A book review of Ewa Mazierska’s European Cinema and Intertextuality: History, Memory and Politics (2011). The author of the book takes on the task of presenting important events of the twentieth-century history of Europe, and narratives dealing with those events, through the prism of films of various genres and made by film-makers from a number of countries. In six chapters dealing with amongst others the Holocaust, European terrorism and the fall of communism the author analyses films, and their intertextual, medium and historiographical context. The reviewer draws attention to the methodological awareness of the author, and the efficiency with which she harnesses and uses extensive historical literature on the subject. At the same time she expresses some doubts about the analyses of specific films outside of their local, and therefore more nuanced, context. However regardless of the controversial analyses Mazierska’s book confirms the importance of film as a historical source, and an impulse for meta-historical reflection.
This article offers a critical discussion of Magdalena Raszewska’s book Dejmek (Warszawa 2021). The reviewer argues that this biography of Kazimierz Dejmek (1924–2002), theater director and manager, is at the same time a meta-historical source, as it offers insights not only into a particular receding model of theatre and thinking about theater, but also into the categories, concepts, and structures specific to its time. Raszewska precisely describes Dejmek’s patriarchal features and principles, and she presents the history of his theater using terms pertinent to the values cherished by himself and his community. While her use of rumor and denunciation letters to de-mythologize Dejmek’s theater and its backstage practices may at times raise methodological concerns, it undoubtedly contributes to a picture of power and community relations that encourages a critical examination of the past and its protagonist.
PL
Artykuł stanowi krytyczne omówienie książki Magdaleny Raszewskiej Dejmek (Warszawa 2021). Recenzentka stawia tezę, że ta biografia Kazimierza Dejmka (1924–2002), reżysera i dyrektora teatrów, jest jednocześnie źródłem metahistorycznym, pozwala bowiem przyjrzeć się nie tylko pewnemu przemijającemu modelowi teatru i myślenia o teatrze, ale także kategoriom, pojęciom i strukturom właściwym jego czasom. Patriarchalne cechy i zasady Dejmka zostały przez Raszewską precyzyjnie opisane, a historia jego teatru przedstawiona pojęciami adekwatnymi do wartości, jakim hołdował on i jego wspólnota. Sposób wykorzystania przez autorkę plotek i donosów, by odmitologizować teatr i jego kulisy, budzić może chwilami metodologiczne wątpliwości, ale niewątpliwie współtworzy obraz stosunków władzy i relacji środowiskowych zachęcający do krytycznego oglądu przeszłości i jej bohatera.
Recenzja książki: Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska, Czwarty akt Wesela. Teatr polski wobec rewolucji 1905 roku, Instytut Teatralny im. Zbigniewa Raszewskiego, Warszawa 2023
Feature film as a historical source is frequently underestimated, while despite its artistic ambitions and openly subjective narration it should be recognized and analyzed as a valuable source of knowledge about the past. The article presents wide contexts and detailed insight into the ways how The Security Service of communist Poland and its relations with ordinary people have been represented and interpreted by the Polish cinema. Surprisingly enough we can learn a lot about methods, activities, surveillance, interrogations and tortures of the secret police during almost any period of Polish history from films made both before and after 1989. Polish films concerning the problem of the Security Service theory and practice could be analyzed according to three different orders: an order of representation, an order of dramatization and an order of updating, which refers directly to the problem of lustration and coming to terms with the past.
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