A Documentarian between Genres : Jiří Weiss – A Crossover Auteur at Barrandov

Abstract

In the postwar period, Jiří Weiss came to Barrandov as a documentary filmmaker who had experience of the interwar avant-garde and war-commissioned documentary production in exile in London. In the conditions of state-socialist cinema, his personality was important as a bearer of generational continuity, a link between creative and administrative tasks of the Barrandov Studios, proponent of socialist realism, connected to international circles, and seeking for a coproduction project, and at the same time foreshadowing some of the New Wave methods, such as casting nonactors and focusing on social issues and everyday life. His crossover authorship, bridging or merging some of the seemingly disparate aspects of postwar Czech cinema, therefore makes it possible to explain some of the paradoxes, ambivalences, and (dis)continuities of state-socialist film practice.