The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia

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The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia
Directed byJan Švankmajer
Written byJan Švankmajer
Produced byKeith Griffiths
Michael Havas
Jaromír Kallista
CinematographySvatopluk Malý
Edited byMarie Zemanová
Production
companies
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Nomad Films
Kratky Film Praha a.s.
Distributed byFirst Run Features (USA) (theatrical)
Athanor
Release dates
  • 3 June 1990 (1990-06-03) (BBC Two)
[1]
13 February 1991 (USA)

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (Czech: Konec stalinismu v Čechách) is a 1990 animated surrealist short film by Jan Švankmajer. In 1990 the BBC asked Švankmajer to make a film about situation in Czechoslovakia. Švankmajer later remarked: "Despite the fact that this film emerged along the same path of imagination as all my other films, I never pretended that it was anything more than propaganda. Therefore I think it is a film which will age more quickly than any of the others."[2]

Plot

Stalin's bust is opened on an operating table, and this leads into an animated sequence which depicts Czech history from 1948, when it was taken over by Communists, to 1989, when the Velvet Revolution took place.

Reception

Janet Maslin of The New York Times describes the film as being a "wonderfully apt short", and describes the plot of "rush[ing] a statue of Stalin through drastic surgery, cranks out clay workers on an assembly line only to grind them back into clay" is "droll, breakneck satire".[3]

Release

The film aired on BBC Two in the UK on 3 June 1990.[4]

References
  1. "Listings for Sunday, 3rd June 1990". The Television & Radio Database. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
  2. Peter Hames (2008). The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer: Dark Alchemy. Wallflower Press.
  3. Maslin, Janet (13 February 1991). "Long-Repressed Tale of Repression". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
  4. "Listings for Sunday, 3rd June 1990". The Television & Radio Database. Retrieved 13 December 2021.


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