Elena Stanciu-Gorun
The Role of the Romanian Film in Correcting Juvenile Delinquency during the Socialist Regime
Elena Stanciu-Gorun
Article Information
Pages: 19-38
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24193/RJPS.2024.1.02
Elena Stanciu-Gorun
Babeş-Bolyai University, Doctoral School Population Studies and History of Minorities, elena.stanciu@ubbcluj.ro
Abstract. Feature-length fiction movies were an important instrument of propaganda during Romania’s communist regime. As cinema was financed exclusively and controlled by the state between 1948 and 1989, motion pictures were used to convey socialist policies—of course, packaged as fictional drama—to make ideological or regulatory information more easily accepted by society. One of the messages intended to be conveyed in this way was that although the state was looking after the welfare of all citizens, especially the young, families often undermined this effort by neglecting their children, who would end up becoming delinquents. If, on one hand, rules and laws were effective means to control individuals’ actions, on the other hand, motion pictures proved to be a powerful tool to shape consciousness and to induce certain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. Films dealing with certain cases of juvenile delinquency, or which brought before the public the stories of crimes, large or small, are also part of this line of prevention and the construction of civic behaviour. In this paper, to explore how the anti-crime message was constructed and what ideas were conveyed, I have set out to analyse three such film productions, from different periods of the communist regime, each of them featuring as a main character a young person who had slipped into deviant behaviour.
Keywords: film, communism, children, teenager, crime, delinquency
References
Primary Sources (Movies)
Cine va deschide uşa?, 1967, director Gheorghe Naghi.
Cine mă strigă?, 1979, director Letiția Popa.
Faleze de nisip,1983, director Dan Pița.
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