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Closely Watched Trains

April 10, 2024

Closely Watched Trains (Czech: Ostře Sledované Vlaky) is a 1966 Czechoslovakian New Wave coming-of-age comedy film directed by Jiří Menzel and is one of the best-known films of the Czechoslovak New Wave. It was released in the United Kingdom as Closely Observed Trains. It is a story about a young man working at a train station in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. The film is based on a 1965 novel by Bohumil Hrabal. It was produced by Barrandov Studios and filmed on location in Central Bohemia. Released outside Czechoslovakia during 1967, it received widespread acclaim and won the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 40th Academy Awards in 1968.[2] Nowadays the movie is assessed as one of the finest works of the Czech New Cinema.

Closely Watched Trains
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJiří Menzel
Screenplay byBohumil Hrabal
Jiří Menzel
Based onClosely Watched Trains
1965 novel
by Bohumil Hrabal
Produced byZdeněk Oves
StarringVáclav Neckář
Jitka Bendová
Josef Somr
Vlastimil Brodský
Vladimír Valenta
CinematographyJaromír Šofr
Edited byJiřina Lukešová
Music byJiří Šust
Production
companies
Barrandov Studios
Ceskoslovensky Film
Distributed byÚstřední půjčovna filmů
Release date
  • 18 November 1966 (1966-11-18)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryCzechoslovakia
LanguagesCzech
German
Box office$1,500,000 (US/ Canada)[1]

Plot edit

The young Miloš Hrma, who speaks with misplaced pride of his family of misfits and malingerers, is engaged as a newly-trained train dispatcher at a small railway station near the end of the Second World War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. He admires himself in his new uniform and looks forward, like his prematurely retired train driver father, to avoiding real work. The sometimes pompous stationmaster is an enthusiastic pigeon-breeder who has a kind wife, but is envious of train dispatcher Hubička's success with women. The idyll of the railway station is periodically disturbed by the arrival of Councillor Zedníček, a Nazi collaborator who spouts propaganda at the staff, though he does not influence anyone with it.

Miloš is in a budding relationship with the pretty, young conductor Máša. The experienced Hubička presses for details and realizes that Miloš is still a virgin. At her initiative, Máša spends the night with Miloš, but in his youthful excitability he ejaculates prematurely and is unable to perform sexually. The next day, despairing, he attempts suicide, but is saved. A young doctor at the hospital explains to Miloš that ejaculatio praecox is normal at his age, recommending that Miloš "think of something else", such as football, and seek out an experienced woman to help him through his first sexual experience.

During the nightshift, Hubička flirts with the young telegraphist, Zdenička, and imprints her thighs and buttocks with the office's rubber stamps. Her mother sees the stamps and complains to Hubička's superiors.

The Germans and their collaborators are on edge, since their trains and railroad tracks are being attacked by partisans. A glamorous resistance agent, code-named Viktoria Freie, delivers a time bomb to Hubička for use in blowing up a large ammunition train. At Hubička's request, the "experienced" Viktoria also helps Miloš to resolve his sexual problem.

The next day, at the crucial moment when the ammunition train is approaching the station, Hubička is caught up in a farcical disciplinary hearing, overseen by Zedníček, over his rubber-stamping of Zdenička's backside. In Hubička's place, Miloš, liberated from his former passivity by his experience with Viktoria, takes the time bomb and drops it onto the train from a semaphore gantry, which extends transversely above the tracks. A machine-gunner on the train, spotting Miloš, sprays him with bullets, and his body falls onto the train.

Zedníček winds up the disciplinary hearing by dismissing the Czech people as "nothing but laughing hyenas" (a phrase actually employed by the senior Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich[3]). The stationmaster is despondent because the scandal with Hubička and Zdenička seems to have frustrated his ambition of being promoted to inspector. Then a huge series of explosions happens just around a bend in the track as the train is destroyed by the bomb.[4] Hubička, unaware of what has happened to Miloš, laughs to express his joy at this blow to the Nazi occupiers. Máša, who has been waiting to speak with Miloš, picks up his uniform cap, which has wound up at her feet, blown by the huge winds from the blast.

