Кино и четене
Cinema and Reading

Summary/Abstract: The winners of Oscar for 2008 The Reader by Stephen Daldry and Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle focused our attention at an important question: what does reading mean? Its meaning has been changed as a symbol of erudition and as a channel of information and as an aesthetic experience. The Slumdog Millionaire is an apotheosis of a phenomenon that is not limited geographically or socially: the combination between random knowledge accumulated through practical experience and ignorance in its classical meaning. The film shows well-assimilated knowledge based only on chance and experience – without any erudition or even one line read from a book. In the film The Reader by Stephen Daldry, based on the novel by the same name by Bernhard Schlink, pleasures and misfortunes, complexes and power, sexual passion and drama are placed on one basic line – (not)reading. One could say that her guilt is grounded in the atrocities committed by her in the concentration camps as well as in the fact that she has not been reading. But in the middle of the 20th century (The Reader) in Europe and more concretely in Germany ignorance has been condemned by society and that is why it was kept a secret and was destructive. To admit that you CANNOT read was the same as admitting a mortal sin. While in the beginning of the present century (The Slumdog Millionaire) ignorance is already a winning card. In this respect quite interesting is the parallel with some Iranian films – those films speak about a phenomenon quite contrary to our prejudices – education there (or concretely going to school) is an activity that has been placed on a pedestal in spite of the obvious poverty, difficulties and provincialism.

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