Branko Bauer | |
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| Born | 18 February 1921 |
| Died | 11 April 2002 (aged 81) |
| Occupation(s) | Director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1950–1982 [1] |
| Awards | Vladimir Nazor Award for Life Achievement in Film (1980) |
Branko Bauer (18 February 1921 – 11 April 2002 [2] ) was a Croatian film director. He is considered to be the leading figure of classical narrative cinema in Croatian and Yugoslav cinema of the 1950s.
| Righteous Among the Nations |
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Bauer became interested in cinema as a school boy. During World War Two he attended local cinemas in Zagreb, which were very popular during the Nazi occupation. His father Čedomir Bauer and he hid their Jewish tenant Ljerka Freiberger from the Ustashi police in 1942. As a result of these actions, Yad Vashem honored both of them as Righteous among the Nations in 1992. [3]
In 1949, Branko began working in the Zagreb-based Jadran Film studio as a documentary filmmaker. [2] His feature debut was the 1953 children's adventure film The Blue Seagull (Sinji galeb) which distinguished his work from then-native Yugoslav productions through vivid visual style and natural acting.
Bauer became one of the most respected directors in Yugoslavia after his third film, the 1956 war thriller Don't Look Back, My Son (Ne okreći se sine; released as Don't Turn Around, Son in the US). The film tells a story about a World War II resistance fighter who escapes a train en route to the Jasenovac concentration camp and returns to Zagreb in an attempt to find his son and join the partisans in the Croatian hinterland. However, he realizes that his son is in an Ustaša boarding school and has been brainwashed. The hero manages to escape the city with his son but throughout their journey, he is forced to lie to his son about their actions. The film was loosely based on Carol Reed's thriller Odd Man Out , and its last scene - which inspired the title of the film - was inspired by Disney's film Bambi . [4]
Bauer's next film was the 1957 feature Only People (Samo ljudi), a melodrama influenced by films of Douglas Sirk. The film was a critical flop, mainly because melodrama was not considered a serious genre in 1950s communist Yugoslavia. [5] After that film, Bauer worked for a Macedonian production company and made Three Girls Named Anna (Tri Ane; 1959), a neorealism-influenced film sometimes compared to Umberto D. by Vittorio de Sica. [6] [7] Three Girls Named Anna tells a story of an old man who lives alone believing that his daughter was killed in World War II as a child. Suddenly the man receives information that she could have had survived and is now probably living as an adult in a foster family. Bauer's gritty, authentic portrayal of post-war poverty and the lower classes of society was not welcomed by the establishment, and the film was never shown in cinemas, but it is today often considered Bauer's "forgotten masterpiece" and his best film. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Bauer's next two films were more commercially successful - the 1961 comedy Martin in the Clouds (Martin u oblacima); and the 1962 film Superfluous (Prekobrojna, 1962), which introduced Milena Dravić as a future Yugoslav superstar.
Probably the best known of Bauer's films is the 1963 feature Face to Face (Licem u lice), a film which is considered to be the first Yugoslav political film. It tells a story about a rebel worker who challenges a manager during a communist party meeting in a huge construction company. Although it was initially seen as controversial due to its political content, the film eventually received support by communist officials, which was understood among filmmakers as a green light for more overt depictions of socially controversial topics. Serbian director Živojin Pavlović said that Face to Face had been "the most important film shot in Yugoslavia by that time". [10]
During the 1960s, Yugoslav films shifted to modernism, and Bauer couldn't accommodate to an auteur cinema. In the 1960s he made two unsuccessful modernist films, and was subsequently unable to get funding for his new cinema projects. [11] During the 1970s, he directed the TV series Salaš u malom ritu (1976), a war drama set in Vojvodina, one of the most memorable works of Yugoslav television. [12]
During the 1950s and 1960s, Bauer was regarded as a master of Yugoslav cinema and commanded respect from the government and his colleagues alike. Although his films never questioned the regime, the dominant set of values in these films was described as "old-fashioned" and "bourgeois": instead of the usual glorification of youth and revolution his films often praised the decent, old, middle-class type of families. Bauer's typical heroes made the right moral choices not inspired by ideology but driven by a sense of honor instead. Contemporary Croatian filmmaker Hrvoje Hribar once wrote that "Bauer had a sense for the blind spot of [communist] ideology, so he put his films in a place where it was as close as possible, yet least influential." [13] [14] However, by the late 1960s and 1970s, with the rise of modernist cinema, Bauer was pushed to the sidelines.
