Lines of Light: Central European Cinema

Throughout Central Europe leading-edge filmmaking erupted in the 1920s. This course studies a select band of Central European directors (along with a special bonus, the Soviet bloc film-artist, director Andrei Tarkovsky) and their collective attempt to deal with and to follow their search for a medium to describe, the cultural and political region, the complexity of individual and collective political life and historical experience. In this way, the truth peeks through some of the aesthetic units of the cinematic image in our chosen films as so many lines of light. Particular attention will be paid to the Czech New Wave movement of the late 1960s. Screenings include pictures or clips from ten notable film-directors and auteurs: Věra Chytilová (Czech Republic, 1929–2014), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Germany, 1946–82), Miloš Forman (Czech Republic, 1932–2018), Juraj Herz (Slovakia, 1934–2018), Jan Hřebejk (Czech Republic, 1967– present), Fritz Lang (Germany, 1890–1976), Jiří Menzel (Czech Republic, 1938–present), F. W. Murnau, (Germany, 1888–1931), Jan Němec (Czech Republic, 1936–2016), and Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–86). No background in the study of cinema is required. All films have English inter-titles or sub-titles.