''The Shop on Main Street'' (
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
/
Slovak: ''Obchod na korze''; in the UK ''The Shop on the High Street'') is a 1965
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
n film about the
Aryanization
Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...
program during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in the
Slovak State
Slovak may refer to:
* Something from, related to, or belonging to Slovakia (''Slovenská republika'')
* Slovaks, a Western Slavic ethnic group
* Slovak language, an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages
* Slovak, Arka ...
.
The film was written by
Ladislav Grosman and directed by
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár (1 April 1918 – 1 June 1979) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian-born Slovak film writer and director of History of the Jews in Hungary, Jewish heritage.
As a filmmaker, he worked in Czechoslovakia, the United States, and Canada. ...
and
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of award ...
. It was funded by the Czechoslovakian central authorities (as were all films under the
Communist regime
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
), produced at the
Barrandov Film Studio in Prague, and filmed with a
Slovak cast on location in the town of
Sabinov
Sabinov ( la, Сibinium, hu, Kisszeben, german: Zeben, russian: Сабинов) is a small town located in the Prešov Region (north-eastern Slovakia), approximately 20 km from Prešov and 55 km from Košice. The population of Sabinov ...
in
north-eastern Slovakia and on the Barrandov
sound stage
A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or ...
. It stars
Jozef Kroner
Jozef Kroner (20 March 1924 in Staškov – 12 March 1998 in Bratislava) was a Slovak actor. His brother Ľudovít Kroner, daughter Zuzana Kronerová, and wife Terézia Hurbanová-Kronerová were also actors. He starred in the Oscar-winning ...
as the
Slovak carpenter Tóno Brtko and Polish actress
Ida Kamińska
Ida Kamińska (September 18, 1899 – May 21, 1980) was a Polish actress and director. Known mainly for her work in the theatre, she was the daughter of Avrom Yitshok Kaminski (Abraham Isaac Kaminski) and Ester Rachel Kamińska ( Halpern), k ...
as the
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
widow Rozália Lautmannová.
The film won the 1965
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
,
and
Kamińska was nominated one year later for
Best Actress in a Leading Role
The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. ...
. It was entered into the
1965 Cannes Film Festival.
Plot
During World War II in a small town in the
First Slovak Republic
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
(a
client state
A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...
of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
), mild-mannered Slovak carpenter Antonín "Tóno" Brtko is chosen by his brother-in-law, who holds an influential position in the local
fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
government, to take over the
sewing notions
Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitch (textile arts), stitches made with a sewing needle and yarn, thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spi ...
(i.e.
haberdasher
In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a retailer who sells men's clothing, ...
) shop owned by the elderly Jewish widow Rozália Lautmannová as part of the
Aryanization
Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...
efforts in the country. While Brtko is struggling to explain to Lautmannová, who is nearly deaf, oblivious to the outside world, and generally confused, that he is now her supervisor, Imrich Kuchár, Brtko's friend and a Slovak who opposes Aryanization, enters and informs Brtko that the business is unprofitable and Lautmannová relies on donations to make ends meet. Kuchár tells Lautmannová that Brtko has come to help her and connects Brtko with the leadership of the Jewish community of the town, who agree to pay him a regular salary to remain the official Aryan controller of the shop, since, if he quits, he might be replaced by someone more militantly fascist or
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
.
Brtko lets Lautmannová continue to run things in her shop, spending most of his time fixing her furniture or ineptly trying to assist her with customers, and the pair begin to develop a close relationship. When he hears that the authorities are going to gather the Jewish citizenry of the town and transport them elsewhere en masse, he does not tell Lautmannová and at first considers hiding her, but he starts to question this course of action when the roundup actually begins. Drinking steadily, he eventually loses his nerve and attempts to cajole and then force Lautmannová to join her friends in the street. She finally recognizes that a
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
is happening and panics. Brtko chases her around inside the shop, but he stops and feels ashamed of himself after he witnesses his other Jewish neighbors actually being carted away. Seeing some soldiers heading toward the shop, he throws Lautmannová, who is in a frenzy, into a closet to hide her. The soldiers just glance in the window and keep walking. When Brtko opens the closet door, he discovers Lautmannová's dead body, and, devastated, hangs himself. The movie ends with a fantasy sequence in which the now deceased Lautmannová and Brtko run and dance through the town square together.
