Search results

1

Human on fire as a gesture of self-offering in Polish documentary films

100%

Tes U.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2019

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vol. 25

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issue 34

172-179

PL

Tes Urszula, Human on fire as a gesture of self-offering in Polish documentary films “Images” vol. XXV, no. 34. Poznań 2019. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pp. 172–179. ISSN 1731-450X. DOI 10.14746/i.2019.34.12. One of strongest acts of personal protest in the communist era was self-immolation, which was the subject of two Polish documentaries. Maciej Drygas in Hear My Cry invoked the figure of Ryszard Siwiec, who immolated himself on September 8, 1968 as a sign of protest against the Soviet army invasion of Czechoslovakia. In his documentary, Drygas shows a fragment of the film with the burning man, juxtaposing it with the testimony of witnesses to the tragedy and the account of the family. This documentary restores the memory of the whole society, who due solely to the film, learned about the radical gesture of a common man. Holy Fire by Jarosław Mańka and Maciej Grabysa in turn invokes the heroic but forgotten Walenty Badylak, who immolated himself in March of 1980 in Cracow as an expression of his objection to distortion of the truth about Katyń. Both acts of self-immolation had for many years been perceived as totally futile acts, while the directors show that the self-immolation of these now has a deep and symbolic meaning. In my analysis, I shall invoke historic and cultural contexts, conduct a multifaceted interpretation of self-immolation act and discuss the complex imagery included in the films.

2

Kino obecności – analiza relacji między dokumentem a performance’em na wybranych przykładach

100%

Tes U.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2017

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vol. 21

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issue 30

EN

In my article, I examine the relationship between the documentary and performance. I focus special attention on Maciej Sobieszczański and Łukasz Ronduda’s film The Performer, which blurs the boundaries between film genres. Oskar Dawicki is a performer, and the protagonist of both a creative documentary and a feature film – this balancing on the borders of film genres and art is the focus of my reflections. The film’s authors took inspiration from the creative documentaries of Wojciech Wiszniewski and the plots of Grzegorz Królikiewicz, in which characters play themselves – in both cases, creative elements reveal the truth about each character. The most important aspect to me is the presence of the performer, which determines the form of the film and its reception. In my article I follow several themes which are key for understanding The Performer, among them the motif of disappearance and the relationship between the master and the disciple. I also deal with the problem of documenting performances – using the example of The Performer and the recording of Marina Abramović’s activities (Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramović, 2007). I also refer to the documentary film on Marina Abramović, The Artist Is Present, in which the performances recorded from 2010 go beyond the documentary formula.

PL

In my article, I examine the relationship between the documentary and performance. I focus special attention on Maciej Sobieszczański and Łukasz Ronduda’s film The Performer, which blurs the boundaries between film genres. Oskar Dawicki is a performer, and the protagonist of both a creative documentary and a feature film – this balancing on the borders of film genres and art is the focus of my reflections. The film’s authors took inspiration from the creative documentaries of Wojciech Wiszniewski and the plots of Grzegorz Królikiewicz, in which characters play themselves – in both cases, creative elements reveal the truth about each character. The most important aspect to me is the presence of the performer, which determines the form of the film and its reception. In my article I follow several themes which are key for understanding The Performer, among them the motif of disappearance and the relationship between the master and the disciple. I also deal with the problem of documenting performances – using the example of The Performer and the recording of Marina Abramović’s activities (Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramović, 2007). I also refer to the documentary film on Marina Abramović, The Artist Is Present, in which the performances recorded from 2010 go beyond the documentary formula.

3

Cyrk ze złamanym sercem, czyli dokumentalny zapis entropicznego rozpadu

92%

Smoleń M.

Przegląd Kulturoznawczy

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2011

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issue 2(10)

76-91

EN

Author of the article discusses in details the documentary film directed by Marek Tomasz Pawłowski The Circus with a Broken Heart (2009), in the context of the condition of Polish contemporary circus after 1989. This documentary film presents a picture of a modern circus, infected with entropy, decline and chaos. These forces destroy all constitutive elements of a circus: artists, arena, technical background, and the audience as well. Through presentation of specific people, events and phenomena the director creates the image of slow decline of a small circus “Bojaro”. Based on this picture, the author of the article draws conclusions about the causes of the crisis of Polish circus, and tries to analyze the image of the Polish province under capitalism. Reffering to the artistic values of the documentary, the author indicates its main assets, namely the use of metaphors and complex aesthetic figures, and the well organized dramatic structure. The analysis emphasis the figure of clown, which despite a documentary nature of the movie, goes beyond the reality and becomes the main metaphor of this film. According to the author’s the ethnographic fi m category is useful to discover a hidden meaning of this documentary film.