Cast edit

 
The station building in Loděnice where the film was shot

Production edit

The film is based on a 1965 novel of the same name by the noted Czech author Bohumil Hrabal, whose work Jiří Menzel had previously adapted to make The Death of Mr. Balthazar, his segment of the anthology film of Hrabal stories Pearls of the Deep (1965).[3] Barrandov Studios first offered this project to the more experienced directors Evald Schorm and Věra Chytilová (Closely Watched Trains was the first feature film directed by Menzel), but neither of them saw a way to adapt the book to film.[5] Menzel and Hrabal worked together closely on the script, making a number of modifications to the novel.[5]

Menzel's first choice for the lead role of Miloš was Vladimír Pucholt, but he was occupied filming Jiří Krejčík's Svatba jako řemen. Menzel considered playing the role himself, but he concluded that, at almost 28, he was too old. Fifteen non-professional actors were then tested before the wife of Ladislav Fikar (a poet and publisher) came up with the suggestion of the pop singer Václav Neckář.[5] Menzel has related that he himself only took on the cameo role of the doctor at the last minute, after the actor originally cast failed to show up for shooting.

Filming began in late February and lasted until the end of April 1966. Locations were used in and around the station building in Loděnice.[6]

The association between Menzel and Hrabal was to continue, with Larks on a String (made in 1969 but not released until 1990), Cutting It Short (1981), The Snowdrop Festival (1984), and I Served the King of England (2006) all being directed by Menzel and based on works by Hrabal.

Reception edit

The film premiered in Czechoslovakia on 18 November 1966.[7] Release outside Czechoslovakia took place in the following year.

Critical response edit

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called Closely Watched Trains "as expert and moving in its way as was Ján Kadár's and Elmar Klos's The Shop on Main Street or Miloš Forman's Loves of a Blonde," two roughly contemporary films from Czechoslovakia. Crowther wrote:

What it appears Mr. Menzel is aiming at all through his film is just a wonderfully sly, sardonic picture of the embarrassments of a youth coming of age in a peculiarly innocent yet worldly provincial environment. ... The charm of his film is in the quietness and slyness of his earthy comedy, the wonderful finesse of understatements, the wise and humorous understanding of primal sex. And it is in the brilliance with which he counterpoints the casual affairs of his country characters with the realness, the urgency and significance of those passing trains.[8]

Variety's reviewer wrote:

The 28-year-old Jiri Menzel registers a remarkable directorial debut. His sense for witty situations is as impressive as his adroit handling of the players. A special word of praise must go to Bohumil Hrabal, the creator of the literary original; the many amusing gags and imaginative situations are primarily his. The cast is composed of wonderful types down the line.[9]

In his study of the Czechoslovak New Wave, Peter Hames places the film in a broader context, connecting it to, among other things, the most famous anti-hero of Czech literature, Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, a fictional World War I soldier whose artful evasion of duty and undermining of authority are sometimes held to epitomize characteristic Czech qualities:

In its attitudes, if not its form, Closely Observed Trains is the Czech film that comes closest to the humour and satire of The Good Soldier Švejk, not least because it is prepared to include the reality of the war as a necessary aspect of its comic vision. The attack on ideological dogmatism, bureaucracy and anachronistic moral values undoubtedly strikes wider targets than the period of Nazi Occupation. However, it would be wrong to reduce the film to a coded reflection on contemporary Czech society: the attitudes and ideas derive from the same conditions that originally inspired Hašek. Insofar as these conditions recur, under the Nazi Occupation or elsewhere, the response will be the same.[5]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 20 reviews, with an average score of 7.80/10.[10]

Awards and honors edit

The film won several international awards:

