Kristýna Brázdová: Legacy of Jaroslav Kučera and thoughts on cinematography as a form of art / Odkaz Jaroslava Kučery a úvahy o kameře jako svébytné umělecké formě

Kristýna Brázdová se ve svém eseji zamýšlí nad autorským projevem významného kameramana (nejen) Československé nové vlny Jaroslava Kučery. Text zveřejňujeme v původním anglickém znění, jelikož vznikl v rámci autorčina studijního pobytu na polské filmové škole Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School.

„Ale mě strašně zajímá vyzkoušet jednou možnost vytvořit z filmového obrazu docela
autonomní záležitost, jež by se vymykala z konvenčního pojetí filmu. Jde o to, zda ve filmu
vytváříme jenom více či méně krásné pohyblivé obrazy něčeho, nebo zda by tyto obrazy
mohly být samy nositeli významu, sdělovat něco nikoli objektivně, nýbrž subjektivně. Prostě
udělat s filmem pokus na takové úrovni, kde je už dávno doma moderní malířství, poezie,
hudba. Vytvořit novou soustavu sdělovacích prostředků filmu.“ (Hames 2008, 213)

(I am really interested in trying to create a sense of autonomy of the film image one day, in a
way that would differ from the conventional approach to film. The thing with films is – are we
just creating more or less beautiful moving images of something? Or could those pictures
hold meaning on their own? Telling something not objectively, but subjectively. We could just
experiment with film on a level which modern painting, poetry or music has already reached.
We could create new means of communication in film.)

It’s strange to write about cinematography, the result of a cinematographer’s work, without
using image to prove a point. I can try my best to describe what I saw but still it can be just a
shadow of what the image actually looked like. Because unlike in the Scripture, in the
beginning of a film, there were no words, there were pictures. The relationship between a
screenplay and images is something that I am trying to understand these days. A film can
start as a series of visions inside the director’s or screenwriter’s head. Then it gets clumsily
translated to words that somehow have to evoke the original vision that is then produced by
a cinematographer and the whole team of people that create a moving picture. At least that’s
how I have always imagined it. But during my stay in Katowice I finally started to understand
what goes into the work of a cinematographer.

It’s not just about fulfilling someone’s vision, it is also about having a vision of your own. And
that is quite hard to hear on the other side, by the writing table. Do the words actually matter
if they won’t be followed in the end? I don’t know the answer to that question. Also I don’t
know if my words matter at all. But I have to admit, that it’s the cinematographer’s and
costume designer’s work that brought me to studying screenwriting after all.

When I was deciding where to go to university, I abandoned my years-long plan of going to a
diplomatic career and realised that I want to pursue art. I was torn between fine arts and
literature. And when I saw Sedmikrásky, Valérie a týden divů and In the Mood for Love, I
came to a conclusion that I can have both, if I choose to study film, if I choose to study
screenwriting. The visual aspect that I wasn’t used to from „normal“ films was what spoke to
me. And it feels like a full circle trying to understand what is behind those images.

I chose to write my essay about Jaroslav Kučera, one of the most important
cinematographers of Czechoslovak New Wave. He collaborated with many different directors
such as Jan Němec, Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Vojtěch Jasný or Juraj Herz. The usual
approach when trying to analyse a film is to try to distinguish a specific style of the director.
But looking at the cinematographer’s side can help us suddenly see the unique ideas that
he’s bringing to the works of different directors. If he had worked in an artistic tandem it could
be much harder to realise if it is just the style of the director or of the cinematographer, I
think.

Over the course of his life, Jaroslav Kučera was part of many projects, so I decided to focus
only on one of them – Až přijde kocour (1963, dir. Vojtěch Jasný). There are many significant
films that he worked on but I chose this one because it is probably the first of Kučera’s
experiments with colour (that he later developed more while working on Chytilová’s
Sedmikrásky, for example) (Hames 2008, 67). I would also say that many examples of his
strengths can be found in this film therefore I can demonstrate them on stills from it.
Because I realised that one image in such a case really speaks more than a thousand
words.

The film Až přijde kocour (The Cassandra Cat) tells a lyrical story of villagers that are taken
by surprise by a visit of a wizard, an acrobat and a magical cat. The cat can make people
appear literally in their true colours – purple representing hypocrisy, yellow infidelity, grey
theft and red love. That is not appreciated by the local school’s director who is trying to get
rid of the cat. But the village’s children demand justice. The film is shot on colour film
material and the figures of people in certain scenes are colourized in post production. That is
one of the most distinctive visual elements of the film. But the film also shows other
interesting features that indicate Kučera’s talents.

The very first shot shows us children’s painting of the village on the wall. It gives us a hint
about the location of the story and also indicates that children and their pictures are going to
play an important part in the story. We can see that later in the film when the camera shows
us how children at school paint according to their fantasy during Jan Werich’s character’s
story-telling. I would say that this shot also speaks about Kučera’s sensitivity to different
textures that is visible in his other works, too.

