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In 1965, the Italian critic Lino Micciche argued that the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s was a phenomenon of international significance with an importance reaching well beyond cinema (Micciche, quoted in Sviták 1968: 52). In the final years of the 1960s, its progression continued — arguably until 1969, since many products of the Prague Spring of 1968 continued to appear in the months following the Soviet invasion of August 1968. By this time, Czechoslovak films had won extensive festival awards (including two Oscars for Best Foreign Film), and had attracted worldwide critical attention. However, in 1969, the "normalised" regime of Gustav Husák, installed in the wake of the invasion, clamped down on the film industry and, by mid-1970, ten films, many unreleased, had been banned and several stopped in mid-production. In 1973, a list of banned films was issued, eventually extending to over 100 features. The figures included four banned "forever". What had originally been described as the Czechoslovak film "miracle" was at an end and the Western critical world lapsed into silence.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137378613_8

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