Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication
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„Takim zapamiętałem Mietka”. Władysława Ślesickiego "Płyną tratwy" (1962)
Get PDFThe 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].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].
Inside Job. First-person Documentary in Trauma Cinema: "Balkan Champion" (2006)
Get PDFOwing to the disappearance of grand narratives in postmodernism, contemporary documentary has become concerned with personal and collective historical traumas. This paper focuses on the documentary filmmaker’s challenge concerning the treatment of traumatic experience and the re-construction of historical events. It examines the filmmaker’s position in her own film and her attitude towards her subjects in documentaries on historical and personal trauma in the framework of a case study. The film analysed is Balkan Champion (2006), which launched a new trend in Hungarian documentary cinema, touching on sensitive issues in the collective memory of the nation that include the striking, controversial involvement of the fi lmmaker herself. Réka Kincses has made an empathic but highly critical portrait of her own father, the one-time political leader of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Romania, which evolved into a portrait of the interethnic conflicts between Romanians and Hungarians, and the political confl icts arising from the Eastern European transition from communist dictatorship to democracy, as well as their traumatic consequences on the life of an ethnic Hungarian family in Romania. Th e fi lmmaker not only confronts her father with his own failure both as a politician and a father, but also challenges her mother’s chauvinism and careerism. The parents’ opinion about and emotional reactions to the Romanian ethnic majority represent the long-term eff ect of the historical trauma of the treaty of Versailles (1921) and the wounds this left on the collective psyche of the Hungarian nation. A close analysis demonstrates that, on the one hand, the filmmaker’s first-person interactive techniques helped to reveal the repeated ideological, behavioural and emotional patterns rooted in the historical traumas of Hungarian ethnic minority groups in Romania; on the other hand, these techniques prove to be controversial due to the director’s constant shifting between positions outside and inside her own family and her refusal to take the responsibility that the inside position would involve
The Past and Memory in "Archive of Lives": Justyna Łuczaj-Salefs Impressionist Historical Documentary
No full textThe documentary film Archiwum istnień tells the story of research by Nazi anthropologists searching among the population of occupied Poland for representatives of the Aryan race. In her film, the director makes use of archival materials from World War Two (above all, photographs, propaganda film chronicles and letters). Not only does Justyna Łuczaj-Salej incorporate the above into the cinematographer’s box of tricks, but most of all, she exploits them counter to their authors’ intentions, thereby initiating a process that de-contextualises and re-contextualises these archives in a deconstruction of the past.
Wokół definicji parodii filmowej
Get PDFThe revision of key topics that are related to film parody. The crucial question of Marek Hendrykowski’s research sounds as follows: what is the semiotic mechanism that gives parodistic effect expressed in the language of motion pictures? According to the author, conditio sine qua non of each parody are: incorrectness, caricatural exaggeration, comic effect, deconstruction, pars destruens and new meaning of old characteristic elements confronting the audience and its common memory. In the light of new reading and revised definition of this term, film parody is not a separate genre but rather meta-genre in its relations to many other film genres and individual screen performances being object of parodyThe revision of key topics that are related to film parody. The crucial question of Marek Hendrykowski’s research sounds as follows: what is the semiotic mechanism that gives parodistic effect expressed in the language of motion pictures? According to the author, conditio sine qua non of each parody are: incorrectness, caricatural exaggeration, comic effect, deconstruction, pars destruens and new meaning of old characteristic elements confronting the audience and its common memory. In the light of new reading and revised definition of this term, film parody is not a separate genre but rather meta-genre in its relations to many other film genres and individual screen performances being object of parod
The Relationship Between Form and Content in Early Grzegorz Królikiewicz Documentaries
Get PDFAt first glance, the documentary films that the outstanding Polish filmmaker Grzegorz Królikiewicz was making at the turn of the 1970s, may seem less experimental than his feature films (one only needs to recall such innovative films as Through and Through or The Dancing Hawk). Viewed against the context of certain radical formal decisions, they may even strike one as traditional. Nevertheless, if one were to look closely at Królikiewicz’s early documentaries, one can see that they are more complicated than they seem and that what we have there is “unobvious” experimental cinema. An internal conflict is created by the relationship between form and content, the tension between them, and sometimes even discussion. This concerns his poetic short films (Don’t Cry, Brothers and Men), based in part on Królikiew- icz’s conception of “off-screen cinema space”, as well as his psychodramas (Fidelity, The Murderer’s Letter). The true message of these films has been carefully concealed, and has to be looked for in the way the director presents everyday reality to us.
