Movie Marathon (Part 3)

Thread Games
8362

Hollywood films with something Czech about them

  1. Pickup (1951)
  2. The Living Daylights (1987)
  3. Mission: Impossible (1996)
  4. The Fireman’s Ball (1967)

Czech film directed by Milos Forman.

8363

Hollywood films with something Czech about them

  1. Pickup (1951)
  2. The Living Daylights (1987)
  3. Mission: Impossible (1996)
  4. The Fireman’s Ball (1967)
  5. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Some GIs shoot and kill some enemy soldiers who have their hands up saying in their native tongue, “We are Czech! Do not shoot!”

8364

Hollywood films with something Czech about them

  1. Pickup (1951)
  2. The Living Daylights (1987)
  3. Mission: Impossible (1996)
  4. The Fireman’s Ball (1967)
  5. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  6. Stripes (1981)

“C’mon, it’s Czechoslovakia. We zip in, we pick 'em up, we zip right out again. We’re not going to Moscow. It’s Czechoslovakia. It’s like we’re going into Wisconsin.”

8365

I got the shit kicked out of me in Wisconsin.

8366

I did say Hollywood films. Care to find an alternative #4?

BTW, your choice is a great movie, one of Forman’s finest.

8367

Hollywood films with something Czech about them

  1. Pickup (1951)
  2. The Living Daylights (1987)
  3. Mission: Impossible (1996)
  4. Casablanca (1942)
  5. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  6. Stripes (1981)

Housekeeping: Replaced #4; Victor Laszlo was a Czech resistance fighter.

8368

Bratislava is in Slovakia, the current Republic of Slovakia. The current Czech Republic consists of two areas called Bohemia and Moravia. The three areas were once forced to be a nation called Czechoslovakia, but that did not make Bratislava Czech in any sense. Trust me. I have relatives in both the current Czech Republic and Slovakia.

8369

Hollywood films with something Czech about them

  1. Pickup (1951)
  2. The Living Daylights (1987)
  3. Mission: Impossible (1996)
  4. Casablanca (1942)
  5. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  6. Stripes (1981)
  7. Hellboy (2004)

Some scenes are in a cemetery in Prague.

8370

Yes, but in 1987 when that movie came out it was in Czechoslovakia. Trust me.

8371
  1. Pickup (1951)
  2. The Living Daylights (1987)
  3. Mission: Impossible (1996)
  4. Casablanca (1942)
  5. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  6. Stripes (1981)
  7. Hellboy (2004)
  8. Amadeus (1984)
    Milos Forman film that is a Hollywood film.
8372

Being “in Czechoslovakia” did not make it Czech. Bratislava has been the capital of Slovakia for centuries. Hell, I was in Czechoslovakia in 1985, and that did not make me Czech. I was in both Bratislava and Prague. Not Czech, nor Slovak-- albeit, the decades my family spent in Slovakia-- probably a little Slovak. But not Czech.

8373

It sounds like you’re referring to a cultural identity, as opposed to a national identity. The OP didn’t make that distinction clear, so if my response is disallowed you should submit another more suitable submission since you were the one that successfully caught my error.

8374

No, not really just cultural. The Czechs and the Slovaks identified as different nations, not just different cultures, and were forced to be one country in 1918. In fact, they were separate for a while during WWII, when Bohemia & Moravia were part of Germany, and Slovakia was part of Hungary. The pre-WWII borders were reestablished in 1948, with the exception of a small part that was added to the Ukraine, when they both became part of the Soviet bloc.

In 1989, Czechoslovakia peacefully deposed all its Communist leaders, it what is called the Velvet Revolution. Then in 1992, by mutual consent, there was a peaceful split between the Czech and Slovak areas.

Even when Czechoslovakia existed, no one ever stated that they were “Czechoslovakian.” They were Czech, or Slovak. If they had one parent of each, they were half Czech, and half Slovak.

But I will leave the final call to the OP.

8375

I agree that, even in the time of a united Czechoslovakia, being Slovak was not Czech.

Calling anything Slovak within Czechoslovakia Czech is like calling anything Welsh, Scottish, or Northern Irish “English”.

8376

Hollywood films with something Czech about them
[/quote]

  1. Pickup (1951)
  2. The Living Daylights (1987)
  3. Mission: Impossible (1996)
  4. Casablanca (1942)
  5. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  6. Stripes (1981)
  7. Hellboy (2004)
  8. Amadeus (1984)
  9. The Founder (2016)

Biopic of Ray Kroc, a Czech-American

8377

A better analogy would be calling someone who lived in Wales or Scotland as being a Briton. If you were watching the 1980 Olympics they didn’t refer to the swimmer from Bratislava as being a ‘Slovak’. That’s a culture, not a nationality. The announcers would have referred to the swimmer as being either Czechoslovakian or the shorthand “Czech”

8378

I have no knowledge about any Olympian, nor athlete at all, from Bratislava, but the swimmer could have been a Czech living in Bratislava. I had an aunt (Jewish) married to a Slovak, and they both lived in Prague.

But no matter-- the mistake of a sports announcer does not make something fact.

8379

Would it really, though? Britain is not just England. The whole country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, not of England-Wales-Scotland-and-Northern-Ireland. I’ve heard of Scottish people objecting to be called “British”, if they’re not British, who is? Just the English? It doesn’t make logical sense.

8380

And I wouldn’t say that in Bratislava-- or Smrdaky, for that matter.

8381

Actually, Czech and Slovak are ethnicities. They are also languages. They are very similar languages, with a high degree of mutual intelligibility. But they are also nations. The fact that they have been conquered and forced to be “Upper Hungary,” or “the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia,” at various times doesn’t make Bratislava Hungarian, nor Prague German. And having once been human-centipeded into a country called Czechoslovakia doesn’t make the Karlov Most Slovak, nor any of the natural spas in Slovakia, Czech.