Sobowtór w Pradze (filmowej)
The double in Prague (on the screen)

Author(s): Patrycjusz Pająk
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: double; film; Prague; identity; modernity
Summary/Abstract: The German expressionist film Student of Prague (1913) tells the story of a complex relationship between the double and the space of Prague in its urban, social and cultural dimension. The double who visits different urban places gives them a certain symbolic significance. In turn, these places include the universal figure of the double in a local and current cultural context. In Student of Prague the double is designed to descript the condition of Czech capital at the beginning of the 20th century – in a period of economic and political rivalry between the local Germans and Czechs. In this context, the double illustrates the fears of these socio-national groups involved in the changes of their status. These fears result in a feeling of alienation of urban environment that was previously familiar. The appearance of the double in the film is also associated with the hope of doubling the opportunities of human life. As a result, the double becomes the emblem of contradictions between individualization of human needs and the massification of social life, what is typical contradiction for the modern world.

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