[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Accordingly, Lenin s socialism is devoid of meaning, but Alex isable to resuscitate it.In summary, in Good Bye Lenin! Becker proposes to construct post-communist reality not by rejecting the past indiscriminately, but byhybridising what was best in the past with new elements.At the sametime, he shows awareness that such a project might be utopian or at leastwill not work for everybody.For example, it is easier to shed the oldskin for the young than for the old, for those who are better educatedthan for those who are not.Becker is well aware, as was WashingtonIrving, that there is no dramatic political and social change without vic-tims, but, at the same time, he knows that without such changes theremight be even more victims.His film thus provides an idea on how tominimise the costs and maximise the advantages of transformation.The anatomy of socialist men in 12:08 East of BucharestCorneliu Porumboiu s 12:08 East of Bucharest is also made under thesign of memory.This is a typical feature of what is described as the 200 European Cinema and IntertextualityRomanian New Wave.The majority of films belonging to this move-ment are made by young directors who attempt to assess the Romaniancommunist past from a postcommunist and postmodernist perspective.They focus on history as experienced from below, by those at the marginof society, such as old people, pregnant women trying to arrange anabortion and sexual minorities, and look at the legacy of Ceau_escu srule, such as poverty, disorganisation and nepotism.Their style is mini-malistic; the mise-en-scène tends to be simple, music is used sparsely andthey avoid the extremes of comedy and melodrama (Nasta 2007).Sucha style partly reflects their low budget, partly their authors decision tocreate the impression of reality itself speaking and then only allowingit to find the right voice.12:08 East of Bucharest was Porumboiu s firstfull-length feature film, made on a shoestring budget, and contains amixture of comedy and tragedy.The film is about commemorating the sixteenth anniversary of thefall of Ceau_escu, which happened on 22 December 1989.At 12:08precisely Ceau_escu fled Bucharest, following a series of demonstrationsin Timi_oara and Bucharest.12:08 thus constituted a divide betweenthe revolutionary avant-garde and arrière-garde, heroism and conform-ity.The Party leader s attempt to escape was captured live on nationaltelevision and projected into the homes of millions of Romanians, trig-gering celebrations across the country.What was soon to be known asthe Romanian Revolution, in common with many other political eventsof the past 30 years or so, including the imposition of martial law inPoland (see Chapter 4), was thus a media event.Peter Siani-Davies in hisbook about December 1989 in Romania even claims that it was the firsttelevised revolution, bringing Romania to international prominence(Siani-Davies 2005: 2).Porumboiu s film concerns events which took place before Christmas1989 in Vaslui, a town south-east of Bucharest and his own birthplace.Its action revolves around establishing whether any of its citizens, incommon with people in Timi_oara and Bucharest, protested againstCeau_escu s regime before it collapsed or whether they limited them-selves to effectively joining the winners.The medium to explore it is(again) television: a talk show combined with a live phone-in discus-sion.Such a programme, popular as much in the postcommunist Eastas in the West, can be regarded as an epitome of democracy because itallows ordinary citizens to voice their views directly and uncensored.Due to its directness and egalitarianism it provides a contrast with tel-evision under communism, when the viewer was projected as a passiverecipient of messages sent from the top, as we have seen in Good Bye The End of Communism 201Lenin! (although often s/he was able to read between the lines).At thesame time, this type of programme is frequently accused of presentingdistorted views of the population, because those who appear on it rep-resent only its small section and often have personal reasons to phone,as we also learn on this occasion.Moreover, the interviewer guides theanswers by asking interviewees specific questions and has the authorityto cut or dismiss their answers.There is also a danger that what comesacross as a spontaneous contribution might be actually prearranged.The television programme in Porumboiu s film, like the city where thefilm is set, is provincial (Figure 5.4).It battles with a shortage of equip-ment and employs only a handful of people, mostly poorly trained, eachcombining a number of functions.Its host, Virgil Jderescu, is also theowner of the studio, who due to being unable to secure more prominentguests, invites two rather unremarkable local men, Tiberiu Manescu andEmanoil Piscoci, each claiming to have been at the city s square duringthe momentous night before 12:08.If the claim of either of these menis confirmed, it will be proof that Vaslui was at the forefront of theRomanian liberation movement.If, on the other hand, the discussionfails to establish this fact, then Vaslui is condemned to the position of ahumble follower of metropolitan trends, a place at the literal and meta-phorical periphery of Romanian politics and history.Before the talk show begins, Porumboiu allows us an insight intoVaslui and the lives of the three main characters.True to its provincialstatus, the city comes across as frozen in the communist past.We seea Christmas tree at the centre of the city adorned with flickering lightswhich slowly die, the lamps on potholed streets gradually being extin-guished and finally a series of grim blocks of flats, in which lights alsogive way to darkness.The disappearance of light is reminiscent of thefrequent power cuts in the Ceau_escu era and, metaphorically, suggeststhe extinguishing of hope for any improvement in Romania followingthe change of regime.The parallel was not lost on the film s reviewers.One wrote: This is Romania as it is today a country that is clearly verypoor.The revolution offered so much promise, and while it did bringabout a more democratic state, little else appears to have changed (Haq2007).The only providers of light and excitement are the youngstersilluminating the wintry air with firecrackers.Of course, their action alsohas a metaphorical meaning: it suggests a chance for the social renewalof Romanian society, offered by the young, but also a danger that it willbe fragile and short-lived.The three characters represented by Porumboiu also hark back toCeau_escu s times.Manescu, a history teacher at the local school, comes 202 European Cinema and IntertextualityFigure 5 [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl odbijak.htw.pl
