Image from One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
FROM EAST TO WEST, FROM LITERATURE TO FILM
CMS 423 A, SAME AS SLAVIC 423 A AND GLITS 314 A
Professor Gordana Crnković
TA Taylor Eftimov
Our class looks into how celebrated film directors from post-World War II, socialist Eastern Europe, after they emigrated to the “West,” used Western literature to understand their new environment and make films in a different, market-based rather than state-sponsored film industry.
We will first get to know the unique film production of socialist-era Eastern Europe and the importance of literature in that region. We will then move on to see how East European directors employed their “reader” skills once they started working in the West. They often made film adaptations of Western literary works that still articulated their own artistic vision.
The films we shall study include a few most well known films from socialist Eastern Europe—such as experimental and playful Daisies directed by Věra Chytilová, Miloš Forman’s Loves of a Blonde (Czechoslovakia, 1966 and 1965), or Dušan Makavejev’s Man Is Not a Bird (Yugoslavia, 1965). Afterwards we will focus on these directors’ Western works based on literature, including Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Agnieszka Holland’s Washington Square, and others. We shall also read a few excerpts from literary works (available on Canvas) and parts from two short novels, and focus on the ways literature gets adapted into films.
Requirements: viewing of films and reading of a few literary excerpts. Three multiple-choice quizzes. All three sections (Slavic, C LIT, GLITS) do the same work – this is all one class!
Note there are NO prerequisites or recommended preparation for this class.
For any questions email Professor Gordana Crnković at crnkovic@uw.edu.