661 Marketa Lazarová

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Black Hat
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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#126 Post by Black Hat » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:49 am

Furthermore, I'm not just saying class based on economics. I'm also saying class divisions based on religion, government, merchant and gangster. I think these connections from the story to Vlácil's modern day Czechoslovakia are quite easy to make.

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Mr Sausage
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Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#127 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:03 am

Er, the idea of class did not exist (that depends on modern ideas of economic status that couldn't have existed), but the idea of rank/degree certainly did. Rank/degree was not based on economic status. Kozlik's rank/degree is evidently that of the nobility. So he did not hold a lower rank than those around him, and his rank was conferred by birth.

As the Czech Republic was officially communist at the time, Vlacil wouldn't have needed to code a movie about that kind of class struggle. That was part of the official agenda.

I don't remember the specific charges Christian's father lobs against Kozlik's daughter, but I would assume it had as much to do with her nationality and her religion, plus I'm sure the German did not know her rank anyway.

EDIT: didn't see your most recent post.

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Black Hat
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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#128 Post by Black Hat » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:47 am

Do you or (anyone) recall the naked, hanging upside down, inverted crucifix, Alexandra seen from a point of view shot? Very curious to hear interpretations of that.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#129 Post by swo17 » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:24 am

Black Hat wrote:Ultimately Marketa Lazarova is not a film about finding peace, spirituality, transcendence, what have you. It's a film about learning to live with struggle independently without the aid of God, who Vlácil treats as a hollow crutch as opposed to salvation.
Don't forget though that God is narrating at least part of the film. He's certainly present but obviously not interventionist. Perhaps like some of us, he sees a kind of perfection here and wouldn't dream of messing with it.

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Black Hat
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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#130 Post by Black Hat » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:36 am

That's interesting swo. That the narrator was God isn't something that crossed my mind. What's led you to believe that? I did go back just now and listen to the opening, if it is God, he sounds like a pretty ominous one.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#131 Post by Drucker » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:37 am

Black Hat wrote:Do you or (anyone) recall the naked, hanging upside down, inverted crucifix, Alexandra seen from a point of view shot? Very curious to hear interpretations of that.
Honestly I think I entirely missed that shot. While I could use another viewing like everyone else for the film, I especially think I could stand to re-watch the parts that occur just after the battle (pretty much after the 2 hour mark).

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#132 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Feb 28, 2014 12:00 pm

I don't remember the shot either, but it could be a visual reference to the hanging carcass we see her chopping at during her introduction, images of which recur throughout the movie.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#133 Post by MichaelB » Fri Feb 28, 2014 12:28 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:As the Czech Republic was officially communist at the time, Vlacil wouldn't have needed to code a movie about that kind of class struggle. That was part of the official agenda.
...and of course Vladislav Vančura's novel was published in 1931, when Czechoslovakia was a liberal democracy.

In other words, unless Vláčil's treatment of the class/feudal issues differs significantly from the source text (and I've seen nothing that suggests that it does and quite a bit that suggests that it doesn't), I'm instinctively suspicious of any attempt at reading contemporary political commentary into a film like this.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#134 Post by swo17 » Fri Feb 28, 2014 1:12 pm

Black Hat wrote:That's interesting swo. That the narrator was God isn't something that crossed my mind. What's led you to believe that?
I've seen other people observe this in reviews of the film. It isn't necessarily clear throughout, but there's one scene in particular (toward the middle of the film, while the camera is following a monk) where I remember the narration becoming distinctly omniscient, and not just in a typical storytelling kind of way.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#135 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Feb 28, 2014 1:57 pm

swo17 wrote:
Black Hat wrote:That's interesting swo. That the narrator was God isn't something that crossed my mind. What's led you to believe that?
I've seen other people observe this in reviews of the film. It isn't necessarily clear throughout, but there's one scene in particular (toward the middle of the film, while the camera is following a monk) where I remember the narration becoming distinctly omniscient, and not just in a typical storytelling kind of way.
During that scene he outright talks to the monk, which is one of the rare times a narrator enters the diegesis.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#136 Post by movielocke » Fri Feb 28, 2014 3:07 pm

Black Hat wrote:Do you or (anyone) recall the naked, hanging upside down, inverted crucifix, Alexandra seen from a point of view shot? Very curious to hear interpretations of that.
The christians caught her and executed her, the upside down crucifix I took to mean she was killed for 'being a witch'

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#137 Post by jindianajonz » Sat Mar 01, 2014 11:22 pm

MichaelB wrote:
Mr Sausage wrote:As the Czech Republic was officially communist at the time, Vlacil wouldn't have needed to code a movie about that kind of class struggle. That was part of the official agenda.
...and of course Vladislav Vančura's novel was published in 1931, when Czechoslovakia was a liberal democracy.

