On Gergely's Hungarian Film 1929–1947

On Gergely's Hungarian Film 1929–1947:National Identity, Anti-Semitism, and Popular Cinema David Frey Gábor Gergely, Hungarian Film 1929–1947: National Identity, Anti-Semitism, and Popular Cinema. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. 330 pp. ISBN 978-94-6298-0761. Gábor Gergely's Hungarian Film 1929–1947 came out weeks before I. B. Tauris published my own book, Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary, 1929–44. Gergely and I agree on much, such as how dogmas of racial and cultural superiority shaped Hungarian cinema and led to expressions of nation that were anti-Semitic, territorially expansionist, and intrinsically unequal. We share the belief that much of the received scholarship on Horthy-era Hungarian film undervalues the suffering of Jewish Hungarian professionals. We draw the same conclusions: we see fearful signs of a resurgent anti-Semitic discourse in present-day Hungary (317, footnote). Despite these commonalities, there are significant methodological differences that make our texts complementary in some ways and contradictory in others. Gergely's book is provocative but limited by its overgeneralizations and lack of historical depth. A lecturer in film studies at the University of Lincoln in England, Gergely writes in a style that is assertive, entertaining, and biting. His book begins with a trio of chapters that describe key historical elements of Hungary's sound film industries and apply nation, gender, and critical theories to conceptualize the "Jewish Hungarian," the Hungarian nation, and Hungarian national cinema. In [End Page 252] these chapters, Gergely outlines the historiography of early Hungarian cinema, carving out his place by attacking his scholarly predecessors. Chapters 3–5 proceed chronologically, although thematic considerations sometimes rupture the timeline. The chapters themselves reflect Gergely's argument about periodization. Chapter 3, "An Industry Emerges," covers 1931–35; chapter 4, "Boom, Crisis and Anti-Semitic Reorganization," covers 1936–41; chapter 5, "From War Boom to Bust," covers 1941–44, and the epilogue skims 1945–47. Gergely constructs his argument primarily through his readings of films, balanced by discussion of industry structures, legislation, and important actors, directors, writers, and cameramen. Gergely's analysis of concepts of nation and Hungarian national cinema is insightful, smoothly leading to and from his historiographical critiques. He scolds authors who neglect to problematize the word "Hungarian," use the construction "Hungarian Jew," or have written about Jewish "domination" of early Hungarian sound cinema. These scholars, he contends, inadvertently reify anti-Semitic tropes and narratives by suggesting that Hungarian cinema was somehow "Jewish" and thus foreign. He assails those whom he feels perpetuate myths and distortions about Hungarian popular cinema. He asserts that since the 1970s, English-language scholars have reproduced the main premises and conclusions of canonical Hungarian-language texts without critique, especially those written by István Nemeskürty. The results, he claims, are twofold. First, nearly all of the literature understates how anti-Semitism infiltrated Hungary and its early sound film industry. Second, few authors interrogate the works of those film professionals who became the preferred producers of early Hungarian communist-era features. If they had, he insists, they would have found that 1945 was not the clear break from the past that Hungarian-language scholars proclaim it to be. Continuity, Gergely endeavors to show, was the hallmark of the 1929–47 period. Too often, however, Gergely overextends his assertions. He employs an ideological lens (80) through which he sees all developments in Horthy-era (1920–44) Hungary as stemming from a deep biological racism, echoing arguments made two decades ago by Daniel Goldhagen about Germans (20). In his quest to show just how deeply rooted anti-Semitism was in interwar and wartime Hungarian conceptions of nation, Gergely blinds himself to the complexity of the era. In fact, he adopts the same reductionist, binary mentality that portrays the world as us or them, Jew or Hungarian, right or wrong, that he bemoans. He asserts convincingly that there were consistencies in personnel, industry structures, and representational strategies that connect the 1930s to the period immediately after [End Page 253] World War II. Yet he fails to see the range of opinions or motivations among actors, producers, directors, exhibitors, critics, and, most important, government figures. Conflating multiple conceptions of nation and

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