Specialty CollectionGenre: WOMEN'S ISSUES
Description: Episode #55 OBD: May-65 TRT: 60 min Description #1: For nearly two decades, the West has viewed Eastern Europe as totally submissive and subservient to Russia. National distinctions were blurred along with national boundaries by such epithets as “the bloc” and “monolith.” Today, Russian leadership has been challenged by China and her image of infallibility has been clouded by both foreign and domestic failures. Within this changing context of the Communist world the Eastern European nations are changing as well. Indigenous problems have become paramount. Communist philosophy receives lip-service rather than active support. In three separate film studies, AT ISSUE: EASTERN EUROPE IN TRANSITION focuses on life in contemporary Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania. The three countries reflect the growing diversity of Eastern Europe that springs from the confrontation between national interests and Communist theory as interpreted by the men of the Kremlin. American experts of Eastern European affairs interpret and put into perspective the content of each film in separate conversations. They close out the program with a discussion of the future of Eastern Europe and the possible aims of U.S. policy in that part of the world. Featured Personalities: Dr. William Griffith, director of the World Communist Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and professor of Diplomacy, Tufts University Dr. John M. Monties, professor of Economics, Yale University Max Frankel, New York Times diplomatic correspondent, recently returned from an extensive tour of Eastern Europe AT ISSUE: EASTERN EUROPE IN TRANSITION Produced for National Educational Television by WGBH-TV, Boston Executive producer: Alvin Perlmutter Producer: Herbert Bloom Article: A Thorough Going Communist Guide Accompanies N.E.T. Producer As He Films Behind the Iron Curtain By Helen Peters of WGBH N.E.T. producer Herbert Bloom found himself under the protective wing of a “general mother” from the moment he stepped behind the Iron Curtain to film “At Issue: Eastern Europe in Transition,” the one hour National Educational Television program. Traveling through Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the “mother” interpreter and guide was always there. His face changed from country to country, but his function did not. The Romanian, Bloom says, was assigned to him by Carpati, the national tourist agency. “He was 28 years old, and a thorough going Communist.” The first morning in Bucharest, Bloom invited him for breakfast, and when the bill arrived, the guide urged hit be checked carefully. “We have to employ in positions such as waiters those who are trained by the old order,” Bloom remembers the guide telling him, “and though we are replacing them slowly, at the present time we are still in need of their services.” A day or two later, Bloom told his guide he wanted to photograph the consumer goods sector of the economy, and asked if he could take his crew to Bucharest’s largest department store, the Victoria. Permission was granted by the foreign ministry, which had to approve all filming in advance. While at the Victoria, Bloom saw a mother and father fitting their baby daughter with shoes and asked permission to film the incident. The parents were willing, but the child became frightened when Bloom turned a bright light on her and she began to cry. When the parent were unable to console their child the guide flashed his official Carpati identity card and demanded that they force their daughter to pose for Bloom and his crew. “You must,” he commanded, “show these Westerners that authority is respected in Rumania.” By this time Bloom was genuinely concerned for the parents’ safety, so he turned off the light and told his crew to pack up. This was one scene he didn’t shoot. A few days later, Bloom, with his omnipresent “mother” in tow, left for Brashov to film life in this popular Rumanian ski resort. Traveling by rented car, they passed through many small villages and despite the fact that this was the main highway few of the townspeople appeared to have seen an automobile before. Wherever they stopped they were surrounded by gawking Rumanians of all ages, eager for a glimpse of these strangers from the West. In Brashov itself, Bloom had lunch with an attractive young woman who was on a skiing holiday. He invited her to return to Bucharest with them in their rented car, but the guide said a few words to her in Rumanian, at which she burst into tears. After that whenever Bloom asked her a question she would cast a furtive glance at the Carpati guide before answering. From Rumania, Bloom and his British film crew flew to Budapest, Hungary, arriving on “Budapest Liberation Day,” just in time to film a demonstration against the American air attacks on North Vietnam by Asian, African and Rumanian students. Fifteen minutes before the demonstrators reached the American legation, Bloom reports, the foreign ministry called the American Ambassador to tell him the demonstrators were on their way. The students marched, picketed, broke all windows and destroyed two cars, all in the space of a few minutes. “If I had arrived five minutes later,” Bloom says, “there would have been nothing to see.” Despite the fact that this was the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, no one wanted to talk about that event; but everyone he talked to was eager to discuss United States’ involvement in Vietnam. Since it was winter, Bloom found the airplane service erratic, and like all travelers, he managed to lose baggage. His lighting equipment in some mysterious fashion endued up in East Berlin. But in the end Bloom got what he went for, and viewers across the nation will see the results of his work on “At Issue: Eastern Europe in Transition.”
Keywords: women's rights
