggestively moaning and sighing, in a manner, more explicitly sexual than Beyoncé’s car scene. In fact, the lyrics of the song (discussed below), suggest that Aneliya portrays a character that is more predatory and dangerous than Beyoncé’s protagonist. The video ends with Aneliya in a red playsuit, marching confidently ahead of a group of suited men, similarly, this time, to Beyoncé’s

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promotional video for her ‘I Am . . . World Tour’ (2009–2010), in which the latter is dressed in a sparkling corset gown and leads her own army of well-­dressed gentlemen. The ultimate message in both scenes implies female empowerment and emancipation. Gender roles are also discussed in the lyrics to both songs. While Beyoncé wonders how her love interest can exert such influence on her thoughts and behaviour, gradually admitting that she is truly smitten with him, Aneliya challenges the man of her dreams, acknowledging that their attraction is visible to everyone and he should act on it. In You Please Me So, the pop-­folk singer describes a sinful but addictive man, who likes to play games, but, as the lyrics reveal, so does she.5 In a way, Aneliya portrays a femme fatale, actively pursuing her love interest, completely aware and unafraid of the potential consequences. The chase ‘pleases her’. Therefore, the protagonist of You Please Me So appears more sexually liberated and aggressive than the one of Crazy in Love. It serves as a surprising revelation, bearing in mind that, despite the socialist ideology of gender equality, contemporary Bulgaria is still a patriarchal country as demonstrated by the fact that women are often employed in lower paying jobs, while remaining responsible for most household chores and child-­raising (European Commission 2013). So, in You Please Me So, Aneliya not only praises the man she admires but also, subtly, establishes herself in a dominant position, subverting conservative gender stereotypes in Bulgaria and, again, revealing an attempt to catch up with the sexual revolution of the West. The two songs also differ in their instrumentals. Crazy in Love is a moderately fast r’n’b/pop song, featuring brass and percussion instruments. The melody is sampled from Are You My Woman (Tell Me So) (1970) by the r’n’b and soul vocal quartet Chi-Lites. You Please Me So, on the other hand, is an original piece, featuring upbeat pop sound with added synthesizer as well as the typically Balkan kaval flute. As a result, both melodies appear to be modernized versions of older music styles, typical of the respective country and continent. Crazy in Love builds on American jazz and soul music traditions of the 1970s, whereas You Please Me So mixes contemporary pop with local folklore elements. Same as the respective video mise-­en-scène, cinematography and editing, Beyoncé’s music renegotiates class and race, whereas Aneliya’s song displays an attempt to combine indigenous rhythms with global pop in an attempt to update and transform the Bulgarian music tradition.

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Audience reactions to You Please Me So Despite the different purposes that the two music videos served, the similarities in set design, costume, choreography and camerawork between them did not go unnoticed by pop-­folk audiences. At the time when You Please Me So was released, debates sparked across videosharing websites and pop-­folk music forums. To seek out trends in audience reactions, I analyzed three sources of information, featuring the video – the global music sharing platform, YouTube, the Bulgarian equivalent of it, Vbox7, and the discussion underneath an article on signal.bg, a website for entertainment news, live interviews and industry gossip. The data collected is summarized in Table 1. A closer inspection reveals that the highest number of viewers, who posted comments, relevant to the aesthetic value of the video, were satisfied with the song and/or the clip. Out of approximately 1,057 comments, analyzed in total Table 1  Reactions to Aneliya’s Taka me kefish (You Please Me So, 2011) Reactions to Aneliya’s Taka me kefish: Comment nature: Love the song and/or video Dislike the song and/or video Praising singer’s looks Critiquing the singer’s looks Highlighting/critiquing similarities with Beyoncé Highlighting/critiquing similarities with Jessica Simpson/Jennifer Lopez Defending/undermining similarities with Beyoncé Highlighting/critiquing similarities with other pop-­folk singers Refuting similarities with other pop-­folk singers Critique of pop-­folk as genre Defense of pop-­folk as genre Quoting the song’s lyrics/title Other (comments about veridity of subtitles, cars in video, emoji comments, personal arguments, self-­promotion, etc.)

Number of comments: Vbox7:

YouTube:

Signal.bg: Total:

209 54 101 43 98

27 1 2 0 3

24 3 10 10 10

260 58 113 53 111

1

0

1

2

38

3

4

45

13

0

6

19

5

0

3

8

68 24 47 227

1 0 4 13

0 0 1 3

69 24 52 243

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across all platforms, about 25 per cent were happy with the final product and a further 11 per cent were impressed with Aneliya’s transformation. One user, for instance, notes: ‘The song is really cool and not to mention that Aneliya looks like a Hollywood star.’ So, it seems that the singer’s efforts to reinvent herself as a glamorous performer with global appeal were generally well-­received. However, a further 19 per cent were engaged in criticizing or defending the similarities they uncovered between Aneliya’s video and that of Beyoncé or other local and global performers. Some of the comments included: Hahaha wow! This woman needs to stop copying Beyoncé’s videos! Nothing is original anymore! Songs are stolen, videos are stolen and how are you ‘stars’ justifying this? . . . . . . Whoever says this video has nothing to do with Beyoncé, either hasn’t seen Beyoncé’s video or is a complete idiot. Aneliya’s video is not 1:1 with Crazy in Love but the similarities are palpable. The scene in the car is also copied from Waiting for Tonight by JLo, the only thing missing are the crystals on her face. P.S. The song is really good, the video . . . works. . . . Aneliya is great in this video, even if she copied Beyoncé, it still ‘pleases’ me . . . . . . I don’t know why you think she’s copying Andrea . . . As to the Beyoncé-style dress, it’s not the only copied outfit [in the world]! What about the Lady Gaga wave? . . . . . . I think it looks cheap when they [Bulgarian artists] copy the videos of global stars . . .

The debates generally centred on the idea of an original contribution to pop culture and the inventiveness of pop-­folk music videos, compared to those of global stars. In the most heated of disputes, about 9 per cent engaged in general discussion of the value of pop-­folk as a genre. Importantly, a number of comments also reflected a sense of cultural/national belonging, expressing their disappointment in the lack of originality, perceived as a national trait. While certain reactions were, admittedly, overly emotional and one-­sided, the above statistic leads to observations on the culturally informed pop-­folk viewership position towards which critical comments point. Conceptualizing authenticity and originality necessitates a frame of reference, an awareness of audiovisual traditions and an exposure to a multitude of artistic styles and

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forms. As Alex Neill and Aaron Ridley explain, aesthetic discrimination based not only on personal taste but on an awareness of musical tradition is what characterizes objective value judgements (2013, 119). The fact that almost a fifth of YouTube and forum comments focus on the appropriated images and tropes in Aneliya’s video, reveals that the users behind the nicknames draw upon a reserve of transcultural knowledge. This exposes pop-­folk fans as active and critical in their selection and endorsement of music, rehabilitating their stereotypical image and challenging the idea that the genre necessarily exerts negative influence over its supporters. Criticizing what they label as blatant copying, forum writers conclude that it is part of the ‘uncivilized’ Bulgarian/ Balkan character to resort to (intellectual) theft.6 The self-­orientalizing nature of such comments confirms Livni’s observations that pop-­folk reveals a deep social anxiety about Bulgarians not appearing European (connoting, cultured) enough (2014, 8). Importantly, this trend points towards the desire of YouTube and forum users to differentiate between themselves and the texts they are criticizing. Online users are elevated to the point of cultural critics. As a result, pop-­folk music video remakes speak tons about the cultural background, popular music erudition and sense of belonging of their audiences. The often critical response of users points towards a selective and cosmopolitan trend of consumption, in stark contrast with Theodor W. Adorno’s ‘uncritical masses’ (1973; 1991).

Conclusion In conclusion, while relatively unfamiliar abroad, the pop-­folk genre proves subject to heated local debates, especially when its performers borrow freely from the music videos of their successful Western counterparts. The critique or admiration of pop-­folk music video remakes should, however, always be situated in the broader context of artistic norms, political change and cultural appropriations, evident in Bulgarian culture since the fall of state socialism. A careful analysis of a video like Aneliya’s You Please Me So reveals that, despite drawing inspiration from Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love, there are certain specific tropes and symbols, which gain meaning only when placed in the respective national context. Nevertheless, the pop culture erudition and active engagement, displayed by social media and forum users in responding to such informal remakes, challenges preconceived notions on the type of supporters pop-­folk

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attracts. Ironically, both the informal music video remakes and the critical responses of their audiences reveal a deeply embedded desire to catch up with and gain recognition from Western culture.

