"Popiół i diament" w ogniu. Krytyka filmu po 13 grudnia 1981 roku

• Authors: Krzysztof Kornacki

Title variants

EN

"Ashes and Diamonds" on fire. Critical reviews after December 13th, 1981

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Shortly after its premiere, Wajda’s film was proclaimed the most outstanding Polish movie and so it was through several decades, as we may observe in the rankings (from the years 1974, 1985 and 1995). Many perceivers’ (also previous fans) attitude towards the masterpiece changed after December 13th, 1981, when the martial law was imposed. Once again, like after the premiere, only this time stronger, appeared the question about the movie: was it a diamond or ash? The debate has started among many famous writers and critics. In these changed circumstances many authors again asked about the role and impact of „Ashes and Diamond” on Polish culture. Sławomir Mrożek, Andrzej Werner, Jacek Trznadel, Krzysztof Kąkolewski, Wanda Zwinogrodzka, and also Tadeusz Konwicki, Waldemar Chołodowski and few other people decided to reclaim the picture. Their texts added next operands against Wajda’s film, judging it from the point of view of the historical vision created in the movie and it’s socio-political impact, such as: — the masterpiece was marked with the low (propaganda) origin, because the literal prototype of the story was inspired by the Secret Political Police; — the film repeated and embedded historical lies of Andrzejewski’s book; — the movie is full of mistakes and historical malformations, which support the communistic vision of the year 1945; — artistically good, the movie had a hypnotic influence on the viewers (and the evocative style reduced critical thinking towards the picture); — the film faked the tragedy (no balance of rights between different political views); — artistic side of the movie was not appropriate, looking from the perspective of the tragic theme (cursed soldiers); — the film authorised the presence of euphemisms in public discourse (“quarter-truths”); — it wasn’t a vindication of Home Army (or it was a non-complete vindication); — Wajda’s film has contributed to calming the social consciousness down and made it forget about the tragedy of the resistance soldiers; — by taking the rights away from “the cursed soldiers”, the movie also took away the status of social models, icons; — Wajda’s movie has become an equivalent to the big national epics, but it was a false epic, which replaced important values.

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wroclawskiego
• Journal: Studia Filmoznawcze
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 39
• Pages: 27-51

Contributors

author

Krzysztof Kornacki

• Uniwersytet Gdański, Polska