GROTESKA V ČESKO(SLOVENSKOM) FILME A LITERATÚRE
GROTESQUE IN CZECH(OSLOVAC) FILM AND LITERATURE

Summary/Abstract: The author re-interprets some theories of the grotesque as an aesthetic category (W. Kayser, M.M. Bakhtin). To the well-known types of the grotesque the author adds another type – the so-called postmodern grotesque. In the author’s view, permanent attempts at overcoming alienation and demonism by means of radical irony are characteristic of the period of postmodernism. Dušan Hanák’s film Paper Heads is a variant of a postmodern compilatory documentary film in which the content of representation is not reality, but another representation. The news-reel shots from the totalitarian period are constantly confronted with the utterances of former political prisoners. The „paper heads“ that appear in the film create the third compositional layer which symbolises the masked power and the conceited VIPs of the totalitarian system.

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