Stalin looms large over Prague again as new film explores city's communist ghosts

Record ID: 102101

  • Title: Stalin looms large over Prague again as new film explores city's communist ghosts
  • Date: 20th May 2016
  • Summary: PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC (MAY 20, 2016) (REUTERS) STALIN STATUE ON LETNA PLAIN STATUE PEOPLE OBSERVING STATUE FROM VLATAVA RIVER EMBANKMENT FILM SET CAMERAMEN PREPARING CAMERA ACTOR SITTING ON STATUE WAITING FOR ACTION FILM SET MAN PREPARING DRONE CAMERA FOR SHOOTING DIRECTOR'S ASSISTANT SHOUTING (English): "ACTION" DRONE FLYING ABOVE STATUE FILM DIRECTOR, VIKTOR POLESNY, WI
  • Embargoed: 4th June 2016 16:25
  • Keywords: art sculpture history statue film
  • Location: PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
  • City: PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
  • Country: Czech Republic
  • Topics: Art
  • Reuters ID: LVA0014IM4855
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Twenty four years after its destruction, an iconic sculpture of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin dominated Prague's skylines once again on Friday (May 20).
    Gazing down on the city from the Letna plain, the visible head was part of pieces stacked up ready for assembly into a large-scale communist statue.
    But this time, Stalin is only destined for a brief stay: the blocks are part of a filmset for an upcoming Czech Television TV film about the construction of the now-dismantled monument which overshadowed the capital's skyline from 1955 to 1962.
    The film, entitled "Monstrum" (Monster or Monstrosity), follows sculptor Otakar Svec, who won a competition to design a Stalin statue in the fifties.
    Svec's finished design was, at 15.5 metres high, 12 metres wide and 22 metres long, the biggest representation of the dictator in the world at the time.
    Actor Martin Kraus plays an assistant to Svec, who was initially proud to be involved in the gargantuan project, which cost the then-astronomical price of 140 million Czech crowns ($5.8 million).
    "But he didn't realise what kind of work he is participating in, this monster and the whole era. I don't envy him this," Kraus said.
    Svec himself committed suicide before the sculpture's unveiling.
    "This is a story of man who is beaten by his own vanity and ambitions and who gets into the situation which destroys him. This is a very intimate film, even though this statue is very grandiose, the film is very focused on the inside, it is a very inward-looking film," director Viktor Polesny said.
    Czech writer Pavel Kohout was an eager communist during the fifties. Later, in the sixties, he became a dissident and had to escape abroad. As an advisor to the film, he said he is trying to explain the appeal the communist ideology had at the time.
    "The communists didn't enter the communist party being stupid, but because they experienced the economic crisis which was a great pickle of capitalism," he said on the set.
    After Svec's enormous work was blown up in 1962, the site remained vacant until the 90s.
    The plinth was briefly home to pirate Radio Stalin, before being used turned into the large-scale metronome which is still in place and a hub for skateboarders.
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