American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer: Dark Alchemy. Second edition by Peter Hames
Review by: Madelaine Hron
The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 54, No. 1, Special Forum Issue: New Research on
the Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages (SPRING 2010), pp. 199-201
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
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 Reviews 199

she seems more intent on mapping a discourse. In any case, Mazierska treats the relationship of
homosexual writers, directors, and actors to their artistic output in a very nuanced way.
Overall this chapter offers a very thorough overview of the treatment of non-normative sex

uality in Polish, Czech and Slovak films. In discussing the particularities of these traditions, her
claim that the Czech Decadents presented a discursive field within Czech high culture that pre
sented "ideas that are sympathetic to homosexuality" (182) is certainly valid, although I would
have liked her to provide more evidence of this. And while a filmmaker may eroticize male
male (homosocial) bonds, I find the author's argument that because "relationships between men
were often rendered more important than those between a man and a woman [...] contemporary
viewers can decode a large part of socialist-realist cinema as conveying repressed homosexual

ity" (188) to be overstated. Eve Sedgwick's work on the historical relationship between ho

mosociality and homosexuality is noticeably absent here and might have provided some nuance.

Finally, it should be noted that while the author makes a valiant attempt in the first three chap
ters to treat Slovak film on an equal footing with Polish and Czech film, the sense of a unique Slo
vak perspective fades in the second half of the book. This is due, in part, to the perhaps necessary
evil of referring to films made in Czechoslovakia as "Czechoslovak." However, the effect of that
might have been mitigated to some extent had the author noted the language of every Czechoslo
vak film mentioned. Dates would also have been helpful to those readers unfamiliar with the his

tory of the region, as when the author refers to "when Edward Gierek was the Party leader [in
Poland]" (114). Those quibbles aside, this is an intelligent and insightful investigation of mas
culinities in three unique and artistically vibrant Eastern European nations. And while the author
admits to treating only select films, the breadth of films covered is nevertheless impressive.

Brian James Baer, Kent State University

Peter Harnes. The Cinema of Jan Svankmajer: Dark Alchemy. Second edition. London: Wall
flower Press, 2008. Filmography. Bibliography. Index, vii + 247 pp. $80.00 (cloth); $25.00
(paper).

Jan Svankmajer is a legendary Czech surrealist filmmaker and, arguably, one of the greatest an
imators of film history. His highly innovative work, characterized by grotesquely bizarre yet de

lightfully imaginative aesthetics, has influenced the likes of Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, and the
Quay Brothers, as well as many others. For more than fifty years, Svankmajer has been im
mersed in the Czech arts scene—in puppetry, theater, sculpture, art and film —and so his life tra
jectory aptly reflects the developments in the Czech artistic scene over the past century, namely
its avant-garde, Surrealist and animation movements. Although Svankmajer debuted in film in
1964 with Posledni trikpana Schwarcewelldea a pana Edgara [The Last Trick], it was not until
his film Moznosti dialogu [The Dimensions of Dialogue, 1982] won the Annency Animation
Festival Grand Prix in 1983 that he gained international acclaim. In 1984 the Quay Brothers,
along with producer Keith Griffiths, created The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer, a marvelous pres
entation of his work, and Svankmajer's reputation soared. Today, though most of his delightful
short films are available on DVD, Svankmajer is probably best known for his feature films, also

readily accessible on DVD: Néco z Alenky [Alice, 1988], Lekce Faust [Faust, 1994], Spiklenci
slasti [Conspirators of Pleasure, 1996], Otesánek [Little Otik, 2000] and Sileni [Lunacy, 2005].
In The Cinema of Jan Svankmajer: Dark Alchemy, editor and contributor Peter Hames, along
with contributors Michael O'Pray, Roger Cardinal and Frantisek Dryje, offers vital insight into
Svankmajer's fascinating work, as well as, significantly, into Czech animation, the Czech ex
perimental avant-garde, and especially the Czech Surrealist movement. As Hames states at the
outset of the collection, "for most [...] audiences, Svankmajer's 'Surrealism' is, at best, a casual