In other words, unless Vláčil's treatment of the class/feudal issues differs significantly from the source text (and I've seen nothing that suggests that it does and quite a bit that suggests that it doesn't), I'm instinctively suspicious of any attempt at reading contemporary political commentary into a film like this.
I wouldn't rule out a contemporary political commentary so easily. Aside from the fact that Vláčil may have played up certain parts for political reasons (and who knows, maybe some inadvertent political subtext is what drew him to the novel in the first place) but according to the booklet, Vančura was expelled from the Czechoslovakian communist party 2 years before the novel was published due to his anti-Stalinist stance. Although he apparently never abandoned his communist views (he was executed by the Nazis for being involved in a communist resistance group) I wouldn't find it surprising if he included criticisms of the Soviet government in his work

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#138 Post by Black Hat » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:13 am

MichaelB wrote:...and of course Vladislav Vančura's novel was published in 1931, when Czechoslovakia was a liberal democracy.

In other words, unless Vláčil's treatment of the class/feudal issues differs significantly from the source text (and I've seen nothing that suggests that it does and quite a bit that suggests that it doesn't), I'm instinctively suspicious of any attempt at reading contemporary political commentary into a film like this.
Class issues exist in liberal democracies as fervently as they do in any other system of government. In fact people turn to other systems of government in part as a reaction to the class issues of liberal democracies so I'm not sure as to why that reading would make you suspicious. Also from what I've read of Vančura wasn't he not only a communist, but also extremely active in politics? Indeed, wasn't he killed over his politics? Hard for me to believe that his artistry, especially in a work as rich as Marketa Lazarova, bared no stamp of his political beliefs when his commitment was so strong that he was willing to and ultimately did lose his life on account of them.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#139 Post by Shrew » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:37 am

Regarding Koczlik's status, isn't he called a Yeoman? Granted, this is all translation, but based on that and the general state of their houses/families, he does seem to be on the low end of nobility, with Lazar maybe a step higher. Of course the relative disarray of his home has more to do with his aggressive lifestyle and 15 kids than it does with his specific title in nobility.

That said, I don't get a Marxist class reading out of this, as there's no working class/serfs/peasants of any sort. Captain Pivo, as a merchant raised in status, might be the only major character who is not of a landed class. There is a definite distinction in wealth and status between Christian and Alexandra, but that plays out in many different ways besides class (nationality, religion and piety, respectability). I guess that's what black hat is arguing for, but in that case I wouldn't call the distinction between them "class." I think Christian is essentially the male double of Marketa, similarly cloistered by their fathers, draped in finery and prepared to enter the church, only to become entranced by the wild passions of this strange family once captured.

And trying to yoke a specific political reading onto the film seems even more counter-productive. I suppose you could read the convent as authoritarian, but I think it's far more interesting to discuss the church within the film's Christian/pagan and love/cruelty threads. General readings of a film along class or other lines can be good even if it was never part of the original vision, but forcing political commentary on such an abstract film feels like asking for a headache, particularly when so many of us probably know very little about the political scenarios in question (going out on a limb here that no one's an expert on 30s or 60 Czech politics).

Anyway, this was my second time watching the film, and as has been noticed, I was shocked by how much I'd forgotten or hadn't noticed the first time. And there were still scenes that left me confused (I thought that the early snake/tree/sex sequence was Christian experiencing an attraction to Alexandra, not recognizing Adam with two arms; I thought Pivo was heading to meet Lazar after his lieutenant had gone ahead and died, not coming back with the body). A lot of this has to do with the crazy sound design, which makes it hard to follow the origin of various echoy voices, and the subjectivity of the camera. There are many times where a subjective shot cuts to another ostensibly subjective shot, only for it to out not to be subjective (I'm thinking of the sequence where Koczlik returns home, with the camera moving in similar ways both as it follows him and takes his own point of view in flashback).

Still, I gained a lot more appreciation for the film this time around. I find the ending incredibly moving. Regarding sloper's question on the nature of love/cruelty and certainty/doubt in the film, I appreciate that the film doesn't separate these binaries into opposing characters, like Lazar versus Koczlik or Mikolas versus Adam. Instead, each character is indeed constantly struggling with these forces, although some characters certainly fall harder on one side. Even, Koczlik, a frighteningly cruel figure, calls Mikolas his most beloved in the end, which adds a new perspective on all those earlier scenes where he yells at and beats his son (though he seemingly ignores all his other children, so I guess that is love).

