Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context

344 Pages·2014·7.207 MB·English

by  Ewa Mazierska, Michael Goddard

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The opening up of Poland economically and politically to global influences after a
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the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, coupled with the rise of transnational approaches i
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to the study of film, presents ideal conditions for examining Polish cinema from a r
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transnational vantage point. Yet not only have studies of Polish cinema remained k
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largely within a national framework but Polish cinema, as well as many other Eastern

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European cinemas, has been virtually excluded from new research in transnational
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cinema. d

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Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context addresses this lacuna in film studies, o
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offering extended analysis of this national cinema’s global influence. Contributors d
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assess the reception of Polish films in Europe and North America, Polish international
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coproductions, the presence of Polish performers in foreign films, and the works d
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of subversive émigré auteurs like Andrzej Zuławski and Walerian Borowczyk. The
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collection presents familiar films and filmmakers in a new and revealing light, while d
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also focusing on lesser-known filmmakers and aspects of Polish cinema. The resulting .
volume moves the discussion beyond the border of Polish national belonging.
P
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“This interesting and lively volume identifies and fills a gap in the study of cinema
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in general and Polish cinema in particular: that of Polish cinema’s transnational I
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dimension. The book’s consideration of the long-standing relevance of transnationalism
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to this important cinematic tradition is overdue.”

— PAUL COATES, professor of film C
studies, University of Western Ontario I
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Contributors: Peter Hames, Darragh O’Donoghue, Helena Goscilo, Dorota Ostrowska,
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Charlotte Govaert, Eva Näripea, Izabela Kalinowska, Ewa Mazierska, Alison Smith, Lars
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Kristensen, Jonathan Owen, Michael Goddard, Robert Murphy, Kamila Kuc, Elzbieta N
Ostrowska IN A
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WA G N E R A N D V E N I C E
T P O L I S H C I N E M A
TRANSNATIONAL
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N CONTEXT
EWA MAZIERSKA is professor of film studies at the University of Central Lancashire. S
MICHAEL GODDARD is senior lecturer in media at the University of Salford. N
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T F I C T I O N A L I Z E D
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Cover image: From Walerian Borowczyk, Goto, Island of Love (1969): Ligia Branice and Jean-Pierre Andréani. N Edited by
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L Ewa Mazierska and

