Images, nr 19-20, 2012
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Item Małgorzata Szumowska – a Few Scenes from a Filmmaker’s Life (2000-2008)(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Pławuszewski, PiotrMałgorzata Szumowska – her strong position during the last decade in the history of Polish cinema seems unquestionable. Speaking with her own, original voice, she has successfully refused to be pigeonholed. The only thing one can be sure of in reference to Małgorzata Szumowska is that she will keep moving forward artistically. The main goal of the article is to examine this interesting journey, following selected threads, in particular, the need for love and facing death or a serious illness, in Szumowska’s filmography over the last decade.Item ”Wielka Brytania, wielkie nadzieje”: reprezentacja polskiej migracji w Londyńczykach(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Rydzewska, JoannaFollowing the 2004 expansion of the European Union (EU), Polish migrant workers began arriving in the United Kingdom on an unprecedented scale. Londoners (Londyńczycy, 2008-9) was a response to this. Exploring the lives of Polish migrants in London, the series became an instant success on Polish television, regularly attracting around four million viewers. This article explores how Londoners represents Britishness and Polishness to its target Polish audience. It will argue that the series negotiates questions of Polish national identity, which over the past 20 years has been undergoing fundamental redefinition as a result of the ending of the Cold War and Poland’s accession to the EU.Item Medium: Wizualizacja pierwszej warstwy narracyjnej: Odkrywanie(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Koprowicz, JacekA director’s analysis of the narrative layers in the film Medium allows one see, among other things, the construction of individual elements of the film. Through an analysis of the construction of particular scenes and the relations between them within the story, the text describes the visual narrative structure of the first layer, i.e. “discovery” (the next layers are: confirmation, confrontation and fulfillment). Within the horror genre, this layer is an essential element in building a dramaturgical structure and in influencing the viewers’ reactions (including the visual pleasure of “discovering”).Item England in a Miniature in Mike Leigh's "The Short and Curlies"(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Śliwińska, AnnaMike Leigh’s films are known for having kept the same tone and having played out the same melody for years. It is noteworthy that all the themes which Mike Leigh developed in his subsequent films, appeared in The Short and Curlies. Short scenes from the life of the English in The Short and Curlies can be seen in each scene of the film. From details such as a street with a perfectly straight terrace of houses with small gardens to social questions that are constant in the British culture. This ordinary, everyday observation gave rise to the plot of The Short and Curlies, revolving around a love affair of Joy (Sylvestra Le Touzel), a young woman working at a chemist’s and Clive (David Thewlis), a man who communicates with her only by means of his humourless jokes. Another story in the film is a complicated relationship of an eccentric hairdresser Betty (Alison Steadman), who is more interested in the life of the pharmacist than in the life of her own daughter Charlene (Wendy Nottingham). As Ewa Mazierska says: “Mike Leigh was once called the painter of miniatures – his films and TV productions for which he is equally praised and admired, concentrate on life of «small people with small gardens»”. Mike Leigh knows that his strengths are well written dialogues and this extraordinary skill to become a fictional character possessed by the actors he chooses.Item A Brief History of Communism. "Rabbit à la Berlin" by Bartosz Konopka(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Czaja, JustynaThe documentary film Rabbit à la Berlin (Królik po berlińsku), directed by Bartosz Konopka, tells the story of the Berlin Wall. The story is presented from an unusual perspective – that of the wild rabbits inhabiting the zone in the middle of the wall separating East and West Berlin, thus making reference to animal fables and the conventions of the nature film. The filmmakers also use known archival materials in an interesting way by placing them in new, surprising contexts. The story of animals told in Rabbit á la Berlin is parallel to that of people. The film combines these analogies in order to construct a powerful metaphor. The creators of Rabbit á la Berlin not only tell the story of the Germans, of East Germans separated from the western world, the story of the Berlin Wall, but also the story of Eastern European people living behind the Iron Curtain.Item Tajemnica korespondencji. O "Cudzych listach" Macieja J. Drygasa(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Hendrykowski, MarekMaciej J. Drygas teaches film direction at Film School in Łódź. His