Notes 1 With the drop in record sales and the rise of Internet piracy, pop-­folk singers, much like the rest of the performers around the world, have focused on live gigs and touring as main sources of income. Since Bulgaria features a relatively small market for entertainment, a number of the popular names in the business are also rumoured to have affluent partners, lovers or families, who invest heavily in their careers. 2 Pop-­folk performer Veselin Marinov graduated from the Bulgarian National Academy of Music and his first professional experience was in a progressive rock band. Similarly, Rado Shisharkata learned how to play the trumpet and baritone, before joining a hard rock band. Controversial singer Sashka Vaseva (often compared to a Balkan Marilyn Monroe, due to her display of provocative yet innocent sexuality) completed a degree in music pedagogy. Pop-­folk doyen Sasho Roman is a professional trumpeter, having studied at a military music school. The most famous representatives of the younger generation in Bulgarian pop-­folk – Preslava, Emiliya, Aneliya, Desi Slava, Galin and Dzhena – have all received formal folklore or pop music training as part of their secondary education. 3 Pop-­folk singer Preslava rose to fame with her song Lazha e (It’s a Lie, 2006) which, in its instrumentals, rhythm and vocals, closely resembled a rock ballad, and reaffirmed her leading position in the industry with house- and electronic-­inspired singles Moeto slabo myasto (My Weak Spot, 2014), Na tebe ne otkazvam (I Can’t Say No to You, 2015) and Bez teb (Without You, 2016), amongst other songs. Similarly, her main rival, Galena, often experiments with different genres, recently employing famous Bulgarian hip-­hop performer and producer, Krisko, to write her #MamaUragan (#MamaHurricaine, 2016). Following the success of the single, her colleague, Mariya, did the same for her recent hit Vsichko zabraneno (Everything Forbidden, 2017). Singer Desi Slava has dipped in and out of pop music, having even featured with English-­language ballad My Pleasure, My Pain (2009) on MTV World Chart Express. Pop-­folk doyenne Gloriya is famous for building a discography of tracks that are close to Bulgarian estrada music. Teen idols Galin and Emanuela presented a hip-­hop inspired track – 5, 6, 7, 8 in 2017 and pop-­folk diva Tsvetelina Yaneva performed a pop and jazz rendition of her then new album Moga pak (I Can Again, 2012) at a special gig, hosted by a famous local piano bar. One of the first to collaborate across genres were pop-­folk performer Sofi Marinova and hip-­hop

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artist Ustata, who, in 2006, topped local music charts with Moy si, dyavole (You’re Mine, Devil). 4 The single won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, three MTV Video Music Awards, the Music Video Production Association award for Best R&B Video and was recognized as one of the most performed songs of 2004 by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). 5 Taka me kefish (translated lyrics): I know that games attract you, That is why you are facing me. You do bad things to women, Don’t be honest with me. You’re used to coming And then going. I know it, you know it, And lots of others do too . . .

Chorus:

You please me so – somewhat sinful, Somewhat truthful, somewhat unruly next to me. You please me so – somewhat sinful, somewhat truthful, You touch me and you’re not running away now, I want you exactly like this.

I know you are secretly attracted To keeping me unaware of where you are, I know, but I also love These secret tricks. You’re used to coming And then going. I know it, you know it, And lots of others do too . . . 6 Indeed, such self-­criticism appears typical of Eastern Europe, maybe due to being a legacy of different waves of colonialism and an unfulfilled aspiration to look ‘Western’. For more on the issue, see Ewa Mazierska, Lars Kristensen and Eva Naripea’s work on postcolonial Eastern European cinema (2014) and Maya Nedyalkova’s research on the transnational aspects of the Bulgarian film industry (2015).

References Adorno, Theodor W. 1973. Dialectic of Enlightenment. London: Allen Lane. Adorno, Theodor W. 1991. The Culture Industry. London: Routledge.

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Aleksieva, Anna and Dimitar Atanasov. 2013. ‘Pop folkat v kulturata na balgarite’ paper presented to Muzikata predi vsichko . . . ostanaloto e literatura Conference, Sofia, 19–20 April, http://calic.balkansbg.eu/, accessed 05/07/2016. Austerlitz, Saul. 2006. Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes New York – London: Continuum. Baker, Stuart and Chantal Regnault. 2011. Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989–92. Soul Jazz Records. Buchanan, Donna A. 2006. Performing Democracy: Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bulgarian History. 2014. Stari gradski pesni: Stoyan Milenkov – ‘Vsichko se drusa’, https://bulgarianhistory.org/, accessed 01/11/2017. European Commission. 2013. The Current Situation of Gender Equality in Bulgaria – Country Profile, https://ec.europa.eu/, accessed 01/11/2017. Georgiev, Plamen K. 2012. Self-Orientalisation in South East Europe, Springer VS, Sofia. Hunter, I.Q. 2009. ‘Exploitation as Adaptation’, in Smith, I.R. (ed.) Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation. United Kingdom: Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies, pp. 8–33. Iliev, Krasimir. 2011. VIZH ‘Taka me kefish’ na Aneliya, http://signal.bg/, accessed 01/11/2017. Kaleva, Sofi. 2010. Noviyat klip na Andrea struva nad 100,000 dolara, http://signal.bg/, accessed 01/11/2017. Kelly, Gene and Stanley Donen. 1952. Singin’ in the Rain. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). USA. Kirilova, Elena. 2012. Pop-­folk divite i uzhasat na leopardovite shtampi, http://inews.bg/, accessed 01/11/2017. Levy, Claire. 1992. ‘The Influence of British Rock in Bulgaria’, Popular Music, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 209–212. Levy, Claire. 2001. ‘Moralna panika po vreme na prehod’, Kultura, Issue 4 (2165), http://www.kultura.bg/, accessed 05/07/2016. Levy, Claire. 2009. ‘Folk in Opposition? Wedding Bands and the New Developments in Bulgarian Popular Music’, Music & Politics, Vol. III, Issue 1. Livni, Eran. 2014. Chalga to the Max! Musical Speech and Speech about Music on the Road between Bulgaria and Modern Europe. PhD Thesis. Indiana University. Llewellyn Smith, Caspar. 2009. ‘Beyonce: Artist of the Decade’, The Guardian, www.theguardian.com, accessed 01/11/2017. Maxwell, Richard, Toby Miller, Nitin Govil and Ting Wang. 2005. ‘Getting the Audience.’ Global Hollywood: No. 2. Ed. Toby Miller, Nitin Govil, John McMurria, Richard Maxwell, and Ting Wang. United Kingdom: British Film Institute, pp. 259–330. Mazdon, Lucy. 2014. ‘Hollywood and Europe: Remaking The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’ The Europeanness of European Cinema: Identity, Meaning, Globalization.

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Ed. Mary Harrod, Mariana Liz, and Alissa Timoshkina. United Kingdom: I.B.Tauris, pp. 199–211. Mazierska, Ewa, Lars Kristensen and Eva Naripea. 2014. Postcolonial Approaches to Eastern European Cinema: Portraying Neighbours on Screen. London/New York: I.B. Tauris. Mountjoy, Shane. 2009. Manifest Destiny: Westward Expansion. Broomall: Chelsea House Publishers. Mundy, John. 1999. Popular Music on Screen: From the Hollywood Musical to Music Video. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Myers, Gregory and Anna Levy. 2009. ‘Democracy Performed – Setting the Record Straight: A Critical Response to “Performing Democracy – Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition” by Donna Buchanan’, New Music, 47(2), pp. 149–158. Nedyalkova, Maya. 2015. Transnational Bulgarian Cinema: Pieces of the Past, Present and Future. PhD Thesis. University of Southampton. Neill, Alex and Aaron Ridley. 2013. Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates. London and New York: Routledge. Noble, Phil. 2003. Beyond the Burning Bus: The Civil Rights Revolution in a Southern Town. Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books. Rice, Timothy. 1994. May It Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Sotirova, Ina. 2013. Bulgaria’s chalga pop-­folk: A cultural rift. http://www.bbc.co.uk/, accessed 01/11/2017. Stam, Robert. 2000. ‘Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation.’ Film Adaptation (European Community Law). Ed. James Naremore. United Kingdom: Continuum International Publishing Group, pp. 54–76. Sudulich, Laura, Matthew Wall, Rachel Gibson, Marta Cantijoch and Stephen Ward. 2014. ‘Introduction: The Importance of Method in the Study of the “Political Internet” ’, in Rachel Gibson, Marta Cantijoch, and Stephen Ward (eds.) Analyzing social media data and web networks. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–21. Urban Dictionary (year not provided). Chalga, https://www.urbandictionary.com/, accessed 01/11/2017. Vernallis, Carol. 2004. Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context, New York: Columbia University Press. Weir, Kathryn Elizabeth. 2004. ‘Jump cut: Music Video Aesthetics’ part of the ‘Video Hits: Art & Music Video’, http://qag.qld.gov.au/, accessed 15/05/2011.

