Evald Schorm is considered a philosopher of the Czechoslovak New Wave. In his films, he approaches existential motifs such as alienation, loneliness, suicide, freedom and death. At the same time, he often reaches for biblical allusions. The author regularly attending Sunday mass in his childhood. Even though later in life he wasn’t a practicing believer, Christianity remained of personal interest and was reflected in his work.[1] Religious themes occur in his short documentary Psalm (Žalm, 1965), and Christian motifs appear in The House of Joy (Dům radosti, 1965).[2] His work with biblical variations then becomes more comprehensive in his feature films The Return of the Prodigal Son (Návrat ztraceného syna, 1966), The End of a Priest (Farářův konec, 1968) and The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night (Den sedmý – osmá noc, 1969). In this article, I endeavour to explain how the director deals with biblical motifs in these three works.
Love may overcome loneliness
The name of the film The Return of the Prodigal Son refers to the well-known New Testament parable. In terms of causal relationships and motivations, the biblical story is narrated unambiguously: the younger of two sons asks for and receives his share of his father’s inheritance and goes abroad, squandering the fortune on a life of debauchery. Sinking into poverty, he returns home and asks his father for forgiveness. The merciful father happily welcomes him back and holds a feast to celebrate his return. By contrast, the older son, who had faithfully stayed by his father’s side, resents this compassion.[3] However, Schorm’s film is far from being a story with clear motives: with its arthouse narration, it reflects the ambiguity of modernist cinematography. Miloš Fryš writes about the director’s „unfinished film“ method: „Even though the main hero, Jan, nearly doesn’t leave the scene, we don’t really find out anything about him in the entire film.“[4] Even though Jan Šebek is asked several times why he attempted suicide, he never gives an answer. It is also not clear whether the protagonist committed any wrongdoing, in contrast to the case of the biblical younger son. Even though suicide is considered a sin in Christianity, the film doesn’t really point to this. Meanwhile, instead of being welcome upon his return, the hero is hunted down at the end of the film by village women who mistake him for a local brute. His wife, Jana, then speaks about her own guilt: „Everything is my fault. It is all because of me; now I know it.“[5] At the same time, the status of the „prodigal son“ is not necessarily attributed to the protagonist; it can also relate to other characters.
It is already clear from the opening dialogue with the psychiatrist that Jan is not capable of achieving the moral ideal typical of religious thinking:
Psychiatrist: Do you believe in anything at all?
Jan: I believe that people should act in line with their convictions without considering the consequences.
Psychiatrist: Can you do it?
Jan: No.[6]
The main hero doesn’t really develop throughout the film either. The parable is varied freely in the story, using motifs of repeated departures and returns. Jan leaves the mental asylum several times (by escaping or being released) and visits his home and work. However, he always comes back to the institution, be it on a forced or voluntary basis. Jan Bernard describes it: „Jan actually keeps coming back ‚home‘ – to the ‚womb of society‘. He is always ruthlessly returned from the rural idyll (presbytery), from the company of common people (the gardener’s wedding) and from the working-class environment (quarry) back to the asylum. Both at work and within his family, he is welcomed with a ‚fatted calf‘, but not even this offering reconciles him with the environment and the people – he is forced to flee back to the institution again.“[7]
This variation of leaving and returning is far from the idealism (essentialism) of the biblical parable. Schorm’s thinking is much closer to the existentialist (anti-essentialist) tendency of the Czechoslovak New Wave and modernist cinematography in general. The denial of idealism is evident in the behaviour of Jan’s family as well. His wife, Jana, repeatedly professes her love for him, but at the same time is unfaithful to him (with Jiří). A similar ambivalence can be observed in Jana’s parents. While visiting their son-in-law in the asylum, offering him cakes and showing pity, they treat their daughter’s lover in a similar way. Also the doctor’s wife, Olga, has an unstable character, and repeatedly seduces Jan. At one point, she claims to selflessly love him, but then says mischievously: „I want to claim something for myself as well, for once. And you think I really love you? […] Maybe I want to hurt you.“[8] Loving at some times and unfaithful at other times, the characters cannot be defined as mythological archetypes.
