ABSTRACT
The burgeoning scholarship on Western health films stands in stark contrast to the vacuum in the historical conceptualization of Eastern European films. This book develops a nonlinear historical model that revises their unique role in the inception of national cinematography and establishing supranational health security.
Readers witness the revelation of an unknown history concerning how the health films produced in Eastern European countries not only adopted Western patterns of propaganda but actively participated in its formation, especially with regard to those considered “others”: Women and the populations of the periphery. The authors elaborate on the long “echo” of the discursive practices introduced by health films within public health propaganda, as well as the attempts to negate and deconstruct such practices by rebellious filmmakers. A wide range of methods, including the analysis of the sociological biographies of filmmakers, the historical reconstruction of public campaigns against diseases and an investigation into the production of health films, contextualizes these films along a multifaceted continuum stretching between the adaptation of global patterns and the cultivation of national authenticities.
The book is aimed at those who study the history of film, the history of public health, Central and Eastern European countries and global history.
The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 International license.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|45 pages
Child and nation in the focus of rescue-mission health films
chapter 3|10 pages
The institutionalized child as a precondition for the healthy nation in the films of Mladen Širola
chapter 4|16 pages
Central and Eastern European film in the search for deconstructing the institutionalized child
part 2|42 pages
Health films for teaching children
chapter 6|10 pages
88Bacilínek (1922) on the stage of the national and global orders of health security
part 3|67 pages
Men and women in the focus of health films
part 4|56 pages
Health films for the interwar periphery