See also edit

References edit

Notes
  1. ^ "Big Rental Films of 1968", Variety, 8 January 1969 p 15. Please note this figure is a rental accruing to distributors.
  2. ^ "The 40th Academy Awards (1968) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-11-12.
  3. ^ a b Hames, Peter. The Czechoslovak New Wave. Second Edition, 2005, London and New York, Wallflower Press.
  4. ^ Český hraný film IV./Czech Feature Film IV. (1961-1970). Prague: Národní filmový archiv. 2004. pp. 339–344. ISBN 80-7004-115-3.
  5. ^ a b c d Hames.
  6. ^ Taussig, Pavel (2010-05-07). . instinkt.tyden.cz (in Czech). Empresa Media. Archived from the original on 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
  7. ^ "Ostře sledované vlaky". Česko-Slovenská filmová databáze (in Czech). POMO Media Group. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  8. ^ Crowther, Bosley (1967-10-16). "Closely Watched T/rains (1966)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  9. ^ Staff writer (1966). "Ostre Sledovane Vlaky". Variety. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  10. ^ "Closely Watched Trains - Rotten Tomatoes". www.rottentomatoes.com. 1966-11-18. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
  11. ^ "Closely Watched Trains" Wins Foreign Language Film: 1968 Oscars
Bibliography
  • Hames, Peter. The Czechoslovak New Wave. Second Edition, 2005, London and New York, Wallflower Press.
  • Škvorecký J. Jiří Menzel and the history of the «Closely watched trains». Boulder: East European Monographs, 1982

Further reading edit

  • Menzel, Jiri & Hrabal, Bohumil (1971) Closely Observed Trains. (Modern Film Scripts.) London: Lorrimer

