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Post by petrolino on Feb 9, 2019 15:33:50 GMT
In this thread, please share your favourite films, directors and actors from Poland.
You might like to talk about cultural aspects of films you enjoy, it'd be great to learn more about the history, the people and the country.
Please also consider Polish filmmakers and performers who've worked in other countries (eg. Agnieszka Holland), or perhaps people you like with Polish ancestry currently working in Hollywood or elsewhere (eg. Eli Roth).
I prefer not to try and set any limits on this topic, all contributions are welcome.
Thank you.
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Post by petrolino on Feb 9, 2019 21:59:55 GMT
The first cinema in Poland (then occupied by the Russian Empire) was founded in the industrial city of Lodz which remains a filmmaking centre to this day. Many Polish filmmakers have studied at the The Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz which was founded in 1948. The state-run monopoly Film Polski was established in 1945 and this led to the establishment of the Warsaw Documentary Film Studio in Warsaw in 1950. Alvernia Studios was built on the outskirts of Krakow to be a futuristic film lot with new age technologies. Mordka Towbin's short film 'Prussian Culture' (1908) is said to be the oldest surviving Polish film yet it was only found in 2000, having been believed to have been lost for 92 years. The comedy short 'Antos For The First Time In Warsaw' (1908) also survives. Hope never dies in this regard; just three years ago, in 2015, Aleksander Hertz's feature film 'People With No Tomorrow' (1921) was found in Germany, having been a "lost" film for 94 years. I've seen hardly any silent Polish features though I've seen a few short films. Experimental filmmakers Jean Epstein and Marie Epstein (brother & sister) were from Warsaw but they both lived and worked in France.
"Kazimierz Proszynski was a member of the Warsaw Photographic Society from a young age, no doubt influenced by his family; his grandfather managed a photographic business in Minsk from 1839, and his father was an enthusiastic amateur photographer. Shortly after commencing his studies at Liege Polytechnic in 1893, he started experimenting with cinematography. There are claims that by the end of 1894 he had made his own apparatus, the Pleograf. By 1898, he had developed and demonstrated the Bio-pleograf. This apparatus (like Max Skadanowsky's first projector) used two films moving alternately, so that an image was always being projected, with no period of darkness between; an arrangement that was very successful in reducing flicker, but was too cumbersome to be widely adopted. Demonstrations in 1899 included some of his own films, made from a single negative. In 1902/3 the Pleograf Company was formed in Warsaw to promote his invention, and within a year or two a single-film model had been devised. In 1906 or 1907 he returned to complete his studies in Liege, taking his engineering degree in 1908. He continued working on the problem of reducing flicker, and was instrumental in promoting the three-blade shutter, which was a simple but important improvement in projection design. Shortly after he demonstrated this in Paris, it was adopted by the Gaumont Company and other equipment manufacturers. By 1910 he had developed the Aeroscope (originally Autopleograf) camera, which used compressed air as a power source, enabling it to be hand-held. This went into production in England in 1912, first by Newman & Sinclair, later by F. Van Neck. It became very popular, particularly for aerial photography, and was used by film-makers for many years, including the nature and travel photographer Cherry Kearton, and newsreel and War Office 'kinematographer' Geoffrey Malins. Between 1911/12 and 1915 Proszinski worked in London with the Warwick Trading Company, and experimented with pneumatic synchronisation of films and sound disc. The Oko (Polish for 'eye'), an amateur camera/projector of novel design, used a 12 cm-wide film with the miniature images in rows of fifteen, which were scanned from left to right, giving twenty minutes of projection from only three feet of film. It was patented in 1912, but the war disrupted progress; in 1923 limited production started in Poland, but had ceased by 1925, by which time only about 100 examples had been made. The inventor stayed on in Warsaw; his later projects included the 'autolektor', a device for recording the text of books on sound film for the blind."
- Stephen Herbert, Who's Who Of Victorian Cinema
"Little is known of Boleslaw Matuszewski outside the period 1895-1901; he was born in 1856 in Pinczow, Poland, he appeared with his brother Zygmunt in the circle around the Warsaw photography studio Paryska Fotografia Lux - Sigismond & Co. in 1895, and his method of fixing photographs in enamel appeared in Paris in July 1901 in the brochure Les portraits sur maux vitrifés. But his activities in his six known years are an important legacy of early cinema. He may have been a Lumière operator and involved in filming the coronation of Tsar Nikolas II (he was certainly one of the Tsar's court cinematographers for a period), and he began making films for Lux-Sigismond by the middle of 1897, including Operacje chirurgiczne w Warszawie, the record of a surgical operation, and Podroze, uroczystosci i polowania w Spale i Bialowiezy, scenes of folklore in north-eastern Poland. He arranged many screenings in both Warsaw and Paris; É-J. Marey spoke highly of his work in scientific film in 1899; and the year before he had presented the medical film of Dr Eugène-Louis Doyen in Warsaw. His most significant achievement was an astonishing pamphlet published in Paris on 25 March 1898, Une nouvelle source de l'histoire, in which he not only affirmed his belief in the authenticity, exactitude and precision of the filmed image, but also called for the establishment of a national archive to preserve motion pictures as important evidence of lives and activities, an archive that would have the same authority and standing as the Bibliothèque Nationale. His second booklet, La photographie animée of the same year discusses the applications of the cinema in the fine arts, industry, medicine, education, science, and military life. Remarkably foresighted, to all reports indisputably energetic, Matuszewski made three further folklore films in Poland in late 1898 and disappears from the historical record."
- Deac Rossell, Who's Who Of Victorian Cinema
Alvernia Studios in Krakow
Aleksander Hertz (Born: 1879 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland] - Died: January 26, 1928 (age 49) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
'The Polish Dancer' (1917 – Aleksander Hertz)
Pola Negri
Actress Pola Negri is an icon of silent cinema but she worked more in Germany and the USA than in her homeland. I believe the same is true of Hungarian-Slovak actress Lya De Putti, while Hungarian actress Vilma Banky worked in Austria, France and the USA upon leaving home.
The runaway romance 'The Polish Dancer' is on the borderline between short & feature-length. Clocking in at around 43 minutes, it probably qualifies by most festival measures as being a short subject film.
Ryszard Ordyński (Born: October 5, 1878 in Maków Podhalanski, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Maków Podhalanski, Malopolskie, Poland] - Died: August 13, 1953 (age 74) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
'Pan Tadeusz' (1928 - Ryszard Ordynski)
"Modern readers are often unfamiliar with the long-standing partnership between Poland and Lithuania. Although today they are two separate countries, over the past 1000 years the borders defining which was which moved around a lot, even blurred – as in the proud history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) or the formation of the Soviet Bloc in the 20th century, when both Poland and Lithuania were tragically absorbed into the Soviet Empire. More experienced readers might baulk at the idea that this most recent history is already being forgotten, but it is enough to speak to young people in Poland today to realise they often have very little idea about the geo-political realities of Communism and how very different Poland looked when their parents were growing up. Even in those times past, when it was firmly established on the map of Europe, history was often unkind to the Polish nation. Throughout his life, Mickiewicz was forced to move around, in search of work, safety and political influence. He campaigned for Polish independence, writing in Polish and travelling to places such as Russia, Germany, France, Italy and Turkey to organise resistance against Poland's enemies. After the outbreak of the November Insurrection in 1830, he tried repeatedly to return to his land of birth but was forced instead to settle in Paris and Italy, where he made many attempts to champion the cause of Polish liberation. All these facts are all-too-well-known to the millions of Poles forced to learn about his life in school or university, but how many of us remember that Mickiewicz was one of the first in Europe to write a science-fiction novel? His A History of the Future was unfortunately destroyed, by the author himself (before I could get my hands on it and translate the whole thing), but we know of its existence from numerous notes and letters found after his death. Many other stories abound about him – that he was a very early fan of scuba diving (aqualung technology was just being developed at the time), or that he was a pioneer in the world of ‘start-ups’ – Mickiewicz was a well-known fan of photography, which at the time involved much cumbersome (and potentially explosive!) equipment. Legend has it that Mickiewicz was approached by the inventor of one of the world's first portable cameras, and was keen to finance the venture – however, considering how poor our Polish Bard was with personal finances, and as a result always short of money – the idea of pocket cameras would have to wait for another century or so before taking off."
- Marek Kazmierski, 'Translating Mickiewicz : Poland's International Man Of Mystery'
'Pan Tadeusz : The Rock Opera'
'Pan Tadeusz' (1834) is the national poem of Poland, written by philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. It's inspired painters, songwriters, sculptors, filmmakers and other artists. It's considered by European literary scholars to be one of the great epic poems of the 19th century.
Andrzej Wajda's 'Pan Tadeusz' (1999)
'Kaprys Polski' - Grażyna Bacewicz
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Post by petrolino on Feb 10, 2019 1:41:09 GMT
The early sound era of Polish cinema reflects a strong desire to move forward through entertainment. There were some political films being made but they risked coming under heavy censorship. These are movies I've enjoyed.
"It was in the last decade of the inter-war period that Polish cinema became a national institution, with a body of highly professional work developed in the later years. Films began to experience a deep taste of the artistic with the establishment of the START association. This group of directors wanted to promote such flair, and technological advances coupled with the yearning popular desire for entertainment meant production could only mature. Stars like Mira Zimińska and Konrad Tom who had already found theatrical fame continued to make the move from stage to screen, sustaining their stage personas and thus a cult of celebrity. It has even been noted that production itself became stage-like, with long and medium shots predominating, and the theatrical as an integral element. Other stars, like Nora Ney, became famous solely for their films, which were produced in the late 1920s and 1930s, suggesting the industry was opening up to new talent as well as already celebrated individuals. Escapism remained a strong theme with films concerning exploration and the exotic often breakout successes, like the exhilarating (though now dubious) Czarna Perła (Black Pearl) from 1934, which was headed by the interbellum star, Eugeniusz Bodo, alongside the also highly-renowned Reri. Patriotic films were undeniably still popular, with the traditional trope of the brave Pole versus the primitive local popular, but comedies were most dominant. Polish film was returning to the humorous roots it did best, and the theatre and cabaret stars from Morskie Oko and Qui Pro Quo who flooded the cast lists were well prepared. Bodo and Dymsza starred in the now iconic Paweł i Gaweł (Pawel and Gawel) in 1938. Its independence and capitalism themes, as well as its melodrama, contributed to its classic status."
- Juliette Bretan, creator of 'Visions Of The Vistula'
Michał Waszyński (Born: September 29, 1904 in Kowel, Poland, Russian Empire [now Kovel, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine] - Died: February 20, 1965 (age 60) in Madrid, Spain)
'The Toy' (1933, Zabawka - Michal Waszynski)
A sensitive portrait of a cabaret artist who believes she's doomed to romance.
'Black Pearl' (1934, Czarna perła - Michal Waszynski)
An exotic crime drama in which a Polish sailor finds romance on the island of Tahiti. French-Polynesian dancer Anne Chevalier secured two coveted roles in the 1930s, the other coming with her portrayal of Reri in F.W. Murnau's mystical adventure 'Tabu : A Story Of The South Seas' (1931).
'The Dybuk' (1937, Dybuk - Michal Waszynski)
'The Dybuk' is a ghost story based on a play by Sholom Ansky. It observes practises and rituals associated with Yiddish culture.