12

Postsocialist Social Reality in Hungarian Rap Music Videos Anna Batori

Hip-­hop was born as a black artistic expression in the United States in the 1980s and soon became a global phenomenon (Price-Styles 2015), which developed its own localized versions, including in Central and Eastern Europe (Miszczynski and Helbig 2017). In the postsocialist region, hip-­hop has been having its heydays since the millennium and its four pillars – graffiti, break, DJing and rap music – became part of the global message of free speech that included issues thematizing the region’s social backwardness and hopeless future. Originally, hip-­hop culture emerged in the context of the economically disadvantaged Afro-Caribbean, Latino and Afro-American subcultures in the 1970s that followed a series of cohesive performances including dance, visual art and music (Dimitriadis 2009). Rap music, the vocal discourse of these integrated practices, is thus only one segment of the rich cultural grid that includes breakdancing, graffiti writing, as well as DJ and MC. Due to its folkloristic origins, the emerging hip-­hop culture in the 1980s remained a segregated artistic form practiced by black urban teens in the inner-­city neighbourhoods of New York (Dyson 2004) to express their anger and disap­ pointment in the actual establishment (Asante 2008; Dyson 2004). The spatial isolation of the emerging hip-­hop culture and one of its main pillars, rap music, highlighted the class division between the ghettos of the urban black community and the economically developed middle and upper (white) class. This is reflected in the lyrics of early rap songs that deal with social and racial backwardness and violence (Kelley 2004). As Vernallis emphasizes, rap music is ‘the single genre consistently committed to creating a sense of place’ (Vernallis 2004, 87) and it is one of the key elements that separates hip-­hop from other cultural youth formations. Space, be that a physical, concrete place or a wider

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discourse, is of special importance for it includes ‘graphically conveying information about an artist or group’s home (. . .) in order to provide a vehicle for the representation of their city or urban neighbourhood’ (Murray 2002, 245). This social arena contextualises the actions and existence of the performer, while pinpointing the spatial difference among social classes. In the American context, this difference often alludes to racial segregation within an urban public sphere (Keyes 2002), whereas in Hungary it mirrors an economically segregated class by means of highlighting the latter’s spatial isolation in socialist concrete districts – called microraions (Dimaio 1974). Instead of foregrounding any ethnic question in the country that could stand for the racial structure of the American discursive space, Hungarian rap stresses the financial hardship of the younger generation and the impossibility to break out of the material space that accompanies this discursive site. In order to give an account of the textual and material space in contemporary Hungarian hip-­hop, the present writing focuses on rap music, one of the main pillars of the complex cultural phenomenon. With the aim of proving the potential of rapping as a tool of social and political critique in the very postsocialist context, this chapter analyzes the lyrics as well as the visual texts of the bands that structure the discursive and physical space of music videos around socialist prefabricated buildings. Block-­rapping, the wave that epitomizes this trend, emerged after the millennium and signals the very quality and social state of the artists’ surrounding physical space. Block-­rappers emphasize their spatial heritage, the socialist, isolated hood, where they grew up and live to this day. The question is why the new generation associates microraions with poverty, corruption and a hopeless future and how this message is articulated via the content of the songs and their video clips? Through the textual analysis of the most popular YouTube videos from the post-2010 Hungarian block-­rapping corpus, this writing investigates the way the (post)socialist living quarters in block rap music videos form a social trap. After discussing the milestones of Hungarian rap music by focusing on its linguistic qualities, the chapter dissects the content of the songs as well as their visual manifestation within the contemporary block-­rapping corpus and argues that these songs identify an in-­between space between past and present that prevents its inhabitants identifying themselves with the modern capitalist structure.

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A short history of Hungarian rap The origins of Hungarian rap music can be traced back to the last decade of state socialism. In 1983, the well-­known rock and roll singer, Miklós Fenyő introduced hip-­hop by dedicating his album Jól nézünk ki, Miki (We Look Good, Miki, 1984) entirely to the new style. Together with the West’s growing influence in the form of smuggled rap plates, and the consequently rising MCing, DJing and graffiti-­ culture at the end of the 1980s; the hip-­hop phenomenon gained significant attention in Hungary. The first official rap band, Drop, was established in 1988 and, thanks to the fall of state socialism and the easier access to Western music, it was soon followed by many others who saw the genre as a new channel of critical communication. Magneoton, one of the first private record labels in Hungary, was willing to stand by the new style. The company served as a stable institutional background to several beginner hip-­hop artists and music experiments, thus securing music production and the marketing of bands. The investment into small, unknown groups seems to have paid off. Magneoton Music Group is now known as one of the most successful music companies in the country and one of the main supporters of the Hungarian music scene. The first six years of the post-­system change Hungarian hip-­hop was ruled by the Magneoton-­supported Rapülők, a unique rap formation whose lyrics turned the Hungarian music scene upside down. Set up in 1992 with a three-­member line-­up, the band became famous thanks to its twisted language games, masterful alliterations and wicked metaphors. Chanted along instrumental and synthesized beats, Péter Geszti, the rapper and leader of the band, mainly spoke of relationships within synaesthetic-­allegoric formations. Thanks to the very Hungarian wordplays and rich lyrics based on literary devices, and Geszti’s sputtering speech that was accompanied by melodious verses sung by well-­known Hungarian singers, Rapülők rose to fame and became one of the best-­selling bands of the 1990s.1 In 1994, after three platina albums, the band dissolved. Although Rapülők and Animal Cannibals, the other most influential hip-­hop band in the music history of Hungary, are often referred to as rap formations, the style of these bands was structured around a pop-­based, spoken-­word poetry form, which is far from the classic rap music and its street-­themed storytelling and explicit language (Norfleet 2015). In this view, these groups were more intelligent linguistic experiments and, undoubtedly, the most significant impacts on contemporary Hungarian slang.

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As the case of Rapülők shows, the strength of Hungarian hip-­hop resides in its lyrical structure and refined quality that, instead of any innovation music-­ wise, concentrates on endless wordplays structured around a rich base of literary devices. This is best illustrated by the lyrics of Bëlga, whose playful themes address a multitude of mundane phenomena. Formed in 1998, the band became famous for their outspoken lyrics that dig deep into the Hungarian social consciousness. Be that rapping about the ticket-­control machinery of the Budapest public transport system and the frustration it causes in people – Kalauz (I-II/Ticket Inspector I-II, 2002), or the very sarcastic approach to the Hungarian culture, politics and growing nationalist tendencies – Huszonkét férfi (22 Men, 2002); De szar itt élni (It Sucks to Live Here, 2007); Politikusok (Politicians I-II, 2010) – the three-­member line-­up uses twisted language games, masterful alliterations and wicked metaphors to mediate their message about contemporary Hungary. Bëlga even produced a record for children and made a study aid album for students, thus illustrating that for them hip-­hop is an approach to language, a method to best communicate diverse and complex subjects. Inspired by the linguistic possibilities of Hungarian language, the post-2000 rappers were also enthused by the growing success of slam poetry in the country. In 2012, this was taken to another level with Red Bull Pilvaker, a cultural initiative promoted by Red Bull to honour the poets of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. This educational and artistic movement joined the crème of underground and mainstream rappers2 to re-­work the poems of the greatest figures of nineteenth-­ century Hungarian literature, thus putting Hungarian culture into a very twenty-­ first-century light. Since 2012, Red Bull Pilvaker has grown into a theatre piece and gave birth to several successful videoclips and songs. Thanks to Petőfi Rádió, one of the national radio channels that was re-­formed in 2007 to promote contemporary Hungarian music, these songs have been attracting widespread attention. In this way, contemporary hip-­hop turned into a national educational movement that, on the one hand, illustrates the richness of Hungarian language, while supporting the propagation of Hungarian culture. Thanks to the growing support and affordable technical requirements of digital recording, and the proliferation of online music platforms and video-­ sharing websites,3 the postmillennial age gave birth to a new wave in Hungarian hip-­hop that, while standing by a strong anti-­commercial attitude, emphasized authenticity and the communication of socially significant topics. Block-­rapping, a trend within this new wave – that went against the easygoing lyrics dominant of the pre-2000 Hungarian rap music epoch, was marked by talented block-­rap

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artists such as Hősök, Deniz, Siska Finuccsi, Funktasztikus, Bobafett & Bobakrome and DSP. The common foundation of these young rappers is their intellectual lyrics which, juxtaposed by outstanding flows, present a realistic view of contemporary life in Hungary. This radical rap involves topics of cultural identity, community empowerment, self-­development and socio-­political issues. Hungarian block-­rappers often talk about corruption in the country, as in Deniz feat. Palej Niki – A hazám (My Home, 2012), social injustice (DSP – Az Isten állatkertje (The Zoo of God, 2008); Deniz – Ne higyj másnak (Don’t Believe Anyone Else, 2012), or criticize the alienated, consumerist everydays (DSP- Jönnek a zombik (The Zombies Are Coming, 2013). As they often stress in their songs, they consider music a potential tool to change the depressing Hungarian way of life. For this reason, they lay special emphasis on lyrics not only to raise awareness of the above-­mentioned problems that endanger the social cohesion of the nation and the life of the individual, but to highlight the distinctiveness of the Hungarian language. Although their songs are not played by commercial radios, nor are their clips broadcast on television, with their videos attacking more million YouTube viewers, these bands have immense success in Hungary. To sum up, the overall promotion of rap after 2000 resulted in the success of the genre. On the official list of the twenty most popular Hungarian YouTube music videos in 2017,4 we find six rap songs and several others that feature rapping. It thus seems that rap has a great industrial, political and social support in Hungary, and stands in front of a bright future, with new festivals and underground clubs, and countless events ahead.