.Accordingly, Lenin s socialism is devoid of meaning, but Alex isable to resuscitate it.In summary, in Good Bye Lenin! Becker proposes to construct post-communist reality not by rejecting the past indiscriminately, but byhybridising what was best in the past with new elements.At the sametime, he shows awareness that such a project might be utopian or at leastwill not work for everybody.For example, it is easier to shed the oldskin for the young than for the old, for those who are better educatedthan for those who are not.Becker is well aware, as was WashingtonIrving, that there is no dramatic political and social change without vic-tims, but, at the same time, he knows that without such changes theremight be even more victims.His film thus provides an idea on how tominimise the costs and maximise the advantages of transformation.The anatomy of socialist men in 12:08 East of BucharestCorneliu Porumboiu s 12:08 East of Bucharest is also made under thesign of memory.This is a typical feature of what is described as the 200 European Cinema and IntertextualityRomanian New Wave.The majority of films belonging to this move-ment are made by young directors who attempt to assess the Romaniancommunist past from a postcommunist and postmodernist perspective.They focus on history as experienced from below, by those at the marginof society, such as old people, pregnant women trying to arrange anabortion and sexual minorities, and look at the legacy of Ceau_escu srule, such as poverty, disorganisation and nepotism.Their style is mini-malistic; the mise-en-scène tends to be simple, music is used sparsely andthey avoid the extremes of comedy and melodrama (Nasta 2007).Sucha style partly reflects their low budget, partly their authors decision tocreate the impression of reality itself speaking and then only allowingit to find the right voice.12:08 East of Bucharest was Porumboiu s firstfull-length feature film, made on a shoestring budget, and contains amixture of comedy and tragedy.The film is about commemorating the sixteenth anniversary of thefall of Ceau_escu, which happened on 22 December 1989.At 12:08precisely Ceau_escu fled Bucharest, following a series of demonstrationsin Timi_oara and Bucharest.12:08 thus constituted a divide betweenthe revolutionary avant-garde and arrière-garde, heroism and conform-ity.The Party leader s attempt to escape was captured live on nationaltelevision and projected into the homes of millions of Romanians, trig-gering celebrations across the country.What was soon to be known asthe Romanian Revolution, in common with many other political eventsof the past 30 years or so, including the imposition of martial law inPoland (see Chapter 4), was thus a media event.Peter Siani-Davies in hisbook about December 1989 in Romania even claims that it was the firsttelevised revolution, bringing Romania to international prominence(Siani-Davies 2005: 2).Porumboiu s film concerns events which took place before Christmas1989 in Vaslui, a town south-east of Bucharest and his own birthplace.Its action revolves around establishing whether any of its citizens, incommon with people in Timi_oara and Bucharest, protested againstCeau_escu s regime before it collapsed or whether they limited them-selves to effectively joining the winners.The medium to explore it is(again) television: a talk show combined with a live phone-in discus-sion.Such a programme, popular as much in the postcommunist Eastas in the West, can be regarded as an epitome of democracy because itallows ordinary citizens to voice their views directly and uncensored.Due to its directness and egalitarianism it provides a contrast with tel-evision under communism, when the viewer was projected as a passiverecipient of messages sent from the top, as we have seen in Good Bye The End of Communism 201Lenin! (although often s/he was able to read between the lines).At thesame time, this type of programme is frequently accused of presentingdistorted views of the population, because those who appear on it rep-resent only its small section and often have personal reasons to phone,as we also learn on this occasion.Moreover, the interviewer guides theanswers by asking interviewees specific questions and has the authorityto cut or dismiss their answers.There is also a danger that what comesacross as a spontaneous contribution might be actually prearranged.The television programme in Porumboiu s film, like the city where thefilm is set, is provincial (Figure 5.4).It battles with a shortage of equip-ment and employs only a handful of people, mostly poorly trained, eachcombining a number of functions.Its host, Virgil Jderescu, is also theowner of the studio, who due to being unable to secure more prominentguests, invites two rather unremarkable local men, Tiberiu Manescu andEmanoil Piscoci, each claiming to have been at the city s square duringthe momentous night before 12:08.If the claim of either of these menis confirmed, it will be proof that Vaslui was at the forefront of theRomanian liberation movement.If, on the other hand, the discussionfails to establish this fact, then Vaslui is condemned to the position of ahumble follower of metropolitan trends, a place at the literal and meta-phorical periphery of Romanian politics and history.Before the talk show begins, Porumboiu allows us an insight intoVaslui and the lives of the three main characters.True to its provincialstatus, the city comes across as frozen in the communist past.We seea Christmas tree at the centre of the city adorned with flickering lightswhich slowly die, the lamps on potholed streets gradually being extin-guished and finally a series of grim blocks of flats, in which lights alsogive way to darkness.The disappearance of light is reminiscent of thefrequent power cuts in the Ceau_escu era and, metaphorically, suggeststhe extinguishing of hope for any improvement in Romania followingthe change of regime.The parallel was not lost on the film s reviewers.One wrote: This is Romania as it is today a country that is clearly verypoor.The revolution offered so much promise, and while it did bringabout a more democratic state, little else appears to have changed (Haq2007).The only providers of light and excitement are the youngstersilluminating the wintry air with firecrackers.Of course, their action alsohas a metaphorical meaning: it suggests a chance for the social renewalof Romanian society, offered by the young, but also a danger that it willbe fragile and short-lived.The three characters represented by Porumboiu also hark back toCeau_escu s times.Manescu, a history teacher at the local school, comes 202 European Cinema and IntertextualityFigure 5 [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]