Who Will Watch the Watchman? Dalibor, or the Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

Who Will Watch the Watchman? Dalibor, or the Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

  • Overview
  • Crew

Status

Released

Release Date

Jun 5, 2003

Runtime

3h 40m

Genres

Documentary

Original Title

Kdo bude hlídat hlídače? Dalibor aneb Klíč k Chaloupce strýčka Toma

Production Companies

Negativ, Česká televize

Director

Karel Vachek

Description

In the fourth and final instalment of Karel Vachek’s not-so-little Little Capitalist Tetralogy, preparations for an opera performance in the Czech capital’s art-nouveau National Theatre become the occasion for a reflection on rebels, dissidents, and others subversives who stand in battle, heroically and sometimes tragically, against majority opinion, established rules, or powerful institutions. "As the camera wanders over, around and through Prague’s lavish National Theatre, director J.A. Pitínský coaches singers through a rehearsal of Bedřich Smetana’s tragic opera Dalibor. Intercut with the tale of the 15th-century knight who, imprisoned, refused to name names, Vachek interviews, on the plush red seats of the empty theatre, a whole series of latter-day rebels.