The literary genesis of Pavel Juráček and Jan Schmidt’s film project the Situation of the Wolf (1971–1972)

Abstract

Abstract The study uses Ian W. Macdonald’s concept of the screen idea to reconstruct the literary genesis of the film project The Situation of the Wolf (1971–1972) by screenwriter Pavel Juráček and director Jan Schmidt. The reconstruction is based on a comparison of individual written phases of literary preparation of the intended film – original short story by Jack London, synopsis, short story and literary script. The development of this project was influenced on the one hand by artistic factors, as it was a film adaptation of London’s Alaskan short story The Unexpected (1906) which has some aspects of the western genre and which Juráček, as the author of all texts of literary preparation of the film, had to adapt to the conditions of the film medium. On the other hand, the genesis of the project was fundamentally shaped by the contextual conditions – the sociopolitical situation of Czechoslovakia after the August occupation (1968), which led to the return of totalitarianism and to the normalization of the Czechoslovak cinema.