'Ja Śpiewam Piosenki' - Hanka Ordonówna
Józef Lejtes (Born: November 22, 1901 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland] - Died: May 27, 1983 (age 81) in Santa Monica, California, USA)
'Girls Of Nowolipki' (1937, Dziewczeta z Nowolipek - Joseph Lejtes)
The original film version of Pola Gojawiczynska's novel 'Girls Of Nowolipki' tells the tale of four girls living in Warsaw under the threat of war. Also worth seeing is Barbara Sass' version made in 1986 which compliments Joseph Lejtes' original vision.
Jadwiga Andrzejewska, Tamara Wiszniewska, Anna Jaraczówna & Elżbieta Barszczewska
Konrad Tom (Born: April 9, 1887 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland] - Died: August 9, 1957 (age 70) in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA)
'Ada, Don't Do That' (1936, Ada! To nie wypada! - Konrad Tom)
'The Lottery Prince' (1937, Ksiazatko - Stanislaw Szebego & Konrad Tom)
'Forgotten Melody' (1938, Zapomniana melodia - Jan Fethke & Konrad Tom)
Three comedies engineered by a Polish institution, Yiddish lyricist and musician Konrad Tom.
Jerzy Zarzycki (Born: January 11, 1911 in Lódz, Poland, Russian Empire [now Lódz, Lódzkie, Poland] - Died: January 2, 1971 (age 59) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
'People Of The Vistula' (1938, Ludzie Wisly - Aleksander Ford & Jerzy Zarzycki)
A landmark in Polish cinema that's co-directed by Aleksander Ford (who was born in Kiev, Ukraine) with poet Jerzy Zarzycki. Its pure lyricism and adventurous spirit evokes works as divergent as Vsevolod Pudovkin's constructivist picture 'Storm Over Asia' (1928) and Jean Vigo's boat trip 'L'Atalante' (1934).
Ina Benita
Leonard Buczkowski (Born: August 5, 1900 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland] - Died: February 19, 1967 (age 66) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
'Forbidden Songs' (1946, Zakazane piosenki - Leonard Buczkowski)
Made shortly after the end of the 2nd World War, the musical 'Forbidden Songs' presents a series of vignettes drawn during the German occupation of Warsaw.
Danuta Szaflarska
Wanda Jakubowska ( Born: October 10, 1907 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland] - Died: February 24, 1998 (age 90) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
'The Last Stage' (1948, Ostatni etap - Wanda Jakubowska)
This unsettling, politicised drama is the first film I know of to deal directly with the horrors of the holocaust. Everybody should try to see it.
Zofia Mrozowska
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Post by petrolino on Feb 16, 2019 22:35:30 GMT
Polish Animation in the Puppet World
Polish animation has a long and illustrious history which has made the country a centre for academic study. Some of the nation's most prominent live-action filmmakers studied painting or art at college or university. From the beginning, Polish animation reflected strong cultural ties with France and Italy, delving deep inside the avant-garde. The Polish tradition of puppeteering has also played a pivotal role in this genre's development. Though some animators only made short subject films, there are others who branched out into features. I like these four experimental Polish animators. They all have short films that are currently available to watch on youtube. For each animator, I've selected a pair of favourites.
"Away from the vast studios and huge budgets of animation behemoths like Disney in the U.S., or Studio Ghibli in Japan, the 20th century saw some equally pioneering moving image work emerge from some far less visible corners of the world. One of the most fascinating of these is Poland, a European country with a painfully blighted political past that saw it not only invaded by the Nazis in the first of Hitler’s rampages, but later fall under Communist regimes that made production of non-state sanctioned creative work, film especially, a tricky beast. What’s remarkable is that even with this backdrop of war and political oppression, Poland has still marked itself out as one of the most influential and innovative countries in terms of animation production: one of the world’s first animated cartoons (and the first ever stop-motion animation) Piękna Lukanida (Beautiful Lukanida) was created there in 1910 by Władysław Starewicz; and a few decades later the renowned Polish Film School movement was born, which produced the likes of Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda."
- Emily Gosling, 'Polish Animation Transformed The Discipline Through Cut-outs + Creative Solutions To Censorship'
The Bialystok Puppet Theatre
Background : Two Historic Masters of Animation
The pioneer who got the ball rolling wasn't actually born in Poland though he recognised himself as a Polish artist. Wladyslaw Starewicz was born in Moscow, Russia on August 8, 1882. He lived in Russia, Lithuania and Estonia growing up, then moved to Poland. Later in life, he confirmed a longstanding tradition for Polish animators and puppeteers by relocating to work in France. Starewicz was a genius who was ahead of his time.
"Władysław Starewicz (born in 1882) was the spiritual guide of Polish animation. He was an amateur entomologist, a caricaturist and a film-maker. He was a leading world figure in puppet animation. Despite living in Russia and later France, he called himself a Polish artist. His first animated film was created in 1910 in Kaunas (Lithuania) – The Battle of the Stag Beetles. His intention was to film real animals to make a nature film but the creatures were scared off by the camera lights. Instead, he used puppet animation to create an insect battle scene. Animated beetles also starred in his first animated puppet film – The Beautiful Lukanida (1911) and The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912). In the former they played Greek mythological figures – Helen and Paris, while in the latter the beetles were unfaithful lovers. Starewicz's most successful works are The Ant and the Grasshopper (1912) – an adaptation of a fairytale by Ivan Krylov that, thanks to a record 140 copies, was seen by viewers all over Europe and America, and The Tale of the Fox (1930) – the world’s first full-length puppet animation. His entire artistic output is a collection of 70 films, including a dozen or so features – a record-breaking figure at the time."
- Bartosz Staszczyszyn, Culture Poland
Wladyslaw Starewicz
In America, another animation genius was at work at during the silent era. Max Fleischer was an artist and inventor from Krakow in south Poland. He co-founded Fleischer Studios with his younger brother Dave Fleischer who was born in New York. The Fleischers made numerous cartoons featuring Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman.
The Fleischers' influence can still be felt today. Their background and animation work served as inspiration to the creators of the American sitcom 'Caroline In The City' in which Lea Thompson plays cartoonist Caroline Duffy. In the show, Caroline has a park monument in her hometown, Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Her colorist for the 'Caroline In The City' comic strip she draws is Richard Karinsky (Malcolm Gets) who sometimes works in Paris.
Max Fleischer & Betty Boop
Former ballet dancer Lea Thompson as cartoonist Caroline Duffy
Franciszka Themerson (Born: June 28, 1907 in Warsaw, Poland - Died: June 29, 1988 (age 81) in Poland)
'Richard Saltoun Gallery is pleased to present Franciszka Themerson UBU, an extraordinary solo exhibition of Polish artist Franciszka Themerson (1907-1988), and her first with the gallery. On 10th December 1896 the Theatre de l’Oeuvre in Paris staged the debut performance of a play that stunned and outraged the audience but kicked down the door to Modernism, the movement that transformed 20th Century culture. Ubu Roi by playwright Alfred Jarry was banned immediately after that first performance. The language was foul, the costumes ridiculous, the gestures violent, and its story, a farcical parody of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Actors, dressed like clumsy versions of old wooden folklore marionettes, belched ‘Merdre!’ (‘Shit! with an additional ‘r’) and growled in strange unplaceable accents, behind masks. Props were cut from cardboard, and even Ubu’s (the King) sceptre was a toilet brush. Ubu was the first play in history to draw attention to the artificiality of theatre conventions and reject 19th century methods for creating the illusion of the real. The play’s punk innovations marked the turn of the Avant-garde. Franciszka Themerson spent most of her artistic mid-life immersed in an obsession with Ubu. In 1948, impassioned by the seminal cultural importance of Jarry’s play, she and her husband and lifelong collaborator Stefan, published the first ever English translation of Ubu Roi on Gaberbocchus Press. Jarry’s slapstick, clown-like imagery marked an affinity with Themerson, whose paintings and drawings were similarly crude and comic, often mocking social stereotypes and classes. The published translation was a phenomenal success. In 1951 London’s ICA held a groundbreaking performance where actors sat at a long table and recited the script, whilst wearing elaborately grotesque theatrical papier-mâché masks made by Themerson. A decade later she designed a puppet production of the play at Marionetteatern, Stockholm, where the characters morphed into disturbing life sized puppets carrying wooden flat cut-out 'body-masks', reminiscent of Dadaist costume. The play toured globally for 20 years and was made into a film.'
- Press release from the Richard Saltoun Gallery in London
'The Eye & The Ear' (1945, Oki i ucho) with music by Karol Szymanowski
Jan Lenica (Born: January 4, 1928 in Poznan, Wielkopolskie, Poland - Died: October 5, 2001 (age 73) in Berlin, Germany)
'Monsieur Tête' (1959) / 'Labyrinth' (1963, Labirynt)
Witold Giersz (Born: February 26, 1927 in Poraj, Slaskie, Poland)
'Awaiting' (1962, Oczekiwanie) / 'Fire' (1976, Pozar)
Daniel Szczechura (Born: July 11, 1930 in Wilczogeby, Mazowieckie, Poland)
'Journey' (1970, Podróz) / 'Dobranocka' (1997)
"By the early 1960s, Poland had become a world leader in the production of artist-driven, often daringly experimental animation, with a signature style — the “Polish School” — that combined a certain Polish pessimism, rooted in the country’s historical and political circumstances, with a remarkable visual creativity rooted in Poland's rich tradition of graphic design."
- Magdalena Sroka, Director of the Polish Film Institute
The Wroclaw Puppet Theatre
'Polonaise in F-Sharp Minor' - Frédéric Chopin
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Post by petrolino on Feb 17, 2019 0:57:04 GMT
I haven't seen many Polish films from the 1950s. I'd like to see more. Among the directors I've not seen anything from are some prominent figures in Polish cinema who made waves in the 1950s. This includes documentarian Jan Lomnicki and Tadeusz Konwicki who was once head of the KADR film studio. I have seen a few films from this decade though. It seems like Polish cinema in the 1950s was affected by some major industry changes.
'Born Moyshe Lipshutz, Aleksander Ford went to Warsaw in the late 1920s to study art. He was an early member of the avant-garde cine-club START, making short films — one on the working-class neighborhood where he grew up, another a portrait of Warsaw street vendors — that anticipated Italian neorealism in their use of staged documentary. In 1933, Ford went to Palestine, sending footage back to Poland where it was edited into newsreels and a short feature; Ford also made Sabra (also known as Ḥalutsim) a fictional narrative on the Jewish–Arab conflict that starred Hanna Rovina and other members of Habimah. The movie was released in Warsaw in both Polish and Hebrew versions. Ford’s 1934 feature Przebudzenie (Awakening), based on a poem cycle by Julian Tuwim, is the story of three high school girls who assert their independence; it was heavily censored. The following year Ford’s Mir kumen on (We’re on Our Way), a Yiddish-language staged documentary on the Jewish Labor Bund’s Medem Sanatorium for children, was banned altogether, although there were evidently a number of clandestine or private screenings. Ford spent the war years in the Soviet Union, where he co-organized and headed the Kościuszko Division’s film unit and the Film Studio of the Polish Army in Lublin; the latter’s first project (as well as the first documentary of Nazi death camps) was Ford’s Majdanek. In 1945, the Polish film industry was nationalized as Film Polski with Ford as its head. His Ulica Graniczna (Border Street), a Czech–Polish coproduction shot in 1946 and 1947 mainly at the Barrandov studios in Prague, detailed the war’s impact on a Warsaw neighborhood. The film dealt frankly with Polish antisemitism and the Nazi extermination of the Jews; its climax was the ghetto uprising. Delayed for political reasons, Ulica Graniczna had its world premiere at the 1948 Venice Film Festival and was first released abroad; by the time it opened domestically in 1949, Ford was no longer head of Film Polski. Nevertheless, Ford continued to direct throughout the 1950s; his achievements include Piątka z ulicy Barskiej (Five Boys from Barska Street), which won an award at Cannes, and the monumental historical epic Krzyżacy (Crusaders; 1960), about the Teutonic Knights. He also headed an individual film production unit until he was dismissed during the anti-Zionist campaign of 1968. Ford subsequently immigrated to West Germany. Among the films he directed in exile was a West German–Israeli coproduction about Janusz Korczak, released in 1974.'
