Ferguson Lecture Hall at Columbia College Chicago
600 S Michigan Ave
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Thursday Feb 11, 2010 (6pm)
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Miloš Foreman's last film before Soviet censors hounded the talented young Czech director is a testament to the rising force of Czech New Wave cinema during the '60s. Breaking away from Stalin-era aesthetics of socialist realism and character-driven plot, Foreman's political satire, The Firemen's Ball (1967), centers around a single event — an honorary ball for the fireman chief. A stream of running gags includes an amateur beauty contest, a house fire, and an embarrassing theft of the ball's crowning prizes. The plot oscillates between the crumbling symbols of social comradeship and an "each man for himself" amorality, setting up a wry comment on the limits of human nature and a veiled critique of national-socialist perils.
