Iluminace 2017, 29(4):31-46 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1539

Vítězslav Nezval, the Role of Photogénie and a Turn of Thought

Radomír D. Kokeš
Masarykova univerzita

The article looks at a number of significant features of the film theory and criticism of the poet and representative of Czech interwar avant-garde Vítězslav Nezval. Nezval tends to be somewhat marginalized as an author of texts on cinema in comparison with Karel Teige but, considering these features and frameworks, he represents a quite unique, albeit somewhat elusive, phenomenon in the history of Czech film theory. First of all, an unexpected and significant turn of thought in his interpretation of the phenomenon of cinema occurred within just one year. The turn was (a) rhetorical. In contrast to his earlier abstracting and theorizing approach, he later adopted an approach considerably critical, instructive and more focused on specific filmmaking practice. The turn was also related to (b) values. He proposed a concept of photogénie in 1925 which was focused on the abstract and visual qualities of cinema and employed the subject matter and story as devices in order to make the work more approachable to a wider, less aesthetically sensitive, audience. Nezval reversed the ratio, however, in 1926 and made the subject matter and quality of story construction the main driving force. Second, The article has attempted to support the claim that Nezval's film theory has affinities, during both these phases, with certain aspects of the theoretical thinking of both Russian literary formalists and Czech literary structuralists. This may have been caused by the shared influence of constructivism through Karel Teige, through encounters with Roman Jakobson, or simply because of a tendency towards practical thinking about (film) art. This practical thinking was also related to an interest in discovering the logic of the inner mechanisms of work and its production.

Keywords: Vítězslav Nezval, film theory, film criticism, concept of photogeny, thinking about film

Published: December 1, 2017  Show citation

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Kokeš, R.D. (2017). Vítězslav Nezval, the Role of Photogénie and a Turn of Thought. Iluminace, 29(4), 31-46. doi: 10.58193/ilu.1539
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