Publication details
Micropolitics of Screenplay Development: A Political History
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | This paper will explore the inner workings and power dynamics of communities of practice (or "screen idea work groups" -- see Macdonald 2010) involved in story development in the history of Czech cinema. It will focus on the political history of screenplay development practices and formats, especially on so-called "literary screenplay" -- a Soviet type of scenario introduced in the Eastern Europe in the late Stalinist era to attract literary authors to write for screen, to elevate the cultural status of the screenplay, and to facilitate pre-censorship. The primary means for the communist ideologues to reform screenwriting was so-called dramaturgy, organized in a complex hierarchy of dramaturgical institutions, with state or central dramaturgy at the top and so-called "units" at the bottom. In the state-controlled system of production, the "dramaturge", or the head of the unit who supervised a group of some four dramaturges, was basically an equivalent to a producer, though without the usual financial, green-lighting and marketing responsibilities (which were held by the state, or the Party and their representatives). The units oversaw story development and the selection of cast and crews, as well as (in some historical periods) the actual shooting and post-production, and occasionally even distribution. The paper will show how uncovering logics of institutionalized practices of collaborative creative work under political influence can help us make sense of the vast screenplay collections kept in Prague archives. To that end, the paper combines production studies with textual analysis and political history of the production system. It reveals differences between production modes and screenwriting practices in Hollywood and Europe, or, in the West and the East. In terms of data, it is based on a serial analysis of 100 Czech screenplays from the 1920s-1980s, complemented by their development forms (synopsis, treatments, etc.), by oral history and institutional history. |
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