The politics of a rock ‘n’ road docudrama—genre and intertextuality in Želimir Žilnik’s Oldtimer (1989)

Abstract

This article examines Želimir Žilnik’s telefilm Stara mašina/Oldtimer (1989) as an example of the politically engaged use of genre and intertextuality in televisual representation. As a road movie, Oldtimer highlights how the journey trope imbued visual representations of movement with ideological and political meanings. At the same time, the film exposes the nationalist motivations behind the so-called anti-bureaucratic revolution in Serbia in 1988 and emphasizes television news department staff’s complicity in concealing them. This article argues that, by incorporating television news into its diegetic universe, the film displaced the content presented as informational into the realm of fiction. In this way, Oldtimer not only exposed this case of misinformation but modeled a critical approach to the consumption of television. The paper shows that Žilnik’s work contributed to the broadening of televisual potential for ideological signification, allowing the medium to function not simply as a propaganda instrument but as a space of contestation of different ideological positions. Žilnik’s choice to realize this project as a film for television shows the televisual capacity for self-awareness, and Oldtimer points to the medium’s potential to address the problems that political pressures create.

Keywords:

• Documentary
• intertextuality
• docudrama
• Yugoslav television
• Želimir Žilnik

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Press clipping about Oldtimer is available on Žilnik’s website, https://www.zilnikzelimir.net.

2 Entertainment programmes include all projects realized by drama (sometimes called entertainment) divisions of television stations. These divisions are usually responsible for all films, series, serials, broadcasts of theatre plays, and documentary dramas. The term does not refer to the purpose and cultural status of a programme.

3 These films included Bolest i ozdravljenje Bude Bakusa/Illness and Recovery of Buda Bakus (1980), Vera i Eržika/Vera and Eržika (1981), Dragoljub i Bogdan: Struja/Dragoljub and Bogdan: Electricity (1982), Prvo tromesečje Pavla Hromiša/The First Trimester of Pavle Hromis (1983), Stanimir silazi u grad/Stanimir Descending (1984), Druga generacija/Second Generation (1984), Posrnule ovčice/Stumbling Sheep (1986), and Brooklyn – Gusinje (1988).

4 Some of the films that articulated political critique by combining factual and fictional elements included Video jela, zelen bor/Dear Video (Gajić 1991), and Pogrešna Procena/A Wrong Estimate (Aleksić 1987).

5 This observation is informed by viewing experiences and comprehensive information on documentary films produced by Radio Television Belgrade in Kečina, Mileta. 1998. Videografija Dokumentarnih Programa Televizije Beograd (1958–1991) (Videography of Documentary Programs of Television Belgrade (1958–1991)). Belgrade: RTS: Television Belgrade.