4

Obóz „Goli otok ” w relacji międzypokoleniowej. Przypadek filmu Goli Tihej K. Gudak

92%

Taczyńska K.

Politeja : Pismo Wydziału Studiów Miedzynarodowych i Politycznych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego

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2017

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issue 47

145-157

EN

The issue this paper refers to concerns the camp for political prisoners established in 1949 in Yugoslavia on the island of Goli otok. The primary objective of my article is to show that documentary films are a significant space for reflection on Goli otok camp. In the context of postmemory, particularly noteworthy is the film Goli from 2014, directed by Tiha K. Gudac, born in 1982. The analysis of this documentary is to present how the memory of the Goli otok prison camp works in the film and how it is transmitted. The film author belongs to the generation of the descendants of Goli otok prisoners. Goli is an attempt to confront the inherited traumatic experience of her grandfather, which – although hushed and hidden for the rest of his life – directly affected the family relationships.

5

The Film Document as a Testimony of the Present: A Sceptic at the Confessional

92%

Hendrykowski M.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2014

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vol. 15

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issue 24

91-98

PL

The semiotic mechanism of representing time present in documentary film has remained the same since the 19th century up to this very day. This is governed without exception in the cinematographic “message” by the choice and combination of visual and audio elements shown on the screen, together with the process of fragmentation and segmentation of images in respect to the reality being communicated. The nature of information contained in the moving pictures is one of communicating integrated experiences of the world, and experiences of civilization and culture. Thus conceptualised, information and the process of informing have a dimension that is par excellence anthropological. There in fact lies the broadly understood process of experience on the part of man and society - regardless of the changeability and ad hoc nature of the subjects raised in a given piece of subject matter - representing each time its ‘what’ and ‘how’. Regardless of the means of film expression used, there is always the same point of significance: the difference in the potential between what is known and that which is unknown. That is why the creative documentary proves on each occasion to be a mutual discovery of both known and unknown reality - one shared by the filmmaker and audience.

6

„Takim zapamiętałem Mietka”. Władysława Ślesickiego "Płyną tratwy" (1962)

92%

Pławuszewski P.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2014

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vol. 15

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issue 24

287-294

EN

The article That’s How I’ve Remembered Mietek aims to throw light on the origins and the final artistic form of Władysław Ślesickis documentary The Rafts Sail (1962). The movie depicts the story of a young Mazurian boy named Mietek, who crosses the line between childhood and adulthood (when, as a raftsman, he floats timber down the river). This film was probably the first time when the director’s poetic attitude towards filmmaking resulted in such a sublime documentary portrait, devoid of any words. Looking back, The Rafts Sail (awarded the Lion of San Marco at the Venice Film Festival in 1962) can be perceived as a clear symptom of Ślesickis masterpieces, such as Before Leaves Fall [1964] or The Family of Man [1966].

PL

The article That’s How I’ve Remembered Mietek aims to throw light on the origins and the final artistic form of Władysław Ślesickis documentary The Rafts Sail (1962). The movie depicts the story of a young Mazurian boy named Mietek, who crosses the line between childhood and adulthood (when, as a raftsman, he floats timber down the river). This film was probably the first time when the director’s poetic attitude towards filmmaking resulted in such a sublime documentary portrait, devoid of any words. Looking back, The Rafts Sail (awarded the Lion of San Marco at the Venice Film Festival in 1962) can be perceived as a clear symptom of Ślesickis masterpieces, such as Before Leaves Fall [1964] or The Family of Man [1966].

