Iluminace 2020, 32(4):9-27 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1682

Which Will Be the Right One? The Beginnings of Fairytale Genre in Czech Animated Film after 1948

Lukáš Skupa

Národní filmový archiv

The brief period from 1948 to 1953 can be considered as the formative years of fairytale genre in Czech animated film. This study focuses on the dramaturgy of animated film studios, which were obliged to reorient their production almost exclusively to children's audience. For this purpose the conncetions between children's films and children's literature were developing after 1948. Scriptwriters as well as artists were recruited from the literary area and some of literary fairy tales were adapted as animated films. Especially the type of so called modern fairy tale was determined as the best option for film adaptation with regard to the goals of education and reeducation of children - modern fairy tales could served for articulation of actual needs of socialist cultural policy. The Apple-Tree with the Golden Fruit - Eduard Hofman's film from 1952 which tells the story about animals, to whom a group of Pioneers help to grow tasty apples - became the exemplary work of this tendency. This film combined fairytale narration with didactic popular-educational message and represent the intersection of most demands placed on Czech animated films for children after 1948. It was marked as the first succesful work of socialistic realism made in Czech animated film studios.

Keywords: Czechoslovak nationalized cinema, Czech animated film, children's film, film adaptation, fairytale film

Published: December 1, 2020  Show citation