Invasion, from "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988), directed by Philip Kaufman
Maybe the most European of American movies. I use this sequence from the adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel in the introductory class of my Politics on Film course, to illustrate the particular magic of cinema, and its political uses. Daniel Day-Lewis plays the philandering Tomas, and Juliette Binoche his suffering spouse, Tereza. I've had a helpless crush on her ever since. Daniel, that unspeakable bastard, returns from one of his furtive liaisons, and while Juliette makes her pitch for Daniel's fidelity and an Oscar nomination (securing neither), the tinkling glasses suddenly portend the 1968 Soviet-bloc invasion of Prague. The ensuing blend of contemporary footage with the actors cleverly spliced in or superimposed (including Lena Olin as Sabina, who rounds out the ménage) is a technically virtuoso performance. I love the way the pacing slows mournfully and then accelerates anew, as you're thrown back into the chaos. The sound design and mixing are phenomenal here. When I show the sequence in class, I ask students to note the various ways that symbolic protest is expressed, and how the martyrs are commemorated; it's quite a lengthy list. The additional motif of the camera and its treachery is powerfully deployed -- the transition cut from shutter-snap to photo print at 10:42 is one of the most jaw-dropping edits I've seen. As editor Walter Murch recalled the challenge: "How do you reduce the key moment in a nation's history, for which you have so many hours of material, into fifteen minutes? It was a question of time, simply spending time with the material and selecting striking images. Not just visually striking, but striking in all the senses. Then finding ways to put those images together so they enhance one another, both by resonance and by contradiction."
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