Marek Haltof

Page 1. V ^^^f^ the cinema of KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI marek haltof Page 2. Page 3. the cinema of KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI DIRECTORS' CUTS -This one 9ZA2-N7C-7TDH Page 4. Other titles in the Directors' Cuts series ...

OFIARA POLEMIKI POLSKO-ŻYDOWSKIEJ. POWRÓT DO KORCZAKA 1990 ANDRZEJA WAJDYTekst Marka Haltofa Ofiara polemiki polsko-żydowskiej. Powrót do „Korczaka” 1990 Andrzeja Wajdy omawia polityczny aspekt pierwszego filmu Wajdy, który powstał po transformacji ustrojowej. Wcześniej reżyser zrealizował wiele filmów poświęconych Holokaustowi i relacjom polsko-żydow-skim. Niektóre z jego dzieł spotkały się z krytyką, często niezasłużoną, stając się zakładnikami polity-ki i „ofiarami polsko-żydowskich polemik” — jak pisze o Korczaku Lawrence Baron. Artykuł przy-bliża historię powstania filmu, sposób przedstawiania postaci Korczaka jako polskiego i żydowskiego bohatera oraz kontrowersje, jakie ten film, a zwłaszcza jego finałowa scena, wzbudził we Francji.

Polish cinema has a history essentially as long as those of cinemas elsewhere. The first screening in the Polish territories took place in Cracow in 1896, and in that same year Kazimierz Pr6szyiski created his own camera, the "pleograph." In 1902, the perfected "pleograph" was employed by Preszyfski to produce the first Polish narrative film, Powr*t Birbanta (The Return of a Merry Fellow). Regular film production in Poland started, however, some years later with adaptations of the national literary canon, commercially-minded melodramas, and comedies. In general, film production before World War I remained the domain of economically feeble, ephemeral studios. During the war, the number of films produced increased. The studio "Sfinks," a virtual monopolist which promoted its own version of the Hollywood star system (responsible for the beginnings of Pola Negri's career), produced, among others, several patriotic (anti-Russian) pictures reflecting the spirit of that time. The restoration of the Polish state in 1918 created conditions for the development of national art. Although the film industry was still economically weak, film theory and criticism flourished during the first years of independence. Unlike Polish pre-war film productions, Polish film criticism and theory attained a comparatively high standard and an original profile. In her indispensable book on the history of Polish film theory, Jadwiga Bochenska divides pre-war film theorizing into three distinct periods: (1) from 1898 to World War I; (2) the period between 1918-1930, ending with the introduction of sound; (3) the 1930s and the World War II.2 According to Marcin Gizycki, the mediocrity of film production in pre-war Poland provided the impetus to campaign for artistic cinema.3 Between the two world wars, Polish intellectuals and artists went through a peculiar "film fever,"4 as Gizycki calls it, which was quite incompatible with the current stage of development of local cinema. The result of this "creative fever" deserves more careful analysis. In Poland, as elsewhere, "the first 'theories' sound more like birth announcements than scientific inquiries"-to repeat Dudley Andrew's wellknown comment.5 Cinema, still in its infancy, did not provide a fertile ground for theory. The majority of early texts on film consisted of dilettantish yet passionate attempts to give cinema the stature of art. FILM THEORY FROM 1898 TO WORLD WAR I The first texts written by a Pole on cinema appeared as early as 1898: they were Boleslaw Matuszewski's two studies, "Une nouvelle source de l'Histoire" and "La Photographie animte," published in French, in Paris.6 These were pioneer texts, arguably on a world scale, which aimed at presenting the practical possibilities of film to the world of science and government institutions. Though now almost forgotten, the publication of these works was well-received and debated in many French journals.7 Matuszewski (1856-1943?), a well-known Warsaw photographer and cameraman, probably worked for the Lumiere brothers in Poland, France, and Russia where, in 1897, the Tsar awarded him the title of court cinematographer. As a cameraman travelling across Europe, Matuszewski was interested primarily in the recording function of film, as an eyewitness to history. Film, according to Matuszewski, provides new research methods for the science of history by supplying it with "direct vision." In his studies, he considers "living photographs" capable of truthful documentation of reality. Unlike traditional photography, which is capable of distortions and falsifications, "living photographs" can present only "absolute truth."8 This opinion, interestingly, Matuszewski grounds on the technical impossibility of altering thousands of pictures (frames). Matuszewski, regarded in Poland as the pioneer of scientific cinema, stresses cinema's educational and cultural role in bringing nations together. He postulates the creation of film archives, a "storehouse of historical cinematography," functioning as a "new source of history. …

Part 1 Editor's Foreword Part 2 Preface Part 3 Acknowledgments Part 4 Reader's Note Part 5 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Part 6 Chronology Part 7 Introduction Part 8 THE DICTIONARY Part 9 Appendix A: Fifty Biggest Box-Office Hits on Polish Screens from 1945 to 2000 Part 10 Appendix B: Twenty Best Polish Television Films Part 11 Bibliography Part 12 About the Author

Since its first appearance in 1978, C. (Christopher) J. Koch’s novel, The Year of Living Dangerously, has received a great deal of critical and scholarly attention. Apart from being the winner of the National Book Council Award for Australian literature and the recipient of the Age Book of the Year Award, this novel was also successfully adapted for the screen by Peter Weir in 1982. Weir’s acclaimed film, with Koch’s involvement as a co-scriptwriter, has only increased the popularity of the novel.

... Its protagonist, Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwillowicz), is an honest bricklayer at the Nowa Huta steelworks near Cracow, an exemplary worker courted and ... by Polish standards, who is not another victim of history but almost a folk hero who beats the system with wisdom and wit. ...

... 1991), Kijowski's Stan strachu, (State of Terror, 1990), Krzystek's Ostatiti prom (The Last Ferry, 1989), and particularly Tadeusz Trzos-Rastawiecki's ... AWOL, 1993), Jaroslaw Zamojda's Miode Wilki (Fast Lane, 1995) and, in particular, in Wladyslaw Pasikowski's Kroll (1991), Psy ...

This article focuses on the mutual interest of Krzysztof Kieślowski and his mentor Kazimierz Karabasz in undistinguished characters captured “in depth rather than breadth.” Faces shown in close-ups tell the story of “irreparable injustice that so visibly scars the human face

... films: politics, social issues, Polish history. ... Wojciech Nowak's Smierc dziecioroba (Death of the Kidsmaker, 1991) belongs to a different kind of realism. ... Do Not Shine in the Sky over Poland: The Absence of Popular Cinema in Poland," in Popular European Cinema, ed. Richard ...

... In combining themes of isolation and images of landscape, Weir ac-centuates an aspect central to ... not only in work-ing-class values but is constitutive of Australian male self-image. ... The cultural clash was sharpened by the discord between English and Aus-tralian manner and ...