Search results - CEJSH

1

Filmmaker on democracy: The case of Agnieszka Holland’s work

100%

Grodź I.

Studia Medioznawcze

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2023

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issue 4

11-20

EN

This essay explores the influential role of cinematic artists in shaping discussions around democratic values and addressing contemporary European challenges. It focuses on the works and public statements of Agnieszka Holland, a renowned Polish filmmaker. Holland, known for her film Europa, Europa, predominantly explores individual experiences. However, these personal narratives are intricately interwoven with broader communal, historical-political, and cultural themes. This text aims to highlight key democratic principles through Holland’s perspectives, emphasising the educational impact of her films. Particularly, it examines how her work confronts various forms of discrimination, including those based on gender, religion, and nationality, while simultaneously fostering a ‘culture of dialogue’. The approach used in this research is an analysis of media content.

2

Chopin on the cinema screen. Aesthetic and cultural determinants

100%

Kornacki K.

Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology

|

2010

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issue 9

317-342

PL

As with most film subjects, the way Chopin has been presented in the cinema has been the result of a particular poetic (depending on the genre) and cultural context. The author classifies cinematographic Chopinalia on the basis of the former determinant, although without neglecting entirely, in some sections of the text, to treat film as a text of culture. The clear majority of documentary and educational films about Chopin have been made in Poland (as a form of promotion for the country, which does not boast too many icons of world culture). For both aesthetic and cultural reasons, the boundary between documentary and educational film has become blurred. Historical documentaries have used the same iconographic material, film shots and utterances, and also - for the purposes of musical illustration - the same Chopinworks as educational films. Cultural considerations have affected the thematic restrictions in respect to silver screen discourse about Chopin: in both genres, it reflects a rather stereotypical approach to the composer’s life story, with no room for the “Chopin mysteries” (e.g. his fascination with Tytus Woyciechowski) that have long been addressed in the literature. In experimental and animated film, the accent has been shifted - in keeping with the essence of those genres - from Chopin’s biography to his music. Nevertheless, here too the pressure of cultural (national) context has determined the choice of film material accompanying particular works. At the same time, experimental films have become anti-war or political films (as in the case of Eugeniusz C^kalski’s Utwory Chopina w kolorze [Chopin’s works in colour], from 1944 or Andrzej Panufnik’s Bailada f moll [Ballade in F minor], from 1945), whilst the presentation of Chopin’s music in animated films has been full of iconographic clichés and pleonasms (a Mazovian landscape with cleft willows, carriages speeding along in the background, dancing ballerinas, falling leaves and so on), creating a schematic visual code that is automatically associated with the compositions of the brilliant Pole. By way of contrast, it is worth emphasising that a few foreign experimental films (Max Ophiils’s La Valse Brillante de Chopin, Germaine Dulac’s Dysk 927) have illustrated Chopin’s music with images of “universal” objects (piano, gramophone, rain) associated more with music than with feelings, and not with Poland. The dozen or so feature films about Chopin have mainly belonged to popular cinema. For that reason, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the film-makers have turned to biographical facts which possess a suitable dramatic potential. Feature films about Chopin have treated history as a background - a costume in which to dress a tale about universal cultural myths: the myth of love (the relationship with George Sand, which has dominated Chopin films), the pseudo-Romantic myth of the great artist and the patriot myth (prime examples being Charles Vidor’s A Song to Remember and Jerzy Antczak’s Chopin. Pragnienie miłości [Chopin. Desire for love]). Some films - albeit few in number - have adopted a different strategy. One such picture attempted to exploit Chopin’s life story to exemplify Marxist historiosophy and a socialist- realist poetic (Aleksander Ford’s Młodość Chopina [Chopin’s youth]); another- Andrzej Żulawski’s Błękitna nuta [La note bleue] - is a truly original picture about the composer and, like almost every original film, tells us as much about the director as about Chopin himself.

3

History of film education in Poland - an outline

100%

Sokołowski M.

The New Educational Review

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2015

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vol. 41

65-74

EN

The paper offers a review of Polish discussions on the educational aspects of film. While initially many authors were quite sceptical of film, then viewed primarily as a form of cheap entertainment for the masses, they subsequently started exploring the possibilities for using film in education. The paper discusses the views of early pioneers, such as Matuszewski and Irzykowski, up until more recent developments (such as the New Horizons Association), emphasizing the Polish contribution to the history of film and media education.

4

Celluloid Flavours. A Brief History of Food in Film

89%

Drzał-Sierocka A.

Łódzkie Studia Etnograficzne

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2015

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vol. 54

EN

The aim of the essay is to analyse selected images and the ways in which food functions in films. The author attempts to demonstrate how durable and intense are the connections between food and film. The text constitutes a type of a catalogue presenting examples of culinary meanings in film, which are as diverse as possible, although the provided examples certainly do not exhaust the topic and their selection is to some extent subjective. The text is written from the perspective of film studies, with some important consequences thereof. Primarily, description decidedly dominates over analysis and interpretation, the possible directions of which are only signalled. The author demonstrates that culinary issues in films often carry a metaphorical and symbolic potential, thus becoming a carrier of information regarding the cultural and socio-political context in which the film was made. As a film specialist, she is interested in the manner in which culinary themes (i.e. food and various actions related to it) constitute an element of a film’s narration by defining the presented world, providing the characterisation of the protagonists and their interrelationships, creating moods, evoking emotions etc. Both types of filmic culinaries, i.e. those inside and outside the film itself, are described and signalled in the context of concrete films (or scenes).

5

Strach jako kategoria języka postkolonialności (wokół filmów Wojciecha Smarzowskiego: „Wesele", „Dom zły", „Róża", „Drogówka")

89%

Skórczewski D.

Porównania

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2015

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vol. 16

125-145

EN

A most striking characteris-tic of Wojciech Smarzowski’s feature films is their uncanny atmosphere resulting from horrify-ing events and situations represented. This atmosphere seems to transgress the effect assumed in the genre to which the director refers, i.e. the thriller, and be rooted elsewhere than simply in the convention of classical horror cinema. Seeking an answer to the question concerning the causes of fear with which the spectatorship of The Wedding (Wesele), The Dark House (Dom zły), Rose (Róża), and Traffic Department (Drogówka), each of them so different from another, is confronted, the author attempts at theorizing the category of postcolonial fear. He offers the thesis that the fear evoked in Smarzowski’s movies is a medium for articulating the postcolonial trauma of memory of society engaged in dealing with its colonial past and present postcolonial realities. By articulating this trauma, the director carries out a peculiar work of memory in the “zone of tran-sition” (term borrowed from B. Buden).

PL

Jedną z uderzających cech obrazów filmowych Wojciecha Smarzowskiego jest groza i niesamowitość ukazywanych w nich zdarzeń oraz sytuacji. Nastrój budowany przez reżysera zdaje się wykraczać poza efekt przewidziany konwencją thrillera i mieć inne niż w klasycznym kinie grozy podłoże. Poszukując odpowiedzi na pytanie o przyczyny strachu, z jakim konfrontowany jest widz tak różnych od siebie filmów, jak Wesele, Dom zły, Róża i Drogówka, autor artykułu podejmuje próbę teoretyzacji zagadnienia postkolonialnego strachu. Stawia tezę, iż ewokowana w filmach Smarzowskiego emocja stanowi medium artykulacji postkolonialnej traumy pamięci społeczeństwa, które boryka się ze swoją kolonialną przeszłością i postkolonialną teraźniejszością. Artykułując tę traumę, reżyser przeprowadza swoistą pracę pamięci w „strefie przejścia” (słowami B. Budena).

6

O cineasta e a cidade: Manoel de Oliveira e O Porto

88%

Branco de Oliveira A.

Studia Iberystyczne

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2014

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vol. 13

521-534

EN

Manoel de Oliveira brings about a strong, inexplicable and a connection impossible to define to Porto. He casts, in Douro Faina Fluvial (1931), Aniki‑Bóbó (1942), O Pintor e a Cidade (1956), and Porto da minha Infância (2001) a special relationship between this city and the universe of movies. The Porto of Manoel de Oliveira becomes a filmic discourse, an aesthetic journey without boundaries between fiction and documentary. It’s a city established as the architecture of the film becoming the character, title, maximum space of architectural and cinematic reflection. It is a labyrinthine Porto of images, a city transformed by the multiple film cameras from a single Master.

7

The City through the Eyes of Expressionism

88%

Demčišák J.

