„Megszaporodtak filmjeinkben a szocialista hősök”.
“Socialist Heroes Have Multiplied in our Films”

The Film-Making Process in Early 1960s Hungary through the Lens of the Debates of the Scriptwriters’ Council

Summary/Abstract: The study examines the influence of cultural policy and ideological directives on the everyday practice of filmmaking in Hungary in the 1960s. The period between 1956 and 1962 was a transition phase in the history of Hungarian film. As part of the consolidation process after the 1956 Revolution, the establishment mollified some of the pressure on people shaping the cultural sphere. At the same time the cultural policy makers of the Kádár era retained their power to interfere with film production. One of the government-controlled bodies that discussed and evaluated the scripts of prospective films was the Scriptwriters’ Council (Dramaturgiai Tanács, DT). Mravik’s study analyses the minutes of DT debates to examine the individuals and their methods to manipulate proposed scripts to make them compatible with official cultural policy directives, and compares the arguments voiced at these debates with the final product, the film itself. As Mravik points out, scriptwriters and directors had greater room to manoeuvre than in the 1950s: they were allowed to propose their ideas and cinematographic methods, which they could then pitch for the DT. Notably, whether the conflicting ideological directives or the scriptwriter’s arguments prevailed in the debate was often determined which film studio was chosen as the venue for the meeting, the participants in the discussion, and serendipity–undoubtedly a major factor in the transitional, chaotic and unmanageable world of Hungarian film industry at the time.

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