- The YIVO Encyclopedia Of Jews In Eastern Europe
Aleksander Ford
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Andrzej Wajda (Born: March 6, 1926 in Suwalki, Podlaskie, Poland - Died: October 9, 2016 (age 90) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Filmmaker Andrzej Wajda created a body of work that's varied and interesting. He directed many war films which were a staple part of the Polish diet, as well as political dramas and historical pieces. He tackled projects in different genres and sometimes worked abroad.
Wajda studied painting at the Academy Of Fine Arts in Krakow and this is reflected in his imagery. There's many films he made I'd like to see - top of my list are 'Siberian Lady Macbeth' (1961), 'Everything For Sale' (1968), 'The Birch Wood' (1970), 'The Wedding' (1973), 'Without Anesthesia' (1978) & 'The Maids Of Wilko' (1979).
Andrzej Wajda
Martin Scorsese presents 'Masterpieces Of Polish Cinema'
'A Generation' (1955, Pokolenie - Andrzej Wajda) / 'Canal' (1956, Kanał - Andrzej Wajda) / 'Ashes And Diamonds' (1958, Popiół i diament - Andrzej Wajda)
Andrzej Wajda's war trilogy consists of three films set during the dark days of the 2nd World War.
"The chaos and destruction wrought by the second world war meant that Poland had to reinvent its film industry from the ground up. The subsequent Soviet occupation meant that cinema became a state concern; the director of Film Polski, the government production company, was Aleksander Ford, a well-organised Stalinist who had joined the Red Army during the war. Here's a bit of footage of Ford in 1959, shooting 'Knights of the Teutonic Order' (1960), Poland's anti-German answer to Eisenstein's 'Alexander Nevsky'. One plus point: the Łódź film school was founded in 1948, with virtually every Polish film-maker of substance in the postwar years passing through its doors. One of its graduates, Andrzej Wajda, was apprenticed to Ford and then given a chance to direct his own film. The result was the revelatory A Generation (1955), in which Wajda emerged as an independent and fresh voice and the leader of a new spirit in Polish cinema. 'A Generation' was the story of a callow youth sucked into the anti-Nazi resistance; Wajda would go on to produce two more in his "war trilogy", 'Kanal' (1956, below) and 'Ashes and Diamonds' (1958) Meanwhile a contemporary of Wajda's, who even had a small role in 'A Generation', was plotting his escape from postwar Poland. Roman Polanski made one extraordinary Polish production, 'Knife in the Water' (1962): a three-hander filmed with such impeccable stylishness that it earned an Oscar nomination for best foreign film and allowed Polanski to head off to the west and shoot 'Repulsion' in London."
- Andrew Pulver, 'A Short History Of Polish Cinema'
"As for many other people, my introduction to Polish cinema came with Andrzej Wajda’s trilogy: 'Ashes and Diamonds', 'Kanal' and 'A Generation' – actually, they were released out of order here in the US, and we saw 'Kanal' first, followed quickly by 'Ashes', both in 1961, and then we got to see 'A Generation' later. Among the three, it was 'Ashes and Diamonds' that had the greatest impact on me. It announced the arrival of a master film-maker. It was one of the last pictures that gave us a real testament of the impact of the war, on Wajda and on his nation. It introduced us to a whole school of film-making, related to what was coming out of the Soviet Union but quite distinct. And it gave us Zbigniew Cybulski, a great actor and a new generational icon. But all Wajda’s films made an impression on me. Whenever I had the opportunity to see one I was impressed by his mastery."
- Martin Scorsese, 'My Passion For The Humour And Panic Of Polish Cinema'
Zbigniew Cybulski
'Innocent Sorcerers' (1960, Niewinni czarodzieje - Andrzej Wajda)
A vibrant document of the underground Polish art scene. Two future filmmakers are among the cast - Roman Polanski & Jerzy Skolimowski.
Krystyna Stypułkowska
'Landscape After The Battle' (1970, Krajobraz po bitwie - Andrzej Wajda)
A heavy drama based on the writings of Holocaust survivor and author Tadeusz Borowski.
Stanisława Celińska & Daniel Olbrychski
'The Promised Land' (1975, Ziemia obiecana - Andrzej Wajda)
A political drama based on a novel by Wladyslaw Reymont. The story is set in the industrial city of Lodz which was a hotbed of cinematic activity in the 1970s.
Anna Nehrebecka
'„ Jak Ty Nic Nie Rozumiesz ”' - Kalina Jędrusik
'Man Of Marble' (1977, Człowiek z marmuru - Andrzej Wajda) / 'Man Of Iron' (1981, Człowiek z żelaza - Andrzej Wajda)
'Man Of Marble' is a political thriller concerning government conspiracy and union corruption. 'Man Of Iron' is a political drama about worker's rights. Both films reflect the struggle of the Solidarity movement which swept across Poland as different industries joined the fight. Both films demonstrate the importance of journalism and the value of a free press. I think these movies could be shown in schools everywhere as there are lessons that can be learned that are universal.
"It's impossible to separate Wajda's artistic trajectory from Poland's messy political history. His first trilogy of films — 'A Generation' (1954), 'Canal' (1956), and 'Ashes and Diamonds' (1958) — is about his country's resistance during World War II. Two others, 'Man of Marble' (1977) and 'Man of Iron' (1981), may sound like they’re about Superman's cousins, but are actually about the lives of Polish workers under communism. Being a prolific filmmaker was difficult to pull off under Poland’s repressive communist regime, which often censored and suppressed films it didn’t agree with: When Wajda formed a filmmaking collective to mentor younger artists in the early 1970s, the government shut it down. But he kept on doggedly, and his later films continue his early themes, many of them love stories set among the chaos and wreckage of war. After the fall of communism in 1989, Wajda even served a term in the Polish Senate."
- Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
"With Polish cinema, what I especially respond to is the mixture of passion, meticulous craftsmanship, dynamic deep focal-length compositions, moral dilemmas and religious conflicts, often done with a very sharp sense of humour. Humour and tragedy are very close in Polish cinema. Plus, the struggle against official censorship and government clampdowns gives Polish cinema that was made during the communist era a heightened urgency. You can feel it in the rhythm, the intensity, even in pictures that have no obvious political subject matter. Or, in pictures that take the then-contemporary political situation and transpose it to an earlier period. For instance, 'Danton' by Andrzej Wajda, which he made in France during the Solidarity period in the early 1980s. There’s a restlessness, an unease, a desperation, an existential panic."
- Martin Scorsese, The Guardian
Opening title sequence : 'Man Of Marble'
'The Conductor' (1980, Dyrygent - Andrzej Wajda)
A film questioning the role of the artist.
Krystyna Janda
'Danton' (1983 - Andrzej Wajda)
Andrzej Wajda contributed to the French anthology project 'Love at Twenty' (1962), alongside filmmakers Marcel Ophuls and Francois Truffaut (I've not seen this movie). Wajda returned to France in the 1980s to work on several different projects. 'Danton' was the most successful of these projects, a biopic of Georges Danton that's set during the French Revolution. The source material is the play 'The Danton Case' which was written by Polish dramatist Stanislawa Przybyszewska.
Wojciech Pszoniak & Bogusław Linda
'A Love In Germany' (1983, Eine Liebe in Deutschland - Andrzej Wajda)
'A Love In Germany' was eclipsed by the success of 'Danton' which is a shame as it seems to have fallen off the radar. It's a pensive character study set during the 2nd World War that's based on a book by Rolf Hochhuth.
Hanna Schygulla
'The Possessed' (1988, Les Possédés - Andrzej Wajda)
In Russia in the 19th century, revolutionaries seek to overthrow the existing order through nihilistic pose. 'The Possessed' is an adaptation of a novel of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
"The course which the film version of 'The Possessed' travelled from 1974 to 1984 had been long, dark and plagued with failure. It seemed to me that I knew a fair amount about this work, more than about other novels I had transferred to the screen. Above all - this was the main source of the stage impact of 'The Possessed' - I myself had adapted it into a play. So I had no doubt that I would be able to do it again and 'The Possessed' would take command of the screen and of the audience. All the same, the first unsuccessful version of the scipt should have warned me, making me search for an adaptation less influenced by the theatre. Dostojevsky's prose is theatrical, as his characters speak incessantly, driven by a desire to arrange their relationships with others and with the world by means of thoughts expressed in words. The stage is the place where much is said. Anybody who allows the characters of Dostojevsky to speak, even if he makes no attempt to stage the ideas of the dialogue, stands a fair chance to come near the essence of the issues presented in the novels of this cruelly talented writer."
- Andrzej Wajda
Isabelle Huppert
'Katyn' (2007, Katyń - Andrzej Wajda)
'Katyn' is about the 1940 Katyn massacre. I can't imagine what it was like for Andrzej Wajda to make this film. It's powerful because it's personal - Wajda lost his father in the massacre.
'Rebeka' - Sława Przybylska
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Tadeusz Chmielewski (Born: June 7, 1927 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Lódzkie, Poland - Died: December 4, 2016 (age 89) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Tadeusz Chmielewski
'Eve Wants To Sleep' (1958, Ewa chce spac - Tadeusz Chmielewski)
'Eve Wants To Sleep' is a disarming comedy in which a student arrives early for enrolment and has trouble finding safe accommodation.
Barbara Kwiatkowska
'How I Unleashed World War II' (1970, Jak rozpętałem drugą wojnę światową - Tadeusz Chmielewski)
This wartime farce is tremendously popular in Poland. So much so, I feel like every Pole I've talked to about films has seen this movie.
Elżbieta Starostecka
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Post by petrolino on Feb 17, 2019 2:44:46 GMT
Andrzej Munk (Born: October 16, 1920 in Kraków, Malopolskie, Poland - Died: September 20, 1961 (age 40) in Lowicz, Lódzkie, Poland)
When I found myself being drawn to Polish culture as a young boy, it was filmmaker Andrzej Munk who turned me on to the national cinema. I considered it a tragedy he died relatively young back then, just thinking of the movies he might have gone on to make. Andrzej Wajda stepped up and hauled Polish cinema into a new age and he was among the first to acknowledge Munk's section of this journey.