External links edit

April 10, 2024
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Closely Watched Trains Czech Ostre Sledovane Vlaky is a 1966 Czechoslovakian New Wave coming of age comedy film directed by Jiri Menzel and is one of the best known films of the Czechoslovak New Wave It was released in the United Kingdom as Closely Observed Trains It is a story about a young man working at a train station in German occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II The film is based on a 1965 novel by Bohumil Hrabal It was produced by Barrandov Studios and filmed on location in Central Bohemia Released outside Czechoslovakia during 1967 it received widespread acclaim and won the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 40th Academy Awards in 1968 2 Nowadays the movie is assessed as one of the finest works of the Czech New Cinema Closely Watched TrainsTheatrical release posterDirected byJiri MenzelScreenplay byBohumil HrabalJiri MenzelBased onClosely Watched Trains1965 novelby Bohumil HrabalProduced byZdenek OvesStarringVaclav NeckarJitka BendovaJosef SomrVlastimil BrodskyVladimir ValentaCinematographyJaromir SofrEdited byJirina LukesovaMusic byJiri SustProductioncompaniesBarrandov StudiosCeskoslovensky FilmDistributed byUstredni pujcovna filmuRelease date18 November 1966 1966 11 18 Running time92 minutesCountryCzechoslovakiaLanguagesCzechGermanBox office 1 500 000 US Canada 1 Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Reception 4 1 Critical response 5 Awards and honors 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksPlot editThe young Milos Hrma who speaks with misplaced pride of his family of misfits and malingerers is engaged as a newly trained train dispatcher at a small railway station near the end of the Second World War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia He admires himself in his new uniform and looks forward like his prematurely retired train driver father to avoiding real work The sometimes pompous stationmaster is an enthusiastic pigeon breeder who has a kind wife but is envious of train dispatcher Hubicka s success with women The idyll of the railway station is periodically disturbed by the arrival of Councillor Zednicek a Nazi collaborator who spouts propaganda at the staff though he does not influence anyone with it Milos is in a budding relationship with the pretty young conductor Masa The experienced Hubicka presses for details and realizes that Milos is still a virgin At her initiative Masa spends the night with Milos but in his youthful excitability he ejaculates prematurely and is unable to perform sexually The next day despairing he attempts suicide but is saved A young doctor at the hospital explains to Milos that ejaculatio praecox is normal at his age recommending that Milos think of something else such as football and seek out an experienced woman to help him through his first sexual experience During the nightshift Hubicka flirts with the young telegraphist Zdenicka and imprints her thighs and buttocks with the office s rubber stamps Her mother sees the stamps and complains to Hubicka s superiors The Germans and their collaborators are on edge since their trains and railroad tracks are being attacked by partisans A glamorous resistance agent code named Viktoria Freie delivers a time bomb to Hubicka for use in blowing up a large ammunition train At Hubicka s request the experienced Viktoria also helps Milos to resolve his sexual problem The next day at the crucial moment when the ammunition train is approaching the station Hubicka is caught up in a farcical disciplinary hearing overseen by Zednicek over his rubber stamping of Zdenicka s backside In Hubicka s place Milos liberated from his former passivity by his experience with Viktoria takes the time bomb and drops it onto the train from a semaphore gantry which extends transversely above the tracks A machine gunner on the train spotting Milos sprays him with bullets and his body falls onto the train Zednicek winds up the disciplinary hearing by dismissing the Czech people as nothing but laughing hyenas a phrase actually employed by the senior Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich 3 The stationmaster is despondent because the scandal with Hubicka and Zdenicka seems to have frustrated his ambition of being promoted to inspector Then a huge series of explosions happens just around a bend in the track as the train is destroyed by the bomb 4 Hubicka unaware of what has happened to Milos laughs to express his joy at this blow to the Nazi occupiers Masa who has been waiting to speak with Milos picks up his uniform cap which has wound up at her feet blown by the huge winds from the blast Cast edit nbsp The station building in Lodenice where the film was shotVaclav Neckar as Milos Hrma Josef Somr as train dispatcher Hubicka Vlastimil Brodsky as councilor Zednicek Vladimir Valenta as stationmaster Lanska Jitka Bendova as conductor Masa Jitka Zelenohorska as telegraphist Zdenicka Nada Urbankova as Viktoria Freie Libuse Havelkova as Lanska s wife Milada Jezkova as Zdenicka s mother Jiri Menzel as Doctor BrabecProduction editThe film is based on a 1965 novel of the same name by the noted Czech author Bohumil Hrabal whose work Jiri Menzel had previously adapted to make The Death of Mr Balthazar his segment of the anthology film of Hrabal stories Pearls of the Deep 1965 3 Barrandov Studios first offered this project to the more experienced directors Evald Schorm and Vera Chytilova Closely Watched Trains was the first feature film directed by Menzel but neither of them saw a way to adapt the book to film 5 Menzel and Hrabal worked together closely on the script making a number of modifications to the novel 5 Menzel s first choice for the lead role of Milos was Vladimir Pucholt but he was occupied filming Jiri Krejcik s Svatba jako remen Menzel