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YOURSELF

(CINEMA

What will be going on in the
Czechoslovak film pavilion at
Montreal? Let Dr. Raduz Cin-
cera, who is responsible for this
year’s program speak for him-
self. (Incidentally, Raduz Cin-
cera was awarded the Grand
Prix for his film Romeo and
Juliet ’65 at Oberhausen in
1965.)

“I was inspired by the pos-
sibilities —even if limited — of
modern electronics in the cine-
ma,” explained Cincera. “The
program which was given the
working title of Kinoautomat,
gives the spectators the chance
to intervene in the -unfolding
of the plot. The film is stopped
at several crucial points in the
story and the audience may
choose one of two alternative
steps. Each spectator will have
a button by his seat which he
will push according to his

Party, or the various houses
where Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Leibknecht lived.

Then there is Highgate Cem-
etery where Karl Marx, his wife,
and other members of the fa-
mily are buried. Not far from
London is the scene of the
bloody battle of Peterloo in
Manchester, where democracy
was the key issue.

Occupying a special place in
this history is Marx House on
Clerkenwell Green in London,
which now houses the Marx Me-
mcrial Library. This is visted
each year by hundreds from the
Socialist countries and these are
now equalled by British visitors.
Last year, when Soviet Premier
Kosygin visited London, this
writer and other leaders of the
Marx Memorial Library had
the honor of greeting him and
showing him this historic build-
ing and its collection of interest-
ing items.

There are four outstanding
periods in the 229-year existence
of Marx House. Built in 1783 as
a Welsh Charity School by a
well-known architect, James
Steere, it continued in this func-
tion till 1772. With no state sys-
tem of education, the early

choice. The electronic device
will add up the A’s and the B’s
and announce the winning vote.
The film will continue on the
line selected by the majority.
This means that each perform-
ance will be different because
the audience obviously will not
make the same decisions.”

That looked really interest-
ing. But a bit complicated: the
possibilities would mount in a
geometrical progression, and the
program was to last only two
hours.

“We solved the technical side
quite simply in the end, actually
much more simply than in the
Laterna Magica. Of course there
could be many possibilities. But
we set Pavel Juracek, director
and scriptwriter, the task of
fabricating a story that at cer-
tain points would link up so that
we should avoid an_ infinite

BRITAIN

manufacturers established their
own schools to teach the most
elementary ‘Three R’s’. Speci-
fically, the “Honourable and
Loyal Society of Ancient Bri-
tons” built this school ‘for in-
structing, cloathing and putting
forth apprentices, poor boys born
of Welsh parents living in or
near London”.

During the next hundred
years, Clerkenwell Green was
the London centre of Chartist,
Reform, Radical, and early trade
union activities. Surrounded by
a poverty-struck population, it
was a constant meeting place
for demonstrators numbering
one to ten thousand people on
all the big political issues of the
day. One newspaper in 1871
wrote that Clerkenwell Green
was the “headquarters of repub-
licanism, revolution, and ultra-
non-conformity.”

On this background, the most
politically advanced of the nu-
merous Radical Clubs of that
era, the London Patriotic Club,
took over the building at “37a”
—‘“the classic ground of Cler-
kenwell Green” in the words of
its then secretary. The first sub-
scriber to the fund making this
purchase possible was John
Stuart Mill.

number of variations.”

We felt a bit doubtful.
Wouldn’t the Kinoautomat be
able to cheat? Would the spec-
tators have a check on the vot-
ing?

“Yes, they will. Numbers will
be placed round the screen that
will light up as the correspond-
ing button is pressed. Each mem-
ber of the audience will be able
to see his number light up and
will get an idea of the general
opinion in the audience.”

And what did Pavel Juracek,
one of the “new wave’ film-
makers, think up?

The hero is Mr. Novak, ordi-
nary Mr. Novak—Novyak is the
most, common Czech surname.
He lives in a block of flats in
which a fire breaks out. And Mr.
Novak feels: guilty, although he
didn’t actually set fire to any-
thing. He probes his conscience
—and ponders whether his be-
haviour at certain moments did
not indirectly cause the fire.
And it is with this analysis that
the audience will help. Was Mr.
Novak right to do this or that?

Don’t get the idea that this
is a profound psychological in-
vestigation. The whole program
is in a comic vein, as is ensured
by the names of Cincera’s two
collaborators: directors Jan Ro-
hac and Vladimir Svitacek.
Both are young, both shared in
the Laterna Magica at Brussels
as Radok’s assistants. Together
they made the biggest home
box-office hit of the last few
years — the musical comedy
fim “If a Thousand Clari-
nets .. .” (By a coincidence, Jan
Rohac returned to Brussels just
before the Kinoautomat left for
Montreal in order to stage the
first performance abroad of
Suchy’s and Slitr’s jazz opera A
Well-Paid Walk.)

The humorous tone is set by .

the definitive title of the pro-
gram Man and his House which

In the next twenty years the
London Patriotic Club at these
premises held meeting on every
conceivable domestic and world
issues — from the defense of the
early trade unions and fighting
for extending the right to vote
for women’s suffrage, to support
of Ireland, India and solidarity
with the Paris Commune.

During those years nearly
every well-known British radical
and humanist leader, as well as
early socialists, spoke at “37a”.
Among others speaking there
were William Morris, Eleanor
Marx, Edward Aveling, Peter
Kropotin, and the first Indian
elected an M.P., Dadabhai Nab-
roji.

Significantly, this London Pat-
riotic Club signed a manifesto
proclaiming its loyalty -to the
principles of the Paris Commune
and of the International Working
Men’s Association (the First In-
ternational) and itself became
affiliated in 1887 to the Demo-
cratic Federation, the predeces-
sor of the Social Democratic
Federation.

Comparable in part to the role
in the USA of Charles H. Kerr &
Co., the T.C.P. printed the first
pamphlets of Marx, Engels, and

is a paraphrase of the exhibi-
tion’s motto Man and his World.

And last but not least a guar-
antee of good entertainment is
the choice of leading protagon-
ist: Miroslav Hornicek, a very
popular actor and writer, who
has won acclaim abroad on
several theatrical tours of West
Germany.

Hornicek is the “main ingre-
dient that wasn’t in the script.”
He naturally plays the role of
Mr. Novak, and will also be the
live compere of the Montreal
program. For the first time his
work won’t finish when the last
foot of film is completed. On the
contrary, the worst will still be
before him and a long way from
home.

“Not that the shooting was
exactly honey,’ remarked Hor-
nicek. “You can’t imagine what
it’s like working with three
directors. Next time I'll vote for
even numbers, four or eight,
that would suit me best. Their
ideas would cancel each other
out and work would go on ser-
enely. ‘Like this,’ one said ‘Put
more into it!’ the second said.
‘Take it easy!’ Then the third
came up and caused complete
confusion.”

“And how are you getting
on with English?”

“That’s not the point. The
point is how are the audience
going to get on with my Eng-
lish? In the film it'll be all
right: I shall be dubbed by a
London actor. But on the stage!
It’s going to stick out a mile
that I’m Czech. Although my
English teacher is continually
amazed at my English. I only
started learning this year. Re-
cently we took the interrogative
and my professor declared that
I spoke like Shakespeare. But
he recommended that I stick to
the English of today, for ap-
parently it has changed quite a
bit since then.”

i A storehouse of socialist tradition

early British Marxists. Later,
well-known Marxist books such
as Marx’s “Poverty of Philo-
sophy”; Plekhanov’s “Anarchism
and Socialism”; Kautsky’s fam-
ous class struggle pamphlets;
and his “Ethics and the Material
Conception of History”; Hynd-
man’s “Economics of Socialism”
and “Socialism and Slavery”;
Bax’s “History of the Paris Com-
mune”; and hundreds of others,
including the great books on art
and culture by William Morris,
Walter Crane, and J. C. Squire
were also printed there.

During 1902-3, when Lenin
was in London, he edited and
printed 17 issues of “Iskra”
from this historic building. The
small room used by Lenin, now
appropriately marked with a
plaque, is suitably set aside and
is visited each year by hundreds
of visitors, especially from
abroad.

Another significant period of
this building’s history started in
1933 with its occupancy by the
present Marx Memorial Library.
Its great traditions are proudly
kept alive by the fight of the
Library to propagate Marxism
as the key to the solution of the
problems of the mid-20th cen-

tury.

July 21, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5