7

Grand Theatre, Oratory and Anthropology in the Documentaries of Andrzej Fidyk

92%

Fiołek-Lubczyńska B.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2014

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vol. 15

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issue 24

137-144

PL

The article centres on the documentary works of Andrzej Fidyk. The director is fascinated by cultural anthropology. Showing diff erent aspects of social life in a theatrical manner is an omnipresent motif in his movies. A fi lm in general, by its nature, is a spectacle, but the director depicts within its reality diff erent kinds of spectacles: parades, as in the title of Th e Parade, musical scenes in Yodok Stories, and carnival in Carnaval…. Th e crown jewel in this double, increasing spectacularity is Carnaval. Th e Biggest Party In Th e World, and the movie inside the movie – Cameramen from Calcutta. A religious spectacle can be found inside Staszek’s Dream abstracts314 in Teheran. Scenes of muslim grief three years aft er the death of Chomeini, inside a country considered to be exemplary in its religiousness are compared to “the trend of going to orthodox churches” in Russia. Th e most interesting by the criteria of spectacularity is Carnaval…, which has been the subject of many analysis and interpretations by cultural theorists, anthropologists and sociologists. Fidyk in his movie shows the nature of this spectacle with great fi nery.

8

Historia bez pointy

92%

Górska M.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2009

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vol. 7

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issue 13-14

322-325

EN

“To dance the silence” reveals the story of a documentary which could have been produced but it never was. The film was intended to present the world of silence trough three different characters working together ona dancing project – Caroline, Ann and Katherine. Caroline, 15, at that time, is outstanding ballet dancer. The dreams of her coach, Anna, is to train her so well so the girl will join the National Dance Theatre. But Caroline does not dream. For her – the future does not exist. As for the others who share her fate – the deaf people – who due to their deafness are deprived of abstract thinking. Catherine who is the costume designer of the dancing show “Other Worlds” has no such problem – even though she is deaf, she has learned how to speak and hear with the help of an hearing aid. She is a successful business woman with happy family. The idea of the film – and the article – was to explore Wittgenstein’s words “The borders of my language are the borders of my world”.

PL

The Story With No Punchline “To dance the silence” reveals the story of a documentary which could have been produced but it never was. The film was intended to present the world of silence trough three different characters working together ona dancing project – Caroline, Ann and Katherine. Caroline, 15, at that time, is outstanding ballet dancer. The dreams of her coach, Anna, is to train her so well so the girl will join the National Dance Theatre. But Caroline does not dream. For her – the future does not exist. As for the others who share her fate – the deaf people – who due to their deafness are deprived of abstract thinking. Catherine who is the costume designer of the dancing show “Other Worlds” has no such problem – even though she is deaf, she has learned how to speak and hear with the help of an hearing aid. She is a successful business woman with happy family. The idea of the film – and the article – was to explore Wittgenstein’s words “The borders of my language are the borders of my world”.

9

Holocaust Survivors. A Study on the Poetics of Documentary Films

92%

Hendrykowski M.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2011

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vol. 9

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issue 17-18

29-52

EN

Holocaust Survivors. A Study on the Poetics of Documentary Films The essential study written by Marek Hendrykowski is a compact and straightforward guide aimed at anyone coming to the subject for the first time or just looking to improve their knowledge about documentaries relating to Holocaust. The paper offers both skimming and in-depth analysis of seven outstanding works made in the period 1993-2008 focused on key-problems of their distinctly different poetics. Author assembles evidence from the documentary film production of the time to describe the structure of message exposed in its narration, particular catches and figures, methods of lighting, framing, and editing as well as the collective feelings and emotions generated by these films. Hendrykowski considers the basic difference and fundamental conflict between two ways of thinking about manipulation in moving pictures language which establishes viewers’s approach to using (or over-using) of various stylistic catches, patterns of composition and narrative figures in this kind of documentary and generally in movies. Marek Hendrykowski’s provocative and open-minded study brings methodological revision of this important question. It will appeal to a large readership of filmmakers, cinemagoers, students and research workers interested in documentary film.

10

Białoruski reżim w dokumentach Wiktora Daszuka

92%

Chybowska M.

Media – Kultura – Komunikacja Społeczna

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2014

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issue 10/3

61-74

EN

The goal of this article is to present the output of the documentary filmmaker Viktor Dashuk and its meaning in the political as well as the cultural context for the development of Belarusian cinematography. This opposition director attempts to illustrate the Belarus that Alexander Lukashenko governs. The president is the main character of the analysed documentary films. Contemporary Belarusian cinema plays an important role among other art genres in this country.

