In the late 1960s, Czech and Slovak films dominated the festival circuit and, in the space of three years, won two Hollywood Academy Awards (A Shop on the High Street and Closely Observed Trains). At the same time, Milos Forman’s Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen’s Ball gained an enthusiastic following. Yet these were only the most visible aspects of a movement that extended from realism to surrealism and to the experimental (and feminist) works of Vera Chytilova.

This study of the most significant film movement in post-war Central and East European cinema examines the origins and development of the Czech New Wave and the Slovak Wave of the late 1960s against a background of the political and cultural developments that led to the Prague Spring of 1968. The book also examines key formative aspects of the history of Czech and Slovak cinema from the 1930s onward.

This second edition has been fully updated to include accounts of films that were banned at the time of the original research or had to wait twenty years for their release. There is also a consideration of the work of those ‘New Wave’ directors who were able to continue their work in the years following the Soviet invasion and a discussion of its significance in the context of production since the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989.

Peter Hames is Honorary Research Associate in Film and Media Studies at Staffordshire University. He has published widely in the area of East Central European cinema including, as editor, Dark Alchemy: The Films of Jan Svankmajer (1995) and The Cinema of Central Europe (2004).

2005
320 pages
978-1–904764–42–7    £16.99 (pbk)
978-1–904764–43–4    £45.00 (hbk)

view contents


chapter samples
Preface
Introduction

reviews of the second edition

'This new edition of Hames’ book succeeds at the daunting task of updating the discussion of the Czech “new wave”, of filmmaking and bringing to a broad readership a narrow field of inquiry… Though broadly cultural in approach, this volume follows the “new wave” of films as a history of the achievements of specific directors, so a student may follow the course of either the movement as a whole or its creators considered singly. This new edition takes into account not only new literature and criticism but also many films previously inaccessible due to government censorship. Recommended.'
T. Cripps, Choice Jan 2006

'Wallflower Press is currently undertaking the commendable task of reviving or, rather, promoting the study of Central and Eastern European cinema… To this list one must now welcome Peter Hames’s second edition of his ‘classic study’ (to quote Dina Iordanova from the back cover) on the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s. All the more welcome since, as Hames himself rightly states in the preface to the second edition, that it is rather discomforting to see how far ‘the concern of Film and Media Studies courses to emphasise popular culture has [...] privileged English-language films at the expense of others’. Ironically, with the fall of the Iron Curtain, Central and Eastern European cinema has largely been neglected at university level. One hopes that the efforts of Wallflower Press and those of its authors will soon reverse this unfortunate trend. Undoubtedly, these so-called ‘national cinemas’ can make a significant contribution to the study of film history and the development of film language as a whole.

This second edition comes with an updated bibliography, which includes works by contemporary Czech scholars and internet resources. The ‘raison d’être’ of this second edition, however, is the much-needed and long overdue proper ‘completion’ of the study. With the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the ban on some of the most important Czech and Slovak films of the 1960s was lifted, a few of which were premiered in 1990, including Jirhi Menzel’s 1969 Skrhivanci na niti (Skylarks on a String). This second edition thus contains analysis of those films which were unavailable for viewing during the 1970s and 1980s... The volume also includes extensive discussion of the changes in the Czech and Slovak film industries since 1989.

Hames’s The Czechoslovak New Wave is by far the best work written on the subject to date, not only in the English language, but in any language, and can be considered as the definitive reference work on the Czech New Wave. The analyses of individual films are brilliantly perceptive (in particular in the chapter dedicated to the Milos Forman School), whilst the scope and depth of his research is outstanding. Anybody interested in the study and understanding of the Czech New Wave should read, or indeed, start by reading Hames’s volume.'

Cesar Ballester, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

praise for the first edition

'Contains just about everything you ever wanted to know about Czech movies.'
Screen International

‘Vividly evokes the most exciting and boisterous decade in the history of Czechoslovak filmmaking … the most meticulous study of any national cinema to have appeared in recent years.’
Vaclav Taborsky, Canadian Slavonic Papers

‘In analysing this complex artistic-social phenomenon, Mr Hames illuminates an important episode in modern film history … his descriptions of the marvellously ageless films are accurate and exhaustive.’
Josef Skvorecky, in Sight and Sound

‘A richly detailed picture of the Czech Wave … demonstrates the genuine originality in many of the films.’
David Paul, Cineaste

‘The classic study of Czech cinema.’
Prof. Dina Iordanova, University of St Andrews

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Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film
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The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda: The Art of Irony and Defiance
The Cinema of Emir Kusturica: Notes from the Underground
The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski: Variations on Destiny and Chance
The Cinema of Central Europe
The Red and the White: The Cinema of People's Poland
The Cinema of the Balkans
Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie