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reviews
'This is a comprehensive and fascinating study of one of Europe’s
most important film directors. A sharp and perceptive monograph
and long overdue as far as English language film criticism is concerned:
this is a must read.'
John Orr, Edinburgh University
'An intriguing book that
combines original and up-to-date research on the artistic, cultural
and political circumstances of Kusturica's cinematography. It offers
sources and stimuli for students of film, Balkan history and politics,
cultural and social studies.'
Aleksander Dundjerovich, Brunel
University
'As one of only a few directors to win the top prize at Cannes
twice ... Kusturica has proven himself a heavyweight presence in
the movie world, making Goran Gocic's study a valuable resource
for film buffs ... Before Gocic's book, the importance of Kusturica's
films had largely been overlooked and the implications of his work
for today's world had been left unexamined.'
Shogo Hagiwara, The Daily Yomiuri, Japan 'Mixing in-depth knowledge
with refreshing humour, Gocic's study is a joy to read, sidestepping
the usual chin-stroking verbosity and self-importance.'
Jonathan
Carter, Hotdog
No.3 in Top Five Film Books of
2001
Phillip French, The Observer 'Gocic
provides a foundational chapter that explores much of Kusturica's
biography; a personal history which influences many of the political,
cultural and cinematic concerns of the filmmaker … Gocic's
analysis …
is extensive and serves to highlight, in a clear and ordered fashion,
the contentious nature and passionate effects of much of Kusturica's
oeuvre …
a pleasurable journey based on informed foundations
and passions.'
Kylie Boltin,
Metro Magazine ‘Goran Gocic’s analysis of the film oeuvre of
the director Emir Kusturica is an impressive book which takes the
reader through the most important aspects of his aesthetics, style,
motifs and thematic preoccupations. In each of his films and at
each stage of his career the director returns to the same or similar
elements which are characteristic of his work as a whole but reworking
them, developing different ways of linking together certain creative
strands, whether they be concerned with filmmaking techniques, particular
motifs or narrative plots. The author traces these distinctive features
of his work and their multiple appearances and guises in the main
body of his study, for example: the director’s Balkan settings,
his fascination with characters from the margins of life, recurring
motifs such as water symbolism, his inclusion of animals and children
in his narratives, his use of camera and lighting. He constantly
relates these part to one another showing how they contribute to
the hugely rich semantic surfaces of Kusturica’s cinematic
design. The book is rewarding enough in the author’s discussion
of the films, but he also offers insightful and balanced examination
of the reception of Kusturica’s work ... Gocic is a film analyst
par excellence, and he knows the manner of his subject.
Kusturica has a loud and inflammatory public persona which, one
thinks, is partly a consequence of a naturally rebellious streak.
His films do not offer easy answers, sugary optimism, or idealised
beauty; on the contrary, he often exaggerates contradictions, disfigurement
and squalor in a distorted world but which is also an unmistakable
reference to real historical and social conditions. In these kinds
of discussion Gocic is lucid and convincing ... His analysis shows
that Kusturica’s films deserve their place as a significant
force in European cinema.’
David A. Norris, University of Nottingham
'An extremely useful volume … The title of this book not only
alludes to Kusturica’s enigmatic film, Underground,
but also suggests that, as a Yugoslav himself, Gocic is writing
about these films from within the same culture. Even though I have
travelled widely in the former Yugoslavia and am familiar with its
films, Gocic brought my attention to many details that an outsider
would inevitably miss. For example, Gocic maintains that the concept
of sevdah, which literally means a certain kind of Bosnian
music from the time of the Turkish Occupation, is a key to Kusturica’s
work. For Bosnians, however, sevdah refers to “a
strange state of extreme exaltation, and, at the same time, deep
sadness.” This fusion of melancholy and euphoria immediately
brings to mind several key Kusturica sequences, particularly the
wedding in Underground and “the final wedding”
of the “godfather” in Time of the Gypsies.
These sequences correspond beautifully to Gocic’s characterisation
of sevdah as a recurrent motif of Serbian cinema that “synthesises
pain and pleasure” … Gocic’s book delivers an
admirably straightforward account of Kusturica’s life: his
Bosnian Muslim background, his studies in Prague at the famous FAMU
film school … his early short films, and his long-standing
membership in the “Balkan rock” band No Smoking. Gocic
also provides ample production details concerning each of Kusturica’s
films up through Super 8 Stories (2001) … Gocic deserves
praise for clear-sighted analysis of individual films and a careful
analysis of Kusturica’s complex political stance during the
Bosnian war. While Kusturica is internationally celebrated as a
“carnivalesque” filmmaker from a part of the world –
Bosnia – where East meets West, Gocic concludes that Kusturica’s
contribution to cinema may be his masterful evocation of the “tragicomic”.
Gocic also acknowledges and explores the controversies that swirled
around Kusturica during the 1990s, a period during which he was
frequently attacked for not helping to defend or stand up for his
native Bosnia, his friendship with Serbian leaders while the atrocities
of the Bosnian war were unfolding, and “apolitical”
views that he subscribed to while living comfortably in Paris …
This book will prove invaluable to scholars and serious filmgoers
alike. Gocic gives us an “insider’s” approach
written in a journalistic, accessible manner.’