"It’s the sunglasses that are the clue. If you want to understand the influence of Polish cinema on American director Martin Scorsese, look at Zbigniew Cybulski, “the Polish James Dean”. In Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds (1958), Cybulski plays Maciek, a young patriot fighting against the communists in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War who is seldom seen without his pair of shades. “I was overwhelmed by the film: the masterful direction, the powerful story, the striking visual imagery, and the shocking performance by Zbigniew Cybulski,” Scorsese recalled. “I was so struck by the film, it affected me so deeply, that I paid small homage by giving Charlie (Harvey Keitel) a pair of similar sunglasses in Mean Streets.” Fifty years after Scorsese first saw Ashes and Diamonds as a young student at New York University, he has curated a programme of Masterpieces of Polish Cinema which is now touring the UK, with Ashes and Diamonds and other Cybulski movies prominent. Somehow, it comes as a surprise to learn that the sunglasses worn in Scorsese’s early masterpiece by Keitel, the quintessential American method actor, were modelled on those of a character in a communist-era Polish movie. Cybulski’s sunglasses aren’t affectation. As he tells the girl he lures to his hotel room, they’re a “souvenir” of his unrequited love for the homeland. “During the (Warsaw) uprising, I walked too much in the sewers.” The Polish actor comes from a very different background to that of Dean or Marlon Brando, but his appeal is similar. As the doomed hero, he has the same mix of swagger and vulnerability as well as the tousled hair. It adds to his mystique that, like Dean, he died young, aged 39. “We didn’t know James Dean at that time, but we had a feeling that this was a new protagonist, a new character. We didn’t have similar characters in the past,” the 75-year-old Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, who helped Scorsese curate the season, recalls of Cybulski. “He brought with him some aura of defeat. He was beaten as a figure. He was resisting the pressure. He was not a traditional hero – that is, a winner. He was a loser; and we as a nation, we felt we were losers. After World War Two, we were theoretically in the camp of Allies as winners, but we had been sent to be a satellite country of the Soviet Union.” In the year in which a Polish movie – Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida – won an Oscar, it’s a fitting moment to revisit these classics of Polish cinema, handpicked by Scorsese. The movies are very different from one another. They include historical epics (Aleksander Ford’s Black Cross), films railing against capital punishment (Krzysztof Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Killing), absurdist comedies (Krzysztof Zanussi’s Camouflage), ironic celebrations of wartime heroism (Andrzej Munk’s Eroica) and surrealistic fantasies (Wojciech J. Has’s The Hourglass Sanatorium). There are also political satires (Wajda’s Man of Iron), stories of demonic possession (Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Mother Joan of the Angels), films celebrating rebellious youth culture (Wajda’s Innocent Sorcerers, also starring Cybulski alongside a youthful Roman Polanski) and even a New Wave boxing movie (Jerzy Skolimowski’s Walkover.)"
- Geoffrey Macnab attends the Polish Classics season curated by Martin Scorsese in 2015, The Independent
Andrzej Munk
'Man On The Tracks' (1956, Człowiek na torze - Andrzej Munk)
The story of a railway worker. This film influenced a number of Italian political filmmakers such as Mario Monicelli, Damiano Damiani and Ettore Scola. The original story was the brainchild of author Jerzy Stefan Stawinski.
Kazimierz Opaliński
'W Każdą Pogodę' - Andrzej Trzaskowski
'Herosim' (1958, Eroica - Andrzej Munk)
Andrzej Munk works again with trusted writer Jerzy Stefan Stawinski to create an irreverent view of the 2nd World War that raised eyebrows all over near-neighbouring Hungary.
Barbara Połomska & Leon Niemczyk
'Bad Luck' (1960, Zezowate szczęście - Andrzej Munk)
An absurdist satire based upon a novel by Jerzy Stefan Stawinski.
Bogumił Kobiela & Barbara Kwiatkowska
'Passenger' (1963, Pasażerka - Witold Lesiewicz & Andrzej Munk)
A docudrama set during the 2nd World War.
Aleksandra Śląska
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Jerzy Kawalerowicz (Born: January 19, 1922 in Gwozdziec, Stanislawowskie, Poland [now Hvizdets, Ukraine] - Died: December 27, 2007 (age 85) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Film director Jerzy Kawalerowicz became a leading proponent of jazz in film which became an essential component of the transition from old school literary sources to new school lyricism. That Kawalerowicz was constantly being dogged by accusations of being a dangerous communist hardly seems the point. He held the respect of everybody throughout his working life, even helming one of the Polish "superbusters" of the 2000s (a big budget adaptation of 'Quo Vadis : A Narrative Of The Time Of Nero' by Henryk Sienkiewicz) when weighty literary texts fell back into fashion. Kawalerowicz remained a formidable presence in the arts for more than six decades and that's why he commanded respect. I'm keen to get hold of a dvd of his film 'Pharaoh' (1966) which some movie lovers rank as his best, but it's been out of print for some years now and trades at high prices.
Jerzy Kawalerowicz & Lucyna Winnicka
'Night Train' (1959, Pociąg - Jerzy Kawalerowicz)
A moody crime thriller set on board a train. The title track is sung by jazz singer Wanda Warska.
Lucyna Winnicka & Zbigniew Cybulski
'Mother Joan Of The Angels' (1961, Matka Joanna od Aniołów - Jerzy Kawalerowicz)
This Catholic drama is an adaptation of a story written by poet Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz. The film's choreography and shooting style are among the primary influences on William Friedkin's horror movie 'The Exorcist' (1973) which makes explicit reference to 'Mother Joan Of The Angels' and Brunello Rondi's 'The Demon' (1963).
Lucyna Winnicka
'Death Of A President' (1977, Śmierć prezydenta - Jerzy Kawalerowicz)
A political drama based upon a true story (the assassination of President Gabriel Narutowicz by artist Eligiusz Niewiadomski in 1922).
Zdzisław Mrożewski
'Quo Vadis?' (2001 - Jerzy Kawalerowicz)
A historical drama based on a novel by Henryk Sinkiewicz. The story takes place in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero.
Magdalena Mielcarz & Paweł Deląg
Krzysztof Komeda with Rune Carlsson, Roman Dyląg, Zbigniew Namysłowski & Tomasz Stańko
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Post by petrolino on Feb 24, 2019 2:15:03 GMT
The Poznan workers' protests sparked in June, 1956 and Polish Thaw of October, 1956 are events often eclipsed in history books by the violent Hungarian Uprising of 1956, just as Polish student protests of 1968 have been eclipsed somewhat by the Prague Spring of 1968 and the 1968 invasion of Bratislava. But sadly, these events were also very real, leading to many lives being destroyed in the process. Polish cinema of the 1960s reflected this tumultuous atmosphere, culminating in the widespread persecution of radicals, intellectuals and artists.
"Observers looking back on the March Events concentrate on what-ever aspects personally impacted them the most, or on the crowd they kept company with. Thus, it is not surprising that the youth uprisings are the most salient memories for the students of 1968. Protests in one form or another were held in nearly all institutions of higher learning in Poland, with street demonstrations and violent clashes with the state police occurring in several cities. The student component of the March 1968 events is often compared to the wave of student protest in the West. However, despite a range of apparent similarities (university strikes, vigils, clashes with the law), the Polish events can only be accurately compared to the reform movement that was taking place in Czechoslovakia. Under the banner of freedom, the Polish students struggled for the same values and goals as their Czech and Slovak brethren. The students in the West, on the other hand, were battling a different state system. They did not first need to fight for the freedoms of speech and assembly as these were fundamental principles of a democratic state. Still, it is worth noting that, despite these differences, French students in May 1968 made a point of emphasizing their solidarity with their Polish counterparts by chanting “Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Paris!” Moreover, the French translation of the “Open Letter to the Party” by the intellectual leaders of the movement, Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski, was then one of the most popular readings at the Sorbonne. Nonetheless, it must be borne in mind that the students in the West could be sure that their protests would be widely covered in the national press—and with a modicum of goodwill—whereas Polish students, who lived in a country where the state had nearly monopolistic control over the mass media, could not count on such coverage. Instead, they were forced to challenge an onslaught of misinformation, lies, and slander in the press, on the radio, and on television. Whereas student leaders in the West immediately became heroes of the crowds, often becoming even more popular than rock stars or athletes, their Polish counterparts, subject to political baiting and persecution, were thrown in prison. Utilizing leftist rhetoric, the Polish students struggled to democratize and liberalize the communist system, as well as for the right to acknowledge the true nature of their circumstances. Their efforts contributed to the development of the concept of the “’68 Generation.” Many people from this generation went on to become anti-communist activists in the 1970s and later activists and advisors in the Solidarność trade union movement.
Many people in the Polish worlds of culture, science, and arts perceive March 1968 and the years following from a different angle, namely, as a pogrom against the intelligentsia. Authors and scientists - often extremely well-respected and highly esteemed individuals - were brutally attacked in the media. Such open attacks, like party functionaries, not only denied the ideological and moral integrity of those they maligned but also called their professional qualifications into question. Finally, those who left Poland after March 1968 often associate the era with the disgraceful anti-Semitic campaign, which officials ineffectively disguised as a form of “anti-Zionism.” Anti-Semitism has long roots in European history and will most likely continue to exist, but it was difficult to openly espouse such beliefs in post-Shoah Europe. In democratic countries, these elements have often been pushed to the margins of society where they can only anonymously voice their opinions in small niche publications. In communist Poland, with preventive censorship and a police force that guarded the interests of the state, the publication of anti-Semitic materials was officially banned but, as it turned out, not impossible. In the context of Polish communism, anti-Semitism was able to find its way onto the front pages of the newspapers as well as onto prime-time radio and television in 1968. As a matter of fact, from as early as the beginning of the 1960s, the Ministry of the Interior had begun to exhibit a growing interest in the Jewish community, even though no more than 30,000 Jews or people of Jewish heritage lived in Poland by the middle of the decade.
In the spring of 1968, Jews were “cleansed” from practically all areas of public life: the party apparatus, national and regional governmental offices, state administrative bodies, the armed forces, mass media outlets, the educational system, as well as cultural and academic communities. This wide-scale “aryanization” of the security apparatus (as the operation was called internally) had already begun a few years before but now grew more intense. In Warsaw alone, between March and September of 1968, close to 800 people were dismissed from leading posts, whereas between 1965 and 1967, about 600 people had been.
15,000 people emigrated from Poland between 1968 and 1972. This emigration is significant not so much in terms of the number of people as in their intellectual caliber: of the 9,570 adults who applied for emigration, 1,832 of them had university degrees and another 944 were students. Of those who wished to emigrate to Israel (at the time, it was the only emigration destination one could indicate, even if one did not truly intend to go there at all) 217 were former university employees and 275 had worked at various academic institutions. This wave of emigration was therefore very much an emigration of the intelligentsia."
- Jerzy Eisler (Director of the Institute of National Remembrance [Instytut Pamieci Narodowej, IPN] in Warsaw), 'Poland : The March Events Of 1968'
Witold Gombrowicz & Czesław Miłosz in 1967
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Janusz Morgenstern (Born: November 16, 1922 in Mikulince, Tarnopolskie, Poland [now Mikulintsy, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine] - Died: September 6, 2011 (age 88) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Janusz Morgenstern
'Goodbye, See You Tomorrow' (1960 - Janusz Morgenstern)
A theatrical romance about the nature of performance that's co-written by actor Zbigniew Cybulski.
Zbigniew Cybulski & Teresa Tuszyńska
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Stanisław Różewicz (Born: August 16, 1924 in Radomsko, Lódzkie, Poland - Died: November 9, 2008 (age 84) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Stanisław Różewicz
'Birth Certificate' (1961, Świadectwo urodzenia - Stanislaw Rozewicz)
There's a pristine print of this episodic World War 2 drama currently screening on youtube with subtitles. I caught up with it, knowing this film's heavy reputation in Poland. It's one of those movies that captures the feelings of a child in times of conflict, like John Boorman's 'Hope And Glory' (1987) did here in the U K. The final image seen is often reprinted and now I know why; a devastating portrait of innocence lost during wartime.