Appearing as nearly ideal are the children, who come across as innocent (including Jan’s daughter), along with the kind-hearted nurse, the other patient Zdeněk, and the priest quoting the Prodigal Son parable. Yet even though these characters are different from the rest of society, the protagonist cannot find support in them either. Having once intended to enter a convent, the nurse quotes a Bible verse to him: „Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes […], nor homosexuals […]“[9]. This quotation is thematically related to the Prodigal Son parable as it includes the causes of a man’s spiritual fall. Not convinced by the Bible passage, Jan interrupts the nurse; this however prevents her from quoting the following Bible verse: „Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God.“[10] This verse would thematically relate to the rest of the parable: to conversion and compassion, or mercy. Jan’s interruption suggests his scepticism about the religious concept of redemption.
The main hero is not only suspicious of religion, but of the meaning of life in general. Even though Jan acknowledges the good things in his life (wife, child and job), he attempts suicide. Jan is an existential hero experiencing absurdity and alienation. In his essay on absurdity, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Albert Camus considers suicide the only philosophical question that matters: „To decide whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy.“[11] According to the French thinker, life is absurd, and suicide is proof of this. The reason for Jan’s suicide can be interpreted in the context of modern existential nihilism and the experience of absurdity. The hero is sceptical of family ideals since he doesn’t find support among his instable relatives. At the same time, he doesn’t believe in religious ideals either since they have been presented to him unconvincingly or aren’t in agreement with his everyday experience of „God’s death“. Jan can therefore hardly believe the priest’s words „[…] was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found“[12].
In addition to the priest and the nurse, also the psychiatrist tries to overcome existential nihilism. His statement: „from a certain point, all is vanity of vanities“[13] can be seen as another reference to the Bible, but with a shift in meaning. In the context of the New Testament, the Bible statement „vanity of vanities, all is vanity“[14] is interpreted as a reference to the perishability of earthly riches compared to eternal heavenly treasures. However, the doctor doesn’t offer any spiritual hope. Even though the psychiatrist’s idea of vanity of vanities corresponds with „God’s death“, the character goes beyond nihilism, trying to overcome it in a non-religious way. To Jan’s question what a person is supposed to do, the psychiatrist answers: „To live. […] To live and to be constantly aware of it.“[15] This affirmation of life is his advice on how to deal with the confines of absurdity. Similarly, Camus rejects suicide in the end, writing about Sisyphus‘ punishment: „All Sisyphus‘ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. […] The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.“[16] The philosopher thus wants to reject the absurd situation, but at the same time not escape it through suicide.
In his fight against nihilism, the doctor goes even further, claiming that meaning lies in the ability to forgive, which brings the character closer to the Christian worldview. Aware of human imperfection (his own wife’s adultery), the psychiatrist sees forgiveness as a necessity for everyday life. His statement to Jana: „Love him [your husband] at least as yourself“[17] is a variation of another Bible statement on love for one’s neighbour.[18] The psychiatrist is a character finding his way in a non-ideal world in the affirmation of life, trying to resurrect the dead ideals of forgiveness, accepting others and loving one’s neighbour. Even though the doctor shows no explicit religious tendencies, he is a variation of the biblical father, albeit shifted to the profane level.
Jan doesn’t like the doctor’s idea of constant forgiveness, which brings him closer to the older son in the parable. Nevertheless, one of his dialogues with Olga implies that he also believes in certain values. He reads out to her a brief thought he has noted down:
Jan: Loneliness can hardly be overcome. It can be overcome through an incomprehensible thing: through love. It gives two people a unique chance to be natural to the other person out of all people with impunity.
Olga: And is it true?
(Jan throws away the paper with the recorded thought)
Jan: I don’t know. Maybe. I may believe it because I’ve met you.[19]
Living in the world of a „dead God“ and within the confines of absurdity, Jan experiences love, even though imperfectly, through the sin of adultery. With his „may“ and throwing away the paper, he places love in uncertainty and presents it as a „mere“ possibility. The demythologized character doesn’t acquire the certainty of the returned son from the parable.
At the end of the film, Schorm hints at the possibility of salvation: „The final shot at the window frame is an association of the Christian symbolism of crucifixion – a possible way out for the lost hero.“[20] The film is truly „only“ about the possibility of salvation, just like Jan places the value of love in uncertainty with the word „may“. The cross presented is „a compassionate attitude of the author rather than an opinion of the character who remains in the sanatorium with his major problem.“[21] If Jan returns, then fragmentarily and non-absolutely, with constant falls, which however are not exclusively the character’s fault (as is the case in the parable) but mainly due to his illness and an imperfect society. It may be society after all that can be seen as „lost“.
