One First Step into Life (From 'Film a Doba') - (By A. J. Liehm - March 1964) - Movies - http://maxpages.com/czechcinema/Black

Some time ago, someone gave me a script to read. It was an evocative description of a sixteen-year-old boy, in the period between 1945 and 1948, who was an apprentice in a grocery store, although his name was, of course, on things other than herring and sour pickles. This boy observes the people around him, who look at the world with grocers' eyes. Then he participates in May Day and Liberation Day celebrations without understanding them very well, except that people seem to be caught up in a strange kind of excitement. He is no young revolutionary, but a very impressionable, still unspoiled, human sapling who has not yet been internally conditioned by hypocrisy and 'the facts of life.' He can grow up one way or another, depending mainly on whether his environment answers the questions in his eyes.
At the time I had the feeling that this was an interesting, poignant, and very human story that was good for about 3,000 feet of film, an excellent start for a directing debut that would that it was too bad this director had had to wait so long to get his chance. When I found out that the story might be made into a feature film, I had my doubts.
Then along came another rumor that Forman and Papousek were transposing the story to the present, that it was going to be a feature film not quite about children, but not quite about young men and women either. I didn't believe it could be done, and I said so; not only the thinness of the story but also that fifteen-year time difference bothered me. I didn't believe that an author who knew how to describe his own youth would be able to retain the same authenticity when dealing with the next generation.
After the first showing, when I was still a little dazed from impressions one has after a really memorable experience in a projection room, I apologized to Forman. And in the somewhat euphoric atmosphere of the moment, I told him I would apologize publicly, which is what I'm doing now.