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 200 Slavic and East European Journal

term and a knowledge of Czech Surrealism is non-existent" (2). This collection is important in
deed; it is the only critical study of Svankmajer's oeuvre widely available in English (one other
is available in French: Charles Jodoin-Keaton's Le Cinema de Jan Svankmajer, Les 400 coups,
2002). However, informed readers will note that this book is a re-edition of Hames's Dark
Alchemy: The Films of Jan Svankmajer (1995), this time in Wallflower Press's Director's Cut
series (which also includes studies on Slavic directors Andrzej Wadja, Krzysztof Kieslowski,
and Roman Polanski). This new edition includes commentaries on feature films Svankmajer has
completed since 1995 (Conspirators of Pleasure, Little Otik, and Lunacy); an updated interview
and new essay by Svankmajer; a new conclusion that touches on the work of multi-media artist
Eva Svankmajerová, the filmmaker's late wife; and a new chapter by Hames on puppetry in
Svankmajer's films. Also included in this nicely designed volume is a helpful filmography, mak
ing this edition a highly readable and user-friendly teaching text.
The strength of this collection is that while it offers compelling analysis of Svankmajer's
oeuvre, it also provides much-needed context to Svankmajer's philosophy, in terms of the oft
neglected, but highly creative, Czech artistic scene. In his introduction and first chapter, Hames
offers a succinct, yet detailed overview of twentieth-century Czech cultural history and Czech
experimental film, in the context of the Devétsil avant-garde movement, Czech postwar the
ater or Czech film production, from the 1930s to after the Czech New Wave. Then Michael

O'Pray overviews Svankmajer's early films, exploring the ways in which they incorporate
elements from both Mannerism, harking back to Rudolf II and sixteenth-century Prague, and
Czech Surrealism, which was developing in the 1970s under the leadership of Vratislav Ef
feberger. The essay-collage by Surrealist Frantisek Dryje further elaborates on Svankmajer's
Surrealist "force of imagination" in its multivalent dimensions—transgressive, transformative,
humorous, gestural, gothic, etc. —and also analyzes Svankmajer's recent film Faust. In coun

terpoint, Roger Cardinal investigates the role of objects and sensual materialism in Svankma
jer's work, examining Svankmajer's use of marionettes, figurines, machine-inventions and
techniques such as collage, trompe l'oeil or gobbing, in the context of such movements as
Arcimboldesque Mannerism or fantastic literature. Hames's new chapter further discusses the
multifaceted role of puppets in Svankmajer's films as subversive resistance to Socialist Real
ist propaganda and Stalinism; as Surrealist bewilderment and investigative quest; as uncanny
embodiments of abject fantasies; or as critiques of post-human identities and relations in post
Communist capitalism. Finally, Svankmajer fans will especially enjoy the interview and 2006
"Decalogue" by the author himself. Reading through the collection, one realizes that, without
a doubt, Svankmajer represents an enviable model of Czechness: not only does Svankmajer
cull the best of Czech culture—from sixteenth-century Mannerism to twenty-first-century an
imation—but he also, as an artiste engagé, holds fast to his principles, be it under Stalinism or

currently, under post-Communism. To give the final words to Svankmajer himself: "Imagina
tion is subversive, because it puts the possible against the real. That's why you should always
use your wildest imagination. [...] Never subordinate your personal creativity to anything but
freedom" (141-42).
Overall, The Cinema of Jan Svankmajer: Dark Alchemy is an invaluable resource for any
Slavic or film library. This volume contains a thoughtful overview of Czech film and Czech cul
tural production over the last century and a thorough and thought-provoking multi-perspectival
analysis of the work of one of the major auteurs of film animation. Although some Svankmajer
experts may complain that certain films (e.g., Picnic with Weissmann, 1969, and Dark
ness/Light/Darkness, 1989) are neglected, while others (e.g., Dimensions of Dialogue, 1982) are
exhaustively analyzed, I believe that Svankmajer aficionados will be pleased with the additions
to this edition. Teachers in particular wiH be pleased with this highly-readable volume. The writ
ing style in this text is smooth, lucid and engaging—wholly suited to any undergraduate audi
ence. As for those readers who have not had the delicious pleasure of watching any of Svankma
jer's films, they are urged to do so post-haste. Once they have engaged with these films, they

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 Reviews 201

will surely be hooked, and thus also in need of a copy of this indispensable companion study to
Svankmajer's magnificent oeuvre.