My God, why have I forsaken you?
Due to the political liberalization of the 1968 Prague Spring, the screenplay for The End of a Priest was approved, written by Schorm together with Josef Škvorecký. As pointed out by Fryš[22] and Bernard[23], with this film the director comes closer to allegory: the time is not clearly set. Some things evoke the 1950s (types of relationships, clothes, the secret agents’ behaviour, the pre-council nature of the Church), others the First Czechoslovak Republic or Austria-Hungary (the marshal, a Saint’s Day festival), and others still the 1960s (a television, transistor radio). Many characters are not named and instead are stylized into general archetypes: Teacher, Grandmother or Bishop. Even though in the opening credits the film is characterized as a farce, „Schorm didn’t simply film Škvorecký’s plot; he intentionally went against its simplicity and broke it into little pieces, associatively loading them with different meanings left and right […]“ [24]
The allegorization is also connected with more frequent biblical variations than in The Return of the Prodigal Son. In the story of a sacristan pretending to be a priest, the director creates a parallel to the gospel life of Jesus Christ. This is mainly obvious thanks to comments by the shepherd Jan Páně – a variation of Jesus‘ favourite apostle. The local Teacher supplies Jan with atheist literature, thinking that the shepherd is seriously interested in scientific atheism. In fact, Jan cuts out Biblical quotations from atheist magazines and puts them in his book about God. Thanks to Jan, the originally disordered verses taken from ideological literature assume their mythological structure.
The shepherd’s religious findings are brought in parallel with the priest’s actions in the village. When the sacristan first comes to the village riding on a donkey, Jan simultaneously quotes the Bible passage on Jesus entering Jerusalem in a similar manner: „All this was done. Look, your King is coming to you, upon a donkey.“[25] Later on, when as a representative of the Communist power, the Teacher tries to ideologically influence the priest, Jan draws a biblical parallel again: „Again, the Devil took Him [Jesus] up on a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their grandeur, and said to Him: ‚All these things I will give You if You will bow down and worship me.'“[26] Just like his gospel model, the priest rejects the tempter’s proposals. Yet another gospel variation is Majka, an allegoric reference to Mary Magdalene. This is again obvious from a parallel to a biblical situation in which, like Jesus, the priest shows mercy to an adulteress: „Let he who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.“[27] The Teacher later tries to fabricate an allegation that the priest had fornicated with Majka, for which he uses a boy named Juda. The easily manipulated crowd turns against the innocent, like the Jews against Christ in the gospel story. The last biblical variation occurs at the end of the film with the sacristan hanging in the upper part of the church with two men on either side of him: a policeman trying to arrest him on one side, and the Teacher on the other side, regretting his wrongdoing and trying to help the persecuted man. The arrangement of the characters is reminiscent of the crucifixion of Jesus along with two thieves, one of whom was blaspheming and the other one begging for mercy.[28]
In addition to biblical variations, theatre is another element Schorm uses for allegory. Theatre was already present in The Return of the Prodigal Son (Olga trying to act in the theatre hall, characters visiting a circus); however, in The End of a Priest, theatre becomes a recurring theme offering a commentary on the plot.[29] The narration touches the Saint’s Day festival merely presenting secular cantastorias, while the religious level (visiting a place of worship) is entirely missing in the spiritually decaying village. The sacristan’s life is therefore not only commented on through gospel quotations, but through profane culture as well. In this regard, Bernard points out: „The Saint’s Day festival archetypes (Beadle, Fireman, Ringmaster) appear several times as an organic part of the village life, pointing out the artificial and fictitious nature of the story just like the cantastoria, some parts of which are an allegoric commentary on the story […] emphasizing the triumph of evil.“[30] With the cantastoria, Schorm highlights the cruelty of the rural world into which he tosses the main hero. It is the capturing of the sacristan or the triumph of the thirteenth robber who keeps killing people that is narrated through the cantastoria. This commentary weakens the ideal level of the biblical myth.
The director also develops the theatricality principle through the sacristan character. By pretending to be someone else, the protagonist can be seen as a specific performer. The sacristan’s motivation for the play is never explained, just like we never find out the reason for Jan Šebek’s suicide. The sacristan plays a priest already at the start of the film: in the Church of Saint Roch in Prague, he celebrates a pseudo-liturgical ceremony using nonsensical church Latin. He is confused when trying to organize the French guests; he doesn’t understand their language, chaotically addresses them in Russian and mistakes the bride’s daughter for the bride herself. With this, Schorm returns to the idea of a world that is incomprehensible for the protagonist.
