Luiza Wollinger Delfino, Esther Império Hamburger

The screenplay as a place for collaboration: Chytilová, Krumbachová and Kučera in Daisies

University of São Paulo, Brazil

This paper discusses collaborative screenwriting of Věra Chytilová’s Daisies (1966),
by the director and the film’s costume and production designer, Ester Krumbachová.
They account for the participation of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera in the
technical screenplay, although not officially credited.
Our analysis of the sources collected during the research internship in Prague
(personal archives of Krumbachová and Kučera and the stages of screenwriting of
Daisies, such as synopsis, treatment, literary and technical screenplay) suggest that
the collaborative work of this trio, at a privileged moment in Czechoslovak
cinematography, favours original visual-artistic creation from the genesis of the
projects. They work with the idea of deconstruction: from the moral integrity of the
two young protagonists, to the deconstruction of narrative linearity, the set and of
image unity itself.

We note similar desires between the Nova Vlná and Brazilian Cinema Novo,
although we detect traces of different modes of production, since within the
Czechoslovak state cinema, filmmakers were subject to bureaucratic processes in
the realization of their projects.

The technical script of Daisies is technically and formally detailed and resulted in a
film so free and experimental. Is it possible, then, to think of the screenplay as a
creative lever rather than a control tool? Above causal logic and morally clear plot
are aesthetic elements (tricks, tinting of shots, motifs of butterflies and flowers),
scenes structured in sketches, with no space-time connection between them, and
absurd dialogues, which remain practically unchanged between technical script and
film. According to Chytilová, this would be the only fixed element: everything else
would be open to improvisation.

This work looks at the screenplays of Daisies and stimulates comparative
transnational discussions about screenwriting. Empirical work at archives mobilises
questions concerning preservation of institutional and personal documents of
audiovisual production, and their potential for screenwriting studies and creative
processes.

Luiza Wollinger Delfino is a master’s student in the Postgraduate Programme of
Audiovisual Media and Processes at the School of Communications and Arts of the
University of São Paulo. She has completed two undergraduate research projects: on new
media dramaturgy, supervised by Roberto Franco Moreira (2019-2020), and on the sensory
relations in Vera Chytilová’s cinema and television, supervised by Esther Hamburger and
awarded a FAPESP grant (2021-2023). She did a research internship at Charles University
in Prague, with a FAPESP grant and supervision by Petr Szczepanik. As an art director, she
directed the short films O que fica de quem vai (2023) and Nossos Últimos Dias (currently
being finalised) and the music video “Convenções Humanas” (2023) by the bands Walfredo
em Busca da Simbiose and PLUMA, for which she also wrote the script. Her current
research seeks intersections between screenwriting and production design, based on the
work of Ester Krumbachová.

Esther Império Hamburger is a Professor of Audiovisual History in the Department of
Cinema, Radio and Television at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of
São Paulo (ECA-USP). She works in the confluence of Film and Television Criticism and
Studies and Anthropology, addressing issues such as social inequalities, gender and race
relations in contemporary cinema, television and digital media and recent history. She is the
coordinator of the Audiovisual Research and Criticism Laboratory (LAICA) and the current
president of the Kinoforum Association.