Hip-­hop music videos Videoclips are primarily used to introduce and increase the popularity of songs (Banks 1998). Music videos operate with visual images that help the viewer to identify the performer with a certain style (Gow 1994). From the perspective of the musician then, the visual arsenal has the potential to strengthen his/her identity and place within the industrial and commercial discourse (Aufderheide 1986). In the case of rap music, and its first narratives of criminality and consumption that bound it to black manhood and reinforced hegemonic masculinity (Jeffries 2011), music videos focused on the juxtaposition of thug narratives and urban life. As Jeffries pinpoints, the ghetto-­experience is a central trope that not only affirms the black identity – gender, class, race – of hip-­hop

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culture – and the anger and pain that come with it – but reinforces a spatial pride that calls forth images of home and its associations with collective identity and belonging. The wish to escape the ghetto thus goes hand in hand with the celebration of the hood. Rap music videos often express this ambivalent position. From the very beginnings of rap and its visual translation into videos in the mid–1980s, the imaginary of the new genre stressed a certain documentary realism centred on the dangers of South Bronx5 (de Cuir 2017). Documenting the crime-­brimmed everydays, the city has been evoking a concept that ‘emanates from political institutions of power, sets the stage for the dramatic conflict [while becoming] a diabolic trap from which escape is difficult’ (ibid., 57). Besides the streets’ connotations with danger, violence, drugs and police that form the basic aesthetics of early rap music videos, the long tracking shots that outline the very environment, place the artists into a local and familiar context that make the performer belong to this place (Vernallis 2004). The rapper thus finds himself in a trap-­like situation that expresses his love and regional pride for the ghetto, the urban sphere, while longing for change that would brighten his/her future. Early American rap videos were constructed along a beat-­down style that included low-­angle, in-­the-street shooting, cars driving by and rapping into the camera that Raimist calls ‘nostalgic aesthetics’ (Raimist quoted in Jeff 2006). Nostalgic aesthetics thus corresponds to a street-­oriented visual style that features the dilapidated neighbourhood of the artists and the very pillars of hip-­hop culture – break, MC, fashion – in a postmodern narrative that, together with the fast, rhythmic editing, and jittering camera work, creates a realistic social image. Although since the first hip-­hop music videos, a great number of rap artists have veered away from the street footage-­concept, the ‘representation of place – particularly of specific geographic locations – continues to factor prominently in how rappers articulate their identities’ (Singer and Balaji 2013, 337).

Glocalized aesthetics: Hungarian rap music videos During the years since the first rap music videos in the 1980s, shot in the United States, hip hop has been often discussed as a platform of misogynist representations (Gaunt 2015, 208–223) and conspicuous consumption that includes expensive sports apparel, jewellery and luxury goods (Sigler and Balaji 2013, 343). Either way, hip-­hop has never distanced itself from its geographical significance, be that the urban–rural–suburban setting and ghetto or

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street-­reality (ibid.). The glocalized versions of these spatial categories can be found in every local hip-­hop context that aim to mimic the Western experience by following the crime-­laden lyrics of the songs and constructing the music videos along the apparel and mise-­en-scéne of American rap clips. The videos of the Hungarian Mr. Busta (Utca Himnusz (The Song of the Street, 2012) or Ogli G (High Rollers, 2005) for instance, are brimmed with luxury cars and misogynist representations that include barely dressed young women dancing against expensive villas and cars. In a similar vein, Dopeman’s videoclips, such as 8. kerületi mese (Tale From The 8th District, 1997) and the videos of Ganxsta Zolee és a Kartel – Dől a lé (Brimming Money, 2017) – follow the American gangsta-­rap style by setting their stories of robbery, violence and sex into the infamous 8th district of Budapest that become synonymous with crime and poverty. However, it seems that in most people’s eyes, the crime-­loaded lyrics and images are not authentic in the Hungarian context as they only cover a very segregated social experience, while featuring far-­fetched sequences unusual for the Hungarian scene. Because of this, rap in Hungary has always been ruled by a socially aware, textually rich alternative line and its more accommodating pop-­ mainstream side. In Hungary before 2000, rap music functioned as an audiovisual soundtrack to the video clip, while in block-­rapping, radical rappers use the material space to support their own message, be that the impossible living conditions and the bitter present of Eastern Europe, or a bright future featuring parties and a new, cosmopolitan generation. In the first case, social reality gets strongly connected to the postsocialist zones of communal, prefabricated living. These ‘uniquely socialist urban forms’ (Kiss 2007, 147), once symbols of the socialist system, now slums of the twenty-­first century (Szelenyi 1996), illustrate the decline of living standards (Stanilov 2007) and the growing spatial segregation within the Hungarian society (Szelenyi 1996). DSP, Siska Finuccsi, Funktasztikus, Deniz or Hősök all debuted with music videos that emphasized their neighbourhood, thus reducing the songs’ discursive level and visual-­textual space to their local environment. Be that the socialist, prefabricated suburb of larger cities like Budapest or Miskolc, or smaller towns like Tatabánya or Kazincbarcika, the introductory videos of block-­rappers all feature the socialist face of their home. This ‘sense of locale’, as Murray defines it, represents ‘places of significance which [the rappers] inhabit, [thus] delineating different social settings and different regions through rap videos’ (2002, 245). For block-­rappers, the prefabricated living quarters become a dominant signifier of their identity that, similar to the

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American, street-­oriented aesthetics (Singer and Balaji 2013, 343–344), manifests in both the lyrics and the visual images of music videos. The black ghetto experience that gave the base to the first rap examples in the States, gets thus transformed into an Eastern European prefabricated reality that, while expressing poverty and backwardness, creates a historically-­aesthetically defined, socio-­ economic trap-­situation. The sense of locale has a crucial role in Deniz’s Egyetlen (The Only One, 2012) and Végtelen (Endless, 2013),6 which both portray large prefabricated areas from different cities as visual background for Deniz’s rapping into the camera– that has more than 4,5 million viewers on YouTube, which covers about half of the whole Hungarian population – features the classic elements of hip-­hop, such as breaking, BMX bicycling and extracts from concerts that are lined up in an episodic formula. The recurring, fundamental location of the music video is the top of a high, prefabricated block in the rapper’s economically less prosperous hometown, Kazincbarcika. By foregrounding this local space in the video, Deniz makes sure to contextualize himself within the microraion of the city that, according to the lyrics, illustrate the long way he had to climb in society to break out of this environment. Deniz’s other music video, Endless lays even more emphasis on the prefabricated jungles of Hungary. Shot in three cities – Kazincbarcika, Miskolc and Budapest – the young rapper recounts his childhood and the (socialist) spaces connected to it. Throughout the whole clip, his location alternates between the top of a prefabricated, high-­rise building with large microraions in the background and the very bottom of the edifice. Portrayed against and contextualized within the monstrous building, the figure of the rapper is dwarfed by the edifice that is further emphasized by the low angle of the camera. In this way, the presence and dominance of microraions that rule over the space of the video, allude to the very personal space of Deniz and his localized environments that, as the lyrics suggest, accompany his whole life. The microraion-­iconography has a central role in the music videos and lyrics of DSP too: the first two albums of the band both concentrate on the everyday life in the prefabricated jungle, which becomes visually dominant in the music videos of the group. The three members often emphasize the importance of their local environment Békásmegyer – one of the largest microraions in Budapest. For this reason, with the primary aim to communicate their micro-­level experiences in this remote area, DSP adhered to shoot their first video in this

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neighbourhood (Csáki 2014). Similar to Deniz’s videos, Egyszer fent, egyszer lent (Sometime On the Top, Sometimes Down, 2010) – that has more than 5 million viewers on YouTube – features the members on the top of a high-­rise building, while interrupting this set with sequences that portray their everyday life in the microraion. Among the block rap videos, Sometimes On The Top, Sometimes Down corresponds the most to the lyrics: the young men rap about their rich social life and the cycles of better and worst days in the microraion. The band uses the space of the prefabricated bloc to turn it into a rhetoric trajectory: on the one hand, the video follows the lyrics and portrays the men in an elevator as they travel up and down in the building that extends into a greater metaphor about the ups and downs in life. While rapping in the basement, in the elevator and on the top of the building, the microraion becomes an allegorical space that stages the different physiological states of life, while using the prefabricated building as metaphor of their captive situation. This imprisoned state is further expressed by the logo of one of the member’s T-shirts that reads ‘from the microraion’ (telepi), thus emphasizing the enclosed quality of the band’s life in this local environment. Throughout the whole video, DSP is captured as imprisoned by the very textuality of Békásmegyer that, according to the lyrics, is a roller-­coaster-like spider-­web bringing bad and good surprises each day, but never the opportunity to break out from poverty. Sometimes On The Top, Sometimes Down was shot by the members of the band and one of their photographer friends that enabled DSP to work with a great level of creative freedom (Sajó 2011). In other cases, when working with professional video production companies, the clips of DSP often get endowed with a narrative flow, with the prefabricated spatial concept remaining dominant. In Már megint (Again, 2011) and Kistestvér (Little Brother, 2016) for instance, the microraion context is complemented with a narrative layer. In the first case, the band is portrayed rapping against prefabricated blocs, while the story recounts the struggle of a man trying to conform to the expectations of society and act his age. As with the other music videos of DSP, the lyrics harmonize with the visuals for it recounts the band’s struggle to change their hectic lifestyle and behave more maturely. In Little Brother, the band is featured as actors who are part of a domestic drama. Instead of rapping into the camera, the music video lays emphasis on the story portraying the younger generation that must endure constant abuse and terror at home. Shot entirely in a microraion, the clip illustrates the impossibility of breaking out of the prefabricated space and the social structure it is embedded into. Still, the lyrics stress the significance of