Beata Barszczewska
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Jan Rybkowski ( Born: April 4, 1912 in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland, Russian Empire [now Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Swietokrzyskie, Poland] - Died: December 29, 1987 (age 75) in Konstancin-Jeziorna, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Jan Rybkowski
'Cafe From The Past' (1962, Spotkanie w 'Bajce' - Jan Rybkowski)
Followers of Polish cinema frequently ask why it's nearly impossible to find copies of Jan Rybkowski's films prepared for English-speaking markets. I only know this one film, a distant memory from the past, and one I wish I had on dvd. It captures landscape futurism on a visual level as Andrzej Wajda's 'Innocent Sorcerers' (1960) captures alternative backroom culture, projecting warmth, intelligence and humour along the way.
Aleksandra Śląska & Andrzej Łapicki
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Wojciech Has (Born: April 1, 1925 in Kraków, Malopolskie, Poland - Died: October 3, 2000 (age 75) in Lódz, Lódzkie, Poland)
Wojciech Has
'The Saragossa Manuscript' (1965, Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie - Wojciech Has)
An epic adaptation of a novel by Jan Potocki. This influential film's restoration was overseen in American laboratories by filmmakers Francis Coppola and Martin Scorsese with psychedelic musician Jerry Garcia who had an incredible ear for sound.
Zbigniew Cybulski & Iga Cembrzyńska
'The Hourglass Sanatorium' (1973, Sanatorium pod klepsydrą - Wojciech Has)
An adaptation of a novel by Bruno Schulz. This gothic fairy tale influenced the work of American gothic Tim Burton and a host of north American horror directors.
Halina Kowalska
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Sylwester Chęciński ( Born: May 21, 1930 in Susiec, Lubelskie, Poland)
Sylwester Chęciński (teaching film studies)
'Our Folks' (1967, Sami swoi - Sylwester Checinski)
The travails of a pair of quarreling Polish families living in the sticks. 'Our Folks' is followed by two sequels from director Sylwester Checinski, 'Take It Easy' (1974) and 'Love It Or Leave It' (1977).
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Leon Jeannot (Born: May 9, 1908 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland] - Died: June 21, 1997 (age 89) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Leon Jeannot
'Man With An Apartment' (1968, Czlowiek z M-3 - Leon Jeannot)
An amorous young doctor seeks to take advantage of a government housing policy and secure permanent residence. To do so, he needs to find a wife so he hits the city streets in search of a suitable woman.
Wanda Żejmo-Naczaj & Bogumił Kobiela
'Oczy Masz Niebiesko-Zielone' - Wanda Warska
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Post by Johnny-Come-Lately on Feb 24, 2019 2:28:47 GMT
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Post by petrolino on Feb 24, 2019 2:35:41 GMT
My friend at work who's Polish, a driver from Szczecin, keeps telling me to buy 'Killer' on dvd. I really should because I like the director, I watch Cezary Pazura in reruns of '13 Posterunek' and I know the film was a box-office success.
I've not heard of 'Boys Don't Cry', thanks for the recommendation. Nice to see Maciej Stuhr follow in the footsteps of his father Jerzy Stuhr.
Aleksandra Wozniak & Cezary Pazura
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Post by Johnny-Come-Lately on Feb 24, 2019 2:54:20 GMT
There was a Kiler 2, which was pretty good too. Kiler 2 Maciej Stuhr was in a couple of good comedy movies. The last one I seen in him was Poranek kojota.
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Post by petrolino on Feb 24, 2019 2:59:23 GMT
There was a Kiler 2, which was pretty good too. Kiler 2 Maciej Stuhr was in a couple of good comedy movies. The last one I seen in him was Poranek kojota. I've seen a lot more older Polish movies. Hoping to catch up with some of the newer ones this year so I appreciate the recommendations.
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Post by petrolino on Mar 2, 2019 1:24:23 GMT
Walerian Borowczyk (Born: September 2, 1923 in Kwilcz, Wielkopolskie, Poland - Died: February 3, 2006 (age 82) in Paris, France)
Walerian Borowczyk trained as a painter and lithographer. He became a poster artist and created short animations, initially working with Jan Lenica who also drew film poster art. Borowczyk worked in collaboration with Chris Marker for 'The Astronauts' (1959).
Borowczyk's animations utilised a wide range of stop-motion techniques and he had a style from the off-set that was instantly identifiable. Notable was his unusual use of props. His animation work culminated in the creation of a feature-length film in France, 'Mr. And Mrs. Kabal's Theatre' (1967), a wayward extension of the story prompted by his short film 'The Concert Of Mr. And Mrs. Kabal' (1962).
France became Borowczyk's home and he made most of his live-action films there, though he did return to Poland in the mid-1970s to make a passion play. He also worked in Italy on more than one occasion. Despite leaving his homeland to seek greater artistic freedoms, his work was always that of a Polish artist. The liberties offered by the French system were something he needed though, and he worked extensively throughout the 1970s alongside French writer Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues.
"Walerian Borowczyk was a twisted man whose films were infused with a unique cruelty and weirdness. He started out making extraordinary animations, graduated to directing classics such as 'Goto, Island of Love' and 'La Bete'... 'Les Jeux des Anges' was my first experience of animation that was utterly impressionistic. It didn't show me anything specific, just sound and movement from which you create a world of your own."
- Terry Gilliam, Open Culture
Walerian Borowczyk
'Le Printemps Spring Time, Op 7' - Zygmunt Stojowski
'Goto, Island Of Love' (1969, Goto, l'île d'amour - Walerian Borowczyk)
A totalitarian fable about an island dictatorship that breaks down hierarchical structures.
'Pochód Śmierci' by Czesław Tański
'Blanche' (1971 - Walerian Borowczyk)
A historical fantasy based upon a poem by Juliusz Slowacki. The paintings of Kazimierz Stabrowski influenced Walerian Borowczyk's imagery of natural surroundings.
Jacques Perrin & Ligia Branice
'Immoral Tales' (1973, Contes immoraux - Walerian Borowczyk) / 'The Beast' (1975, La bête - Walerian Borowczyk) / 'Immoral Women' (1979, Les héroïnes du mal - Walerian Borowczyk)
'Immoral Tales' is a 4-part historical anthology based on the stories of Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues. It also draws ideas from the writings of surrealist poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Valentine Penrose. The stories reflect upon incidents that occur in folklore, mythology and documented history (the legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory and the crimes of Lucrezia Borgia are front and centre). The mystery 'The Beast' was originally conceived to be the fifth part of 'Immoral Tales' but it was later expanded to create a separate feature due to its running time. It tells the story of a lonely woman who visits a mansion and comes upon a strange family curse that appears to be protecting a monster lurking in the woods.
'Immoral Women' presents 3 more stories from the pen of Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues. One story involves Renaissance artist Raphael. Walerian Borowczyk draws a degree of inspiration from symbolist poets Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine.
"Who was André Pieyre de Mandiargues? Born in Paris in 1909, he lost his father to the First World War. His childhood memories of his mother were of a widow in black. A stammer crippled his social development. Close friends from an early age with Henri Cartier‐Bresson, the pair explored first the pleasure houses of Pigalle and then all of Europe, on road trips where the would‐be painter Bresson converted to the religion of the lens. (Bresson often made his friend backtrack for the perfect vantage, glimpsed in passing, which Bresson would then disdain.) Cartier‐Bresson, with his penchant for geometry, preferred Florence, but Venice was the love of Mandiargues the dandy (who threatened to throw his friend’s camera into the canal). Later, he drove alone from Paris to Constantinople in a Buick with a revolver in the glove compartment. One thinks of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Ford Mustang”, whose lyrics, a litany of the car’s contents, include “a Browning” and “a collection of Edgar Poe.” On his way back, he met the twenty year old Leonora Carrington, who had just left England to move in with Max Ernst. Mandiargues’ personal divinities were André Breton, the founder of Surrealism; Jean Paulhan, the legendary Gallimard editor (of Mandiargues and many other fantasists); and Belgian Henri Michaux, poet, painter, and LSD dilettante. Mandiargues met the first by chance at the flea market in St. Ouen. When the second introduced him to the third, Mandiargues called Michaux “the most intimidating of all living men.” Mandiargues was a friend to Julien Gracq, Francis Ponge, and Octavio Paz. He translated Paz’s retelling of Hawthorne, La hija de Rappacini, and Paz called him “one of the truly original writers to have appeared in France since World War II.” At a Caribbean‐themed ball, Jean Genet introduced Mandiargues to Sartre, whose path he never crossed again. George Steiner has opposed the figures of Voltaire and de Sade as representative of their era: Enlightenment hope and its dark, subterranean twin. It is perhaps a stretch to similarly oppose Sartre and Mandiargues, but while the philosopher pursued his moral quest in the vacuum of reality, the fantasist devised, in realms purely imagined and ever more baroquely articulated, myths of unbridled sexual decadence. Of his novel Portrait of an Englishman in his Château (Dedalus, 1999; trans. Jerome Fletcher), first published pseudonymously in 1953, Mandiargues said: “I have always regarded sadomasochism as one of the best literary instruments, and one of the most powerful generators of emotion at a writer’s disposal, as in Balzac and Flaubert. Does it not have the added advantage of removing or, rather, confusing gender? It seems to me that the answer is yes, and that my greatest happiness, the proof of whether what I’ve written is successful, is when I no longer know who or what I am while writing. Man and woman at once, perhaps neither woman nor man — such is the pure androgyny writing allows me to attain, especially in the erotic tale.” Some writers use fantasy wistfully, to evoke lost worlds, whether of childhood or paradise. For others, the imaginative journey only reveals the ever more outlandish and terrifying sights beyond. Mandiargues’ is a body of work that knowingly cultivates artifice and excess, recounting rituals of initiation and sacrifice, impossible encounters, pervasive malaise, ingenious cruelty, abrupt doom, and the arduous extremities of ecstasy. His characters were usually, as Belgian fantasy scholar Jean‐Baptiste Baronian notes, “in a state of oneiric intoxication against bizarre and grandiose settings, led by the urge to love and death.” His intricately wrought stories could seem static, sacrificing immediacy for daunting formal beauty, but they nevertheless arrested with the power of their horror or strangeness, the dazzle at the mad edges of extravagance."
- Edward Gauvin, Weird Fiction Review
'Śmierć Ellenai' by Jacek Malczewski
'The Story Of Sin' (1975, Dzieje grzechu - Walerian Borowczyk)
The melodrama 'The Story Of Sin' is an adaptation of a novel by Stefan Zeromski. The floral paintings of Wladyslaw Czachorski are reflected in the poetic petal imagery of 'The Story Of Sin', something later appropriated by Sam Mendes for the Oscar-winning melodrama 'American Beauty' (2000).
Grażyna Długołęcka
'The Streetwalker' (1976, La marge - Walerian Borowczyk)
A heavy melodrama about bartering and prostitution that's based on a novel by Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues.
Sylvia Kristel & Joe Dallesandro
'Behind Convent Walls' (1978, Interno di un convento - Walerian Borowczyk)
A convent falls under the cloak of darkness when nuns succumb to their desires. Inevitably, this leads to tragedy. 'Behind Convent Walls' is inspired by the writings of Stendahl.
'W Wielki Piątek' by Olga Boznańska
'The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Miss Osbourne' (1981, Docteur Jekyll et les femmes - Walerian Borowczyk)
A disturbed reinterpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson's gothic novella 'Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde' (1886).
'Crucifixio' by Zdzisław Beksiński
American filmmaker Roger Corman was involved in the distribution of re-edited versions of the 'Emmanuelle' series. The fifth installment was directed by Walerian Borowczyk and the sixth by Jean Rollin, but both directors felt they were being heavily constrained during production and both were left unhappy when their work was recut for different markets. Borowczyk and Rollin both publicly disowned the final product.