The sacristan’s escape from the city to a village and assuming the role of a priest appears to be his attempt to escape absurdity and make sense of his life. Experiencing absurdity, he doesn’t opt for suicide but for games and pretence. In pretending to be a priest, he tries to live a meaningful life while conscious of the inevitability of death, which in the spirit of existentialism he sees as the most realistic fact: „There is one thing that is ahead of all of us: […] death.“[31] The rural idyll is illusory; in the village, the priest not only finds absurdity, but also a reflection of the chaos of the world. With his role play, the sacristan not only looks for meaning for himself; he is also trying to bring elements of harmony to the spiritually empty village.
As much as the sacristan’s activities are a charade, the resulting harmony is illusory as well. What seems to be mythological causality is relativized: when the Grandmother calls for a priest, the sacristan/priest appears in the room unexpectedly. The situation has the logic of a miraculous apparition only for the villagers, who don’t know he cannot administer her the last rites. In another scene, there is a fire and the drunkard Lojzo Vandrák lies down on the fire hose, cutting off the water. Not knowing the cause, the priest encourages the women to pray, and then Lojzo stands up and the firefighting can continue. While the villagers interpret this as a miracle, the viewer attributes it to the random action of a drunkard. As noted by Bernard, „Schorm again works with myths and archetypal ideas, using them not as structural elements, but as objects of their own destruction […]“[32]
The priest longs to do good things and, as he says to the Bishop, he is willing to suffer punishment for his sins and repent. Just before his own death, he shows regret by saying „My God, why have I forsaken you?“[33] With this, he shifts the meaning of the words of Bible statement „My God, why have you forsaken me?“,[34] which is usually interpreted as Jesus reacting to God’s silence. For instance in Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light (1963), it’s not the actual passion but the experience of God’s silence that is considered the peak of Christ’s suffering (coincidentally by a sacristan as well). From the perspective of Christian existentialism, Schorm’s sacristan is an atypical hero as in his darkest hour his faith does not waiver. At the same time, with his confession of guilt, the character evokes the Prodigal Son parable more markedly than was the case in the previous film. In contrast to Jan Šebek, the sacristan tries to live in the absurd world (doesn’t opt for suicide) and impose a divine order on his life and his surroundings. Even though the sacristan imitates the mythological model in a funny way and sacrifices the truth, Schorm gives the prodigal son a forgiving look. Fryš writes that „what is behind the sacristan’s act is an attempt to be ‚someone else‘ and a desire for human dignity. At the same time, his action gives rise to the question of who is worthy of dignity and how to earn respect. Even though the priest earns the respect of people unjustifiably, it enables him to help them where there is no other servant.“[35] Despite his imperfection, the sacristan is the most spiritually advanced character in the film, surpassing even the Church authorities represented by the bishops. The author’s mercy to sinners is also reflected in the fact that the sacristan only reveals his actual name, Albert, to the adulteress Majka. It is she who represents Jesus‘ mother in the final pieta.
A cow without a tail, that’s the mayor
The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night is one of the allegoric masterpieces of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Schorm’s film takes place over a short period – a little over one day – again in a Czech village visited by a group of actors performing a passion play. The Train Dispatcher mysteriously disappears from the railway station, lights go out during the performance, phones are down and enigmatic wagons appear on the rails. Since the film was already made in the Normalization period, in summer 1969[36], the story of villagers noting signs of imminent danger is often interpreted as an allegory of the Soviet occupation.
The director again uses the theme of theatre – this time of a passion play. At the head of the theatre company is Baryton the Ringmaster, who at the same time plays the role of Jesus. While on the stage the actor represents a divine character, in real life he is having an affair with a married editor named Alena. An angry mob later organizes a pogrom against the actors, and Baryton, in costume as Christ, seems to run away on the water, evoking the well-known biblical motif.[37] However, upon reaching the end of the plate beneath the water’s surface that makes this illusion possible, he falls in, and his representation as a divine figure is dispelled. Baryton’s pretence is in clear contrast to the sacristan’s role play, since in playing the role of a mythological figure, the Ringmaster doesn’t give his life a deeper meaning; quite the contrary – he becomes a hypocrite.