lavishly illustrated recent work “Someone’s else letters” is one of the best Polish editing documentaries ever made. The product of extensive research provided by the author in many archives is sure to provoke much debate and discussion about lack of freedom, breaking law by the state secret institutions, crucial importance of human rights and misery of everyday life conditions in Poland 1944-1989. In so doing Drygas greatly enlarges our knowledge and the scope of any understanding of this period. Marek Hendrykowski’s study is the first complete presentation ever published, covering every aspect of this excellent film, expressing its significance and including detailed analysis of its poetics.Item Małe analizy. Etiudy w PWSFTviT(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Kolski, Jan JakubPerforming as a lecturer and artistic tutor of students’ etudes requires creation of a common platform for discussion and constructive criticism. The above text is an example of didactic pact between the teacher and the student. Analysis of the Rafał Skalski etude Żeby nie było niczego is also an excuse to discuss the composition, construction of the characters and acting roles, as well as so-called "Zatorski spiral", interpretation of ‘becoming’ and truth in dialogue. Discussed scenes of the etude allow to understand the importance of internal tension – a kind of punctum – creating a dramatic and visual potential of the film.Item "Rzodkiewki" Janusza Morgensterna(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Hendrykowski, MarekMarek Hendrykowski’s essay presents the importance of Janusz Morgenstern’s early short film Radishes made after Stalin’s death, in 1954 as a student work produced by Film School in Łódź. The main character, old worker Gruliński loses his clear hopes and human illusions. The pesimistic conclusion is closed further by the simultaneous description of the hero’s social image within a discourse of origins and the sacred which evacuates analysis of class conflict and sociological approach in the narrative of an “ordinary good man” brutally disturbed in his desires and works by the irruption and power of an omnipotent destructive stalinist “red tape” bureaucracy. The poetics of Radishes is deeply influenced by the style of an Italian neorealism, first of all by its famous masterpiece, Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D. (1952).Item Scenariusz filmowy i jego odmiany: Studium przedmiotu.(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Hendrykowski, MarekScreenplay is a phenomenon located between two different worlds, spheres and cultures: literature and cinema. In his study, Marek Hendrykowski examines the meaning and functions of all crucial terms connected with film script and screenplay, among them: concept, log line, story, synopsis, treatment, draft, first draft, storyboard, director’s draft, final script and shooting script. The author sketches step by step each of these various forms of scenario in detail, explains what they are about and why they are necessary. He also stresses the importance of rewriting and script development in the process of film creation as a means of taking the achievement to a higher level.Item Etiudy Agnieszki Osieckiej(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Hendrykowski, MarekIn 1957, the famous young Polish poet and song lyrics writer Agnieszka Osiecka (1936-1998) began studying in the Film School in Łódź. She studied film directing in 1957-1961. After graduating in film arts, she decided not to pursue a professional career in cinema. This analytical essay charts the history of the Film School in Łódź in the 1950s, the student works of Osiecka, and the inspiring confluence of audiovisual culture and film. The essay also explores in detail a wide spectrum of Polish film art of that period, providing original interpretations of eight études made by the young and talented artist during her film directing studies in Łódź.Item "Wieczór" Edwarda Żebrowskiego - autorska kopia(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Szpulak, AndrzejThe aim of this article is interpretation of the short film directed in 1964 by Edward Żebrowski, student of Film School in Łódź. Author is considering the many aspects of the relationships between study film and two years earlier debut of Roman Polanski, the famous Knife in the Water. He shows that by using the concept of feature of more experienced colleague, Żebrowski at the same time creates the foundations for his own film language and manifests its own perception of the world, as well as interpersonal problems, developed in further work.Item Patrzenie poprzez fragmenty. Komiksowy dziennik Aleksandra Zografa "Pozdrowienia z Serbii"(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Czaja, JustynaIn his comic Greetings from Serbia. A Journal in Comics Written During the Conflict in Serbia, Aleksander Zograf’s choice of form is associated with the periodical form of the diary in drawings kept by the author. By means of a series of episodes, Zograf shows selected fragments of daily