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education and endurance that might offer a better, prosperous future and a way out of the microraion-­given framework of poverty and crime. The social marginalization of the inhabitants of certain microraions is best accentuated in the clips of Siska Finuccsi. The rapper is supported by Bloose Broavaz Produkció, the same record label company that stands behind DSP and other block-­bands such as Vészkijárat, TM or Bigmek. With its more than six million YouTube viewers, Siska Finuccsi’s Jön a tré (The Junk is Coming, 2010) is by far the biggest success of Bloose Broavaz Produkció and one of the most successful rap videos in Hungary. The song wrestles with weighty themes, such as poverty, crime, and misery in Tatabánya, the home city of the rapper. Siska Finuccsi chants about corruption, homeless people on the streets, easy-­going young girls, isolated playgrounds and drug consumption as the only way out of the city’s gloomy everydays. Correspondingly, the amateur music video portrays the rapper walking through the scenes that he raps about, with ruined pubs, hoboes, concrete wall and iron bars on his way. While rapping into the camera, Siska Finuccsi is featured against a prefabricated building and its ruined, dilapidating inner labyrinths that, together with the bluish tone of the images and wintery environment, gives the music video an even more depressing tone. Thus, similar to the videos of DSP and Deniz that feature the rappers in a low-­ angle shot in front of a prefabricated bloc, Siska Finuccsi is also contextualized within the very space of the (post)socialist living quarter, thus avoiding any hint on the capitalist centre of the city. In his video B-A-Z (2012), Funktasztikus, one of the most inspirational block-­ rappers from rural Hungary, also uses the images of prefabricated reality to support his lyrics that express the lost hope he feels in the present Hungarian economic and social situation. While rapping about the crammed, smoky, jungle-­ like spaces of Miskolc – the socialist centre of the country that Funktasztikus calls ‘the loser of the system’ – the rapper constantly stresses the decaying living conditions in the ‘suburban, Soviet-­styled, all-­inclusive vaults’ of the city. The young MC identifies himself as strongly belonging to this poor, dystopian and prison-­like space that is stressed on the visual level of the video. The mise-­enscéne of the clip is supported by documentary-­like footages that portray him rapping against a group of local(s), while in other sequences where he raps alone into the camera, Funktasztikus is embedded in ruined, dirty and neglected places that signify the very abandoned quality of the environment. Because of the importance of the physical surroundings in the music video, the clip operates with extreme long-­shots that capture the microraion from a high-­angle

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perspective. Similarly, while rapping, Funktasztikus is captured in medium and long shots, in this way to shed light to the background that encompasses the rapper. While in the above-­mentioned videos, authenticity, identity and place form part of a realistic approach towards the microraion-­presented everyday misery, one of the most popular rap formations of Hungary, Bëlga uses a different, ironic path to criticize the constant microraion-­concept of block-­rappers. In Ltp (2014),7 the band praises the prefabricated blocs for their central heating and concrete, safe structure and put the reality of the microraion in strong contrast with the Hungarian urban experience. As they ironically stress, ‘here only your sled gets stolen, here they do not shoot you (. . .), there are no blacks playing basketball on the ground, (. . .) there are no gangsters around (. . .), more thousand people live here together so it has a Facebook-­feeling’. Clearly, Bëlga makes fun of the violent underworld, poverty and everyday life that most block rappers chant about, stating that the Eastern European suburb should not be mistakenly identified as a ghetto. The music video stresses this concept even further with parodying break-­dance in the living room of a newly refurbished prefabricated flat where the band is portrayed sleeping with a dog. Wearing sunglasses and hats throughout the whole video, Bëlga is also featured moving in a funny manner on the top of a high-­rise building with the microraion in the background that, together with the numerous satiric images that criticize the microraion-­concept and de-­contextualize the space so significant for block-­ rappers. As Ltp suggests, the locations of poverty often work as a performed reality and not as an authentic source of the songs. Most probably, this criticism references the gangsta-­rap phenomenon in Hungary and the inauthentic lyrics and videos of bands like Barbárfívérek (Utcadiploma/Degree in Streets, 2009), Mr. Busta (Madártető/Bird Feeder, 2013), AK26 (Fenn a kezed/Hands Up in the Air, 2014) or Dopeman (Megyünk lopni/We Go Stealing, 2002), who often use prefabricated buildings for settings, while rapping against expensive cars and dancing girls. The parody of Bëlga demonstrates the popularity of the high-­rise building-­ concept among contemporary rappers who follow strong microraion-­aesthetics, while considering themselves part of alienated, isolated social milieux whose main physical place is the (post)socialist, ruined prefabricated-­structure. As textual context, these microraions serve a twofold aim in video clips. This visual world adds new layers of meaning to the lyrics – which Goodwin (1992) theorizes as ‘amplification’ in video clips – that creates an in-­between space,

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which incorporates both the remnants of the past and the hopeless present. The above-­mentioned rap artists identify themselves with their less-­developed local environment that, as the lyrics further add to the visuals, makes them stuck in a socially-­economically deprived position. Born in the end of socialism or the first years of capitalism in Hungary, block-rappers accuse their socialist environment of being the number one reason for their personal and social backwardness and hopeless future. In contrast to the racial and social focus of early American rap videos, the anger of block-­rappers originates from the unsuccessful political transition that left them behind in the degrading socialist areas. The fluid space of the microraion thus frames a new generation that owns this ruined, degraded space that keeps them captive in a socialist time-­frame and which is represented as ruined as possible in the video clips. As De Cuier (2017) points out, the locale in rap videos is always identical to a trap that holds the artists imprisoned in the environment where they grew up. According to him, rap music can turn into a ground-­breaking tool of change if artists are willing to focus on outwitting the framework that configured this cell, rather than attacking those who set up its parameters. As he adds, ‘the search for the door – not to the exit of the trap but rather its very control room – will make hip hop a really revolutionary method’ (2017, 58). In this context, rap music can be the number one tool that enables young rappers to exit this space by using the verbal contextualization of their very environment for this purpose. However, as the lyrics of block-­rappers express, despite the social critique they form about this local space, they tend to return and settle in other microraions, which forms a never-­ending trap-­cycle. The ruined quality of (post)socialist living quarters and their identification with crime, uneducated groups and hopeless futures, have thus turned Hungarian microraions into unwanted zones. The videos of DSP, Siska Finuccsi, Hősök or Funktasztikus all represent a once-­prosperous, now degrading site, while deliberately avoiding any illustration of modern capitalism in Hungary. In contrast to American videos, there are no cars, no products or hints on commercialism in the clips. Instead, the videos feature young rappers in groups who chant about the dark, poor way of life in microraions that they paradoxically embrace with pride. Despite the hardship of their everydays in the isolated zones, block-­rappers are proud of their struggle in the dystopian spatial frame for it gives them the base of a strong group-­identity. In this way, they are tied by a generational, local, socio-­historical experience that keeps them united as mediators of the past and its bittersweet after-­effects.

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Conclusion As a tool for reworking socio-­political and historical traumas, the growing rap culture in Eastern Europe contributed to a regional social discourse by serving part of the postsocialist collective remembrance built on the criticism of the transition and the capitalist period. During its relatively short history, Hungarian hip-­hop culture underwent a radical change that epitomized the block-­rapping trend within the flourishing post-2000 rap scene of Hungary. DSP, Hősök, Siska Finuccsi, Funktasztikus and Deniz use their spatial microraion experience to create a space of conversation that reckons with the lack of discourse related to these prefabricated neighbourhoods. The music videos of these bands mirror the disillusionment of the postsocialist Hungarian society in the capitalist makeover and its promise to bring wealth, freedom and democracy. Corresponding to the decay that was brought about with the ideology in the outskirts of cities, these rappers create a fluid space that signals a spatiotemporal halt in the capitalist transformation process. The decaying prefabricated buildings and industrial zones all establish an in-­between, not fully socialist, yet not capitalist, trap-­like time-­zone that does not enable artists to exit the spatial-­discursive frames of the microraions-­established social reality.

Notes 1 The albums of the band sold more than 500.000 copies, while the band was number one on the official list of MAHASZ (Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors’ Rights) for 22 weeks in 1992, which is still a record number in Hungarian music history. 2 Red Bull Pilvaker features underground bands Punnany Massif, DSP, Hősök, Akkezdet Phiai, Sub Bass Monster and mainstream hip-­hop artists like Fluor, Diaz and Halott Pénz. 3 This institutional net was further strengthened by the first independent hip-­hop record label company ‘WacuumAir’, which was established at the millennium and gave debuting opportunities to alternative hip-­hop bands. 4 The videos were ranked by Society Artisjus – the Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors’ Rights – and published in the Dal+Szerző Journal in July 2017. 5 See The Message (Gransmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 1982). 6 The music videos were directed by the amateur music video director, Csaba Horváth, whose company, Cybertronic Media, is one of the most employed firm in the Hungarian underground hip-­hop video business. 7 The title is the abbreviation of the word microraion in Hungarian.