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#140 Post by Mr Sausage » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:48 am

shrew wrote:Regarding Koczlik's status, isn't he called a Yeoman?
I don't remember him being called a Yeoman. Yeoman were small landowners and farmers in Britain. They could attain a certain socio-economic status through wealth, but not have any kind of rank conferred on them the way Kozlik has (whose economic status is irrelevant to it). They're a bit like a precursor to the middle class. Yeomen did not really exist in continental Europe at that time.

Kozlik is definitely not a yeoman. As the owner of an 'estate,' the best I can tell he is a member of the gentry (no doubt landed at one point, tho' I can't tell if anyone besides his sons works the land any longer). I remember him being referred to as a nobleman and of a noble family at several points.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#141 Post by Shrew » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:41 am

Checking again (via some online txt subs), Kozlik is addressed as Yeoman by Captain Pivo's men when they capture Adam and later when they attack the fort. He also refers to himself this way when he first confronts the captain, "Since when has the king bothered with poor yeomen?" He's also called Lord of Rohacek in the intertitles and referred to as noble blood after his capture ("Noble blood gets the sword").

I imagine this is an issue of translation where some local Czech title is being rendered as Yeoman in English. But while I don't think it implies the same position as in medieval England, it does imply that Kozlik is low on the scale of nobility. Again, I don't think talking about "class" differences is appropriate here because the word has too much baggage. "Hierarchies" might be better.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#142 Post by jindianajonz » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:22 pm

Beer also addresses him as "yeoman Kozlik, lord of Rohacek" when his army arrives at Kozlik's stake-fortress. At the first mention, I thought it may be a sarcastic insult from Beer, but in this second instance it is clearly meant to be a formal title. I'm guessing that Shrew is right in that it's a czech title that doesn't readily translate to English.

I also became aware for the first time of just how much time passed between the part 1 and part 2 of the movie. In retrospect, it should have been obvious that the snow has all but disappeared in the second half, and Kozlik's clan have had time to construct this new fort of theirs on top of a hill, but the passage of time also helps "ease" Marketa and Christian into their relationships with the captors.

I also like the fact that titles and social positions are a bit "rougher" in this world, at least compared to how they are usually depicted. Outside the Abbey, religion seems almost like an afterthought in the lives of these people. Lazar, ostensibly the "good christian Patriarch" in this film, is not above scavenging the aftermath of the attack on the German carriage, and shows very little Christian charity to the monk when asked for food. Likewise, the Monk seems to treat religion more as a tool for begging than a spiritual calling, though he does seem to take the Kozlik clan's request for baptism seriously enough. And the noblemen in the film never act terribly noble, with even Christians father whining for revenge as he sloshes through the marsh (when was the last time a film showed somebody in elegant white robes casually lunging through muck like that?) I don't think these depictions are due to the fact that these people are inherently savage uncivilized as much as they are living in a much harsher world than ours, and are so focused on survival that they don't have time for things like chivalry and spirituality.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#143 Post by Mr Sausage » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:56 pm

The depictions of rank and religion in this movie are definitely much closer to the historical reality than to conventional representations. People then felt as free as they do now to pay lip-service to religion while serving their own physical or material interests, perhaps more so since religion offered a sure path through the world.

I don't think it's exclusively a matter of them simply not having time for chivalry and spirituality--I don't imagine Captain Beer or the German Bishop, for instance, lack the leisure to pursue either value--as that these values don't have a whole lot of meaning to their or anyone else's lived existence. They are fine values for courtly romances written in French that few outside of Czech Monestaries would've read, but that doesn't make them very transmittable or any less susceptible to bare human nature. Courtly values go unmentioned: what's mythologized--that is, given a meaning so overdetermined that it's inescapable--is cruelty and loneliness, as represented by the legend that supposedly gives the origin of Kozlik's family. Savagery and isolation is the family inheritance. Idealizations like bravery, nobility, charity, ect. give way to reality; they have little value for most people.

The ethos of this movie has more to do with the harshness of the Icelandic Sagas than the chivalry of The Romance of the Rose, that's for sure.

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#144 Post by Shrew » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:32 pm

The German Bishop Christian does seem to try to live up to a chivalrous ideal--take the scene where he offers to share Mikolas's shame, which Mikolas doesn't give a damn about. And his decision to pursue Alexandra even after gaining his freedom seems as much motivated in chivalrous duty ("She's carrying my child") as it is in love. Of course, then he goes insane after witnessing the savage brutality of actual war.

