Branko Bauer
Encyclopedia
Early life
Bauer became interested in cinema as a school boy, influenced by a Jewish girl, a piano player, who was hiding from UstašeUstaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
in his parents' home. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he began working in the Zagreb-based Jadran Film
Jadran Film
Jadran Film is a film production studio and distribution company founded in 1946 in Zagreb, Croatia. In the period between the early 1960s and late 1980s Jadran Film was one of the biggest and most notable film studios in Central Europe, with some 145 international and around 120 Yugoslav...
studio as a documentary filmmaker. His feature debut was the 1953 children's adventure film The Blue Seagull (Sinji galeb) which distinguished his work from then-native Yugoslav productions through vivid visual style and natural acting.
Don't Look Back, My Son
Bauer became one of the most respected directors in Yugoslavia after his third film, the 1956 war thriller Don't Look Back, My SonDon't Look Back, My Son
Don't Look Back, My Son , also known as My Son Don't Turn Round in the United States, is a 1956 Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer.-External links:* at Filmski-Programi.hr...
(Ne okreći se sine; released as Don't Turn Around, Son in the US). The film tells a story about a WWII resistance fighter who escapes a train en route to the Jasenovac concentration camp
Jasenovac concentration camp
Jasenovac concentration camp was the largest extermination camp in the Independent State of Croatia and occupied Yugoslavia during World War II...
and returns to Zagreb in an attempt to find his son and join the partisans in the Croatian hinterland. However, he realises that his son is in an Ustaša boarding school and has been brainwashed. The hero manages to escapes the city with his son but throughout their journey he is forced to lie to his son about their actions. The film was loosely based on Carol Reed
Carol Reed
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
's thriller Odd Man Out
Odd Man Out
Odd Man Out is a 1947 Anglo-Irish film noir directed by Carol Reed, starring James Mason, and is based on a novel of the same name by F. L. Green.-Plot:The film's opening intertitle reads:...
, and its last scene - which inspired the title of the film - was inspired by Disney's film Bambi
Bambi
Bambi is a 1942 American animated film directed by David Hand , produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...
.
Three Girls Named Anna
Bauer's next film was the 1957 feature Only PeopleOnly People
Only People is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1957....
(Samo ljudi), a melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
influenced by films of Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk was a Danish-German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas in the 1950s.-Life and work:...
. The film was a critical flop, mainly because melodrama was not considered a serious genre in 1950s communist Yugoslavia. After that film, Bauer worked for a Macedonian production company and made Three Girls Named Anna (Tri Ane; 1959), a film which is often compared to Umberto D.
Umberto D.
Umberto D. is a 1952 Italian neorealist film, directed by Vittorio de Sica. Most of the actors were non-professional, including Carlo Battisti, who plays the title role...
by Vittorio de Sica
Vittorio de Sica
Vittorio De Sica was an Italian director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement....
. Three Girls Named Anna tells a story of an old man who lives alone believing that his daughter was killed in WWII as a child. Suddenly the man receives information that she could have had survived and is now probably living as an adult in a foster family. The film was not successful at the time, but it is today often considered Bauer's best film. Bauer's next two films were more commercially successful - the 1961 comedy Martin in the Clouds
Martin in the Clouds
Martin in the Clouds is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1961....
(Martin u oblacima); and the 1962 film Superfluous (Prekobrojna, 1962), which introduced Milena Dravić
Milena Dravic
Milena Dravić is a Serbian actress.Born in Belgrade, Dravić was involved with the performing arts from the age of four: first with dance and later classical ballet...
as a future Yugoslav superstar.
Face to Face
Probably the best known of Bauer's films is the 1963 feature Face to FaceFace to Face (1963 film)
Face to Face is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1963....
(Licem u lice), a film which is considered to be the first Yugoslav political film. It tells a story about a rebel worker who challenges a manager during a communist party meeting in a huge construction company. Although it was initially seen as controversial due to its political content, the film eventually received support by communist officials, which was understood among filmmakers as a green light for more overt depictions of socially controversial topics. Serbian director Živojin Pavlović
Živojin Pavlovic
Živojin "Žika" Pavlović was a Serbian film director and writer. In his films and novels, he depicted the cruel reality of small, poor and abandoned people living in the corners of society; he was one of leaders of Serbian the "Black wave" in film in 1960s, a movement which portrayed the darker...
wrote in the early 1960s that Face to face had been "the most important film ever shot in Yugoslavia".
Late career
During the 1960s, Yugoslav films shifted to modernism, and Bauer couldn't accommodate to an auteur cinema. In the 1960s he made two unsuccessful modernist films, and finally shifted to television directing. During the 1970s, he directed the TV series Salaš u malom ritu (1976), a war drama set in VojvodinaVojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
, one of the most memorable works of Yugoslav television.
Critical reception
During the 1950s and 1960s, Bauer was regarded as a master of Yugoslav cinema and commanded respect from the government and his colleagues alike. Although his films never questioned the regime, the dominant set of values in these films was described as "old-fashioned" and "bourgeois": instead of the usual glorification of youth and revolution his films often praised the decent, old, middle-class type of families. Bauer's typical heroes made the right moral choices not inspired by ideology but driven by a sense of honor instead. Contemporary Croatian filmmaker Hrvoje Hribar once wrote that "Bauer found himself in a blind spot of communism, a place where ideology was as close as possible, but therefore least influential." However, by the late 1960s and 1970s Bauer was almost forgotten. In the late 1970s his works were rediscovered by young critics as a kind of a Yugoslav version of old Hollywood masters. Slovenian film historian Stojan Pelko wrote in the British Film InstituteBritish Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's Encyclopedia of Russian and Eastern European Cinema that "Bauer was for Yugoslav critics what Hawks and Ford were for French New Wave critics".
Filmography (as director)
- The Blue Seagull (Sinji galeb, 1953)
- Millions on the IslandMillions on the IslandMillions on the Island is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1955....
(Milijuni na otoku, 1955) - Don't Look Back, My SonDon't Look Back, My SonDon't Look Back, My Son , also known as My Son Don't Turn Round in the United States, is a 1956 Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer.-External links:* at Filmski-Programi.hr...
(Ne okreći se sine, 1956) - Only PeopleOnly PeopleOnly People is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1957....
(Samo ljudi, 1957) - Three Girls Named Anna (Tri Ane, 1959)
- Martin in the CloudsMartin in the CloudsMartin in the Clouds is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1961....
(Martin u oblacima, 1961) - Superfluous (Prekobrojna, 1962)
- Face to FaceFace to Face (1963 film)Face to Face is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1963....
(Licem u lice, 1963) - Nikoletina BursaćNikoletina BursaćNikoletina Bursać is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1964....
(1964) - Doći i ostatiDoći i ostatiDoći i ostati is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1965....
(To Arrive and to Stay, 1965) - Fourth CompanionFourth CompanionČetvrti suputnik is a Croatian film directed by Branko Bauer. It was released in 1967....
(Četvrti suputnik, 1967) - Wintering in Jakobsfeld (Zimovanje u Jakobsfeldu, 1975)
- A Farm in Mali Rit (Salaš u Malom Ritu, 1976)
- Boško Buha (1978)
External links
- Branko Bauer profile at Filmski-Programi.hr