The EYE – the Look at the Present (of that time): 37 hours of documentary film reflection of new Czech state society

• Authors: Štoll Martin

Title variants

CS

OKO – pohled na (tehdejší) současnost. 37 hodin autorského svědectví o české společnosti v novém státě

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Between 4th April 1992 and 17th December 1996, Czech Television presented 112 parts of the documentary series called The EYE – a Look at the Present-Day. It was made by the then newly established FEBIO production company owned by Fero Fenič. This project was the first systematic activity after 1989 to map the situation of the transforming Czech society and to catch its ongoing state, using audio-visual means. If each of the part was 20 minutes long, the total series amounted to 2 240 minutes, i.e. more than 37 hours of a pure author´s reflexion of the then social phenomena; it is not only a “bank” including the phenomena themselves, but even possible approaches to them. The study verifies whether and by which means the series reached the level of complexity in the thematic realm, and which dimension the author´s creative approaches and selected processes of expression brought to this unit, which is part of archive materials today. The author researches that part using a new concept of “key situation”, which help define the “form of authorship” that is essential for the impression of the theme.

Keywords

EN

Czech Television; FEBIO; Fero Fenič; documentary; dissolution of Czechoslovakia; media and society; cultural change; tabu; key situation

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: The National Institute of Folk Culture
• Journal: Národopisná revue (Journal of Ethnology)
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 209 - 221

Contributors

author

Štoll Martin