Ludzkie marionetki w krwistym teatrze. Mięso w filmach pełnometrażowych Jana Švankmajera
Human Marionettes in Bloody Theatre. Meat in Jan Švankmajer’s Feature Films

Summary/Abstract: Due to some of his short animated films, Jan Švankmajer became known as a filmmaker presenting food – including meat – in an oppressive way (e.g. in Meat Love and Food). In these productions it is an embodiment of a human being who undergoes unavoidable destruction and break‑up, and – as a piece of meat – lacks subjectivity. In his full‑length films the director continues this way of presenting human fate; moreover, just in the full‑length productions meat, which before was episodic and showed only in a few Švankmajer’s short animations, became a motif that often comes back in his works and connects them. What is also important, because of the fact that Švankmajer’s films became longer, the meat motif can be explored more: in Little Otik the idea of ‘human as meat’ becomes clearer from scene to scene, when we observe the main character devouring people. In other film, Lunacy, scenes starred by actors are crossed with animated fragments showing living meat pieces that comment action and protagonists’ behaviour. In this text both ways of presenting meat in the Czech director’s films and strategies they undergo are presented.

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