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O Michael Goddard
Variations on a Theme
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668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA J O H N W. B A R K E R
P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.urpress.com
P C T C
OLISH INEMA IN A RANSNATIONAL ONTEXT
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Rochester Studies in East and Central Europe
Series Editor: Timothy Snyder, Yale University
(ISSN 1528-4808)
Post-Communist Transition: The Thorny Road
Grzegorz W. Kolodko
Globalization and Catching-up in Transition Economies
Grzegorz W. Kolodko
Polish Formalist School
Andrzej Karcz
Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772–1914
Jolanta T. Pekacz
Ideology, Politics and Diplomacy in East Central Europe
M. B. B. Biskupski, Ed.
Between East and West: Polish and
Russian Nineteenth-Century Travel to the Orient
Izabela Kalinowska
The Polish Singers Alliance of America 1888–1998: Choral Patriotism
Stanislaus A. Blejwas
A Clean Sweep? The Politics of
Ethnic Cleansing in Western Poland, 1945–1960
T. David Curp
Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941:
Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization
Edited by Alex J. Kay, Jeff Rutherford, and David Stahel
Critical Thinking in Slovakia after Socialism
Jonathan Larson
Smolensk under the Nazis: Everyday Life in Occupied Russia
Laurie R. Cohen
Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context
Edited by Ewa Mazierska and Michael Goddard
MMaazziieerrsskkaa..iinndddd iiii 22//44//22001144 77::4444::2299 PPMM
P C
OLISH INEMA IN A
T C
RANSNATIONAL ONTEXT
Edited by Ewa Mazierska and
Michael Goddard
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Copyright © 2014 by the Editors and Contributors
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no
part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2014
University of Rochester Press
668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.urpress.com
and Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-468-0
ISSN: 1528-4808
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Polish cinema in a transnational context / edited by Ewa Mazierska and
Michael Goddard.
pages cm. — (Rochester studies in East and Central Europe, ISSN
1528-4808 ; v. 11)
Partially based on a conference, Polish Cinema in an International
Context, held in December 2009 at Cornerhouse, Manchester.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58046-468-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—
Poland—History—20th century—Congresses. I. Mazierska, Ewa, editor of
compilation. II. Goddard, Michael, 1965- editor of compilation.
PN1993.5.P7P56 2014
791.4309438—dc23
2013043808
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Polish Cinema beyond Polish Borders 1
Ewa Mazierska and Michael Goddard
Part One: The International Reception of Polish Films
1 West of the East: Polish and Eastern European Film in the
United Kingdom 23
Peter Hames
2 The Shifting British Reception of Wajda’s Work from
Man of Marble to Katyń 37
Darragh O’Donoghue
3 Affluent Viewers as Global Provincials: The American
Reception of Polish Cinema 56
Helena Goscilo
4 Polish Films at the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals:
The 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s 77
Dorota Ostrowska
5 How Polish Is Polish? Silver City and the
National Identity of Documentary Film 95
Charlotte Govaert
Part Two: Polish International
Coproductions and Presence in Foreign Films
6 Postcolonial Heterotopias: A Paracinematic Reading of
Marek Piestrak’s Estonian Coproductions 115
Eva Näripea
7 Poland-Russia: Coproductions, Collaborations, Exchanges
Izabela Kalinowska 134
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vi Contents
8 Train to Hollywood: Polish Actresses in Foreign Films 153
Ewa Mazierska
9 Polish Performance in French Space: Jerzy Radziwiłowicz
as a Transnational Actor 174
Alison Smith
10 Polish Actor-Directors Playing Russians:
Skolimowski and Stuhr 194
Lars Kristensen
Part Three: Émigré and Subversive Polish Directors
11 An Island Near the Left Bank: Walerian Borowczyk as a
French Left Bank Filmmaker 215
Jonathan Owen
12 Beyond Polish Moral Realism: The Subversive Cinema of
Andrzej Żuławski 236
Michael Goddard
13 Polanski and Skolimowski in Swinging London 258
Robert Murphy
14 The Elusive Trap of Freedom? Krzysztof Zanussi’s
International Coproductions 275
Kamila Kuc
15 Agnieszka Holland’s Transnational Nomadism 289
Elżbieta Ostrowska
Selected Bibliography 311
List of Contributors 319
Index 323
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Acknowledgments
This book is in part based on papers presented at the conference “Polish
Cinema in an International Context,” which took place in December
2009 at Cornerhouse, Manchester. We would like to express our grati-
tude to the institutions that fi nancially supported this event: the Polish
Film Institute, the Polish Consulate in Manchester, the Polish Cultural
Institute in London, and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. We also want
to thank all our colleagues and friends who helped us organize this event
and those who attended, presented papers, or listened and commented on
those given by others. The lively discussions at this conference affected in
a signifi cant way the shape of this volume.
We are also grateful to Elżbieta Ostrowska and Lars Kristensen, who,
on top of contributing chapters to this collection, commented on the
early draft of its introduction, and to Adam Wyżyński from the Polish
Film Archive for helping us to access some of the stills and other second-
ary source material used in this book.
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Introduction
Polish Cinema beyond Polish Borders
Ewa Mazierska and Michael Goddard
The idea for this book originated in our observation that while there
is a growing body of innovative work dealing with transnationality in
world cinema,1 studies devoted to this phenomenon tend to omit Eastern
European cinemas, including Polish fi lms, which is an area of special
interest to the editors of this volume. For example, Elizabeth Ezra and
Terry Rowden’s Transnational Cinema does not include even one chap-
ter devoted to fi lms or fi lmmakers from Eastern Europe.2 They are also
typically omitted from the studies of “world cinema.” Similarly, histories
of Polish cinema, whether written by Polish fi lm historians working in
Poland,3 Polish émigré authors,4 or non-Polish authors,5 tend to ignore
transnational phenomena or do not account for the differences between
fi lms made within Polish borders and those made elsewhere in the world.
Arguably Paul Coates’s consideration in The Red and the White of the
“temporary exile” of fi lmmakers like Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof
Zanussi, and of the more permanent exilic condition of fi lmmakers like
Jerzy Skolimowski and Agnieszka Holland, is an exception to this rule.6
However, at best this is only a start; ultimately, time will tell whether
the “prolonged absence” of these directors from the national cinema
scene “may sap the will and—more importantly—the ability to speak
for one’s countrymen.”7 Despite the promise of a consideration of Polish
cinema post-1989—that is, “the question of co-production”8—such con-
sideration is only a preamble to the main focus of the chapter on the
cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski. But even here, the transnational dimen-
sions of his work are deempahsized, authorized by a reading in terms of
Kieślowski’s supposed “demotion of politics.”9 Ultimately, this points to
the need to expand the consideration of transnationality, coproduction,
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