Ethnologia Actualis

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2016

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vol. 16

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issue 1

79-96

EN

The process of industrialization and urban growth and the development of cities in the first three decades of the 20th century are inevitably related to rapid social changes. The new attitude to life, which corresponds to this process, affected the aesthetic perception and the work of artists as well. The study shows the sensitiveness of German expressionism to the dynamics, drive and chaos of the new city life. The expressionistic picture of the city is clearly ambivalent; it oscillates between fascination on the one hand and antipathy on the other. Expressionism also reflects the social alienation and the feeling of being lonely in a crowd as new phenomena of the 20th century.

8

Cinema, Insatiability and Impure Form: Witkacy on Film

88%

Goddard M.

Estetyka i Krytyka

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2013

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issue 4(31)

99-107

EN

In this essay the author discusses Cinema in the work of Witkacy, particularly its absence. He refers to many of Witkacy’s Western contemporaries as being fascinated by this increasingly dominant 20th Century medium, which Witkacy seems to have ignored despite his interest and participation in a wide range of modern aesthetic practices including painting, photography, mass produced portraits, and theatre. Part of the explanation for this, it is suggested, may lay in the relative underdevelopment of cinema in Poland prior to World War II; most of the local cinema produced was in the form of highly conventional romances, with an avant-garde cinema only developing towards the end of Witkacy’s life. The author continues to present a very succinct account of how Witkacy’s work has been transmuted into the medium of Film and Television.

9

Black heroes and heroines in cinema. Representations of Afro-American identities in the “Blaxploitation” movies

88%

Drozdowicz J.

Journal of Gender and Power

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2014

|

vol. 2

59-72

EN

The cinematic genre of Blaxploitation is a significant example of how the popular culture influences certain identity patterns. In this case the this relation is being examined on the issue of contemporary Afro-American identities. This paper attempts to answer the question of the mechanism of identity construction in the context of new media, and cinema in particular. Thus the Blaxploitation movies are being regarded here as a phenomenon which is in large extent typical for other identity constructions in the context of a global cultural change occur-ring in the last decades in the West.

10

Teoretyzowanie kina u Sebalda i Sebalda przez kino

88%

Frey M., Gliński M.

Konteksty - Polska Sztuka Ludowa

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2014

|

vol. 68

|

issue 3-4(306-307)

135-144

EN

The text originates from: Searching for Sebald: Photography After W.G. Sebald (ed. Lise Patt, Christel Dillbohner, Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles 2007).

11

Prohibition as a method of struggle against anti-Ukrainian films

88%

Sokolova S.

Intercultural Communication

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2022

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vol. 7

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issue 1

57-58

EN

Purpose. This study aims to reveal the experience of Ukraine in banning as a method of struggle against Russian propagandist anti-Ukrainian films. Methods. Deduction technique as a process of logical concluding based on the complex of analyzed facts as well as summarizing have been applied. Results. Cinematographic informational aggression of Russia against Ukraine began in 2000 with the coming to power of V. Putin. Taking into consideration the fact, that it is television which is the most popular source of information for the absolute majority of Russians it can be claimed that Russian propagandistic films, which are very products of Putin’s policy, played not the last role in inciting aggression among Russian population. Discussion. Since 2000 Russian cinema production has started to actively focus on popularization of their own power structures and producing films propagating war, aiming at inciting of inter-ethnical, religious aggression, humiliation of Ukrainian nation, humiliation of an individual etc. the films have been heating up Russian’s aggression against Ukrainians and preparing Russia’s population for the war with Ukraine. These films possess great potential to form mythological thinking and stereotyping of viewers’ views. Practice has proved that introducing prohibitions as a method of struggle against anti-Ukrainian propagandist films is quite an effective method of defense

12

Le Petit Prince ne va pas bien. Essai sur une pédagogie à rebours

88%

Iftimia C.

Concordia Discors vs Discordia Concors: Researches into Comparative Literature, Contrastive Linguistics, Cross-Cultural and Translation Strategies

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2019

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vol. 12

113-124

EN

In the present paper we compare Saint-Exupéry‘s Le petit princewith Mike Osborne‘s movie The Little Prince from the perspective of certainmodern teaching strategies, which we consider to be ―anti-pedagogical‖ at best.The aim of this essay is to point out that nowadays‘ education, be it parental orinstitutional, hence child/student-oriented, is going in a wrong direction and,worse even, leading to traumas. One of the multiple causes is that literatureplays an ever less significant role in the process of education.

13

The Artist and the Poetic Provocations in the 1980 Bulgarian Live-Action Film Illusion

88%

Panova M.

