Literature and Film from East Europe’s Forgotten "Second World"

Gordana P. Crnkovic is Professor of Slavic and of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Her writings include Imagined Dialogues: Eastern European Literature in Conversation with American and English Literature (2000), Post-Yugoslav Literature and Film: Fires, Foundations, Flourishes (2012), over 30 articles, as well as texts of the experimental video Zagreb Everywhere.

Gordana Crnkovic writes with such gentle delight, such a captivating capacity to explore and explain, such a vigorous understanding of the way film unfolds in front of the viewer and inside their head that you want to grab the camera and start filming then and there.

• Introduction: On Invitations and Discoveries Part I: Invitations 1. The Flight of Form: This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Tadeusz Borowski, Poland, 1948)2. The Gift of a Story-Teller: The Bridge on the Drina (Ivo Andric, Yugoslavia, 1961) 3. Over There, the War Does Not End: The General of the Dead Army (Ismail Kadare, Albania, 1963) 4. On Kindness: Two Films from 1960s Czechoslovakia (directors Miloš Forman, Ján Kádar & Elmar Klos) 5. That Was There Too: Man Is Not a Bird (Dušan Makavejev, director, Yugoslavia, 1965) 6. The Fireworks of Different Desires: Daisies (Vera Chytilová, director, Czechoslovakia, 1966) 7. The Most Important Thing: Lovefilm (István Szabó, director, Hungary, 1970) 8. Fiction Against Fiction: A Tomb for Boris Davidovich (Danilo Kiš, Yugoslavia, 1976) 9. On Mice and Books: Too Loud a Solitude (Bohumil Hrabal, Czechoslovakia, 1976) 10. Taking Things Too Literally: Man of Marble (Andrzej Wajda, director, Poland, 1976) 11. A Terrifying Simplicity of History: The Czar's Madman (Jaan Kross, Estonia, 1978) 12. Human Judging and Animal Love: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera, Czechoslovakia & France, 1984) 13. A Non-Readers' Lesson to Writers: The Door (Magda Szabó, Hungary, 1987)14. Intelligence, Artificial: Decalogue: One (Krzysztof Kieslowski, director, Poland, 1988)15. Nela's Courage: The Oak (Lucian Pintilie, director, Romania, 1992) Part II: Probing Deeper1. The Victim's Double Vision and the Long Road to The Pianist (Roman Polanski, director, Poland etc., 2002) 2. Imagining a Good City: One Who Sings Thinks No Evil (a.k.a. One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away, Krešo Golik, director, Yugoslavia, 1970) 3. The Reign of Images and the Good Icons: Mothers (Milcho Manchevski, Macedonia, 2010) 4. Easing Into the Non-Human Future: Border State (Tõnu Õnnepalu, Estonia, 1993) 5. On Reading Literature: Turning the Tables, the Writers on Critics Bibliography Index