81%

Juszkiewicz P.

Artium Quaestiones

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2015

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issue 26

149-169

PL

Artists’ studios turned into museums are always specific representations of the past – spatial images reflecting some idea of art and the artist, as well as his or her works, and even the position of the spectator imagined as a visitor, admirer, insider, outsider or pilgrim. When a studio is shown through a film, its status of representation comes to the foreground very distinctly just because of the properties of the medium. A filmic representation of the studio is a result of combining images into a sequence, while individual images attract the spectator’s attention to particular places, areas or aspects of the space of creation, thus making him or her follow a certain trajectory of meaning. What is more, such a sequence does not have to be limited to the studio’s interior since the cinematic montage allows the director to expand it freely by adding some historicizing or contextualizing frames. Finally, film allows one to meet the artist in his or her space through an interview, representation of the creative process or an actor-impersonator. In the first I discuss briefly three issues: the general idea of the present paper and its historical and theoretical contexts. First, my objective is to provide information on my research on Polish documentary film on art in 1948–1989, which was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. I was doing this research with help of a small team of young scholars – phd students and a younger collegue from Institute of Art History at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In this article I will not address general problems related to the filmic representation of artists’ studios, but discuss several individual cases. Second, the historical context is connected with the hopes of totalitarian states to use mass culture, and particularly film, to manipulate the masses. Even though in particular decades of the 20th century, and in different countries, those hopes were put into practice in different ways, their ideological and practical implementation had a common basis. That basis can perhaps be best described by Walter Benjamin’s idea that a modern wish to regenerate the world requires the destruction of the auratic art and influencing the masses with some other kind of artistic creation that could organize them according to a fixed political purpose. Benjamin believed that the most useful in that respect would be film, which in his opinion was both technical and massoriented. The masses could receive film with little effort so that it would imperceptibly form their mental and imaginative habits, and therefore also a political bias. My point is that the filmic representations of artists’ studios must be approached in the general context of the role assigned to film in the communist Poland, even though one should also remember that artists had various attitudes and censors kept changing their criteria of appropriateness. Still, the research focused on the representation of the artist, his or her studio, and the ideas of art will reveal an officially accepted picture to be transmitted into the public space. One the other hand, one should remember that within precisely defined political limits Polish documentary (and other) filmmakers could ignore commercial aspects and refer to the acknowledged high position of art, experimenting in different ways with a relationship between film and the visual arts. Third, my theoretical context is related to the status of the documentary or, that of reality represented in documentary films. In my view, shared also by a number of scholars, documentaries have an element of creation and their reality is always processed in one way or another. My examples will include studio as office, nature, space of imagination, village hut or cottage, and engine room.

17

Dekolonizacja dokumentu

81%

Borowski M.

Didaskalia. Gazeta Teatralna

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2020

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issue 157-158

1-25

EN

The article addresses the problem of the so-called documentary turn in contemporary art, especially in those practices that are related to the project of decoloniality. It examines how traditional documentary conventions, which constitute part of the Western epistemic code, are appropriated and dismantled for the purposes of the decolonialization of the image of cultural Others. From this perspective, I analyse the main strategies used by activist artists who seek to expose the typical mechanisms of knowledge production in non-Western cultures. I complement my interpretations with a genealogy of experimental ethnographic films, tracing contemporary artistic solutions back to the so-called ethnofictions of Jean Rouch. I use this as a background for analysing two video works by the Polish artist Wojtek Doroszuk (Prince, 2014, and Sape, 2016).

18

Rosja w polskim filmie dokumentalnym na przykładzie projektu Rosja-Polska. Nowe spojrzenie

81%

Brzezińska M.

Acta Polono-Ruthenica

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2015

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issue 20

17-23

EN

The aim of the article is to present images of Russia made by young Polish documentary filmmakers during the workshop project Russia-Poland. New gaze, which appears as the voice in the discussion about the mutual perception of Poles and Russians. Representations of Russia presented by Polish directors seems to me interesting in the context of film history and literary tradition, fragments of observed reality and its cinematic interpretation. As the result, we receive the record of relationship with the neighbor which involves a lot of contexts and is negotiated in tension between stereotype and the attempt of breaking it.