In the 1970s, Borowczyk had contributed to the anthology film 'Private Collections' (1979) with original 'Emmanuelle' director Just Jaeckin and Japanese filmmaker Shuji Terayama. Corman remained involved in the series relaunch from an executive standpoint, backing Lev Spiro to take up a directorial role (Spiro had been one of Corman and Charles Band's most reliable in-house soundmen).
Bertrand Mandico's short film 'Boro In The Box' (2011), with artistic muse Elina Lowensohn providing narration as Borowczyk's spirit, pays tribute to the Polish eroticist's filmmaking. In their collaboration 'Apocalypse After' (2018), Lowensohn plays Joy D’Amato, female alter-ego of filmmaker Joe D’Amato.
Ergo Phizmiz recently released the short film 'Walerian Borowczyk Is Dead' (2018) featuring Lottie Bowater of Depresstival.
Daniel Bird's documentary 'Obscure Pleasures : A Portrait Of Walerian Borowczyk' (2013) is a favourite and I'm hopeful of seeing Kuba Mikurda's new documentary 'Love Express - The Disappearance Of Walerian Borowczyk' (2018).
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Post by petrolino on Mar 3, 2019 2:19:46 GMT
Jan Batory (Born: August 23, 1921 in Kalisz, Wielkopolskie, Poland - Died: August 1, 1981 (age 59) in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland)
Crime specialist Jan Batory worked as an assistant to filmmaker Wanda Jakubowska in the 1950s. He directed some major works of Polish cinema and was entrusted to bring several protected family properties to the screen due to his professionalism and range of technical skills. Among his early associates were bestselling crime writer Maciej Slomczynski and filmmaker Tadeusz Chmielewski who served as his assistant director. Batory's films are experimental by nature and ambitious in their use of sound and vision.
Jan Batory
'The Two Who Stole The Moon' (1962, O dwóch takich, co ukradli księżyc - Jan Batory)
This family film starring twins is considered important because the two boys who star in it went on to become major political figures in Poland. Lech Kaczynski served as Mayor of Warsaw and President of Poland - he was among those killed in a tragic plane crash in 2010. His brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski served as Prime Minister of Poland.
Kaczyński Brothers
'A Cure For Love' (1966, Lekarstwo na miłość - Jan Batory) / 'Stolen Collection' (1979, Skradziona kolekcja - Jan Batory)
A pair of playful crime mysteries based upon the stories of author Joanna Chmielewska.
Krystyna Sienkiewicz & Kalina Jędrusik
Elżbieta Starostecka & Izabella Dziarska
'Dancing In Hitler's Headquarters' (1967, Dancing w kwaterze Hitlera - Jan Batory)
A politically charged polemic set to jazz beats that marches to its own rhythm. Ostensibly, it's a conflicted wartime romance, but Jan Batory invokes a psychological hyperballad about cultural interlopers.
Andrzej Łapicki & Maja Wodecka
'Die Biene Maja' - Karel Svoboda & Zbigniew Wodecki
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Post by petrolino on Mar 9, 2019 0:27:14 GMT
Jerzy Hoffman (Born: March 15, 1932 in Kraków, Malopolskie, Poland)
Filmmaker Jerzy Hoffman has been documenting Poland's tumultous history for decades. He made a variety of short subject documentary films with Edward Skorzewski in the 1950s, filming on location in Warsaw, Lodz and Sopot. Around 1956, the Polish Film School was inaugurated, and Hoffman would soon join them. At home in Krakow, Hoffman took photographic records of the city and captured the remnants of the Jewish community he grew up in with the aim of restoration before regeneration. The Groteska Puppet Theatre had been inaugurated in 1945. Piotr Skrzynecki founded the basement theatre troupe Piwnica Pod Baranami in 1956, launching a new form of cabaret in the city that would rival the celebrated cabaret cultures of night-life cities Warsaw and Wroclaw. When Hoffman turned to making fiction features full-time in the 1960s, he initially co-directed projects with Skorzewski.
Hoffman had garnered a great deal of experience by the time he went solo, something that's reflected in the scale and ambition of his sizeable film productions. He's been able to maintain a strong historical perspective throughout his filmmaking career, he's worked with some of Poland's great composers and he's taken some of the nation's most complex sociological issues under heavy consideration.
"Wander through Kazimierz, better known as the Jewish quarter of Krakow, Poland’s second largest city, and signs of the area’s cultural heritage are everywhere. The Old Synagogue dominates Ulica Szeroka (Wide Street), where wooden tables from traditional Jewish restaurants spill out onto the pavement In the evenings while the sound of traditional Jewish klezmer music emanates from the bars and cafes of the surrounding alleys. Kazimierz attracts a steady flow of tourists curious to see the places in which the city’s Jewish community once thrived, and for years they came to a neighbourhood that largely resembled an open-air Jewish heritage museum, almost frozen in time. But recently, the district has seen a cultural revival with new businesses opening up along its cobbled streets and even a trickle of arrivals moving to Krakow from Israel to set up new businesses. For the first time in nearly 75 years there are signs of something developing in Kazimierz that appeared to be forever lost: a living Jewish community. For a long time this regeneration seemed impossible. The neighbourhood became run down after World War II and while many of Kazimierz’s grand buildings survived (Krakow was one of the few cities in Poland that was spared major damage), they fell into neglect under the communist regime. Then, after director Steven Spielberg decided to use the old buildings and streets as the setting for his epic 1993 film Schindler’s List, an influx of tourists came to see the area for themselves, and the renewed interest sparked an increase in businesses looking to cater to curious visitors. But despite the growing number of sightseers, there were still less than 1,000 Jewish residents in Krakow, with no more than a handful living in Kazimierz, the historic heart of the city’s Jewish community. Six of the seven synagogues of Kazimierz were no longer in use and with too few people to sustain Jewish bakeries, restaurants or cultural centres, it was very difficult to observe a Jewish way of life. Enter Tanya Segal, the first female rabbi in Poland and the current leader of the Progressive Jewish community in Krakow. Originally from Moscow, Rabbi Segal came to Poland by way of Israel in 2007 as part of her religious studies. She saw the need to create an active and engaged Jewish community in Poland and had a vision of developing a place in Krakow where people could live in accordance with their traditions and celebrate their Jewish culture. The first steps had already been put in place. The Galicia Jewish Museum, opened in 2004, set about preserving the Jewish history of southeast Poland through photography, while the large open space at the heart of the museum would later function as a cultural centre. At the same time, the Jewish Community Centre (JCC) opened in the centre of Kazimierz in 2008, creating a valuable space for educational programmes and religious celebrations for the city’s Jewish population. Sabbath dinners every Friday evening, for example, attract both Krakow residents and visiting tourists, providing an opportunity to showcase the work of the JCC to a wider audience. Under the guidance of Rabbi Segal, Beit Krakow, a progressive Jewish community based in Kazimierz, was set up in 2009 and has provided visitors and the local community with more than 500 cultural and religious events celebrating contemporary Jewish life in Poland. While the events are focused around building a dynamic Jewish community, a positive sign is the growing interest in Beit Krakow activities beyond the local Jewish population. Lectures on Krakow’s Jewish heritage and recent exhibitions of contemporary art have attracted many visitors and residents who are curious to learn about the city’s historical and modern-day Jewish community."
- Andy Jarosz, New Life In Krakow's Jewish Quarter
Jerzy Hoffman
'Gangsters And Philanthropists' (1962, Gangsterzy i filantropi - Jerzy Hoffman & Edward Skorweski)
'Gangsters And Philanthropists' is a two-part feature. The first part is a heist story that juxtaposes events at a plush gangster's parlour with the mass construction of tower blocks. People converge upon a chess club with draught board floor tiling, chess piece wall tiles and a ludo shot bar.
In the second part, a disgraced chemist concocts an elaborate scheme to turn his fortunes around.
'Masz Już Kogoś' - Irena Wiśniewska
'The Law And The Fist' (1964, Prawo i pięść - Jerzy Hoffman & Edward Skorweski)
A story set during wartime concerning the exploitation of abandoned towns. Polish stage actor Edmund Fetting sings a ballad redolent of Ukrainian-Russian composer Dimitri Tiomkin's song 'The Ballad of High Noon', highlighting that 'The Law And The Fist' is an ambitious hybridisation of Polish and American genre filmmaking styles.
'Nim Wstanie Dzień' - Edmund Fetting
'Colonel Wolodyjowski' (1969, Pan Wołodyjowski - Jerzy Hoffman) / 'The Deluge' (1974, Potop - Jerzy Hoffman) / 'With Fire And Sword' (1999, Ogniem i mieczem - Jerzy Hoffman)
Jerzy Hoffman's war trilogy interprets Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz's major trilogy of historical novels for the big screen. All three films take place in the 17th century when the Poles were constantly embroiled in major conflicts, including the Russo-Polish War, the Second Northern War, the Polish-Cossack-Tatar War and the Polish-Ottoman War.
"If you’ve ever wondered what a Polish historical epic looks like, to set beside Hollywood’s examples of the genre from the same time like 'Ben Hur', 'Spartacus' or 'El Cid', here’s your chance. It certainly looks different from the Hollywood variety, with its eyes turned towards influences from Soviet Cinema – in more than one respect, the spirit of 'Alexander Nevsky' seems to hover over it – and as with so many Polish historical films, epic or not, there’s a nationalistic project at work, too. Another fifties Hollywood epic I could have mentioned here is 'Quo Vadis', which shares a connection with 'Knights of the Teutonic Order'. Both are adaptations of novels by Nobel Prize-winner Henryk Sienkiewicz, but although 'Quo Vadis' is the most well-known of his novels outside Poland, 'Krzyzacy' (the source for 'Knights of the Teutonic Order', usually known in English as The Knights of the Cross) is more characteristic of a work that repeatedly demonstrates an interest in critical moments in the history of the Poles and an accompanying strong anti-German bias. Importantly, in terms of their underlying nationalistic ethos, these works were all written at a time when Poland no longer existed as an independent nation, but was divided up among adjoining states. The historical moment at the crux of 'Knights of the Teutonic Order' is the Battle of Grunwald of 1410. Here the Roman Catholic monastic order of warrior-monks, who had spread through Central and Eastern Europe initially on a mission to Christianise by the sword, were decisively defeated by a combined Polish-Lithuanian army."
- Ian Johnson, Not Coming To A Theater Near You
Grażyna Staniszewska in Aleksander Ford's 'Knights Of The Teutonic Order'
'Waltz No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor' - Frédéric Chopin (performed by Khatia Buniatishvili)
* 'Colonel Wolodyjowski' is set during the Ottoman Empire's invasion of Poland. Two rustic orphan girls are hauled from their carriage and confined to the house of a nobleman. One is a highly disciplined musician and the other is an ill-tempered warrior. In the coming months, the Poles mount a staunch defense against invading Turks that leads to carnage.
"Polish documentary filmmaker Jerzy Hoffman brought an aura of realism to the sweeping historical epic 'Colonel Wolodyjowski'. Originally running 160 minutes, the film was based on a trilogy of patriotic novels by Henry Sienkiewicz (Quo Vadis?). The story, set in the 17th century, details the bloody struggle on the Eastern border between the Poles and the invading Turkish hordes. Giving the box-office potential of 'Colonel Wolodyjowski' a major boost was the presence in the supporting cast of 24-year-old matinee idol Daniel Olbrychski. Successful in its home country, 'Colonel Wolodyjowski' unfortunately made very little impression outside of Poland; but then, would a biopic of George Washington play well in Warsaw?"
