The article focuses on autobiographical films by Polish-American documentary filmmaker whose most personal project is Never Forget to Lie (2012) about Jews rescued from the Warsaw ghetto in their early childhood. Marzyński is a Holocaust survivor himself and a television reporter who emigrated from communist Poland in 1969. He has been gradually transforming the style of the documentary films he made in the West to make them more and more personal by referring to his biography. Marzyński’s cinéma vérité techniques include initiating emotional in-front-of-the-camera interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses of History in the meaningful surrounding of historical places. In this way, the filmmaker makes the architecture, landscape and personal objects “speak” about the past or uses them to stimulate the memory of the interviewed people. The only quoted film material, or found footage, comes from his own archives, where he has been collecting his released documentaries together with never used scenes and takes.
PL
Reports from Remembering. Marian Marzyński’s Documentary Reconstructions of the Past Reality The article focuses on autobiographical films by Polish-American documentary filmmaker whose most personal project is Never Forget to Lie (2012) about Jews rescued from the Warsaw ghetto in their early childhood. Marzyński is a Holocaust survivor himself and a television reporter who emigrated from communist Poland in 1969. He has been gradually transforming the style of the documentary films he made in the West to make them more and more personal by referring to his biography. Marzyński’s cinéma vérité techniques include initiating emotional in-front-of-the-camera interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses of History in the meaningful surrounding of historical places. In this way, the filmmaker makes the architecture, landscape and personal objects “speak” about the past or uses them to stimulate the memory of the interviewed people. The only quoted film material, or found footage, comes from his own archives, where he has been collecting his released documentaries together with never used scenes and takes.
Autobiographical threads occupy an important place in films of Marian Marzyński and Leszek Leo Kantor. Interesting is the convergence of life experiences common to both authors. We can indicate a lot of parallelisms in biographies of both directors. Certainly, the most important analogy is the fact that both of them survived the Holocaust as children. Common to both artists is also experience of anti-Semitic campaign of March 1968, as a result of which they were forced to emigrate from Poland. The objective of this article is to demonstrate how this personal experience of exile resonates in their work.
PL
The exile of survivors. The experience of post-March ‘68 emigration in films of Marian Marzyński and Leszek Leo Kantor Autobiographical threads occupy an important place in films of Marian Marzyński and Leszek Leo Kantor. Interesting is the convergence of life experiences common to both authors. We can indicate a lot of parallelisms in biographies of both directors. Certainly, the most important analogy is the fact that both of them survived the Holocaust as children. Common to both artists is also experience of anti-Semitic campaign of March 1968, as a result of which they were forced to emigrate from Poland. The objective of this article is to demonstrate how this personal experience of exile resonates in their work.
The book (Un)forgotten documentalists, edited by Katarzyna Mąka-Malatyńska and Jolanta Lemann-Zajiček (2020) is a significant achievement in research on Polish documentary film. The review of the collective work, consisting of ten texts preceded by an introduction, becomes the starting point for discussions with selected authors and reflection on the problem of the absence of significant documentary filmmakers in the history of the film. Entire currents are also forgotten, such as a film about art, represented by four out of nine documentary filmmakers discussed in the book. The meanders of life and creativity can be instructive for contemporary documentary filmmakers.
Marian Marzyński jest znanym i cenionym twórcą filmów dokumentalnych, w których, bazując w dużej mierze na własnej biografii, opowiada o trudnych polsko-żydowskich relacjach oraz dwudziestowiecznej historii. Charakterystyczny styl reżysera – stała obecność w świecie przedstawionym, autorski komentarz, liczne nawiązania do własnego życiorysu, prowadzona z ręki kamera, wykorzystywanie materiałów z gromadzonego przez dziesięciolecia archiwum – pozwalają mu snuć narrację z perspektywy świadka i uczestnika wielkiej Historii. Istotnym wątkiem w twórczości reżysera jest emigracja. Zmuszony do niej w wyniku wydarzeń określanych wyrażeniem „Marzec ‘68”, jako pierwszy przekuł to doświadczenie na wypowiedzi artystyczne. Jego debiut zagraniczny – zrealizowane dla duńskiej telewizji „Skibet/Hatikvah” (1970/2010) – to pierwszy zapis filmowy sytuacji, w jakiej znaleźli się Polacy żydowskiego pochodzenia, którzy opuścili Polskę w wyniku antysemickiej nagonki. Obraz ludzi pozostających w zawieszeniu, niepewnych przyszłego losu i własnej tożsamości, jest przejmujący, mimo – a może właśnie dzięki niemu – surowości i skromności obrazu. Poświęcony mu tekst Joanny Preizner osadza filmy Marzyńskiego w historycznym, politycznym i obyczajowym kontekście, czyniąc ze wspomnień marcowych emigrantów osobną opowieść, niezbędną do zrozumienia wydarzeń i wypowiedzi pokazanych na ekranie.
EN
Marian Marzyński is a well-known and valued director of documentary films in which, basing mostly on his own biography, he talks about difficult Polish-Jewish relations and 20th-century Eastern European history. The director’s characteristic style – constant presence in the diegesis, author’s commentary, numerous references to his own biography, camera from the hand, using materials from the archive collected for decades - allow him to narrate the narrative from the perspective of a witness and participant in the great History. An important thread in the director’s work is emigration. Forced to leave his homeland as a result of the events called “March ‘68,” he was the first to translate this experience into artistic expression. His debut abroad – made for the Danish television “Skibet / Hatikvah” (1970/2010) – is the first recording of a situation in which Poles of Jewish origin found themselves after leaving Poland as a result of anti-Semitic campaign. The image of lost people, unsure of their future fate and their own identity, is absolutelty impressive, despite – or maybe thanks to – the severity and modesty of the image. The text by Joanna Preizner on that picture sets Marzyński’s films in a historical, political and moral context, making the memories of March ‘68 emigrants a separate story, necessary to understand the events and statements shown on the screen.
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