Publication details
How Many Steps to the Shooting Script? A Political History of Screenwriting
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Iluminace : časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Art, architecture, cultural heritage |
| Keywords | screenwriting; Stalinism; State-socialist Mode of Film Production; Film Studios Barrandov |
| Description | This essay explores the inner workings and power dynamics involved in story development in the history of Czech cinema. It focuses on the political history of screenplay development practices and formats, especially on the "Literary Screenplay". This Soviet-inspired screenplay type was introduced to Eastern Europe in the late-Stalinist era to attract literary authors to write for the screen, to elevate the cultural status of the screenplay, and to facilitate pre-censorship. The primary means by which communist ideologues sought to reform screenwriting was the dramaturgy, organized in a complex hierarchy of dramaturgical institutions with the state or central dramaturgy at the top and "units" at the bottom. In the state-controlled system of production, the dramaturg or unit head supervising four dramaturgs was a close equivalent to a producer albeit without the usual financial, green-lighting, and marketing responsibilities, which were held by the state or by the Party and its representatives. The units oversaw story development, the selection of casts and crews, and, in some historical periods, shooting and post-production, and occasionally even distribution. This essay shows how uncovering the logics of institutionalized practices of collaborative creative work that took place under the influence of political forces can help us to make sense of the vast screenplay collections housed at Prague archives. The essay combines production studies and political history of the production system to reveal the differences between the production modes and the screenwriting practices of Hollywood and Europe, and between the Western and the Eastern halves of this continent. It is based on an analysis of 100 Czech screenplays from the 1920s to the 1980s, and of records of their development, as well as on oral history and institutional history. |
| Related projects: |