- Hal Erickson, Rovi
"Of all the works associated with Chopin and his genius, the nocturnes, for me, are at the top of the list. Somehow no one before or since him has captured that elusive essence of the mysteries of night with such hypnotic lyricism."
- Lucy Parham, Pianist
Magdalena Zawadzka
'Mazurka No. 3 in F Minor' - Frédéric Chopin (performed by Krystian Zimerman)
* Clocking in at close to five hours in length, the unabridged version of 'The Deluge' is the way to go. This film broke box-office records in Poland and its influence still permeates. It traces an epic confrontation between Poles and Swedish invaders who court secret collaborators on the ground when invading the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Featured is the miracle at Jasna Gora Monastery in Czestochowa - home to the Black Madonna - a site entwined spiritually, by historical chapter, with the spectacular Hill Of Crosses located in rural northern Lithuania.
"Let’s clear a few things up first. 'The Deluge' has been restored for the 40th anniversary of its release. During the process of digital remastering the director Jerzy Hoffman decided to create a shorter (185min) version, available to a wider audience, called The Deluge Redivivus. So the 5-hour* cut has been also digitally remastered. There are two key differences: Original cut vs shorter cut. Almost all scenes had to be cut or edited, but as the director stated: “The film lacks none of the most important threads, loses nothing of its readability, and it takes on an incredible speed at the same time.”. The only scene which is left untouched is the duel between Kmicic and Wołodyjowski. So to answer your question: if you want to have a full experience and richer story I suggest watching the original, digitally remastered cut. But if you want to watch it with someone who is not really into old movies or is not that interested in Polish history I would go with 'The Deluge Redivivus'. # 5-hour cut - it’s a quite interesting and often debated subject. Both National Film Archive and the director state that the original version is 5h 16m long, but all available digital versions are about 4h 47min long."
- Peter Wisniewski, Quora
"From a technical standpoint, the beauty of the twenty-four Études of Chopin (here I don’t include the Trois nouvelles, to make twenty-seven total) is that each piece is of singular purpose, a world unto itself; musically, they are remarkable achievements because the technical issue inherent in each is placed in the service of a richly musical idea. They are studies, but not simply exercises — indeed they are concert pieces of the highest quality. I don’t like thinking of each étude as presenting a technical problem; I think it’s more helpful to acknowledge that these are presentations of technical possibilities. “Look what the instrument can do,” Chopin is saying, “if only you’re up for it yourself as well.” Hopefully that doesn’t seem too glib. But the key to tackling these pieces really is in the initial approach and apprehension. There is a general principle at work within each, and once this principle is understood, you can begin chipping away at the difficulty. It is best to proceed very slowly and methodically. There are reams of piano music into which one is best advised to dive headfirst and only then start asking questions, but these pieces are not like that."
- Curtis Lindsay, 'There’s A Russian Proverb: “Chase Two Rabbits, And You Will Catch Neither”
Daniel Olbrychski & Małgorzata Braunek
'Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor' - Frédéric Chopin (performed by Monika Rosca)
* It took a quarter of a century to bring 'With Fire And Sword' to cinemas and the final installment remains one of the most expensive productions in Polish film history. Here, a dancing Ukrainian cossack legion determines to take Polish territory from the nobility.
"Writer Henryk Sienkiewicz’s mighty trilogy of 17th-century Poland finally reaches cinematic completion in “With Fire & Sword,” reputedly the largest production in Polish film history. An all-time record-breaker on home turf, with a claimed 6 million admissions since opening in February, the $8.5 million, three-hour widescreen movie will delight audiences who pine for the days of Central European historical blockbusters, even if they’ll be bemused a lot of the time about what is actually going on. Complex story of love and strife between Poles, Cossacks and Asian hordes represents a difficult sell nowadays in mature markets; more business is likely to come the way of the four-hour miniseries version, lensed separately. The only literary trilogy to be filmed backward, Sienkiewicz’s work has had an extraordinarily elongated journey to the screen. Veteran director Jerzy Hoffman made his name with the last tome, “Colonel Wolodyjowski,” in 1969, following that five years later with the middle volume, Oscar-nominated “The Deluge.” Hoffman waited an additional 25 years to get the first part, “With Fire & Sword,” on to the big sheet (an Italian quickie had been shot in 1961)."
- Derek Elley, Variety
"Chopin's Preludes are compositions of an order entirely apart... they are poetic preludes, analogous to those of a great contemporary poet, who cradles the soul in golden dreams..."
- Franz Liszt
“If all piano music in the world were to be destroyed, excepting one collection, my vote should be cast for Chopin's Preludes.”
- Henry Finck
Izabella Scorupco
'Polonaise in A-Flat Major' - Frédéric Chopin (performed by Valentina Lisitsa)
'Leper' (1976, Trędowata - Jerzy Hoffman)
A tragic romance based on a novel by Helena Mniszkowna.
'The third film adaptation of novelist Helena Mniszkówna’s inter-war melodrama – a story of unhappy love between an aristocrat and an impoverished woman from the gentry – was directed by Jerzy Hoffman. Wojciech Kilar’s famous waltz comes from this film, and became a hit at wedding receptions in Poland, although in the film its role is by no means unequivocal: there is something disturbing, even fatalistic in it. Interestingly, the melody had appeared earlier, in Janusz Majewski’s horror film 'Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach' (1970), in a piano arrangement. Yet although the five-minute waltz is heard twice in 'The Leper', it is not the only musical theme in the second film on which Kilar and Hoffman worked, coming after 'Three Steps on Earth' (1965). The opening credits in 'The Leper' are accompanied by a romantic, sweeping, Chopin-style initial theme: first performed by the orchestra (with trombones coming to the fore), then by piano with orchestra and finally by two solo instruments, violin and oboe. In the first few minutes of the film we meet its main protagonist, the governess Stefania Rudecka (Elżbieta Starostecka) – a beautiful, sensitive young woman – dressing in front of the mirror, dancing among fountains and running through trees of a palace park bathed in light. At that point, we hear the second theme, Palace Gardens. It is full of repeated notes and trills as well as dynamic contrasts, using broad crescendos and diminuendos ...'
- The Wojciech Kilar Collection ('Grande Valse, Movie Theme From “The Leper” (Cond. Tomasz Radziwonowicz)'
Elżbieta Starostecka
'Trędowata Walc' - Wojciech Kilar
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Post by petrolino on Mar 9, 2019 19:24:24 GMT
Jerzy Skolimowski (Born: May 5, 1938 in Lódz, Lódzkie, Poland)
Former boxer Jerzy Skolimowski is a poet, painter, performer, dramatist and director with a strong theatrical background. His father was a Polish Resistance fighter who was executed during the 2nd World War. His mother took him to Czech Republic upon becoming the cultural attache of the Polish embassy in Prague. Here, Skolimowski was able to practise in the arts alongside fellow pupils Milos Forman, Ivan Passer and Vaclav Havel. Returning to Poland, he established himself, through his own films, as a hunky young leading man with muscle. As a result, Skolimowski earned the nickname "the Polish Brando" from a national press keen to find a suitable successor to leading man Zbigniew Cybulski (nicknamed the "Polish James Dean").
As a keen jazz enthusiast, Skolimowski supported his friend Krzysztof Komeda in his musical endeavours. He co-scripted French-born director Roman Polanski's breakthrough film 'Knife In The Water' (1962), which was nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and features music composed by Komeda. While Polanski chased down Hollywood glory with characteristically vociferous zeal, first working in the United Kingdom and later in France (all the while running from the long arm of U.S. law), Skolimowski has worked in many different countries and has generally resisted offers from Hollywood to come and direct. His energised, politicised form of cinema demands certain freedoms which have contributed to the creation of an intriguing and unique body of work. Recently, Skolimowski appeared in Joss Whedon's blockbuster 'The Avengers' (2012) with American theatre actress Tina Benko, whose stage work he greatly admires.
"The mid-1960s saw the beginnings of a trend in Polish cinema that was dubbed - perhaps arbitrarily and rather mechanically - 'the third Polish cinema'. After the first film efforts after the war, which maintained the pre-war style and following the account-settling 'Polish school of films' made by people who had taken part in World War II, young artists entered the scene. They had been brought up after the war and their main experience was post-war reality. They matured in the 1960s, a time called 'the little stabilisation'. Documentary filmmakers were among the first of them to deal with the reality as experienced by Poles at the time. Soon after, similar themes started appearing in feature films.
- "This third cinema, searches for the truth about itself, i.e. about the time of the communist stabilization which gave rise to moral problems related to settling down in life, and required people to define their attitude towards the world around them and its ethical norms." - Historia filmu dla każdego / A History of Film for Everyone, Warsaw (1977)
Jerzy Skolimowski deserves to be called the leading representative of this generation in Polish cinema. The protagonist of his first films did not gain the approval of those critics who expected films - in accordance with the expectations of the authorities - to present their subject matter in a social perspective, and who thought any individualism to be inappropriate. This was a hero, as Konrad Eberhardt put it, "who pushes maturity away", "who runs away from convention". There is a "sizable degree of contrariness involved", wrote Konrad Eberhardt about Skolimowski's characters, "and anxiety as to how to save one's individuality, one's face, fear of melding into a community subordinated to overriding purposes. Hence a series of inconsistencies - aspirations on the one hand, laziness on the other, a desire to do something unusual and wasted university years, time lost doing nothing, opportunities thrown away (Kino 13/1967)."
- Ewa Nawoj, 'Third Polish Cinema'
"It all happened almost by accident. I was a young poet when I was sent to the country house for writers — I was the youngest member of the Polish Writers Union — and there I met Andrzej Wajda, who was writing a script about young people. I was the only young person there, so he decided to consult with me. I didn’t care about film at all at that time, and I dared to be very critical. I said, “This is all nonsense. Young people don’t behave like this and they don’t talk like this.” So he challenged me, saying, “Oh, right, then why don’t you write your version?” The same night I wrote twenty-five pages, which actually became the backbone of Wajda’s film, 'Innocent Scorcerers' [1960]. When he was shooting the film, he offered me a part in it. I play a boxer and he was very pleased with what I had done, so he said, “By the way, Jerzy, the exams at the Lódz Film School are starting tomorrow. Why don’t you go yourself and try.” So I jumped on the train, went there the next day, and started the exams. There were one hundred and fifty applicants for four places in the school, but each day there were fewer and fewer people because they had been eliminated. In the very end, there were a dozen of us taking the final exam and afterward four people were accepted, with me in first place. So it was really a pure accident. As a young filmmaker, I was very keen on improvisation — my scripts were very imprecise in order to allow for spur-of-the moment ideas and to make use of genius loci. I was often adding or subtracting story elements freely and a huge degree of my creative process took place on set. As the films I was making grew bigger and more expensive, less and less improvisation was possible. Most producers are very uncomfortable with improvisation, understandably, but there are notable exceptions. My last three films were produced through my own company, so my creative freedom could flourish. In the case of my last film, '11 Minutes', the constraints result from the very specific timeline of the story. The entire film takes place within the same eleven minutes, as seen through the eyes of several different characters, which required a very precise choreography. I placed those constraints upon myself because I felt tired with traditional narrative drive and wanted to tell a multithread story."