Speaking of Christian/Alexandra, do you guys have any thoughts on why she kills him? Does she blame him for her family's downfall or the death of Adam? Does it pain her to see him in such a pitiful state? Does he want her to kill him? Is it just a cruel impulse or a practical euthanization?

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#145 Post by Mr Sausage » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:23 pm

Shrew wrote:The German Bishop Christian does seem to try to live up to a chivalrous ideal--take the scene where he offers to share Mikolas's shame, which Mikolas doesn't give a damn about. And his decision to pursue Alexandra even after gaining his freedom seems as much motivated in chivalrous duty ("She's carrying my child") as it is in love. Of course, then he goes insane after witnessing the savage brutality of actual war.
As an educated, aristocratic kid, he'd likely have gotten those ideas from French romances (or German romances influenced by French ones).

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Re: Marketa Lazarová (František Vlácil, 1967)

#146 Post by Black Hat » Mon Mar 03, 2014 6:50 pm

Shrew wrote:The German Bishop Christian does seem to try to live up to a chivalrous ideal--take the scene where he offers to share Mikolas's shame, which Mikolas doesn't give a damn about.
Which scene was this? I need a refresher.
Shrew wrote:Speaking of Christian/Alexandra, do you guys have any thoughts on why she kills him? Does she blame him for her family's downfall or the death of Adam? Does it pain her to see him in such a pitiful state? Does he want her to kill him? Is it just a cruel impulse or a practical euthanization?
As I wrote earlier I don't think she kills him. That sequence to me was about dueling narratives, one written by Christian's people the other of reality. If you watch that seen again, you'll see a shot after she hits him where he's dead but there's no head injury that ends with her collapsing into grief.

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Re: 661 Marketa Lazarová

#147 Post by Shrew » Mon Mar 03, 2014 7:15 pm

The scene is right after the part where Mikolas/Marketa/Christian are sitting under a tree and Mikolas is catching mice to feed to the falcons. Kozlik and others come back from a hunt and make fun of Mikolas for catching mice. I think the idea is that Kozlik has stuck Mikolas with the prisoners for showing mercy to them. It's another part of the way Kozlik treats Mikolas cruelly and tries to curb his more sensitive impulses.

As for the murder scene, I recall the image of Christian after his death looking "ideal." His clothes don't look disheveled and his face is clean of all the mud that was on it earlier. I took that image as the "fantasy," a moment when Alexandra suddenly either recognizes him as he was when she first met him, or remembers how she fell in love with him.

I'm not sure where you would get an alternative narrative from the sequence. Christian's father and the other Gremans doesn't seem to be present in any form in order to influence the images or sounds we're seeing.

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Re: 661 Marketa Lazarová

#148 Post by Black Hat » Tue Mar 04, 2014 2:28 am

Ah that was a great scene. Took me a minute to realize that Mikolas was imprisoned with them.

Where I got the narrative from was the previous sequence when Christian was all over the place cutting from one place to another. The killing is after that sequence but it seemed to be a continuation of his wanderings, that confusion. Having said that your reading makes sense to me as well but what did you make of the final shot of that with Alexandra collapsing into camera? That he had succumbed to the forces of evil, of darkness?

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Re: 661 Marketa Lazarová

#149 Post by Sloper » Tue Mar 04, 2014 5:06 am

I'm pretty sure Alexandra makes love to Christian's corpse at the end of that scene - when Marketa comes along, doesn't Alexandra whisper, 'Just a moment longer', echoing Marketa's plea to Alexandra when she was saying goodbye to Mikolas?

The clue to understanding this lies, I think, in the connections the film repeatedly draws between Alexandra's relationship with Christian and her former relationship with her brother, Adam. For instance, when Mikolas realises that Alexandra and Christian are in love, he immediately recalls her relationship with Adam and its consequences. So one significance of that 'idealised' shot of the dead Christian is that it echoes a similar shot, earlier in the film, of Adam lying on the ground with his arm cut off, as his sister stares into his eyes waiting to see whether he will die or not (and remember that if he does, she is to be buried with him - coupled with his body in the grave, as a punishment for incest - so that may help to explain her necrophilic act at the end).

But I may have read this wrong; I'll watch the film again and see if I can make sense of it this time...

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Re: 661 Marketa Lazarová

#150 Post by Black Hat » Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:41 am

I think that could be repeated about this film every time we watch it for the rest of our lives. You're right I think she does say 'just a moment longer' and I like your take. Will have it in mind when I watch it again. Originally I didn't even pick up on that being Adam in the sex scene until I heard Hames' commentary. I'm going to see it for the first time on a big screen this week so I'm sure I'll have everything we've discussed here turned on its ear by the end of it and I wouldn't have it any other way.

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