AN ESCAPE OF MEN WITH GLASSES UP TO THE WALLS

Abstract

Hungarian cinematography in the state socialist era was essentially part of the political discourse: on the one hand, there was censorship, on the other hand, by the advancement of the author’s film, filmmakers also identified with the social analysis or criticism attitude. The subperiods of the forty-year span between 1948 and 1989 were in fact determined by the dynamics of state control and creative expression, and the various genres and stylistic forms of formulating and expressing this social phenomena. Following the development of the well-identified political phenomena in films are particularly suitable for examining the social character of the Hungarian film. Such was the introduction of the new economic mechanism in 1968, followed by its slow revocation. The subject may, by its very nature, appear in stories in which engineers, politicians, and factory directors find themselves in workplace conflicts. The paper seeks to find out what kind of style and genre patterns did the topic of the new economic mechanism bring about, and what social meanings did these patterns express. The conclusions can, in a broader sense, also be valid for the cinematography of the State Socialist era.