life in Serbia: the realities of living in a country under sanctions, being bombed by NATO aircraft, and struggling with post-war chaos. A characteristic feature of the anthology Greetings from Serbia. A Journal in Comics Written During the Conflict in Serbia is – in the words of the author – “observation through fragments”. The poetics of the fragment, the autonomization of the individual elements that comprise the open composition, and the breaking up of the plot’s cohesion are all associated with the worldview that emerges from Zograf’s comics. The reality observed turns out to be chaotic, incoherent and irrational. It becomes impossible to fully embrace or provide any overarching sense to the events, and thus fictionalize and express them by means of a traditional narrative form. By choosing the form of the comic book, and abandoning a comprehensive, ordered point of view, the author attempts to describe the whole by means of fragments.Item The Romanian Filmmaker’s Union. Between Ambiguous Past and Uncertain Future(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Popescu, AlinaThe Romanian Filmmakers’ Union is one of today’s largest cinematographic professional organisations inherited from the Communist past. This study looks at this specific form of institutionalising the activity of Romanian filmmakers from the perspective of its intermediary role between Party directives and divergent personal interests. The collapse of the regime made visible explosive tensions generated by this ambivalent institutional identity. It is therefore interesting to examine the consequences this organisation had on filmmakers’ status before and in the aftermath of the regime change. By using ethnographic methods, the article contributes to an understanding of the role the Union played in reconfiguring the professional community after 1989, especially after the coming of age of a generation of filmmakers who created new professional worlds that challenged the idea of ‘creative collectivity’.Item Opowieść reżysera, który chce być reżyserowany(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Pławuszewski, PiotrThe review A Tale of a Director Who Wants to Be Directed concerns a book written by Jacek Bławut (A Character in a Documentary). Notable Polish filmmaker sums up some of his artistic achievements (not without mentioning the future plans), trying to explain his view on a co-operation with a movie character (especially due to a documentary genre), but also on a directing itself. The review follows the vital points of the book, placing them under two general categories: “author” and “character”. It also recalls (with no abbreviation) something that’s been called as “Dogmas or what’s important for me” – these are ten “rules” that Jacek Bławut (as a director) tries to adapt to all of his film doings.Item Automatyzm ludzkiej egzystencji w filmie "Dom" Jana Lenicy i Waleriana Borowczyka(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Prusinowski, PiotrThe aim of this article is interpretation of the short film directed in 1958 by Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk and regarded as one of the most interesting works of Polish experimental animation. Author looked upon synopsis of House as the introduction to analysis of the world portrayed in film, all its elements, symbols and their meaning. The most important question concerns condition of depersonalized human jailed in the trap of automatically repeated activities and supressing his own sexuality in his subconscious. Author also paid attention to automatism as Lenica's and Borowczyk's artistic method derived from surrealism. In this context the special usage of photography and stop motion technique of animation in House is emphasized as very important in creative process. On the basis of interpretation of the characters and objects appeared in film author drew a conclusion of the eponymous house as a metaphor of our modern world where people as the collectivity divest themselves of individual features.Item Reportaże z pamięci. O rekonstruowaniu rzeczywistości minionej w filmach dokumentalnych Mariana Marzyńskiego(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Jazdon, MikołajThe article focuses on autobiographical films by Polish-American documentary filmmaker whose most personal project is Never Forget to Lie (2012) about Jews rescued from the Warsaw ghetto in their early childhood. Marzyński is a Holocaust survivor himself and a television reporter who emigrated from communist Poland in 1969. He has been gradually transforming the style of the documentary films he made in the West to make them more and more personal by referring to his biography. Marzyński’s cinéma vérité techniques include initiating emotional in-front-of-the-camera interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses of History in the meaningful surrounding of historical places. In this way, the filmmaker makes the architecture, landscape and personal objects “speak” about the past or uses them to stimulate the memory of the interviewed people. The only quoted