In the late 1970s his works were rediscovered by young critics as a kind of a Yugoslav version of old Hollywood masters. Slovenian film historian Stojan Pelko wrote in the British Film Institute's Encyclopedia of Russian and Eastern European Cinema that "Bauer was for Yugoslav critics what Hawks and Ford were for French New Wave critics". [4] A substantial critical reevaluation of Bauer's work took place since the mid-1980s. In a late 1990s critics' poll of all-time greatest Croatian film directors, Bauer took second place, behind Krešo Golik. [15]
The cinema of Croatia has a somewhat shorter tradition than what is common for other Central European countries: the serious beginning of Croatian cinema starts with the rise of the Yugoslavian film industry in the 1940s. Three Croatian feature films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, several of them gained awards at major festivals, and the Croatian contribution in the field of animation is particularly important.
Partisan film is the name for a subgenre of war films made in FPR/SFR Yugoslavia during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. In the broadest sense, main characteristics of Partisan films are that they are set in Yugoslavia during World War II and have Yugoslav Partisans as main protagonists, while the antagonists are Axis forces and their collaborators. According to Croatian film historian Ivo Škrabalo, Partisan film is "one of the most authentic genres that emerged from the Yugoslav cinema".
You Love Only Once is a 1981 Yugoslavian drama film directed by Rajko Grlić. It competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. In 1999, a poll of Croatian film critics said it to be one of the best Croatian films ever made.
Ciguli Miguli is a 1952 Yugoslav political satire film directed by Branko Marjanović and written by Joža Horvat. It was meant to be the first satirical film of the post-World War II Yugoslav cinema, but its sharp criticism of bureaucracy was politically condemned by the authorities and the film was banned as "anti-socialist".
Fadil Hadžić was a Croatian and Yugoslav film director, screenwriter, playwright and journalist, mainly known for his comedy films and plays. He was born in Bileća in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but mainly lived and worked in Zagreb, with the Croatian and wider Yugoslav productions.
The Blue 9 is a 1950 Croatian football comedy film. The film was directed by Krešo Golik.
Go, Yellow is a 2001 Croatian football comedy-drama film directed by Dražen Žarković. It was Žarković's debut feature film, after having directed several award-winning documentary and short films. He set out to create an unpretentious, easy-to-watch film that would be popular with the cinemagoers, but it was ultimately poorly received at the Croatian box office and was met with mixed reviews from the critics.
Only People is a 1957 Yugoslav film directed by Branko Bauer, starring Tamara Miletić and Milorad Margetić.
Martin in the Clouds is a 1961 Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer, starring Boris Dvornik and Ljubica Jović.
Face to Face is a 1963 Yugoslavian political film. It is directed by Branko Bauer, written by Bogdan Jovanović, and stars Ilija Džuvalekovski, Husein Čokić, and Vladimir Popović.
Looking Into the Eyes of the Sun is a 1966 Yugoslav film directed by Veljko Bulajić and starring Bata Živojinović, Antun Nalis, Faruk Begolli, Mladen Ladika, and Milena Dravić.
Protest is a 1967 Croatian film directed by Fadil Hadžić, starring Bekim Fehmiu and Antun Vrdoljak.
Accidental Life is a 1969 Yugoslav drama film directed by Ante Peterlić, starring Dragutin Klobučar, Ivo Serdar, Ana Karić and Zvonimir Rogoz.
Journalist (Novinar) is a 1979 Croatian drama film directed and written by Fadil Hadžić and starring Rade Šerbedžija, Fabijan Šovagović and Stevo Žigon.
The Third Key is a 1983 Croatian film directed by Zoran Tadić, starring Božidar Alić and Vedrana Međimorec. A Kafkian horror film, indirectly touching on the topic of corruption, in showing the alienation and soullessness of modern agglomerations it resembles somewhat the film Someone's Watching Me! by John Carpenter.
Slobodan Trninić is a Croatian cinematographer.
Branko Marjanović was a Yugoslav film director and editor.
Živorad Tomić is a Croatian film director, screenwriter and critic. Tomić was one of the most prominent Croatian film critics from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s.
Božidarka Frajt is a Croatian actress.
Hrvoje Turković is a Croatian film theorist, film critic and university professor. With 14 books and more than 700 articles on film, ranging from essayistic criticism to scientific works on film theory, Turković established himself as one of Croatia's most important critics and film scholars. He is a recipient of the Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Film.
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