Świat i Słowo

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2021

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vol. 36(1)

229-248

EN

This text highlights the aesthetic explorations of Bulgarian cinematographers from the 1980s, specifically those aimed at people of art. The article offers, first, a brief overview of films that examine the symbolic potential of the artist, which defines the consideration of an established and meaningful tendency in the development of Bulgarian cinema. The article focuses then on the live-action film Illusion (1980, directed by Lyudmil Staykov and written by Konstantin Pavlov) and examines the figure of the artist in the piece. The presented interpretation supports the view of the film as a morally valuable expression of modern art.

14

Przestrzeń jako film – architektura w perspektywie badań nad audiowizualnością

88%

Habdas M.

Przegląd Kulturoznawczy

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2013

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issue 3(17)

234–247

EN

Based on the BA thesis Urban Spaces of Motion Pictures: Modern Architecture in the Perspective of Audiovisual Studies, this paper explores the links between architecture and cinema. My goal is not only to show some theoretical concepts regarding this topic (including ones by Sergei Eisenstein, Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard), but also, and primarily, to study the actual effect which the cinematic perception has on the fi eld of modern architecture. Therefore, I analyse two projects of Rem Koolhaas (Embassy of the Netherlands in Berlin and ZKM in Karlsruhe) in the perspective of audiovisual studies. In my analyses, I examine such notions as “the narrativity of architecture” and “the architectural media screen”, using some methodological tools borrowed from the field of film studies.

15

Recenzja książki Joanny Pigulak „Gra w film. Z zagadnień relacji między filmem i grami wideo”, Universitas, Kraków 2022

88%

Prajzner K.

Replay. The Polish Journal of Game Studies

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2022

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vol. 9

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issue 1

59-64

EN

What is the relationship between computer games and cinema? Why computer games tend to employ camera movement, shot-selection and framing similar to that used in the cinema? To what extent, though, is it useful to look at games more closely in the light of cinema? These are the central organising questions of Joanna Pigulak’s 2022 monograph Gra w film. Z zagadnień relacji między filmem i grami wideo. The book focuses very much on film-like quality of graphics and genres of computer games and explores the extent to which the tools of film analysis can be applied to them. The book argues persuasively that likeness between cinema and games is the reason for calling games virtual reality, what makes the main framework somewhat debatable. Pigulak’s great strength is in analysing fragments of computer games and demonstrating how differences between cinema and games are allowing for defining new qualities of interactive texts even when fundamentally similar building blocks are involved.

16

Film fabularny jako narzędzie kuratora i badacza sztuki

87%

Ronduda Ł.

Artium Quaestiones

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2020

|

issue 1

209-236

EN

In the essay, the author, Łukasz Ronduda, relates his own work as an artist, a film director, an art historian and curator, discussed in the light of the cinematic turn and the formation of common ground between cinema and contemporary art in both artistic and institutional sense. Ronduda looks closely at his two full-length feature films: Performer (2015) and Serce miłości (Heart of Love) (2017) and highlights their wider context. The first frame of reference spans from experimental films to contemporary full-length productions dedicated to wide audience. The second reference is his own work involving academic research, curating, writing a novel and the creation of a found footage film. In this self-presentation, Ronduda discloses his different attempts to find the right medium to speak about and analyze contemporary art. The full-length film turned out to be particularly effective medium in its ability to express the truth by means of fiction, placing him between creation and institutional structure. Film as a medium of interpreting art seems to productively question fixed boundaries between research, criticism and art.

17

„Nic dobrego”? Kilka uwag o próbach prozatorskich Zdzisława Beksińskiego

76%

Chomiszczak T.

Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Literacka

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2016

|

issue 28

273-280

EN

The article concerns with still not well-known part of the artistic work of Zdzisław Beksiński (a famous photographer, painter and graphic designer). In the 1960s the artist was occupied with literature as well. He wrote short prose which reflected many modern literary fashions and trends, and even anticipated some of them. In his literary works Beksiński was especially influenced by the suggestive aesthetics of the onirism, geometric architecture, and anti-Utopian novels. Sometimes, his narration refers to modern pop culture: the technique of film or the convention of comic strips; what is more, he applies the style of commercials and propaganda slogans. The artist from Sanok also adored writing different variations of the same story which let him play with various genres and plots. But, whatever he did, it was all about the construction, the form. His literary texts record their narrator’s consciousness in a minimalist way, without any traditional literary frills. Therefore Beksiński unconsciously realized the idea postulated at the same time by Cortazar: each prose work should not be a “sum”, but rather a kind of “difference”. This prose substantially complements our knowledge of the whole art of Beksiński, a natural genius, and remains another alternative part of his creative activities.

