Five filmmakers : Tarkovsky, Forman, Polanski, Szabó, Makavejev /

Along with the Berlin Wall, the Cold War division of Europe resulted in two very different sets of filmmaking sensibilities. Though East Bloc cinema was often viewed by Westerners as a gray field of socialist realism, many of the countries of the Warsaw Pact produced films that were both introspective and surprisingly critical of the flaws within the socialist system. However, many of the key filmmakers had to head West for either political (e.g., Milos Forman and Andrei Tarkovsky) or financial (Roman Polanski and Istvan Szabo) reasons. In the case of Dusan Makavejev, it was a mix of both combined with a sexual sensibility that could offend on either side of the Iron Curtain. The result of these westward migrations has been controversial at best. Polanski, who did the least amount of work in the East, quickly adapted. So did Forman, though his early Czechoslovakian films represent some of his best work. Tarkovsky remained a Russian to the end and was actually a caustic critic of the Western cinema. Szabo's coproduction of his Hungarian films with German and American backers has sometimes clicked (Mephisto, 1981) and sometimes stumbled (Hanussen, 1988 and Meeting Venus, 1991). With the exception of The Coca Cola Kid (1984), Makavejev's work has largely slid into obscurity. This book provides a good essential summation of these five filmmakers and their work. Recommended for general and academic collections. D. Toth formerly, Columbus Museum of Art