film material, or found footage, comes from his own archives, where he has been collecting his released documentaries together with never used scenes and takes.Item Polish Postcommunist Cinema and the Neoliberal Order(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Mazierska, EwaThis essay discusses three Polish films from the last 10 years: Bailiff (Komornik, 2005), directed by Feliks Falk, Edi (2002), directed by Piotr Trzaskalski, and Silesia, directed by Anna Kazejak-Dawid, which is the first part in the omnibus film Ode to Joy (Oda do radości, 2005) of which the two remaining parts were directed by Jan Komasa and Maciej Migas. The main methodological tools are the concepts of neoliberalism and bare life. The article argues that the fall of communism led to the neoliberalisation of Polish society and the production of bare life. The aforementioned films attest to these changes and offer an assessment of them which conveys a specific ideology. By focusing on the construction of their narratives and characters, the article attempts to establish its main features and offer its explanation.Item A Study of the Film Adaptations of Marek Hłasko's Prose by the Students of the Film School in Łódź(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-04) Bucknall-Hołyńska, JustynaThe works of Marek Hłasko have proved a reliable source of content and inspiration in Polish culture from the time of their writing to the current day, and this is demonstrated by the number of film adaptations of his literature. This article will look at Hłasko’s short stories that were written while the author lived in Poland and are collected in the book The First Step in the Clouds published in 1956. It will consider the subject matter and themes of the text, overview some examples of adaptations made by the students of the celebrated Łódź Film School, reflect as to how these have remained faithful or deviated from Hłasko’s original works, before concluding as to the reasons why the students may have been drawn to this particular source.Item Confronting the Past. Trauma, History and Memory in Wajda’s film(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Bondebjerg, IbHistorical films are important carriers of collective memory, and as a genre historical films can activate both strong feelings and strong debate. Historical fiction films often tell very accurate and almost documentary stories, but fictional films have the freedom to make historical reality in quite another way than factual historical films. This article deals with some of the most important historical film genres and uses a general theory of genres, emotions, memory and history to analyse the historical films of Polish film director Andrzej Wajda, especially those made post 1989. Dealing with both his heritage drama Pan Tadeusz (1999) and critical historical drama Katyń (2007), the article analyses the ways in which Wajda uses historical narratives to comment on both history and contemporary society, and how this strategy is reflected in all his historical films. The article argues that the traumatic and contrast-filled history of Poland makes historical films especially important and interesting as a critical part of public debate and the reframing and reinterpretation of the past.Item Moving Ahead into the Past: Historical Contexts in Recent Polish Cinema(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM w Poznaniu; Wydawnictwo PWSFTViT w Łodzi, 2012-06) Anessi, ThomasThe article looks at treatments of Poland’s 20th-century history in Polish films made over the last several years. Since 2007, Polish cinema has seen an explosion of films dealing in various ways with the history of the last century. These include mega-productions by directors known for making historically themed films, like Wajda’s Katyń or Hoffman’s 1920. Battle of Warsaw, and traditional historical dramas dealing with iconic personalities (Rafał Wieczyński’s Popiełuszko. Freedom Is Within Us) and moments in time (Antoni Krauze’s Black Thursday. Janek Wiśniewski Fell). However, a number of other works make use of historical settings from the last century in new and innovative ways. Most choose smaller-scale, less grand approaches to the past, though without abandoning an ambition to accurately depict the times they portray. Films focused on issues related to family and personal relationships, such as Jan Kidawa-Błoński’s Little Rose or Borys Lankosz’s Reverse, likewise speak about life during communism, but attempt to do so without repeating clichéd images by engaging new problems or returning to familiar ones using new techniques. Lastly, memory often plays an important role as a source of knowledge about the past, and as a filter for mediating experiences of it. This can be best seen in Rafael Lewandowski’s The Mole, Władysław Pasikowski’s Consequences (Pokłosie), and Wojciech Smarzowski’s Dark House. Archival evidence, memories of relatives, and the camera itself are used in the films to pose questions about the subjectivity inherent to film as a means of learning about the past.