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Kiss, Eva. 2007. ‘The evolution of industrial areas in Budapest after 1989’, in Kiril Stanilov (ed), The Post-Socialist City. Urban Form and Space Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe after Socialism. Dordrecht: Springer Publisher, pp. 147–173. Miszczynski, Milosz and Helbig, Adriana. eds. 2017. Hip-Hop at Europe’s Edge. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Murray, Forman. 2002. The ’Hood Comes First: Race, Space and Place in Rap and Hip-­hop. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. Norfleet, Dawn M. 2015. ‘Hip-Hop and Rap’, in Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby (eds), African American Music. An Introduction. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 354–391. Price-Styles, Alice. 2015. ‘MC Origins: rap and spoken word poetry’, in Justin A. Williams (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–21. Robertson, Roland. 1995. ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’, in Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson (eds), Global Modernities. London: Sage Publishers, pp. 25–45. Sajó, Dávid. 2011. ‘Amit gyerekként megálmodtunk, azt már elértük – DSP-interjú’, http:// langologitarok.blog.hu/2011/12/20/amit_gyerekkent_megalmodtunk_azt_mar_ elertuk_ dsp_interju, accessed 20 December 2017. Schloss, Joseph Glenn. 2014. Making beats: the art of sample-­based hip-­hop. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Sigler, Thomas and Balaji, Murali. 2013. ‘Regional Identity in Contemporary Hip-Hop Music: (Re)Presenting the Notion of Place’, Communication, Culture & Critique, 6: 336–352. Stanilov, Kiril. 2007. ‘Taking stock of post-­socialist urban development: A recapitulation’, in his The Post-Socialist City. Urban Form and Space Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe after Socialism. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 3–21. Szelényi, Iván. 1996. ‘Cities Under Socialism – and After’, in Gregory Andrusz; Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelényi (eds), Cities after Socialism. Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies. New Jersey: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 286–317. Vernallis, Carol. 2004. Experiencing music video. Aesthetics and cultural context. New York: Columbia University Press. Vernallis, Carol. 2013. Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, Justin A. ed. 2015. The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Contributors Anna Batori is a lecturer in Film Studies at the Babeş-Bolyai University (ClujNapoca, Romania) with an MA in Film Studies (Eötvös Loránd University, 2012) and a PhD in Film Studies (University of Glasgow/Screen, 2017). Her recent book, Space and Place in Romanian and Hungarian Cinema (2018), is published by Palgrave Macmillan. She writes and teaches on European and world cinema, modern film theory and digitized narrative techniques. Gabriela Filippi is a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at I.L. Caragiale National University of Theatre and Film (UNATC) in Bucharest, with a thesis entitled ‘The state as coauthor. Censorship in the Romanian socialist cinema, 1948–1989’. She edited, together with Andrei Gorzo, Filmul tranziţiei. Contribuţii la interpretarea cinemaului românesc “noua˘zecist” (Tact, 2017), a collection of studies on Romanian cinema of the 1990s. Zsolt Győri is an assistant professor at the University of Debrecen, Institute of English and American Studies. He edited a collection of essays on British film history (2010) and is the co-editor of three volumes dedicated to the relationship of body, subjectivity, ethnicity, gender, space, and power in Hungarian cinema (Debrecen University Press: 2013, 2015, 2018). His monograph in Hungarian, offering a critical introduction to Deleuzian film philosophy and analyses of selected films, appeared in 2014 [Films, Auteurs, Critical-Clinical Readings]. He is the co-editor of Travelling around Cultures: Collected Essays on Literature and Art (Cambridge Scholars, 2016) and is the editor of the Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies. Hajnal Király is a senior researcher at the Institute for Hungarian Literary and Cultural Studies, Eötvös Lóránd University of Budapest. She is also a member of the project Rethinking Intermediality in Contemporary Cinema: Changing Forms of In-Betweenness, conducted by Ágnes Pethő at the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania. Besides contemporary Hungarian and Romanian cinema, her present research interests are medium theory, literary re-­mediations and intermediality. Her most important publications include a

242

Contributors

book on adaptation theory and several essays in volumes on intermediality, literary adaptations and cultural approaches to Eastern European Cinema, most recently in The Cinematic Bodies of Eastern Europe and Russia. Between Pain and Pleasure (ed. Ewa Mazierska, Matilda Mroz and Elzbieta Ostrowska, EUP, 2016). Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Film Studies, at the University of Central Lancashire. She published over 20 monographs and edited collections on film, popular music and Marxism and the media. They include Poland Daily: Economy, Work, Consumption and Social Class in Polish Cinema (Berghahn, 2017), Popular Music in Eastern Europe: Breaking the Cold War Paradigm (Palgrave, 2016), Relocating Popular Music (Palgrave, 2015), edited with Georgina Gregory and Marxism and Film Activism (Berghahn, 2015), edited with Lars Kristensen. Mazierska’s work was translated into over 20 languages. She is principal editor of Routledge journal, Studies in Eastern European Cinema. Maya Nedyalkova explored selected transnational aspects of the Bulgarian film industry in her PhD thesis at the University of Southampton. It attempted to highlight economic and cultural continuities across national contexts, challenging persistent stereotypes about the divide between the East and the West. Maya has carried out data collection on European film viewing habits in Bulgaria for the Mediating Cultural Encounters through European Screens (MeCETES) collaborative project, funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) network. She was awarded a British Academy Early Career Postdoctoral Fellowship at Oxford Brookes University to investigate the shifting patterns of contemporary Bulgarian film consumption, positioned within global culture and economy. Maya’s research interests rest in the fields of transnational cinema, popular and festival film, online distribution, national audiences and music videos. Jonathan Owen is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He received his PhD from the University of Manchester and has taught and researched at the Universities of Exeter and St Andrews. He is the author of Avant-Garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties (Berghahn 2011) and a contributor to various books including Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context (Rochester 2014) and The Struggle for Form: Perspectives on Polish Avant-Garde Film 1916–1989 (Columbia 2014). His articles have appeared in such journals as Studies in Eastern European Cinema, Canadian Slavonic Papers and Iluminace.

Contributors

243

Andrej Šprah is head of the Research & Publishing Department at the Slovenian Cinematheque and Assistant Professor of film history and theory at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, University of Ljubljana. His research focuses on political documentary, as well as on the cultural, political and social implications of Third Cinema. His works include Dokumentarni film in oblast (Documentary Film and Power, 1998), a book on propaganda documentary, Osvobajanje pogleda (Liberating the Gaze, 2005), a collection of essays on contemporary Slovenian cinema, Prizorišče odpora (The Site of Resistance, 2010), a research about the issues of new documentary cinema in the so-­called postdocumentary culture, Vračanje realnosti (Return of Reality, 2011), a monograph about the new realistic and transnational tendencies in recent World Cinema, and Neuklonljivost vizije (Obstinacy of Vision: Political Documentary Film After World War II, 2013), a study on the militant post-­war documentary. He is the co-­founder and co-­editor of KINO! Cinema Journal. Evan Torner is Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where he is also affiliated with the Center for Film & Media Studies and the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. He is currently Undergraduate Director of German Studies and the director of the UC Game Lab. His primary research interests involve media of the Cold War, critical race theory, German science fiction, and role-­playing games, having published numerous articles and book chapters on each topic. Major projects underway include the Handbook of East German Cinema: The DEFA Legacy, co-­edited with Henning Wrage and under contract with Walter De Gruyter, and a monograph entitled A Century and Beyond: Critical Readings of German Science-Fiction Cinema. Balázs Varga is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. He writes and lectures on modern and contemporary Hungarian cinema, contemporary European cinema, production studies, popular cinemas and documentaries. He has been teaching in Hungarian higher education since 1997. From 1993 to 2007, he was employed by the Hungarian National Film Archives. He is a founding editor of Metropolis, a scholarly journal on film theory and history based in Budapest. His recent research project has examined the post-­communist transition of the Hungarian film industry. His current project focuses on popular East European cinemas. He has published several articles and essays in English, Italian, Polish, Czech and Hungarian books

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and journals. His recent book in Hungarian Filmrendszerváltások. A magyar film intézményeinek átalakulása 1990–2010 [Film regime changes. Transformations in Hungarian Film Industry 1990–2010] was brought out by L’Harmattan Publishers, Budapest. Marko Zubak works at the Croatian Institute of History in Zagreb combining scholarly and curatorial approaches. He has edited a literary anthology, worked as a radio editor, and curated several exhibitions on Yugoslav underground and popular cultures. His interests and publications focus on Yugoslav social movements, popular culture and socialism at large; his monograph Yugoslav Youth Press (1968–1980): Student movements, Subcultures and Communist Alternative Media in March 2018 on the Croatian Srednja Europa. His most recent publications deal with socialist club culture. These include ‘The Birth of Socialist Disc Jockey: Between DIY ethos, Music Guru and Market Socialism’ in Ewa Mazierska (ed.), Popular Music in Eastern Europe: Breaking the Cold War Paradigm (London: Palgrave, 2017) and ‘ “Absolutely Yours”: Yugoslav Disco under Late Socialism’, in Danijela Špirić-Bear and Ljerka Rasmussen (eds), Made in Yugoslavia (forthcoming: London: Routledge, 2018).