19

Alternatywny scenariusz biografii muzyka rockowego – o życiu i twórczości Jasona Beckera

80%

Kosek J.

Kultura-Społeczeństwo-Edukacja

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2016

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vol. 10

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issue 2

191-200

EN

The article focuses on the analysis of the biography of an American rock guitarist, namely Jason Becker. The main object of this study was the documentary „Jason Becker. Not Dead Yet” (2012) and some selected press news and information available on social media. The original biography of the musician, who within a few years has become famous in the world of rock music and since the age of 19 has had to confront the incurable disease – amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – is an interesting example of the alternative model of a biography in popular culture. It is also an educational story that teaches fundamental values, such as altruism, love, respect and friendship.

20

„Od świtu do zmierzchu” – współczesne obrazy miasta w projektach dokumentalnych Maciej Drygasa i Mirosława Dembińskiego

80%

Mąka-Malatyńska K.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2013

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vol. 12

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issue 21

139-149

EN

The text refers to two documentary projects that were created by well-known Polish documentary film directors: Maciej Drygas and Mirosław Dembiński. The first one, Łódź from Dawn till Dusk, was made as a part of the education program at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź in 2007. For several years, students in the second year of the Directing Department made short films about Łódź, forming out of this mosaic, images of the city from dawn till dusk. After having been experienced in Łódź, the project led to the idea of using this method to describe various cities around the world. Finally, five films were made in five different cities under the auspices of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. This article concentrates on the analysis of the structure of these films and the images of the cities that emerge out of them.

PL

“The World from Dawn til Dask”. Contemporary Images of the City in the Documentary Projects of Maciej Drygas and Mirosław Dembiński The text refers to two documentary projects that were created by well-known Polish documentary film directors: Maciej Drygas and Mirosław Dembiński. The first one, Łódź from Dawn till Dusk, was made as a part of the education program at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź in 2007. For several years, students in the second year of the Directing Department made short films about Łódź, forming out of this mosaic, images of the city from dawn till dusk. After having been experienced in Łódź, the project led to the idea of using this method to describe various cities around the world. Finally, five films were made in five different cities under the auspices of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. This article concentrates on the analysis of the structure of these films and the images of the cities that emerge out of them.

Refine search results

Human on fire as a gesture of self-offering in Polish documentary films

Kino obecności – analiza relacji między dokumentem a performance’em na wybranych przykładach

Cyrk ze złamanym sercem, czyli dokumentalny zapis entropicznego rozpadu

Obóz „Goli otok ” w relacji międzypokoleniowej. Przypadek filmu Goli Tihej K. Gudak

The Film Document as a Testimony of the Present: A Sceptic at the Confessional

„Takim zapamiętałem Mietka”. Władysława Ślesickiego "Płyną tratwy" (1962)

Grand Theatre, Oratory and Anthropology in the Documentaries of Andrzej Fidyk

Historia bez pointy

Holocaust Survivors. A Study on the Poetics of Documentary Films

Białoruski reżim w dokumentach Wiktora Daszuka

Patos w retoryce filmowej. Na podstawie "Yodok stories" Andrzeja Fidyka

A Brief History of Communism. "Rabbit à la Berlin" by Bartosz Konopka

Uwagi o dramaturgii filmu dokumentalnego

Between Documentary and Fiction: Authenticity and Voyeurism in the Cinema of Ulrich Seidl

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “Camera Buff”: a revised version of “First Love”

Biuro, natura, wyobraźnia, wiejska chata, fabryczna hala. Wizerunki artystycznej pracowni w dokumentalnym filmie o sztuce czasów PRL-u

Dekolonizacja dokumentu

Rosja w polskim filmie dokumentalnym na przykładzie projektu Rosja-Polska. Nowe spojrzenie

Alternatywny scenariusz biografii muzyka rockowego – o życiu i twórczości Jasona Beckera

„Od świtu do zmierzchu” – współczesne obrazy miasta w projektach dokumentalnych Maciej Drygasa i Mirosława Dembińskiego