CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Jovanovic, Nebojsa |
|---|---|
| Title | Gender and Sexuality in the Classical Yugoslav Cinema, 1947-1962 |
| Summary | The thesis explores the gender-and-sexuality-related motifs in the classical narrative Yugoslav cinema in order to examine the gender order in the early Yugoslav socialist modernity. It focuses on the fiction features films from 1947 to 1962, i.e. the period of the most intense developments in Yugoslav cinema, from the very inception of the film industry in the postwar country to the rise of the modernist tendencies, as exemplified by novi film in the 1960s. The thesis strategically (1) uses gender-inflected conceptual and analytical framework, and (2) proposes a new Foucauldian epistemology of Yugoslav cinema, in order to challenge the dominant narratives about the socialist past, as articulated along the lines of the totalitarian paradigm. According to the totalitarian accounts, Yugoslav cinema was primarily the instrument of the Tito’s totalitarian regime run by the obedient propagandist drones. The classical Yugoslav cinema was especially besmirched in the accounts: the films made before the novi film are usually relegated to socialist-realist vehicles for disseminating communist dogmas and lies. This study demonstrates the opposite: characterized by intense developments that cannot be reduced to the stark ideological imperatives, the classical Yugoslav cinema actually testifies to polyphony of motifs and meanings – particularly those related to the gender-related aspects of the “Yugoslav cultural revolution”. Instead of going after an exhaustive scanning of the classical Yugoslav cinema, the study opts to probe in-depth several specific groups of films by applying the gender optics. After the introductory mapping of gender politics and cinema from the late 1940s to early 1960s, and arguing for the new epistemological framework, the thesis showcases gender motifs in the three major groups of classical films: the WWII/partisan films; the films about the post-war reconstruction of the country; and the films about the vicissitudes of peasantry, with other prominent groups of films also tangentially tackled. Rich and complex, spearheaded by antagonisms and paradoxes, the Yugoslav classical cinema actively participated in its vibrant socio-historical climate. Thus it needs to be vindicated and more closely explored as the unique historical imaginary of the early Yugoslav socialist modernity in general, and of the “apparatuses” of gender and sexuality in socialism in particular. |
| Supervisor | Lukić, Jasmina |
| Department | Gender Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/jovanovic_nebojsa.pdf |
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