Cast
''The Shop on Main Street'' was filmed on location at the town of
Sabinov
Sabinov ( la, Сibinium, hu, Kisszeben, german: Zeben, russian: Сабинов) is a small town located in the Prešov Region (north-eastern Slovakia), approximately 20 km from Prešov and 55 km from Košice. The population of Sabinov ...
in
north-eastern Slovakia with numerous local extras, whose voices bring in hints of the
eastern regional variety of Slovak.
Ida Kamińska's Polish accent
The phonological system of the Polish language is similar in many ways to those of other Slavic languages, although there are some characteristic features found in only a few other languages of the family, such as contrasting postalveolar and ...
is employed to the same effect.
Screenplay
The screenplay had a bilingual Czech/Slovak history. The screenwriter
Ladislav Grosman (1921–1981) was born and grew up in
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
, but he was writing in
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
at that point in his career. He published the short story "The Trap" ("Past"), a precursor to the screenplay that contained three themes that made it into the final film, in Czech in 1962. He reworked and expanded this story, still in Czech, as a literary-narrative screenplay that was published in 1964 under the title "The Shop on Main Street" (''Obchod na korze''). This version contained what would become the film's storyline, but it was not in a typical (American) screenplay format. Grosman reworked it into a shooting script with
Slovak dialogue in cooperation with the film's designated directors,
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár (1 April 1918 – 1 June 1979) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian-born Slovak film writer and director of History of the Jews in Hungary, Jewish heritage.
As a filmmaker, he worked in Czechoslovakia, the United States, and Canada. ...
and
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of award ...
.
The only other language in the film, other than Slovak, is Yiddish (which is sometimes misidentified as German), though this is limited to several lines that Mrs. Lautmannová mutters to herself. Her Hebrew reading from the
siddur
A siddur ( he, סִדּוּר ; plural siddurim ) is a Jewish prayer book containing a set order of daily prayers. The word comes from the Hebrew root , meaning 'order.'
Other terms for prayer books are ''tefillot'' () among Sephardi Jews, ' ...
is indistinct.
Score
The score was composed by Zdenek Liska. It incorporates traditional brass band style music that would have been common in Czechoslovakia during the 1940s. The soundtrack was released on record in the US—the first Czechoslovak movie soundtrack to see such a release.
See also
*
*
List of Czechoslovak submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
*
List of films featuring the deaf and hard of hearing
There is a body of films that feature the deaf and hard of hearing. The ''Encyclopedia of Film Themes, Settings and Series'' wrote, "The world of the deaf has received little attention in film. Like blindness... it has been misused as a plot gimmi ...
*
List of Czech Academy Award winners and nominees
This is a list of Czech Academy Award winners and nominees. This list details the performances of Czech actors, actresses, and films that have either been submitted or nominated for, or have won, an Academy Award.
Best International Feature Film
...
*
BFI Top 100 British films
In 1999, the British Film Institute surveyed 1,000 people from the world of British film and television to produce a list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were "culturally British". ...
Notes
References
Further reading
*
External links
Steven Banovac, "Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos: ''The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze)'' 1965."*
*
*
''The Shop on Main Street: Not the Six Million but the One''an essay by
Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár (1 April 1918 – 1 June 1979) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian-born Slovak film writer and director of History of the Jews in Hungary, Jewish heritage.
As a filmmaker, he worked in Czechoslovakia, the United States, and Canada. ...
at the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
''The Shop on Main Street'' on Criterion Channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shop On Main Street
1965 films
1960s war drama films
Czechoslovak drama films
Slovak-language films
Holocaust films
Czech war drama films
Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
Films directed by Ján Kadár
1965 drama films
Czech World War II films
Czechoslovak World War II films