Page 130 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 130
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
1960s (the work of “modernists” mostly remained marginalized, receiving
only acclaim among film critics), Slovenian film was not founded in the
paradigm of film as an art strongly related to mass culture, but much more
on the obsessive formula of “film as art”, which was supposed to follow tra-
ditional arts. In this sense, Slovenian film had to reinterpret a literary agen-
da that was articulated in the mid-nineteenth century by Fran Levstik, who
wrote: “Of course one should write using home-grown words, using native
thoughts, on the basis of domestic life, so that Slovenians will see Sloveni-
ans in a book, just as they see their face in the mirror” (Levstik, 1858: p. 19).
No realistic pattern followed from this agenda, but much more a kind
of narcissistic attitude. This Slovenian obsession with Slovenians was no-
ticeable in mainstream Slovenian cinema, which especially in 1980s was
interested in national identity to a high degree. A thought by Thomas El-
saesser applies nicely to this pattern: “In the wings of these self-portraits,
in other words, hovers the shadow of sacrifice and the sacred” (Elsaesser,
2005: 49), which raises the question of the role of tradition as a component
of a culture, including culture in former communist countries. This point
is revisited in the following section of this chapter.
Anyone that looks today at the well over 100 Slovenian films (produced
over a period of about 50 years) would definitely doubt the repression of
ethnicity under communism, and especially under the Yugoslav brand of
it. In general, throughout the history of Slovenian cinema “national” top-
ics were overwhelmingly present; therefore, it appears that film in the post-
war period played a crucial role in forming notions of Slovenian identity.
However, along with the changes leading towards the end of communism,
whereby the ruling political groups were losing citizens’ support, Sloveni-
an films were losing their audiences. For instance, in 1980 the editor of the
only serious Slovenian film journal, Ekran, pointed out that Slovenian film
was losing its audience. In his view, the reasons were not to be sought in the
dwindling creativity of filmmakers; he remarked that “the reasons for the
crisis should rather be seen in the huge archaic institution [i.e., the Slove-
nian film company Viba] that spends more on itself than on the produc-
tion of movies” (Zajec, 1980: p. 3). Zajec’s assertion supports Robar-Dorin‘s
harsh view of the situation in the establishment upon which all filmmak-
ers’ work was dependent.
A specific “cult of the mother” formulated in Slovenian literature (in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) stitched together elements of
a universal myth of the mother as the basic matrix of the nation, and the
128
1960s (the work of “modernists” mostly remained marginalized, receiving
only acclaim among film critics), Slovenian film was not founded in the
paradigm of film as an art strongly related to mass culture, but much more
on the obsessive formula of “film as art”, which was supposed to follow tra-
ditional arts. In this sense, Slovenian film had to reinterpret a literary agen-
da that was articulated in the mid-nineteenth century by Fran Levstik, who
wrote: “Of course one should write using home-grown words, using native
thoughts, on the basis of domestic life, so that Slovenians will see Sloveni-
ans in a book, just as they see their face in the mirror” (Levstik, 1858: p. 19).
No realistic pattern followed from this agenda, but much more a kind
of narcissistic attitude. This Slovenian obsession with Slovenians was no-
ticeable in mainstream Slovenian cinema, which especially in 1980s was
interested in national identity to a high degree. A thought by Thomas El-
saesser applies nicely to this pattern: “In the wings of these self-portraits,
in other words, hovers the shadow of sacrifice and the sacred” (Elsaesser,
2005: 49), which raises the question of the role of tradition as a component
of a culture, including culture in former communist countries. This point
is revisited in the following section of this chapter.
Anyone that looks today at the well over 100 Slovenian films (produced
over a period of about 50 years) would definitely doubt the repression of
ethnicity under communism, and especially under the Yugoslav brand of
it. In general, throughout the history of Slovenian cinema “national” top-
ics were overwhelmingly present; therefore, it appears that film in the post-
war period played a crucial role in forming notions of Slovenian identity.
However, along with the changes leading towards the end of communism,
whereby the ruling political groups were losing citizens’ support, Sloveni-
an films were losing their audiences. For instance, in 1980 the editor of the
only serious Slovenian film journal, Ekran, pointed out that Slovenian film
was losing its audience. In his view, the reasons were not to be sought in the
dwindling creativity of filmmakers; he remarked that “the reasons for the
crisis should rather be seen in the huge archaic institution [i.e., the Slove-
nian film company Viba] that spends more on itself than on the produc-
tion of movies” (Zajec, 1980: p. 3). Zajec’s assertion supports Robar-Dorin‘s
harsh view of the situation in the establishment upon which all filmmak-
ers’ work was dependent.
A specific “cult of the mother” formulated in Slovenian literature (in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) stitched together elements of
a universal myth of the mother as the basic matrix of the nation, and the
128