Index

Abba: The Movie 147 Ács, Miklós 117, 134–135 Adamič, Bojan 146 Adorno, Theodor W. 21–22, 23, 220 Adventure at Marienstadt, An (Przygoda na Mariensztacie) 4–5, 7 Agnieszka Smoczyńska 17 Air (Powietrza!) 14 AK26 235 Akcent 195 Albert Einstein Bizottság 15, 117, 122, 126, Albrecht, Regine 35 Andrea 205, 208, 212–213, 219 Aneliya 21, 205–206, 211, 214–220 Angelo Mike 165–167 Animal Cannibals 227 Anna German: A Mystery of White Angel (Anna German) 17 Anno Passato 173 Armstrong, Louis 33 Audition (Konkurs) 8–9 Audition, The (A meghallgatás) 9

Big Beat (Mocne uderzenie) 7 Big Beat (Sakali leta) 15–16, 18, 63–80 Big Picnic, The (Wielka majówka) 11 Biliński, Marek 200 Black Date (Czarna Data) 14 Black Peter (Černý Petr) 103, 110 block-rapping/block-rappers 226, 228, 231, 235, 236, 237 Blues No. 7 173 Boban Petrović’s Party (Žur Bobana Petrovića) 150, 151 Bochniak, Maciej 17, 159 Bodo 17 Bódy, Gábor 15, 20, 117, 120, 123, 127, 130 Bokka 201–202 Boym, Svetlana 16 Boys 158, 160 Breaking Glass 13 Breakout 8, 191 Brecht, Bertolt 26–28, 34–35, 40–42 Bregović, Goran 13–14 Brown, Chris 213, 217 Buczkowski, Leonard 4 Budka Suflera 193 Bulajić, Veljko 6

Badham, John 141 Bajm 192–193 Balašević, Đorđe 145 Bald Dog (Kopaszkutya) 12 Barbárfívérek 235 Battle on the River Neretva, The (Bitka na Neretvi) 6 Bayer Full 158, 160–161, 195 Bee Gees 141 Before the Truth (Pre Istine) 152 Bëlga 228, 235 Belgrade at Night (Beograd noću) 149 Beloved Love (Ljubavni život Budimira Trajkovića) 143, 144, 146, 150 Beyoncé 21, 205–206, 211, 213–220

Čalić, Zoran 142, 143 Can’t Stop the Music 142 Carrà, Raffaella 148 Čengić, Bahrudin 143 Chakiris, George 30, 34 Chi-Lites 217 Čolić, Zdravko 147, 148 Concert (Koncert) 156 Concert for Crazy Young World (Koncert za ludi mladi svet) 148 Cranes are Flying, The (Letyat zhuravli) 47 Crime in the Night Club (Zločin v šantánu) 105 Crnobrnja, Stanko 149 Cseh, Tamás 83, 74, 88

6.9 on the Richter Scale (6,9 pe scara Richter) 45

246 Damnation (Kárhozat) 117, 133 Death of Stalinism in Bohemia, The (Konec Stalinismu v Čechách) 99 Demjén, Ferenc 12 Demy, Jacques 26, 29, 30–34, 37, 40–42 Deneuve, Catherine 30 Deniz 229, 231, 232, 233, 237 Derulo, Jason 205, 212 Dimitrijević, Branimir 148 Disco Delirio 142 Disco Godfather 142 Disco Polo 17, 159 Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (Sjecas li se Dolly Bell?) 13 Dobray, György 12 Doerk, Chris 35–38 Dog (Pes) 173 Dog’s Night Song, The (A kutya éji dala) 20, 117, 120, 123, 126, 130 Dollybirds (Csinibaba) 16–17, 19, 63–80, 83–96 Dopeman 231, 235 Dorléac, Françoise 30 Drop 227 DSP 229, 231–234, 237 Edee Dee 165–166 Egészséges erotika (Sound Eroticism) 66 Ekberg, Anita 89 Ellington, Duke 33 Eno, Brian 166 Eskimo Woman Feel Cold (Eszkimó asszony fázik) 20, 117, 127–129 Európa kiadó 117, 122, 124 Everyone Knows Who Stands Behind Whom (Każdy wie, kto za kim stoi) 157 Ex-Codex (Ex-kódex) 117, 126, 130, 132 Exodus 200 Fanatic 158 fe Lugossy, László 126, 134 Fenyő, Miklós 67, 76 Filipovská, Pavlína 100, 103 Fonyó, Gergely 16, 18 Foolish Years (Lude Godine) 142, 143, 146 Forman, Miloš 1, 8–9, 103, 105, 106, 110, 111 Funny Girl 25–26, 29, 31, 35, 38

Index Galena 205, 212, 221 Gallagher, Rory 177, 180 Gálvölgyi, János 74, 83 Game (Divjad) 173 Ganxsta Zolee és a Kartel 231 Gąssowski, Wojciech 7 Gazdag Gyula 9 Gliński, Robert 17, 159 Gloriya 208, 221 Godard, Jean-Luc 25–26, 28, 34, 40, 42 Gold Diggers of 1933 48 Good Old Czech Tunes, The (Ta naše písnička česká) 105 Gott, Karel 99–101, 102, 103, 104, 108, 113, 114 Graduates (Maturanti) 147, 150 Grandpierre, Attila 123 Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk, The (Gratinirani možgani Pupilije Ferkeverk)173–174, 177–181, 183–184 Gregorc, Janez 146 Hadžić, Fadil 146 Hanky Panky (Bara bara) 20, 155, 158–168 Hard Day’s Night, A 48 Hardkor disko 17 Hasler, Joachim 26, 29, 35–36, 39, 41 Hayes, Isaac 146 Head or Tails (Pismo glava) 143, 146 Hello? Wrong Number (Alo? Aţi greşit numărul), 47–50 Herz, Juraj 104, 114 Hipsters (Stilyagi) 18, 64–80 History of the Pronuma Pack, The (A pronuma bolyok története) 117, 125, 130 Hladnik, Boštjan 145 Hlas, Ivan 73–74 Holloway, Nancy 53 Hop Pickers, The (Starci na chmelu) 106, 107, 109–110, 111, 114 Hot Summer (Heißer Sommer) 26–27, 29, 35–40 Hősök 229, 231, 236, 237 Hřebejk, Jan 15, 18 Hungária 67, 76

Index I Don’t Want to Marry (Nu vreau să mănsor), 48–49 I Feel Great (Czuję się świetnie) 11 I Love Poland (Kocham Polskę) 157 I miss Sonja Henie (Nedostaje mi Sonja Heine)184 I Miss You Every Day (În fiecare zi mi-e dor de tine) 59–60 Ice-cream Ballet (Jégkrémbalett) 20, 117, 125–126, 129, 132, 134 If a Thousand Clarinets (Kdyby tisíc klarinetů) 105, 106, 112 If There Were No Music (Kdyby ty muziky nebyly) 8–9 Ignaciuk, Bartek 194 Illés 7 Insane 165 Jancsó, Miklós 1, 8 Jantar, Anna 164 Jay-Z 2, 15 Jeles, András 9, 120–121, 132 Jelić, Milan 150 Jerzy Grotowski: An Attempt at the Portrait (Jerzy Grotowski. Próba portretu) 158 Johnny Famous (Kelj fel Jancsi) 67 Jolly Fellows (Vesyolye rebyata) 47 Journalist (Novinar) 146 Kabiljo, Alfi 146, 153 Kangoroo, The (A Kenguru) 8 Karaklajić, Dejan 143 Kaurismäki, Aki 93 Każdy wie, kto za kim stoi (Everyone Knows Who Stands Behind Whom) 157 Kdyby ty muziky nebyly (If There Were No Music) 8–9 Keleti, Márton 5 Kelly, Gene 30–34 Kieślowski, Krzysztof 159 Kill Me Gently (Ubij me nežno) 145, 146 Kispál és a Borz 75, 83 Kobiela, Bogumił 191 Kokesz, Stanisław 191 Komendarek, Władysław 200–201 Konstantin 212 Kontroll csoport 117, 122, 135 Kora, 194

247

Kovač, Kornelije 146 Kovács, Kati 8 Kozara 6 Kozidrak, Beata 193 Kubasińska, Mira 193 Kubišová, Marta 103, 104, 108, 109, 113 Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the World? (Kuhle Wampe oder: Wem gehört die Welt?) 27, 41 Kult 198 Kusturica, Emir 13–14 Kwaśniewski, Aleksander 163 La Dolce Vita 89 Laboratorija zvuka, 182 Lady Gaga 205, 219 Łazarkiewicz, Piotr 12, 156 Legrand, Michel 31–34, 38, 42 Lemonade Joe (Limonadový Joe) 101, 114 Lennon, John 187, 190 Let’s All Sing Along (Pějme píseň dohola) 66 LGT 8 Limelight (Svjetla pozornice) 148 Lipko, Romuald 193 Lipský, Oldřich 101 Litany of Happy People (Zdravi ljudi za razonodu)174, 180–184 Little Valentino (Kis Valentino) 120–121, 132 Liza, the Fox Fairy (Liza, a rókatündér) 19, 83–96 Łobuzy 195 Lola 30–31, 34 Lovasi, András 83, 88 Love and Do What You Want (Kochaj i rób co chcesz) 159 Love at Freezing Point (Dragoste la zero grade) 50–51 Love for a Vinyl Record (Miłość do płyty winylowej) 20, 155, 164–167 Love Me and Do What You Want (Kochaj i rób co chcesz) 17 Love Till First Blood (Szerelem első vérig) 12 Love, Love, But Don’t Lose Your Head (Ljubi, ljubi, al’ glavu ne gubi) 143 Lukács, György 26–27, 34, 39 Lure, The (Córki dancing) 17

