Upić się dobrze. Dwa filmowe portrety czeskich pijaków
Getting properly drunk. Two film portraits of Czech drunkards

Author(s): Patrycjusz Pająk
Subject(s): Substance abuse and addiction, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: alcoholism; drunkard figure; tavern; Czech cinema; silent cinema
Summary/Abstract: Alcohol abuse had constituted a serious social problem in the Czech lands since the Middle Ages, when the first initiatives aimed at publicly condemning and restricting drunkenness were undertaken. These efforts intensified in the 19th century, as alcoholism became a widespread affliction in Czech society. After 1918, the social anti-alcohol campaign gained additional momentum from the newly established independence of Czechoslovakia. It was at that time that the first Czech feature films devoted to alcoholism appeared: 'Battalion' ('Batalion', 1927) by Přemysl Pražský and 'Such Is Life' ('Takový je život', 1929) by Carl Junghans. These works resonated with the campaign insofar as they expanded social engagement with the problem of alcohol abuse into the sphere of a new medium – film – although the didactic zeal characteristic of the campaign did not play a central role in them. Pražský and Junghans presented alcoholism as a psychological, social, and medical problem, without overt moralizing about the harmfulness of alcohol.

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