- Jerzy Skolimowski, Cineaste
Jerzy Skolimowski
'Minotaur' - Andrzej Kurylewicz
'Identification Marks : None' (1964, Rysopis - Jerzy Skolimowski) / 'Walkover' (1965, Walkower - Jerzy Skolimowski) / 'Hands Up!' (1967, Ręce do góry - Jerzy Skolimowski)
Jerzy Skolimowski's semi-autobiographical trilogy of films introduces audiences to the character Andrzej Leszczyc, a fictional version of himself. These films are scratchy, personal affairs that make no apologies for their crude demeanour. 'Hands Up!' was banned by the communist authorities in Poland due to its unflattering depiction of aspects of the nation's subservient, Stalinist past.
"Jerzy Skolimowski enrolled in the Lódz Film School with the intention of bypassing the long apprenticeship normally required before graduating to feature film direction. Skolimowski used the film stock available to him for student exercises and with initial advice from Andrzej Munk, his friend and “patron” (as Skolimowski described him), he filmed over several years in such a way that the sequences cut together into a feature. While scoring poorly in course work Skolimowski had a finished feature (on a 3:1 shooting ratio) in the can by the end of the course.
Released in 1964, the title 'Rysopis' means ‘identification marks’. The central character, Andrzej Leszezyc, is something of a surrogate for Skolimowski who also plays him here and in his reappearances in 'Walkover' (1965) and 'Hands Up!'. The film spans the last few hours before Andrzej’s departure for military service. When he appears before the draft board early in the film he is asked for identification marks. His answer is ‘none’. The rest of the film is a picaresque stripping away of identity through a series of encounters."
- Bruce Hodsdon, Senses Of Cinema
Elżbieta Czyżewska & Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski & Aleksandra Zawieruszanka
Joanna Szczerbic & Jerzy Skolimowski
'Barrier' (1966, Bariera - Jerzy Skolimowski)
The story of a medical student trying to make his way in life. The experimental film 'Barrier' breaks down barriers both figuratively and literally; it's said to have been filmed without a written script, instead reconstructing shards of improvised, heavily rehearsed scenes to concoct a fragmentary, existentialist drama.
"Forty-six years ago, young Polish writer-director Jerzy Skolimowski made Bariera, a film so dazzlingly inventive that nearly every shot surprises and is its own set-piece. Indeed, each sharply cut jewel of a shot here is a metaphor for life in Communist Poland; it is a subversive film then."
- Dennis Grunes, 'Barrier'
Jan Nowicki & Joanna Szczerbic
'The Departure' (1967, Le Départ - Jerzy Skolimowski)
A Belgian comedy about a car racer obsessed with automobiles and the hairdresser's apprentice he wishes to impress.
"The movie 'Barrier' was made by Jerzy Skolimowski, who, for a while there in the mid-Sixties, looked like the successor to Roman Polanski as the most exciting young director the Polish cinema had produced. Indeed, a writer in the respected film magazine Sight and Sound called him “probably the most explosive and original filmmaker in Eastern Europe.” Whereas Polanski made only one Polish feature, 'Knife in the Water' (on which Skolimowski worked as a writer), and used it as his “ticket to the West,” Skolimowski stayed in his homeland long enough to generate a significant body of work: four features that explicitly addressed themselves to the political and psychological crises facing Polish young people “today.” Three of these starred Skolimowski himself: 'Rysopis' (Identification Marks: None), which he made clandestinely over the four years he spent in the Lodz film school (1960-1963), as an audition piece to demonstrate he was worthy of being entrusted with a feature movie; 'Walkover', his first professional feature; and 'Hands Up', an overtly political film that was banned by the government. In between 'Walkover' and 'Hands Up' he made 'Barrier' and also a Belgian-based comedy, 'Le Depart'. This last film is especially significant, not only in constituting a direct acknowledgment of the crucial influence of the French cineaste Jean-Luc Godard (its stars, Jean-Pierre Leaud and Catherine-Isabelle Duport, and cameraman, Willy Kurant, were all enlisted from Godard’s 'Masculin-Feminin'), but also in pointing the way Skolimowski’s career would lead. Like Polanski, after all, Skolimowski was to leave Poland and become an international filmmaker."
- Richard T. Jameson, Parallax View
Jean-Pierre Leaud
'Deep End' (1970, Na samym dnie - Jerzy Skolimowski)
A psychological nightmare in which an impressionable teenager falls for his co-worker and instructor at a local bathhouse. Skolimowski enjoys exploring different forms of music without limitation, from classical, avant-garde and jazz to pop, rock and funk. His passion for sound led to the engineering of some of cinema's most striking sound designs, 'Deep End' serving as a prime example. Rumours swirled that he was set to engineer a project with English singer Jeanette who's originally from London; just as Skolimowski worked in many different countries, Jeanette sang in many different languages (including English, Spanish, Portugese, French, Italian and Japanese). Sadly, this project was never realised during their peak artistic years, but there really is no time like the present.
"It's not uncommon for movies to drop out of circulation and simply disappear, as fans of 'Deep End' will attest. Barely seen since its release in 1971, the film concerns Mike (played by John Moulder-Brown), a floppy-fringed 15-year-old who becomes dangerously infatuated with Susan (Jane Asher), his co-worker at the public baths. What's unusual about this prolonged absence is that it should have befallen a film so passionately admired. The influential critic Andrew Sarris thought it measured up to the best of Godard, Truffaut and Polanski. The New Yorker's Penelope Gilliatt called it "a work of peculiar, cock-a-hoop gifts". If something as venerated as 'Deep End' can sink, what hope for the rest of cinema?"
- Ryan Gilbey, The Guardian
Jane Asher
The Many Voices of Jeanette : 'Porque Te Vas' / '日本から来た小さな男'
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'The Shout' (1978, Wrzask - Jerzy Skolimowski)
A psychological horror about a stranger with intensely powerful vocal chords. Skolimowski studied history, literature and ethnography at college, all of which combine to add layering to the themes explored in 'The Shout'.
"Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski brought a unique, outsider’s eye to the portrayal of Britain on film. He brilliantly faked much of London in 'Deep End' (1970) while characterising the same city as an incredibly paranoid, almost dystopian zone in 'Moonlighting' (1982). Most effective of all, however, is the director’s strange and darkly magical portrayal of the English coastline in his 1978 film 'The Shout', which contains – among many other unique things – one of British cinema’s most unnerving examples of sound design. Based on a story by Robert Graves, and innovatively scored by Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford from the prog-rock band Genesis, Skolimowski’s film was always set to be an unusual artefact. But the director’s use of sound, with the help of sound editor stalwart Alan Bell, is where the film’s effectiveness resides, creating an eerie and overwhelming filmic experience."
- Adam Scovell, The British Film Institute
Alan Bates & Susannah York
'Moonlighting' (1982, Fucha - Jerzy Skolimowski)
Another semi-autobiographical film, this one about a Polish electrician and his building crew eking out a living in London while the Solidarity movement picks up pace back home in Poland. 'Moonlighting' feels like a documentary today, capturing some of the difficulties faced by immigrant workers operating within often hostile, unappreciative social environments.
"Sticking with the British films, both 'Deep End' and 'Moonlighting' are masterpieces, but for very different reasons. The first is a heartbreaking study of adolescent loneliness, with John Moulder-Brown’s lovelorn swimming-pool attendant lusting helplessly after Jane Asher’s only slightly older but clearly unattainable red-headed colleague – but although the ending could hardly be bleaker, there are deliciously witty touches along the way, especially cameos by Diana Dors and Burt Kwouk. Nowak (Jeremy Irons), the protagonist of 'Moonlighting', is equally alienated, but here the psychological pressures are to do with privileged information – he’s the only member of a quartet of Polish workmen who knows that martial law has been declared back home, and withholds this from them so that they can get the job finished."
- Michael Brooke, The British Film Institute
Jeremy Irons & Jerzy Skolimowski
'Wśród Pampasów' - Jerzy Milian
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Post by petrolino on Mar 10, 2019 2:16:35 GMT
Stanisław Bareja (Born: December 5, 1929 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland - Died: June 14, 1987 (age 57) in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany)
If I were to recommend a comedy director to somebody looking to see some funny Polish films from the 20th century, I think I'd nominate Stanislaw Bareja. He specialised in light entertainment with a sly satirical bent. He's one of those commercially successful filmmakers whose work has sometimes been appropriated without credit, his ideas lifted and set-pieces copied by prominent filmmakers; similar to Spaniard Luis Garcia Berlanga or Frenchman Yves Robert in this regard. This is a compliment to his work, but more people should discover the joyful films of Stanislaw Bareja which are filled with insights into the pressures of mundanity and how we go about our daily lives.
Stanisław Bareja
'Marriage Of Convenience' (1967, Małżeństwo z rozsądku - Stanislaw Bareja)
A romantic comedy musical.
Elzbieta Czyzewska & Daniel Olbrychski
'Adventure With A Song' (1969, Przygoda z piosenką - Stanislaw Bareja)
A comic fantasy musical.
Pola Raksa
'Man - Woman Wanted' (1973, Poszukiwany poszukiwana - Stanislaw Bareja)
A cross-dressing comedy that celebrates alternative lifestyles.
Wojciech Pokora
'A Jungle Book Of Regulations' (1974, Nie ma róży bez ognia - Stanislaw Bareja)
A comedy about the strain of shared living arrangements and finding suitable accommodation.
Halina Kowalska & Jacek Fedorowicz
'Teddy Bear' (1980, Miś - Stanislaw Bareja)
A comedy concerning travel stipulations, administration and bureaucracy, once voted the greatest Polish comedy film of all time.
Stanisław Tym
'Let It Be' - Maryla Rodowicz
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Post by Johnny-Come-Lately on Mar 10, 2019 2:26:07 GMT
This is so good. Seeing the Kaczynski twins when they were just small kids was crazy. I see there are many classic Polish films that I need to see.
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Post by petrolino on Mar 10, 2019 2:38:26 GMT
This is so good. Seeing the Kaczynski twins when they were just small kids was crazy. I see there are many classic Polish films that I need to see.
Hi Johnny-Come-Lately. There's so many films available to watch on viewing platforms like youtube and Daily Motion. Plus, a huge number of Polish films on dvd now come with English subtitle options, which is great for those of us who don't speak Polish. I've picked up some nice buys in the last decade on e-bay.
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Post by Johnny-Come-Lately on Mar 10, 2019 2:48:06 GMT
This is so good. Seeing the Kaczynski twins when they were just small kids was crazy. I see there are many classic Polish films that I need to see.
Hi Johnny-Come-Lately. There's so many films available to watch on viewing platforms like youtube and Daily Motion. Plus, a huge number of Polish films on dvd now come with English subtitle options, which is great for those of us who don't speak Polish. I've picked up some nice buys in the last decade on e-bay.
Thanks. I'm pretty fluent in Polish. It's just I haven't seen all the classics (bar a few). A Short Film about Love is still my favorite classic Polish film.
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Post by petrolino on Mar 10, 2019 3:02:07 GMT
Hi Johnny-Come-Lately. There's so many films available to watch on viewing platforms like youtube and Daily Motion. Plus, a huge number of Polish films on dvd now come with English subtitle options, which is great for those of us who don't speak Polish. I've picked up some nice buys in the last decade on e-bay.
Thanks. I'm pretty fluent in Polish. It's just I haven't seen all the classics (bar a few). A Short Film about Love is still my favorite classic Polish film.
If I spoke Polish, I'd probably watch a lot more of the Golden Age Polish movies that are currently screening on youtube. But having said that, limitations can be good; they direct me to watch films from all around the globe.
I think youtube is a gift for fans of old movies, and an essential platform for obscurities, particularly helpful for viewers who find themselves short on funds.
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