The Absent Present: Attempts to Returns to the Screen of the Duo Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich After 1945
Abstract
Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich were co-creators of the famous Liberated Theatre in Prague, on the boards of which in the period of 1927-1938 they presented very successful and critically acclaimed “reviews” considered to be one of the most interesting phenomena of the European avant-garde theatre. In the 1930s, they also starred in four cinematic hits that combined absurd comedy and a vaudeville formula with social and political involvement. After World War II, despite the emigration of Voskovec to the USA and the temporary limitation of Werich’s activities by the communist authorities, the duo of comedians enjoyed unchanged popularity, becoming a symbol of the golden age of national culture and inspiring successive generations of followers. Szymański presents attempts to use this living legend and the creative potential of Voskovec and Werich by post-war Czechoslovak cinematography. He draws attention to interesting film projects of the 1960s, where the artists were to meet again on screen, the ideas of Vojtech Jasny, and his Shakespearean Filmfalstaff, the spectacular screen adaptation of Karel Capek’s War With the Newts planned by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, and Evald Schorm’s parody of a detective film Murder for Good Luck. Unfortunately, none of these projects was successful, reflecting, among others, the inability to fully and freely restore in communist Czechoslovakia a broken thread of national artistic tradition.
Keywords:
Liberated Theatre in Prague, Jiří Voskovec, Jan WerichReferences
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Authors
Karol Szymańskikwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of Gdańsk Poland
Absolwent historii na Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim oraz rachunkowości i finansów na Uniwersytecie Gdańskim. Z zawodu wydawca, redaktor i print manager. Główne zainteresowania badawcze: czechosłowacka nowa fala, dystrybucja i recepcja filmów w PRL-u, polska szkoła plakatu filmowego. Publikował w tomach zbiorowych (Spojrzenie - spektakl - wstyd, Aleksander Jackiewicz i Kral Sumavy: komunisticky thriller) oraz w czasopismach naukowych (m.in. „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, „Roczniki Humanistyczne”, „Przegląd Humanistyczny”, „Biuletyn Historii Sztuki”) i społeczno-kulturalnych (m.in. „Odra”, „Ruch Muzyczny”).
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