In his direction of his first feature picture, Milos Forman has shown that he is a real film artist, with emphasis on the 'film.' It also makes clear something we did not realize in "The Puppies": For him, the script is the theme, a point of departure, a foundation; but it's never a book he is supposed to illustrate - or even wants to. It may be a problem to reconstruct the script of "Black Peter" for its publication in book form, because for Forman, the story is a living organism that takes shape as the shooting progresses, a skeleton that grows and gradually envelops itself in flesh. Only when it moves and speaks does it become what it actually is - a Formanesque creation.
Already with "Competition" Forman made clear what kind of cinematography he prefers, what his element is, and that he has no intention of copying anybody else. It is probably his connection with the theater that has enabled him with his first movie (or, if you prefer, his second) to make a contribution that is something more than a summation of different views about reality.
We have been aware for a long time that in the cinema verite method that serves Forman as a base - but only as a method - sound is just getting the utmost naturalness in the visual images. In cinema verite with a purely sociological approach it is the sound track that transmits maximum authenticity and is so suggestive that it can make the spectator feel like an eyewitness of a very private happening. In the artistic style with which the artist uses this method, the authenticity of the sound track comes through primarily in all the various sound effects and background sounds, but also in the dialogue, which, unlike in more conventional movies, evolves on the spot, in direct contact with the professional - or rather, nonprofessional - performers.
Forman (and here I want to apologize to Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer, and others as well, because it is impossible to know the extent of their undeniable share as authors of the script) has done something new, something that might seem almost impossible in the cinema, or at least inconsistent with the whole method from which he started: he has given us an example of the decay of speech, in other words, a method of analysis of a certain phenomenon in the social conscience that has been considered practically the exclusive domain of the theater, specifically, the theater of the absurd. Forman has succeeded in transposing to the movie screen (particularly in Peter's father's monologues) the social background of cliches that represent the degeneration of language - which, after all, is simply a tool for degenerated thinking. This achievement has far-reaching significance: it reconfirms that an artistic work created by the cinema verite method can also be a full expression of stylized reality.
I have put the cart before the horse, however, in discussing aesthetic considerations before talking about the movie itself, about its content, purpose, and meaning. But I simply couldn't start until I had mentioned how Forman has mastered reality and how a short tale has turned into a work with a rich philosophic background.
First of all, the creator of "Black Peter" has shown that he knows the generation that came fifteen years after him, that he likes these youngsters, that he understands them and has compassion for them; yet he does not idealize them in the least. This has nothing to do with politics. Peter's father, just as he is, might well be a distinguished veteran bureaucrat, a 'political worker.' But he isn't: he leads a brass band. The real bureaucrats and political workers look just like him, though. In other words, the milieu that Peter grew out of and is growing into has nothing to do with social classes. And there's nothing class-conscious in the way Peter resists his fate, in how he doesn't want to go on in the same rut, but doesn't yet know where it is he wants to go. We are simply outside the circle of problems of the exploited apprentice or his petty bourgeois parents, in the class sense. This situation is different; it is universal, which is why it has the ring of truth. And the truths revealed in this film are cruel ones.
A sixteen-year old gets his start in life. Nobody slaps him; his hands don't get frostbitten; and he doesn't starve. So far, so good - and, so far, he differs from his counterparts of the past or in some other societies (but only generally). He isn't, and won't ever be, an intellectual; he doesn't give the world much thought, even at the level of his sixteen years. For him, the 'world' means, in the first place, the need to make some sense out of his own process of growing up. Supplied with Mom's sweet rolls and her love (which is not very helpful in the situations he faces) and accompanied by a shower of paternal banalities of thundering emptiness, the boy goes out into the world in which he will be a working man and perhaps be able to earn the dignity he craves.
This life he has entered gives the boy his first important assignment: 'You're going to keep an eye on the Others,' he's told. 'Of course, we trust them; but at the same time we can't depend on people; we know that. They're all suspect in one way or another, and anyone will steal if he's sure nobody's watching.'
The boy does his best, still not realizing that his life has its claws into him and has already begun to shake him up. But it still seems more like a children's game, like playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers. The suddenly, out of the blue, the game turns into reality. He's clutching a person, a real, live, human being. Why, this woman who has just stolen twelve crowns' worth of chocolates could be his own mother.... And the boy can't bring himself to tighten his grip on her arm, because it isn't a game anymore, and he's no guard.
His father is right on tap with his narrow-minded, omniscient, nonsensical, and authoritarian moralizing: there was no unpleasantness, after all; nothing really happened; just don't let it happen again. But there is that question in the boy's eyes, and revulsion, too. 'Aha, the young gentleman doesn't enjoy the work? Well, then, what do you enjoy? Do you have any idea what you want?... It looks to me as though all you know is what you don't want. Well, now, I'll tell you something: as long as you don't know what you want, you're going to have to do what I want you to do' - and so on, like a flowing river. Only suddenly the mouth goes dead; and the boy looks at his father with that question in his eyes, which are still alive. Because he really doesn't know what he wants. All he knows is that he doesn't want to do what he has been told to do. He wanted an answer in this particular situation, and he didn't get it. Maybe this first step into the world has marked him for life.
It is cruel, uncharitable, and very accurate. Because in a way, all of us are fathers of the younger generation, literally or figuratively; and if we're just a bit candid, all of us can recognize ourselves. Yet we cannot accuse Forman of not playing fair with us, of exposing us and then idealizing the young. He doesn't do that. These youngsters are narrow and provincial, very unappealing, even ridiculous. But a bricklayer allows one of the boys to make a corner - the corner of a wall. It's something that will be useful, something with a purpose; the apprentice is even praised for a job well done. Peter, on the other hand, is sent out to spy on people; and if everything good in him revolts when he sees the absurdity of it, he's bawled out. Two different paths, two alternatives, with emphasis on the one that accuses and indicts, revealing to us what a responsibility art has.
I don't know how to tell the story of a movie, which is probably why I can't tell why there are two particular scenes I think are marvelous - with no intention of detracting from the others. It's probably because in these scenes Forman demonstrates his intimate knowledge of life, of people - in this case, of young people, though I suspect he understands people in general. It is because of his wonderful eye for detail that he can achieve a universality that is almost symbolic. The first scene is the long dance sequence, which not only reveals the great skill of the director and cameraman (Jan Nemecek) but also creates a whole world and, at the same time, exposes it, in a confidential smile, in intimate glances, in private little dramas. The second scene doesn't seem to amount to much at first: there are these three girls, and a boy passes. One of the girls has given the boy the brush-off the night before, and now she's sorry, and she wants him back. I've never seen so much truth in a small space in any film (and not just Czech films), a truth so familiar and ordinary that it is almost a touch of genius to get it on the screen.
I said at the start that Forman's script is an exception to the accepted canons of Czech and 'German' dramaturgy. There is practically no plot. The boy starts to work at a grocery store, he tries to keep an eye on people, he goes for a row on the river in the afternoon, and then he goes to a dance. The next day, he has a date with a girl, and discovers he is unable to turn in a shoplifter. And so it goes. In the meantime, there are conversations with the father, or rather, his father's endless monologues. Everything depends on whether the author can find enough details, enough types and characters to inhabit this place who are sufficiently interesting in themselves and in relation to the idea behind the whole film to make it all 'jell.' Forman has succeeded - but not everywhere, and not always to the same degree. The film probably still needed a few - two or three - details or anecdotes, another sketch, to maintain the balance that is sometimes upset by the father's monologues. I must admit, however, that this occurred to me only after I had seen the movie a second time; I was too impressed the first time to quibble.
The way the director has worked with the actors - or rather, the nonactors - is worth a review in itself. The process starts with choosing the cast, and it is obvious that Forman does not look for types to fit his script, but rather adapts his script to fit a type he finds, someone he tries to get to know first and who will then respond best. This is true of the father (Jan Vostrcil)and of all the four young leads (Ladislav Jakim, Pavla Martinkova, Vladimir Pucholt, Zdenek Kulhanek). They are part of the film; they helped to create it, because that's what Forman wanted them to do. He knew that all he could expect of them was for them to be the kind of people they really were - or were capable of being.

Despite its cruelty, "Black Peter" is a happy film; and despite the indictments it makes, it is profoundly human. It is full of humor and compassion. In what it fights against and what it defends, it is a genuinely socialist film. And it is outstanding art. This year "Black Peter" has added a sequel to Czechoslovak cinematography's success of last year, and entirely on its own terms. It shows what we could do if only we were permitted to do it!
(Copyright - International Arts and Sciences Press, Inc.)

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