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
After moving to Hollywood, Czech Miloš Forman, world-renown and Academy Award nominated director of Loves of a Blonde (Czechoslovakia, 1965), experienced a critical and popular “flop” with his first American film made on a premise similar to his Czech films. But his next Hollywood film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)—based on American writer Ken Kesey’s novel—was an instant success and remains one of the most important Hollywood films of all times.
This course looks at how Forman and other celebrated film directors from post-World War II Eastern Europe, after moving to the “West,” used literature to make films in a different, market-based rather than state-sponsored film industry and for different, Western audiences. We shall first get a sense of the unique film production in socialist-era Eastern Europe, as well as of the importance of literature in the region, and then move on to see how East European directors employed their “reader” skills after emigrating to the West, making film adaptations of Western literary works that still articulated their own artistic vision. The films we shall study include a few most well knows films from socialist Eastern Europe and then Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Agnieszka Holland’s Washington Square, and others.
The Goals of this Class: The main purpose of this class is to help you become a better reader of literature – or, in general, of texts that are more demanding than our usual standard fare – as well as better “reader” of visual works. Regardless of what your study and career goals are, these skills will serve you well throughout your life (not to mention scoring better on general exams such as LSAT, MCAT, etc.).
Requirements: viewing of films and reading of a few literary excerpts (all available on Canvas) and of two short novels. 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 for this class! Also: NO recommended preparation!
For any questions, please email instructor Professor Gordana Crnković at crnkovic@uw.edu.