considered playing the role himself but he concluded that at almost 28 he was too old Fifteen non professional actors were then tested before the wife of Ladislav Fikar a poet and publisher came up with the suggestion of the pop singer Vaclav Neckar 5 Menzel has related that he himself only took on the cameo role of the doctor at the last minute after the actor originally cast failed to show up for shooting Filming began in late February and lasted until the end of April 1966 Locations were used in and around the station building in Lodenice 6 The association between Menzel and Hrabal was to continue with Larks on a String made in 1969 but not released until 1990 Cutting It Short 1981 The Snowdrop Festival 1984 and I Served the King of England 2006 all being directed by Menzel and based on works by Hrabal Reception editThe film premiered in Czechoslovakia on 18 November 1966 7 Release outside Czechoslovakia took place in the following year Critical response edit Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called Closely Watched Trains as expert and moving in its way as was Jan Kadar s and Elmar Klos s The Shop on Main Street or Milos Forman s Loves of a Blonde two roughly contemporary films from Czechoslovakia Crowther wrote What it appears Mr Menzel is aiming at all through his film is just a wonderfully sly sardonic picture of the embarrassments of a youth coming of age in a peculiarly innocent yet worldly provincial environment The charm of his film is in the quietness and slyness of his earthy comedy the wonderful finesse of understatements the wise and humorous understanding of primal sex And it is in the brilliance with which he counterpoints the casual affairs of his country characters with the realness the urgency and significance of those passing trains 8 Variety s reviewer wrote The 28 year old Jiri Menzel registers a remarkable directorial debut His sense for witty situations is as impressive as his adroit handling of the players A special word of praise must go to Bohumil Hrabal the creator of the literary original the many amusing gags and imaginative situations are primarily his The cast is composed of wonderful types down the line 9 In his study of the Czechoslovak New Wave Peter Hames places the film in a broader context connecting it to among other things the most famous anti hero of Czech literature Jaroslav Hasek s The Good Soldier Svejk a fictional World War I soldier whose artful evasion of duty and undermining of authority are sometimes held to epitomize characteristic Czech qualities In its attitudes if not its form Closely Observed Trains is the Czech film that comes closest to the humour and satire of The Good Soldier Svejk not least because it is prepared to include the reality of the war as a necessary aspect of its comic vision The attack on ideological dogmatism bureaucracy and anachronistic moral values undoubtedly strikes wider targets than the period of Nazi Occupation However it would be wrong to reduce the film to a coded reflection on contemporary Czech society the attitudes and ideas derive from the same conditions that originally inspired Hasek Insofar as these conditions recur under the Nazi Occupation or elsewhere the response will be the same 5 On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 95 based on 20 reviews with an average score of 7 80 10 10 Awards and honors editThe film won several international awards The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film awarded in 1968 for films released in 1967 11 The Grand Prize at the 1966 Mannheim Heidelberg International Filmfestival A nomination for the 1968 BAFTA Awards for Best Film and Best Soundtrack A nomination for the 1968 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures A nomination for the 1967 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Foreign FilmSee also editCzechoslovak New Wave List of submissions to the 40th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film List of Czechoslovakia submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language FilmReferences editNotes Big Rental Films of 1968 Variety 8 January 1969 p 15 Please note this figure is a rental accruing to distributors The 40th Academy Awards 1968 Nominees and Winners oscars org Retrieved 2011 11 12 a b Hames Peter The Czechoslovak New Wave Second Edition 2005 London and New York Wallflower Press Cesky hrany film IV Czech Feature Film IV 1961 1970 Prague Narodni filmovy archiv 2004 pp 339 344 ISBN 80 7004 115 3 a b c d Hames Taussig Pavel 2010 05 07 Ostre sledovane vlaky instinkt tyden cz in Czech Empresa Media Archived from the original on 2012 03 29 Retrieved 2011 07 08 Ostre sledovane vlaky Cesko Slovenska filmova databaze in Czech POMO Media Group Retrieved 2011 10 07 Crowther Bosley 1967 10 16 Closely Watched T rains 1966 The New York Times Retrieved 2011 10 07 Staff writer 1966 Ostre Sledovane Vlaky Variety Retrieved 2011 10 07 Closely Watched Trains Rotten Tomatoes www rottentomatoes com 1966 11 18 Retrieved 2023 09 02 Closely Watched Trains Wins Foreign Language Film 1968 Oscars BibliographyHames Peter The Czechoslovak New Wave Second Edition 2005 London and New York Wallflower Press Skvorecky J Jiri Menzel and the history of the Closely watched trains Boulder East European Monographs 1982Further reading editMenzel Jiri amp Hrabal Bohumil 1971 Closely Observed Trains Modern Film Scripts London LorrimerExternal links editClosely Watched Trains at IMDb nbsp Closely Watched Trains at AllMovie Closely Watched Trains at the TCM Movie Database Closely Watched Trains an essay by Richard Schickel at the Criterion Collection Closely Watched Trains on Criterion Channel Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Closely Watched Trains amp oldid 1217639309, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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