Another shot depicts the narrator of the whole story, Mr Oliva played by a legendary Czech
actor Jan Werich. He looks out of the clock from the top of the village tower. He, as the
narrator, has an overlook of the whole main square and later introduces us to all of the main
characters. But the term main character is kind of problematic with this film because, like in
many other Czech and Slovak films of this period, there is a so-called „collective hero“,
which basically means that the story focuses on a group or more groups of people (Hames
2008, 68). I decided to include this shot in particular because I think it’s a very unexpected
and entertaining way to introduce the narrator. It can be also seen as a nod to the silent film
Safety Last! (1923), in my opinion.

This still represents the main part of the exposition where Mr Oliva describes the villagers
and we see them through his point of view. The image is slightly blurred as he is watching
them with a magnifying glass.

A key element that is characteristic for this film are shots of birds in the sky. They represent
freedom which is one the main topics of the film. The symbol of birds is used on many
occasions in the film and the meaning slightly changes each time depending on the context.
I think that this can be seen as the example of Kučera’s attempts to use images that hold
their own meaning. Also the fact that it’s not just any bird, it’s a stork to be exact, is quite
important. The story takes place in the Vysočina Region, in particular in a historical town
called Telč where the director Jasný comes from. And storks are very common in this area. I
used to come to Telč every year with my grandparents because we spent summer in the
region and the storks are pretty much a symbol of my time there. On our way there we would
look out of the car to see them nesting on high chimneys and we would try to count how
many little ones they had. I think that sensitivity to such things speaks volumes about
Kučera’s and Jasný’s approach to filmmaking.

This shot is one of several that use something (partly) transparent to adjust our view on
something. Like in this case, we see the square blurred by the rain on a window. Or later,
when we are in some sort of a tent for the performers and the walls of the tent are made
from a see-through green fabric. Or in a scene where a girl paints a cat on a window in a
shop and we see her through the painted window. I think that’s a really nice play with depth
of field and also with textures in this shot in the picture.

In this scene we are in a classroom where Mr Robert, one of the most important characters,
teaches. We can hear the children’s whispering and the camera focuses on close-ups of
their faces. We get closer to them so it’s not just an anonymous crowd that keeps the plot
moving later on. We get to know them more personally.

Similar thing happens when Mr Robert tells them to draw what they like or dislike about their
town or what they would like to change about the place where they live. In the sound we
hear the children’s thoughts about what they dislike about things that their parents or fellow
residents do. And Jaroslav Kučera decided to do an interesting thing by showing little scenes
from the village on children’s blank pages so we clearly see what they are thinking about.
The children, unlike many of the adults in this film, still believe in ideals such as friendship,
honesty and truth. And they have their inner sense for justice that their teacher Mr Robert is
trying to support, but many other characters including some of their own parents or the
school’s director are doing the contrary.

With this still I decided to include one of the most captivating scenes where the janitor and
also the dogbody of the school director brings stuffed stork that the director had previously
killed. The director tells the janitor to make it fly which starts a crazy camera ride as he runs
around in circles around the director, his wife and his secretary. The scene (accompanied by
cheerful music) has a lot of irony to it. The office is also decorated with purple curtains which
gives us a hint about which colour is going to turn the director and his friends.

After the crazy ride comes a scene that is very much in contrast with the previous one. Mr
Oliva is supposed to be a model for the children to paint but he tells them a story instead and
the children decide to paint what he is talking about. From a cinematography point of view,
this scene is important to me, because there are no special effects just for the sake of it.
Kučera leaves a room for the actor to be the main focus of this scene. And it really works
because Jan Werich is a great story-teller (he also helped to write parts of the script) and he
steals the show in a good way.

This scene is unlike anything I’ve seen in a cinema. It takes place after the arrival of the
circus performers to the village. They create a spectacle in the courtyard of the local chateau
that is quite eye-opening for the villagers because it reflects their own life. The scene was
done with a group of actual mimes and the clothing silhouettes on a dark background create
a fascinating view. In this picture in particular there are white silhouettes of birds again
created with the hands of the performers.

With this still I would like to demonstrate one of other elements that Kučera uses. He blends
two shots together and creates a new meaning for them. Here we can see a rose that
symbolises the people who are filled with love. And the picture gets transformed into the
silhouette of the acrobat dressed in a red costume. Similar technique is used also later when
Kučera blends together several different shots of renaissance houses on the main square.

Here is an example of the colourized figures that appear after the magical cat looks at them.
Kučera experimented with colour also later in his career, for example in Chytilová’s
Sedmikrásky and also later in Noc na Karlštejně for example, in one of the most famous
scenes. Kučera also had an archive of his diary or „home videos“ where he was trying some
of his experiments (“Co říká deník Jaroslava Kučery o jeho tvorbě a životě s Věrou
Chytilovou” 2019, Respekt). I decided to include more stills from this scene because apart
from the colourisation, lighting and composition plays an important role as well.