Through the passion play, Schorm again returns to the topic of death presented as the result of Adam and Eve’s original sin. With his existential statement „I exist, therefore I am guilty“[38], the local Teacher later extends the notion of sinfulness to all of mankind, which is reflected in the behaviour of the entire society: the villagers pretend, fornicate, are gluttonous and commit acts of violence. Furthermore, they don’t watch the passion play to satisfy a spiritual hunger, but to sate their sexual and sadistic desires. Their physicality culminates in the pogrom against the actors and the raping of the protagonist Mary Magdalena. Out of the three films analysed, the crowd is most cruel in this one. The biblical story and characters are desecrated both by the passion play actors (Baryton’s betrayal of his role), and their viewers. Presenting a society incapable of finding enrichment in a biblical story, Schorm arrives at considerable scepticism towards mankind. The Teacher, who initially appears to be the most reasonable of all villagers and to have moral intuition, becomes a mad sectarian at the end: in a fanatic ecstasy, he kills the Train Dispatcher, who had unexpectedly returned.
It’s only the local madman Josef who is different from the others: as a prophet, he anticipates the arrival of a superior power and repentantly forsakes his possessions, which are nevertheless greedily taken by others. Josef initiates the film story by saying: „Not one stone shall be left here upon another, the waters shall close in, the earth is crumbling“ [39], which is a variation of Jesus‘ eschatological speech.[40] The character of the Madman foretelling the Judgement Day has a prophetic function. According to the Book of Revelation, only servants of God will be sealed (saved) before Armageddon, and Josef can be considered a chosen one: at the end, he remains alone in the village as the others have either liquidated each other or got on wagons and were taken away, possibly also to be liquidated, even though they had fanatically believed they would be saved. Remaining in the village as the only soul left, Josef spreads his arms, turns to heaven and expects the arrival of a superior power. Compared to the Bible, Schorm’s film is more pessimistic as in the Revelation, 144,000 people are deemed servants of God[41], while in the film there is only one, the Madman. According to Bernard, the director demythicizes the idea of a humanist society with a human face: „Facing a real or perceived threat […], the cultural layer and humanist relationships disappear and without exception, people succumb to their lowest instincts and egoism. It is symbolic that everyone goes crazy, only the Madman remains sane.“[42]
With the escalation of human physicality in Schorm’s work, absurdity culminates as well with the appearance of the mysterious wagons. Whereas Jan Šebek tried to solve his existential crisis by attempting suicide and the sacristan made a clumsy effort to give his life a mythological order, in The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night, absurdity is actually nurtured by the villagers. Josef’s statements, such as „a cow without a tail, that’s the mayor“[43] or „a horse without a tongue, that’s the music“[44], describe a world deprived of a meaningful order. The Joker intentionally makes up and spreads rumours to make the villagers fear more and behave irrationally. Absurdity not only ceases to be a problem for society – it becomes a source of its satisfaction. The presence of the wagons makes the characters think of unrealistic threats or, on the contrary, gives them a fanatic faith in their salvation. In giving up on the search for an actual meaning of life, the villagers differ from the protagonists of the previous films. Whereas Jan Šebek and the sacristan tried to deal with the uncertainty of the world in their own way, the characters in this film become initiators and worshippers of chaos. There is no confirmed external threat in the form of an invasion. It’s not invaders who act violently; it’s the people who use violence against each other. Destruction doesn’t come from the outside but from the heart of society.
Summary
In using biblical allusions, Schorm departs from idealism and follows up the existentialist tendency. This departure is connected with the director’s pessimism as well. The question remains to what extent the author is dubious of the possibility of a man being morally enriched by a biblical myth, and to what extent of the myth itself. The director doesn’t deny God exists: in The Return of the Prodigal Son, he keeps him silent, and in The End of a Priest, he presents a hero with a strong (albeit funny) faith. Many good characters in his films are believers; in addition to the sacristan, it’s the nurse and priest in The Return of the Prodigal Son or Jan Páně in The End of a Priest. At the same time, each of the three films implies a sacred reality in its closing scenes: the window frame reminiscent of a cross, the pieta, and the Madman turning to heaven. The actual value of the Christian message is thus not excluded in Schorm’s films: it’s only placed in uncertainty. The denial of idealism lies in the fact that even when a character clumsily tries to lean on the belief that there are some values, they don’t find any reassurance in this (Jan Šebek) or they cannot transform society and make it harmonious (sacristan, Josef).
