“Bezúčelná procházka” / “Aimless Walk” (1930): A. Hackenschmied’s “Film Study” of a Tram Ride to the Outskirts of Prague – Libeň

“Bezúčelná procházka” / “Aimless Walk” (1930): A. Hackenschmied’s “Film Study” of a Tram Ride to the Outskirts of Prague – Libeň

Natascha Drubek <hyperkinoNDSPAMFILTER@yahoo.com>

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In: Bohemia 52,1: J. Toman und M. Nekula (ed.): “Prague as Represented Space”, Bohemia 2012

Bohemia 52,1, p. 76-107

Although “Bezúčelná procházka” is only 8 Minutes long, it is rather complex. In the article I examine it from three different perspectives. Firstly I analyze it as a film about a city, thereby locating “Bezúčelná procházka” in the context of other city films before 1930, namely the “city symphonies”. Secondly, I discuss the complex construction of point of view in this film, connected to direction and movement. Finally, I examine the motif of the doppelgänger. We will see that, as a visual study of Prague in the year 1930, “Bezúčelná procházka” not only creates something unprecedented in Czech cinema, but is also able to reflect and transcend international avant-garde poetics. I argue that the film is able to achieve this by doing justice to the profound cultural topography of “Old Prague” by ignoring it completely on the visible surface, but letting its dark legends ferment the “aimless walk” through the barren landscape of the city’s (post-) industrial outskirts.
http://www.collegium-carolinum.de/news-single/article/forschungsprojekt-vielfalt-ordnen.html

Hackenschmied, POV, camera work, Prague, Libeň, Lieben, tramway, double, doppelgänger, “Student of Prague”, Chamisso, Schlemihl, Symphonie der Großstadt, Ruttmann, Vertov, Vltava, film essay, genre

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