And here we can see one of the characters that is moving and turning purple but we can see
parts of red as well. That suggests the character development that she undergoes later in
the story. Similar visual experiments Kučera also applied for example in Sedmikrásky or in
hallucination scenes in Morgiana (1972).

In the above picture and also in the two following I wanted to demonstrate Kučera’s
sensitivity to natural light. This sensitivity is also visible in garden scenes in Morgiana, for
example. This first one is especially interesting to me because as Diana, the acrobat
character, moves the umbrella against the sun, the light shines through and gives her face a
red shadow even without colourisation in post production.

In one of the dream-like scenes, Mr Robert and Diana run through the fields, filled with
happiness. In this particular shot we can see Kučera’s ability to capture natural landscapes
that was also influenced by another important Czech cinematographer Jan Stallich (Hames
2008, 35). This ability is also visible in another Jasný’s film where Kučera was as a DOP, in
Všichni dobří rodáci. The way the edges of the hills are glowing with warm light reminds of
paintings of Joseph Rebell.

At the end I wanted to include four shots that capture the unique architecture and
atmosphere of Telč in different lighting situations. The one above where children paint the
cat on rooftops reminds me of another Czechoslovak New Wave film called Slnko v sieti that
has a similar lyrical approach and also some scenes take place on rooftops (just not in Telč,
but in Bratislava instead).

I think that Kučera decided to use many shots from a bird’s eye perspective not only to show
us the interesting location but also to give us a broader perspective on the characters and
their conflicts. When people get too caught up in their daily troubles and arguments it’s
sometimes really hard to see the bigger picture and realise what actually matters in life. And
it’s a great opportunity to use film as a medium to show that. This perspective is also
connected to the symbols of birds that are used throughout the film. They look down on the
people and their struggles, just like the narrator when he’s watching them from the tower. But
he also becomes one of the characters, he is also part of the story that he is telling, only the
birds remain above, unless some of the villagers decide to shoot them.

To conclude, I would like to mention that this film is an example of the legacy of the First
Republic period (1918 – 1938) that was one of the most important cultural periods of modern
day Czechia. During this time, there was the artistic style called poetism and in my opinion
this film brings to attention several key elements of this style and in a way tries to continue
the artistic movement established several decades earlier (as the development was
interrupted by the Second World War). Those elements include inspiration in folk
entertainment, lyrical and playful approach to life and happiness found in ordinary things.
Another way in which the First Republic legacy is presented is through the casting of Jan
Werich who was (along with Jiří Voskovec) one of the most important figures in satirical
theatre. The musical and less narrative parts of the film also take inspiration in revue style
performances from theatre, in my opinion.

I feel the need to mention that even though Kučera’s imagery is very fascinating and holds a
meaning, I can’t help myself thinking that what brings another layer of subjectivity to the film
is its sound. Be it through music, dialogues or sound effects, it’s hard to imagine the film
without it. It reminds me of an interview that I had with one director that I included in my
bachelor’s thesis. He shared with me his experience that the viewer has a tendency to
perceive a picture as pure information and the sound is what adds the emotional layer to it
(Brázdová 2022, JAMU). I agree with him and I think that the importance of sound can be
often underestimated.

I wonder if Kučera actually reached his goal that he mentions in the quote at the beginning of
my essay. With visual aspects (but not just with them, but also with art in general) there is
always the risk that we create beautiful pictures and special effects just for the sake of it and
we lose track of the meaning. In my opinion, despite many of Kučera’s innovative ideas, his
imagery still stays true to the meaning of the film. But there is always the risk that it won’t be
perceived that way. He personally described the case of Sedmikrásky, where he had his
artistic vision but the aesthetic of the film started to develop on its own during shooting and
also after the film was finished (Hames 2008, 211). And from my own experience, I am not
sure how many people who see Sedmikrásky or any other very visually unique film enjoy it
as the colourful and crazy fun that it seems to be and how many actually search for the
meaning behind it. Both Chytilová and Kučera wanted an active viewer that finds his own
understanding of the film. But when I saw it for the first time, I wouldn’t describe myself as an
active viewer, I was just in awe that such a film exists and that was it. Maybe the words
matter in the end. Or maybe one has to train himself or herself to look at pictures and also
see behind them.

That brings me to another point which is the Kučera’s influence in today’s cinematography or
more the lack thereof. When I look at famous Czech films from the 60s to the 70s (Hames
2008, 98) but also from the First Republic period, there was a strong line of lyrical films that
were not afraid to disattach from realism while still remaining relevant to reality. Maybe I’m
wrong but I feel like Czech contemporary film is missing this approach. And while Kučera’s
work is certainly not forgotten (he had an exhibition in Dům umění in Brno in 2017 and there
is a book about him (“Jaroslav Kučera: kameraman československé nové vlny | dafilms.cz”
2019)), I think that partly because of the Soviet invasion that interrupted cultural
development after 1968 and also due to commercialization of films after the Velvet
Revolution in 1989, we lost something that made Czech film unique. Maybe it’s time to think
about finding it again.