Parodia flmowa
Get PDFFilm parodies are now attracting more popular interest than at almost any time in their history except the first two decades of the 20th century (golden era of film parody). The contemporary renewal of parody is an attractive phenomenon of popular culture. To analyse and recontextualize this renewal of parodistic paradigm in film supporting by new media (spontaneous net art) Hendrykowski has compiled a wide-ranging panorama and collection of classic examples made by many famous but also unknown film-makers. Underlying the entire collection is the author’s personal belief that parody can be divers and rich as particular form of cultural rebellion and social catharsis – by turns comic effect and confusing dialogue in polemical confrontation with common opinion and public point of view established by parodied original.Film parodies are now attracting more popular interest than at almost any time in their history except the first two decades of the 20th century (golden era of film parody). The contemporary renewal of parody is an attractive phenomenon of popular culture. To analyse and recontextualize this renewal of parodistic paradigm in film supporting by new media (spontaneous net art) Hendrykowski has compiled a wide-ranging panorama and collection of classic examples made by many famous but also unknown film-makers. Underlying the entire collection is the author’s personal belief that parody can be divers and rich as particular form of cultural rebellion and social catharsis – by turns comic effect and confusing dialogue in polemical confrontation with common opinion and public point of view established by parodied original
Afirmatywny charakter parodii w La puppé Timothy’ego Greenberga
Get PDFThe article is an interpretation of La puppé by Timothy Greenberg seen as non-standard, approving form of parody. The analysis begins with a reminder of attributes of this type of stylization, and then comparision of Greenberg’s film with Chris Marker’s La Jetée. No distinct criticism or polemic leads to theory, that the aim of La puppé is to reveal illusive nature of film language.The article is an interpretation of La puppé by Timothy Greenberg seen as non-standard, approving form of parody. The analysis begins with a reminder of attributes of this type of stylization, and then comparision of Greenberg’s film with Chris Marker’s La Jetée. No distinct criticism or polemic leads to theory, that the aim of La puppé is to reveal illusive nature of film language
Koncepcja ideowo-artystyczna zdjęć do filmu Tam i z powrotem. Opis autorski
Get PDF.Koncepcja ideowo-artystyczna zdjęć do filmu Tam i z powrotem. Opis autorsk
Satisfaction or Hard Labour? Portrait of a Ballet School in 52 Percent by Rafał Skalski
Get PDFHow is ballet presented in documentaries? Is Central European cinema different from cinema in the West in this respect? 52 Percent, Rafał Skalski’s documentary about Alla, a girl dreaming of becoming a ballerina, provides an intriguing answer to this question. Th is article compares 52 Percent by Rafał Skalski with two documentaries made in the West (First Position and Only When I Dance), which also show the endeavours of young people who want to fulfil their dreams of becoming ballet dancers. Alla tries to enrol in the famous Russian Agrippina Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in Sankt Petersburg. Th e exams are really tough, and she must do additional exercises to lengthen her legs (she lacks 0.4% to achieve the perfect leg-upper body ratio). The girl cannot make her legs longer, although she tries hard. Her days fi lled with exercise are filmed in long, static shots. There is no joy or enthusiasm. Sweat and tiredness are a part of strenuous exercise. Alla does not spin on a roof, nor does she jump rhythmically while cooking, like the characters of First Position and Only When I Dance. There is nothing from a fairy tale or Hollywood in her experiences. Additionally, Skalski’s fi lm breaks the myth of the dancer’s body being strong and inexhaustible. This is how we traditionally look at ballet, where there is no place for showing weakness.