Men with the Movie Camera between 1945-1989. Amateur Filmmaking and Everyday Life under Communism Cover Image

Emberek a felvevőgéppel 1945–1989 között. Amatőr filmkészítés a szocialista mindennapi életben
Men with the Movie Camera between 1945-1989. Amateur Filmmaking and Everyday Life under Communism

Author(s): Melinda Blos-Jáni
Subject(s): Anthropology
Published by: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület
Keywords: amateur film; home movie; media domestication; film club; media practice

Summary/Abstract: This study unfolds the amateur filmmaking practices of a family’s two generations while, in fact, inquiring into how the filmmaking technologies of a given period (1945-1989) were built into a community’s living space (both in a physical and metaphorical sense) and how they structured it. Through the history of the Haáz family living in Târgu-Mureş and the history of the local Film Club (and its leader, Ervin Schnedarek), we can explore the periods in the symbiosis of moving image and everyday life, the changing domestication process of the medium of film. In the meantime attention will be paid to the impact of state regulation of amateur film collectives and equipment, on the fact that these domestication stories occurred in the socialist Romania. The starting point of this analysis is that private films are not only embedded in the life of the individual, but also in the time of everyday life, in the history of representational forms and in macro contexts.

  • Issue Year: LXXVII/2015
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 110-127
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Hungarian