The image of Warsaw in ruins after World War II is an important motif in Polish documentary and feature cinema in the years 1944–1956. In the text, I discuss the images of the city captured by the first chroniclers as ‘basic’, which then became archetypical icons of the city’s destruction. I point out that the aesthetics of destruction, recorded in Andrzej Panufnik’s early film Ballada f-moll [Ballade in f minor], Jerzy Bossak’s Most [Bridge] and Tadeusz Makarczyński’s Suita warszawska [Warsaw Suite] proved to be exemplary for other artists. I show that the destruction of urban and architectural structures was inspiring for directors: it served as a documentary record, a basis forconstructing scripts, and dominant aesthetic, often providing a persuasive argument and serving to shape emotions. References to the resentments of the audience and the anatomy of the ruins were among the elements that shaped the ideological attitudes of various parts of Polish society. For some directors it was also a catharsis after the trauma of the Holocaust.
The article is devoted to the subject of political journalism by Helena Lemańska, in 1949–1967 editor-in-chief of the Polish Film Newsreel (Polish: Polska Kronika Filmowa). The text aims to present the relationship between Lemańska’s leftist worldview and her form of practising film propaganda and its evolution: from a tool of political indoctrination to a film mirror in which the social reality of Poland in the years of ‘little stabilization’ was reflected.
PL
Tematem artykułu jest publicystyka polityczna Heleny Lemańskiej, w latach 1949–1967 redaktorki naczelnej Polskiej Kroniki Filmowej. Tekst ma na celu wskazanie zależności pomiędzy lewicowym światopoglądem dziennikarki a uprawianą przez nią formą filmowej propagandy i jej ewolucją: od narzędzia politycznej indoktrynacji do filmowego zwierciadła, w którym odbijała się rzeczywistość społeczna Polski lat „małej stabilizacji”.
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