Cornell Cinema

Huge thanks to all who joined for our Mystery Screening last night! And our surprise movie was... THE FIREMEN'S BALL (1967), directed by Milos Forman. 🚒🎟️🔥🍺💃🏼

Released in 1967 — on the eve of the Prague Spring — THE FIREMEN’S BALL is a satirical comedy about a group of local firemen hosting a benefit gala, where just about everything goes wrong. The film is apparently inspired by Forman and his filmcrew’s encounter with an actual firemen’s ball and was shot in a small Czech town with a mostly nonprofessional cast.

At its core, THE FIREMEN'S BALL is a clear-eyed, deadpan exploration of human hubris: raffle prizes go missing, the guest of honor (a terminally ill 86-year-old fire captain) is repeatedly ignored, and a misogynistic beauty contest descends into chaos.

Milos Forman has always maintained that the film has no “hidden symbols or double meanings,” but it is hard not to read the film as a sly political allegory and critique of the bumbling leadership of the Communist Party. Its playful irony, wicked sense of humor, and dose of surrealism are characteristic of the Czech New Wave, a filmmaking movement that emerged in the late 1960's and used film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state.

Despite their distinguished uniforms, their official rhetoric, and an overall sense of self-important authoritarianism, the leaders of THE FIREMAN’S BALL are presented as distractible, deceptive, self-interested, and, above all, incompetent. This sense of political allegory certainly would not have been lost on contemporary viewers in Czechoslovakia in 1967 — nor do we think it will be lost on our Cornell Cinema audience today.

The film was “banned forever” by the head of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia and prompted Milos Forman’s relocation to the United States where he would go on to direct such films as AMADEUS, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLINT.

Thank you for another wonderful semester at Cornell Cinema!