Introduction Chapter 1: Beginnings Chapter 2: Shoulder to Shoulder Chapter 3: Art as an Inquiry Chapter 4: The Artist as a Feather Collector Chapter 5: The Artist as an Agent Provocateur Chapter 6: The Artist as Master Chapter 7: The Artist in Exile Chapter 8: The Artist, Migrations, and the Last Days Conclusion
Vlastimir Sudar teaches film history and theory at the University of the Arts London.
'Vlastimir Sudar’s study of the films of the late Serbian film
director Aleksandar Petrović is a valuable addition to the still
relatively small amount of information in English about this
award-winning film maker’s career and his place as a prominent
figure, both in the history of the cinema of the former Yugoslavia
and in international cinema of the 1960s and 70s. Though Sudar
rightly concentrates on Petrović’s films of this period, he
provides detailed information about the director’s life and overall
career, together with careful analysis of his major films, both for
their aesthetic value and their, often controversial, social and
political content, which he characterises as consistently
"anti-dogmatic". His book should take its place beside Daniel
Goulding’s Liberated Cinema as an indispensable contribution to the
history of East and Central European cinema.'
*Graham Petrie, Emeritus Professor, McMaster University*
'Vlastimir Sudar’s book is the most ambitious and comprehensive
attempt thus far to bring into bold relief Aleksandar Petrović’s
role as a world class film artist, political dissident, and a major
figure in bringing about the Yugoslav new film or black film period
of the 1960s and early 70s. Using an innovative and updated version
of auteur theory as a major strategy of film analysis Sudar
discovers and persuasively articulates four basic thematic
political paradigms (both implicit and explicit) that cut across
all of Petrović’s major films. His analysis is further deepened by
a remarkable variety and scope of relevant source
materials—historical, biographical, cultural, and political—that he
critically brings to bear to substantiate and provide a context for
his film analysis. The paradigmatic themes that Sudar teases out of
Petrović’s films are themes as relevant today as they were then.
They offer intriguing opportunities for comparative studies of
Petrović’s films with those of politically inspired film directors
from other Eastern European countries at the time as well as more
recent filmmakers who attempt to deal with inter-ethnic
relationships, societal marginalization and anti-dogmatism in
religion and politics.'
*Daniel J. Goulding, Professor Emeritus of Film Studies, Oberlin
College*
'The wealth of detail makes the book gripping even in the absence
of many of the films, although if Sudar's dogged advocacy ... helps
spur an adventurous DVD label into reviving them, so much the
better.'
*Sight and Sound, Michael Brooke*
'Sudar delivers a sincere and even-handed assessment of the
significance of Petrovic's films, with a distinct writing style
that is fresh and accessible.'
*Morning Star, Angel Dahouk*
'Although this well-written book is about Petrović and his films,
his work and life are contextualized within Yugoslav social
changes, economic problems, and political tensions in an attempt to
convey the complex circumstances in which artists lived and
created.'
*Slavic Review, Tatjana Aleksić*
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