Madelaine Hron, Wilfrid Laurier University

Nicholas Rzhevsky. The Modern Russian Theater: A Literary and Cultural History. Armonk,
NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2009. Bibliography. Index, xxiv + 320 pp. $79.95 (cloth).

Nicholas Rzhevsky's The Modern Russian Theater makes a noteworthy and intriguing contri
bution to the large body of scholarship on twentieth- and twenty-first-century Russian theater.
Unlike the majority of theater histories, which typically take Chekhov's Seagull and Cherry Or
chard as their point of departure, Rzhevsky bypasses the era's well-studied dramatic literature
to examine the many theatrical productions that adapted works of literature—prose fiction and

poetry—to the stage. As a result, Rzhevsky avoids both the content and form of more traditional
histories of the Russian theater and brings to light important, but often neglected productions by
the era's famous directors. His examination of the "representational symbiosis" (xv) of litera
ture and theater in Russia during the past one hundred and ten years includes major works by
such directors as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meierkhold, Evgeny Vakhtangov, Nikolai
Okhlopov, Georgy Tovstonogov, Yury Liubimov, Lev Dodin, and Kama Ginkas, effectively

demonstrating the pivotal role of literary adaptation on the Russian stage.

In the book's introductory chapters, Rzhevsky locates the drive to adapt literature to the stage
in the philosophical, religious, and linguistic ferment of Russian culture at the end of the nine
teenth century. The author then begins a chronologically organized examination of almost one
hundred different theatrical productions, all of which brought major literary works, by both
Russian and non-Russian authors, to life in the theater. Beginning with Symbolism and ending
with post-Soviet Postmodernism, Rzhevsky charts the development of Russia's major theatrical
movements through their varying approaches to appropriating literary texts. Of particular inter
est are the discussion of Aleksandr Blok's Balaganchik, which provides an interesting example
of an author adapting his own work to the stage; the treatment of multiple adaptations of Dos
toevsky, who appears as a literary lodestar for many twentieth-century directors; the juxtaposi
tion of the initial production of Bulgakov's Days of the Turbins by the Moscow Art Theater with
its revival as The White Guard; and the analysis of the Taganka Theater's 1977 production of

Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. The book's final chapters, which discuss literary adaptations
to the late Soviet and post-Soviet stage, provide especially engaging information due to the au
thor's first-hand experience with key figures, such as Liubimov.
In addition to treating a type of theatrical production typically downplayed by other theater
historians, The Modern Russian Theater deserves praise for its ambitious breadth, which will
make Rzhevsky's study of particular use to scholars of the Russian theater and culture, as well
as students interested in the country's rich theatrical history. A veritable encyclopedia of liter

ary adaptations to the stage, Rzhevsky's work describes productions that run the gamut from
naturalism to the avant-garde, analyzing the most salient features of each. The sheer volume of
material treated in The Modern Russian Theater suggests that adapting literature to the stage has
not only played a key role in the development of Russia's theater during the past century, but
also takes part in a larger trend in Russian culture of transforming the printed word into its spo
ken, gestural, and behavioral counterpart. Consequently, Rzhevsky's study poses several ques
tions for future investigation: Do stage adaptations of canonical literary texts function in ways
similar to or different from adaptations to film and television from the same period? Has pro
fessional theater's ability to give body and voice to the literary word changed significantly dur
ing its almost three-hundred-year history in Russia? And lastly, how does the symbiosis between

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