As such, Schorm is sceptical about man and society. The prevalence of morally ambivalent or even irreformable characters culminating in the physical image of society shows that despite his indulgence, the author can be highly suspicious of man’s possibilities. Schorm portrays the world as absurd and chaotic. Whereas in the first two films analysed the director finds some moral potential in the ambivalent sinners (Jana and her parents, Olga, the Teacher or Majka), in the third film this hope almost completely disappears, with the Madman remaining the only worthy one.
Notes:
[1] Martin Šrajer, Všechno je to složitější – Evald Schorm (I.). Online: https://www.filmovyprehled.cz/cs/revue/detail/vsechno-je-to-slozitejsi-evald-schorm-i [cit. 31/05/2020]
[2] Schorm’s contribution to the anthology film Pearls of the Deep (Perličky na dně, dir. by Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, 1965).
[3] Cf. Lk 15, 11–32, In.: Jeruzalémská bible. Praha: Krystal OP, 2010, pp. 1813–1814.
[4] Miloš Fryš, Filmy Evalda Schorma. Praha: Český filmový ústav, 1992, p. 10.
[5] Návrat ztraceného syna, DVD Bontonfilm 2007, 01:34:30–01:34:34.
[6] Ibid, 00:01:50–00:02:03.
[7] Jan Bernard, Evald Schorm. Odvahu pro každý den. Praha: Primus, 1994, pp. 56–58.
[8] Návrat ztraceného syna, c. d., 00:50:34–00:51:05.
[9] Ibid, 00:45:29–00:46:00, Cf. 1 Kor 6, 9, in.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1993.
[10] 1 Kor 6, 11, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1994.
[11] Albert Camus, Mýtus o Sisyfovi. Praha: Garamond, 2015, p. 11.
[12] Návrat ztraceného syna, c. d., 01:22:50–01:22:55. Cf. Lk 15, 32, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1814.
[13] Ibid, 01:17:33–01:17:37.
[14] Cf. Kaz 1, 2, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1117.
[15] Návrat ztraceného syna, c. d., 01:37:31–01:18:07.
[16] A. Camus, c. d., pp. 140–141.
[17] Návrat ztraceného syna, c. d., 01:27:01–01:27:05.
[18] Cf. Mk 12, 31, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1774.
[19] Návrat ztraceného syna, c. d., 01:27:43–01:28:08.
[20] Jiří Cieslar – Stanislava Přádná – Zdena Škapová, Démanty všednosti. Český a slovenský film 60. let. Kapitoly o nové vlně. Praha: Pražská scéna, 2002, p. 253.
[21] Ibid.
[22] M. Fryš, c. d., p. 13.
[23] J. Bernard, c. d., p. 100.
[24] Ibid, p. 104.
[25] Farářův konec, DVD Bontonfilm 2006, 00:20:34–00:20:42. Cf. Mt 21, 4–5, in.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1738.
[26] Ibid, 00:49:08–00:49:26. Cf. Mt, 4, 8–9, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1707.
[27] Ibid, 01:03:12–01:03:17. Cf. Jn 8, 7, in.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1856.
[28] Cf. Lk 23, 39-43, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1828.
[29] In Five Girls Around the Neck (Pět holek na krku, 1967), Schorm used passages from the opera Der Freischütz as a commentary.
[30] J. Bernard, c. d., p. 98.
[31] Farářův konec, c. d., 00:36:08–00:36:15.
[32] J. Bernard, c. d., p. 104.
[33] Farářův konec, c. d., 01:31:56–01:31:59.
[34] Cf. Mt 27, 46 and Mk 15, 34, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., pp. 1753, 1780.
[35] M. Fryš, c. d., p. 14.
[36] J. Bernard, c. d., p. 121.
[37] Cf. Mt 14, 22–33, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1728.
[38] Den sedmý – noc osmá, DVD Bontonfilm 2008, 01:08:32–01:08:35
[39] Ibid, 00:00:41–00:00:52.
[40] Cf. Mt 24, 2, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 1744.
[41] Cf. Zj 7, 4, In.: Jeruzalémská bible, c. d., p. 2148.
[42] J. Bernard, c. d., pp. 128, 130.
[43] Den sedmý – noc osmá, c. d., 00:02:52–00:02:56
[44] Ibid, 00:03:05-00:03:09.