248

Index

Maanam 11–12, 193 McKenzie, Scott 75 Made in Hungaria 16, 18, 63–80 Magpie in the Hand, A (Straka v hrsti) 114 Maître Gims 212 Maleńczuk, Maciej 199 Mamas & the Papas 16, 75 Mammoth Bone (Kost od Mamuta) 145 Mandić, Oliver 147, 149 Mangione, Chuck 187 Mariya 205, 212, 221 Marković, Goran 144, 145, 152 Marković, Milivoje 146 Marti, Anton 148 Martyniuk, Zenon 196 Martyrs of Love (Mučedníci lásky) 101, 107, 108, 109, 112–114 Mary Poppins 52–53 Masquerade (Maškerada) 145 Matuška, Waldemar 102, 103, 104 Mayfield, Curtis 149 Me, You and Ovidiu (Eu, tu şi Ovidiu) 50, 56–58 Méhes, Marietta 122, 127–129 Melodies at Costineşti (Melodii la Costineşti), 58–59 Melodies, Melodies (Melodii, melodii), 56–57 Menzel, Jiří 104–105 Menyhárt, Jenő 131 Mészáros, Márta 8 Meteo 117, 134 Metro 7 Milano 158, 163 Miljković, Boris 148 Milošević, Slađana 147 Molnár, Gergely 119 Monori Mész, András 117, 134 Moskwa 198 Mr Kleks in Space (Pan Kleks w kosmosie) 193 Mr. Busta 231 Müller, Péter Sziámi 117, 126 Music Cinema (Moziklip) 15 Music Machine 142 My Crazy Head (Moja luda glava) 152

Neckář, Václav 102, 103, 104 Němec, Jan 101, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114 Németh Lajos 74 Neurotic 12, 117, 122, 124, 129 Newton-John, Olivia, 60 Nice and Big (Sőn és Grósz) 117, 134–135 Niemen, Czesław 10, 156 Nol’ 76–77 Norisová, Zuzana 75 Nu Virgos (VIA-gra) 77

National Class (Nacionalna klasa) 144, 147 Nautilus Pompilius 76–77

Rado Shisharkata 208, 221 Rakonjac, Vojislav 152

O’Connor, Hazel 13 Oddział Zamknięty 192 Ogli G 231 Oliver! 25–26, 29, 32, 35 Omega 7 On Te Boards 178 On the Art of Love or A Film in 14441 frames (O ljubavnim veštinama ili film sa 14441 kvadrata) 174, 184 Pajor, Tamás 122, 127, 129–130 Paramount on Parade, 48 Pâslaru, Margareta 56 Passendorfer, Jerzy 7 Paszkiewicz, Yach 188, 190, 198 Pet Shop Boys 187–188 Petrović, Boban 139, 149, 150, 152, 153 Phobia (Fobija) 173 Phoenix 11 Piccoli, Michel 30 Picnic on Sunday (Piknik v nedeljo)173–176, 182 Pilarová, Eva 100, 102, 103 Piskor, Dorota 202 Piwowski, Marek 10, 155, 157, 162 Pogány, Judit 83 Potocka, Małgorzata 190 Predrag Vranešević 180, 182 Přenosilová, Yvonne 75 Presley, Elvis 164 Professor: About Leszek Kołakowski (Profesor. O Leszku Kołakowskim) 158

Index Rancière, Jacques 20, 118–119 Rapülők 227, 228 Rebels (Rebelové) 15, 18, 63–80 Red Boogie or What is the Matter Girl (Rdeči Boogie ali Kaj ti je deklica) 173 Reed, Lou 187 Renc, Philip 15, 18 Reviczky, Gábor 83 Righini, Oscar 142 Ristić, Jovan 147, 148 Robakowski, Józef 14, 190, 198 Rock Missionary (Rocktérítő) 12, 117, 127, 129–130 Rogulski, Krzysztof 11 Rokenroler 148 Roller Boogie 142 Rorty, Richard 157 Rybczyński, Zbigniew 187, 190 Rychman, Ladislav 106, 107, 114 Sashka Vaseva 208, 221 Satantango (Sátántangó) 4 Saturday Night Fever 141, 142, 145, 152 Schmidt, Hanns-Michael 35 Schöbel, Frank 35–38 Sedokova, Anna 212 Selection (Válogatás) 9 Seven plus Seven (Sedam plus Sedam) 148 Sharif, Omar 35 Sharp, Ian 142 Shazza (Marlena Magdalena Pańkowska) 158, 160, 195–196 Shots on Staves (Împuşcături pe portativ), 50–51, 53 Siebenmal in der Woche (Seven Times a Week) 69 Šijan, Slobodan 145 Simjanović, Zoran 146, 147 Simović, Tomislav 153 Sinatra, Nancy 16 Singing Makes Life Beautiful (Dalolva szép az élet) 4–5 Siska Finuccsi 229, 231, 234, 236, 237 Six in Paris (Paris vu par . . .) 51–52 Skaldowie 191–192 Skonieczny, Krzysztof 17, 189 Skręta, Sławomir 160 Slavica 6

249

Sleigh Ride (Kulig) 191 Šlitr, Jiří 103, 104, 105, 111, 112 Sly Stone 149 Sofi Marinova 210, 221 Solo Sunny 13 Songs of the Sea, The (Cântecele mării), 54–56 Sośnicka, Zdzisława 193 Spătaru, Dan 55 Spears, Britney 205, 213 Special Education (Specijalno Vaspitanje) 144, 146, 147 Stanek, Karin 7 Star Falls Upwards, The (Hvězda padá vzhurů) 114 Staszewski, Kazik 198–199 Stefanović, Lokica 148, 152 Streisand, Barbara 35 Suchý, Jiří 103, 104, 105, 111, 112 Sukces (Success) 10, 155–156 Summer, Donna 142, 147 Sun, Universal Sun (Sonce, vsesplošno sonce) 173 Sunday Lunch (Nedeljni ručak) 150 Švankmajer, Jan 99 Świerzyński, Sławomir 160–161, 163 Szarek, Waldemar 11 Szirtes, András 117, 125 Szomjas, György 12 Talent Competition (Konkurs) 105–106, 110, 112 Tarkowski, Michał 156 Tarr, Béla 1, 4, 117, 133–134 Taste 177 Tatyana 212 Thank God It’s Friday 142 The House (Kuća) 153 The Naughty Ones (Nemirni) 147, 152 The Plastic People of the Universe 104 The Rolling Stones 100, 103 There Were Ten of Us (Bylo nás deset) 105 These Youngsters . . . (Ezek a fiatalok . . .) 7 Three Times Bucharest (De trei ori Bucureşti) 51–53 Tímár, Péter 15–16, 83–84 Time of the Gypsies (Dom za vesanje) 14 Todorovsky, Valery 18

250

Index

Topić, Dado 147 Torriani, Vico 69 Tractor Drivers (Traktoristy) 47 Travolta, John 141, 142, 144, 145, 147 Trio Grigoriu 50 Ujj, Mészáros Károly 19, 84 Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The (Les parapluies de Cherbourg) 30–32, 35, 48 Vágtázó halottkémek 117, 122–124, 126, 136 Van McCoy 146 Varda, Agnès 34–35, 40 Víg, Mihály 122, 124, 132 Volga-Volga 47 Vranešević, Mladen 180, 182 Vučo, Vuk 152 Vukobratović, Mihajlo 150 Wadleigh, Michael 156 Waglewski, Wojciech 199 Wahorn, András 20, 117, 129, 134 Wajda, Andrzej 1, 159, 189 Wałęsa, Lech 163

Wave (Fala) 12, 156 We Look Good, Miki (Jól nézünk ki, Miki) 227 West Side Story 48, 69 What’s up Nina (Šta je s tobom, Nina?) 146, 147 Wionczek, Roman 8 Wiszniewski, Wojciech 157 Wolf, Konrad 13 Woman on the Rails (Dáma na kolejích) 107, 114 Woodstock 156 Written Off (Otpisani) 146 Xantus, János 12, 20, 117, 127–130 Young Girls of Rochefort (Les demoiselles de Rochefort) 26–35, 37–40, 48 Young Hearts (Ifjú szívvel) 4–5 Zabriskie Point 28, 39 Zanussi, Krzzysztof 159 Žižić, Bogdan 153 Zmarz-Koczanowicz, Maria 20, 155–169 Zsombolyai, János 8