Cineaste
Goran Gocic takes an intense look at the most challenging director
to emerge from the Balkans since Makavejev … Gocic analyses
Kusturica’s career with flair and clarity, and it’s
particularly good on the director’s use of music.’
International Film Guide
‘The Cinema of Emir Kusterica: Notes from the Underground
is essential reading for fans of Kusturica and cinema alike.’
James Walling, Willamette Week
‘Given the proliferation of film-writing, it is surprising
how few English-language monographs have been published on the
work of directors from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Forman, Polanski and Kieslowski are known figures but their ‘Eastern
European’ work is largely viewed as a prelude to their success
in the ‘West’. Some would argue that Bosnian director
Emir Kusturica now comes into the same category. He lives in Paris,
and the funding for his last four features has come largely from
France and Germany (and he most recently appeared in an acting
role in Neil Jordan’s updating of Bob le Flambeur).
However Goran Gocic suggests that, with the exception of his French-funded
American film Arizona Dream (1993), he has continued to
make ‘Balkan
films’.
Gocic’s book has the considerable merit of being the work
of an ‘insider’, an enthusiast with an easy familiarity
with the films. He describes his book as a user’s guide and
it has been compiled in the non-linear spirit of bricolage, moving
back and forth between films, examining context, character, and
motifs, focusing on his ‘gypsy’ subjects and the role
of ‘ethno’ cinema. Alongside apposite quotations from
Jameson, Said and Zizek, we find discussions of Serbian folk art,
the importance of sevdah (the state of exaltation and
sadness that Slavs fall into when listening to music), the pagan
origins
of slava (Home Saint’s Day) – a key element in
The Time of the Gypsies (1988) – and the origins of scenes
in proverbs and scatological humour.
Gocic traces Kusturica’s work from his early success at the
Prague Film School with Guernica (1978) through his collaborations
with three writers, the Bosnian Abdulah Sidran (Do You Remember
Dolly Bell, 1981); When Father Was Away On Business (1985)
and the Serbian writers Gordon Minic (Black Cat, White Cat,
2000) and Dusan Kovacevic (Underground/Once Upon a
Time There Was a Country, 1995). This also marks a progression
from his ‘well-made’ early
films towards a loose ‘postmodernist’ style, ‘a
search for the miraculous’ at the point of shooting.
Kusturica’s films, Gocic argues, are ‘anti-hegemonic’,
reject ideologies, and promote ‘a cult of the margin’.
In Kusturica’s films, the handicapped, the mentally ill,
or the psychotic can be heroes. While in the 1980s he was heralded
as a ‘Bosnian emancipator’, he has consistently identified
with a minority viewpoint –Jewish, Bosnian Muslim, ‘gypsy’,
and, more controversially, ‘Yugoslav’ post 1989. The
appeal of Kusturica’s films, which have secured three major
Cannes awards, is that of ‘ethno’ cinema, a cinema
rooted in local traditions but expressed in ‘Western’ form.
This liberal political engagement with exotic subject matter is
none the less, argues Gocic, an empowerment of the marginal.
When he filmed part of Underground in Belgrade, Kusturica,
who rejected the claims of the Bosnian Muslim government, was accused
of siding with Milosevic. Gocic accepts Kusturica’s argument
that the film is ‘non-ideological’, that its flawed
heroes are Communists and therefore have ‘international’ names,
that he was criticized by Mrs Milosevic. Like Zhang Yimou and Kiarostami,
Kusturica, argues Gocic, reduces ‘the possibility of any
singular ideological, religious and/or nationalist reading to absurdity’.
In contrast to most academic books on film, Gocic communicates
an infectious enthusiasm (equivalent to the ‘jouissance’ he
finds central in Kusturica’s work). …this is an instructive,
stimulating, and productive exploration of his work.
Peter Hames, Modern Languages Review
books of related interest
Cinema
of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European
Film
Hungarian Cinema: From
Coffee House to Multiplex
The Red and the White: The Cinema of People's Poland
The Czechoslovak New Wave
Crossing
New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie
The Cinema
of Central Europe
The Cinema of the Balkans
The Cinema of Ken Loach: Art in the Service
of the People
The Cinema of Wim Wenders: The Celluloid
Highway
The Cinema of Kathryn Bigelow: Hollywood
Transgressor
The Cinema of Robert
Lepage: The Poetics of Memory
The Cinema of George
A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead
The Cinema of Terrence
Malick: Poetic Visions of America
The Cinema of Andrzej
Wajda: The Art of Irony and Defiance
The Cinema of David Lynch:
American Dreams, Nightmare Visions
The Cinema of Krzysztof
Kieslowski: Variations on Destiny and Chance
The Cinema of Nanni
Moretti: Dreams and Diaries
The Cinema of Mike Leigh:
A Sense of the Real
The Cinema of John
Carpenter: The Technique of Terror
The Cinema of Roman Polanski: Dark Spaces of the World
The Cinema of Todd Haynes:
All That Heaven Allows
The Cinema of Steven
Spielberg: Empire of Light |
