Journal Entry – Week 8

Prompt 2: The Czech government refused to distribute Jiří Trnka’ s “The Hand” (1965). The film represents oppressive parties during this era. I think this film was seen as subversive by the communist government at the time because it was seen as threatening and going against the Czech government.

I liked this film. It’s actually my favourite one!

“The hand” is a representation of what it means to oppress something- in this sense, the government. The puppet represents an artist and the clay being manipulated represents art- or virtually anything in the matter. As we navigate through the film, we see how the hand only intervenes and creates standards that the puppet must obey- limiting it from broadening their sense of creativity. When the puppet fails to reach the standard, a black gloved hand appears to take action.

My favourite part in the scene is where the puppet lost its human qualities in deciding for itself. It does what it was asked to do forcingly- becoming the puppet. And when it became the puppet, it became lifeless like the puppet is- depending on a hand to decide for it.
This posed issue to the gov’t since it addresses how a gov’t such as Szechoslovakia was very oppressive.

The short film “The Hand” (1965) by Ji Trnka is a stop-motion animation about a struggling artist whose creative aspirations are frequently hampered by a disembodied hand. The hand is represented to be more strong than the artist, symbolizing the oppressive and censorious powers that existed in Czechoslovakia during the Communist era. The film is subversive because it criticizes the harsh dictatorship that was in power at the time. The disembodied hand might be viewed as a metaphor of the Communist regime’s attempt to regulate all aspects of creative expression and silence any dissident voices.

Since “The Hand” (1965) criticizes the oppression and censorship of the Czech regime, the Czech government refused to distribute the film. As a metaphor for the struggle an individual has against oppressive political forces, the film portrays an isolated and oppressed hand. A threat to the government’s control of the arts and media may have also been perceived in the film’s use of surrealism, dark humor, and unsettling imagery.

Jiri Trnka’s “The Hand” sees a character who makes pottery approached by a floating hand that demands them to make a clay figure of the hand. There is a scene in the film wherein the hand shows the potterer sequences of the hand in various modes of implied power. A hand holding a judgment scale, a hand holding the torch akin to the Statue of Liberty, etc. The film seems to be making clear allegories to an oppressive government. Given the context of Czechoslovakia’s government, it seemed to be a response to what was going on. Later in the film, the hand literally puppeteers the potterer to make its statue for it while trapped in a cage. The clear messaging must have rubbed the Czech government the wrong way which was probably why they wouldn’t distribute it.

Ji Trnka’s short film “The Hand” was deemed subversive by the communist government because, in the film, the hand appeared out of nowhere and intruded into an artist’s home. The artist wanted to make a pot, but the hand only wanted him to make hand sculptures. When the artist defied the hand, the hand became violent and forceful, defying the artist’s wishes and capturing him to make more hands. It definitely demonstrated how far a communist would go to impose their views and values on someone, and simply watching that film would lead one to believe that communism is wrong and that no one should support it.

The Czech government refused to distribute Jiří Trnka’s short film “The Hand” because it was considered subversive. Czechoslovakia was under communist rule at the time of the film’s release, as mirrored in the film’s protagonist’s inability to free himself from the ruling hand (of the government). The protagonist is a puppet who is seen caring for its plant and working on pottery; at one point, we see the hand forcing the puppet to craft a relic of the hand. As the puppet and the hand go back and forth, you get the feeling of oppression the communist party is known for.

 The hand critiques, its government for trying to control the puppet’s passion. And they try multiple methods either force manipulation or seduction. The hand at some point even tries to bastardize the puppet’s pottery. I watched an interesting video on the breakdown of this film, and the video creator brought up an interesting point: the hand gave the puppet, a hero’s burial, pretending, almost like they were willing to collaborate with the hand, almost like propaganda.

With the hand, I felt as if we with our hands we can do awful things to each other and sign deals that will not put people in a certain good environment.

After WWII, differences between the Western and Eastern animation became heavily divided by political factors.

In the West, particularly in America, animators found it relatively easy to recover. America had not experienced as severe losses that most of Western Europe had experienced. With the rise of Nazi power, many creatives found it in their best interest to flee elsewhere, with a lot of creatives ending up in America. Some of the industries in western Europe had to be rebuilt from the ground up as a result of warfare. Animation in North America flourished because studios were owned by private companies, so animators were free to experiment as they wished. However, there were limits to their freedom; many people were hunted down and made unemployable by the government and their neighbors if they expressed any opinions that could be perceived to be communist or sympathetic to communists.

Any celebrity, intellectuals, and those that chose to disagree with certain politicians’ opinions were marked as Communists. These people were deemed to be unemployable. In America, those that were suspected to be Communists were kept track of by the FBI. In Canada, suspected Communists were investigated and deported. Despite these limitations, animators were able to work on advertising projects that would fund their personal projects.

The USSR and China suffered heavy losses directly before and after WWII. Russia, in particular, had undergone a bloody civil war directly before WWI. They would also experience heavy civilian losses due to famine under Stalin’s rule. China would experience their own civil war shortly after WWII. Combined with the effects of WWII, many civilians would die, leading to severe brain drain. As a result of the brain drain, some countries had to rebuild their animation industries from scratch.

Communist governments would financially sponsor their artists. However, the animators were hampered from telling the stories they wanted to tell by their governments. In the USSR, governments would dictate that all movies made must have a moral. Because it was important to foster nationalism, animators were obliged to explore traditional art styles. They were also obliged to tell traditional stories that were unquestionably nationalistic. The animators were warned against relying too heavily on Western styles.

WWII had a tremendous effect on the world as we once knew it. There was a distinct division between the western and the eastern worldviews that can also be seen in the animation that was produced by its style, aesthetic, and purpose.

Firstly, it is noteworthy that before WWII, western animation studios such as Disney dominated the animation industry and had a worldwide distribution. In contrast, many of the pre-war animations in eastern culture were destroyed or banned.

In the east, the governments almost entirely controlled and funded the animation industry. These governments knew that animation was a great way to gain more power and use it for educational purposes. The animation was produced for propaganda and to promote these governments’ socialist values and the communist agenda. In Japan, there was the film control committee (created in 1934) that made sure that film production was entirely overlooked by the government. It was also looking to limit the influence of foreign cultures (especially western influence) and ideologies by preventing animation imports. The eastern aesthetic was more superficial and constantly tried to avoid mimicking the Disney style, and each country has created its own animation style.

In the west, we can see that animation studios are privately owned, such as Disney studios in the US and Halas & Batchelor studios in Europe. Even though the government was sponsoring some of the studio’s projects, especially during the war, these studios were never under the government’s control. The governments of the western side encouraged local productions and studios, and these studios balanced between advertising and government-sponsored projects and personal productions and entertainment films. The western countries’ aesthetics usually mimicked the Disney style at the time and tended to be more detailed.