PL

The article concerns with still not well-known part of the artistic work of Zdzisław Beksiński (a famous photographer, painter and graphic designer). In the 1960s the artist was occupied with literature as well. He wrote short prose which reflected many modern literary fashions and trends, and even anticipated some of them. In his literary works Beksiński was especially influenced by the suggestive aesthetics of the onirism, geometric architecture, and anti-Utopian novels. Sometimes, his narration refers to modern pop culture: the technique of film or the convention of comic strips; what is more, he applies the style of commercials and propaganda slogans. The artist from Sanok also adored writing different variations of the same story which let him play with various genres and plots. But, whatever he did, it was all about the construction, the form. His literary texts record their narrator’s consciousness in a minimalist way, without any traditional literary frills. Therefore Beksiński unconsciously realized the idea postulated at the same time by Cortazar: each prose work should not be a “sum”, but rather a kind of “difference”. This prose substantially complements our knowledge of the whole art of Beksiński, a natural genius, and remains another alternative part of his creative activities.

18

Popular Culture and Genetics: Genetics and Biotechnologies in the Movies

75%

Domaradzki J.

Polish Sociological Review

|

2021

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vol. 215

|

issue 3

281-310

EN

Although the past few decades have been marked by a rapid development of biotechnologies, it significantly precedes the social understanding of genetic phenomena. At the same time, as biotechnologies have become an object of public interest, popular culture, particularly movies, plays an increasingly important role in shaping the public attitudes towards biotechnologies. Thus, by stressing the impact of popular culture on the social understanding of science, this paper aims to describe the dominant genetic tropes portrayed in the cinema. By analysing 175 movies that relate to biotechnologies produced between 1953 and 2018, it analyses seven main themes: 1) the general image of genetics, 2) genetic procedures 3) mutations, 4) DNA, 5) genetic essentialism, 6) the nature versus nurture debate, and 7) biofears generated in the movies.

19

Cristian Mungiu: Social Realism in Beyond the Hills and Graduation

75%

Giukin L.

Polonia Journal

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2022

|

issue 15

47-64

EN

This article discusses Mungiu’s role within the new Romanian wave, as well as his preoccupation with the Romanian society’s ideological and ethical values. While a large Romanian public still watches socialist era movies for entertainment and because of identifying with an idealized national imagery, Mungius’ films propose an analysis of present-day practices and beliefs, reflecting on the possible heritage a young, democratic society leaves to future generations. Critical of the past, like all new Romanian wave directors, Mungiu scrutinizes the present, closely analyzes actions and expressions of belief, and carefully contextualizes situations to give the viewers a realistic cinematic experience. Reflecting on the past and/or present, his cinema is the mirror of an encounter with a people’s deep subconscious and the nation’s dilemma of the return of the repressed.

20

Violence Hates Games? Revolting (against) Violence in Michael Haneke’s Funny Games U.S.

75%

Kisiel M.

Review of International American Studies

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2020

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vol. 13

|

issue 1

183-196

EN

Violence Hates Games? Revolting (against) Violence in Michael Haneke’s Funny Games U.S. Abstract: This article aims at exploring Haneke’s Funny Games U.S. as a protest against violence employed in the mainstream cinema. Satisfying compensatory needs of the spectators, constructing their identities, and even contributing to the biopolitics of neoliberalism, proliferating bloodthirsty fantasies put scholars in a suspicious position of treating them as either purely aesthetical phenomena or exclusively ethical ones. Haneke’s film seems to resist such a clear-cut binary; what is more, it contributes immensely to the criticism of mainstream cinematic violence. Misleading with its initial setting of a conventional thriller, Haneke employs absurd brutality in order to overload violence itself. The scenes of ruthless tortures are entangled in the ongoing masquerade, during which swapping roles, theatrical gestures, and temporary identities destabilize seemingly fixed positions of perpetrators and their victims, and tamper with the motives behind the carnage. As I would argue, by confronting its spectators with unbearable cruelty devoid of closing catharsis, Funny Games deconstructs their bloodthirsty desire of retaliation and unmasks them as the very reason for the violence on screen. Following, among others, Jean-Luc Nancy and Henry A. Giroux, I would like to demonstrate how Haneke exhausts the norm of acceptable violence to reinstate such a limit anew.

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