Yugoslav Marxist Humanism and the Films of Dušan Makavejev

Abstract

From the time that Dušan Makavejev’s films were first seen by Western audiences in the mid-1960s they have aroused intense interest and controversy because of their highly imaginative and complex construction. Makavejev’s works, rather than being fictional narratives in the tradition of the feature film, intertwined several distinct types of filmic material into a ‘collage’ consisting of documentary as well as fictional ‘strands’ — utilizing previously-made films (both fiction and documentary) in combination with documentary, pseudo-documentary and narrative footage filmed by Makavejev himself.¹ In the tradition of the early Soviet pioneers of montage, Makavejev sought by his juxtapositions of diverse material to create a complex network of associations, often jarring and ambiguous, but always with a probing, ‘critical’ relationship to the filmed ‘strands’ themselves. The strands in Makavejev’s films do not unfold as uninterrupted units, but are constantly intermixed and intercut with one another, producing multidimensional associations which constantly challenge the viewer to make sense of what is transpiring on the screen. Even within the individual strands, the soundtrack is constantly cross-referencing the film’s various materials.