Polish Postcommunist Cinema

Transcription

1 New Studies in European Cinema 4 Polish Postcommunist Cinema From Pavement Level von Ewa Mazierska 1. Auflage Polish Postcommunist Cinema Mazierska schnell und portofrei erhältlich bei beck-shop.de DIE FACHBUCHHANDLUNG Peter Lang Bern 2007 Verlag C.H. Beck im Internet: ISBN Inhaltsverzeichnis: Polish Postcommunist Cinema Mazierska

2 Introduction There is no Polish School, no Moral Concern, hence there is no Polish cinema. Polish [postcommunist] cinema is not being compared to any other national cinema, but to an international super-league, consisting of Lars von Trier, Pedro Almodóvar, Nanni Moretti and Mike Leigh. Should we compete against such a team? Those who think so must be crazy! (Marek Koterski) The transition from state socialism to liberal democracy that took place in Poland in 1989 raised many expectations about both the material and the cultural side of the lives of its citizens or, to use Marxist terminology, basis and superstructure. Everything was supposed to improve: food, cars, jobs, as well as books and films, and people themselves. How could things be worse? After all, by the 1980s communism was universally believed to be an economically ineffective and culturally toxic regime that failed to fulfil even the basic material needs of its citizens and thwarted their creativity. The Solidarity revolution promised to change this. However, after several years, the initial optimism evaporated. For a large proportion of Poles, especially those who lost their jobs as a result of the restructuring of the economy, not only were these expectations not fulfilled, but the whole change was for the worse. Voices of dissatisfaction have also been directed towards cultural production and cinema in particular. The titles of newspaper articles discussing Polish film production after 1989 include such terms as Captivated cinema, Cinema that failed, Culture of nothing and dramatic questions such as What went wrong with Polish cinema?. The common adjectives used to describe both the quality and the character of films made after 1989 have been negative. They have been accused of being technically poor, simplistic, didactic or amorphic, lacking in emotion and presenting people unable to inspire the audience. Even if the critics acknowledge the beauty of some films, they usually criticise them at the same time for being mannered and empty.

3 Interestingly, the apocalyptic tone of professional critics is mirrored by the filmmakers themselves, often by those who appear to have lost their talent after For example, in an article poignantly entitled Polish Cinema is sinking (Polskie kino tonie), published in a popular weekly Przegl d in 2002, the author, Ewa Likowska, includes extended quotes by a number of prominent filmmakers, including Jacek Bromski, Kazimierz Kutz, Agnieszka Holland, Andrzej Kondratiuk and Krzysztof Zanussi, all in agreement that Polish cinema is in a state of deep crisis. The ominous title of the article is provided by Agnieszka Holland (Likowska 2002: 38 9). Janusz Zaorski in an article for another popular weekly, Wprost, claims that Polish cinema consists of clichés imitating clichés (Zaorski 2002: 104). Janusz Kijowski asks in Polityka Who can rescue Polish cinema? (Kijowski 1998: 112), obviously basing his analysis on the assumption that it desperately needs rescuing. Disappointment in Polish cinema after state socialism also permeates numerous interviews with Andrzej Wajda, the most renowned Polish director, although, to be fair, he is also a rare example of a filmmaker and critic still able to celebrate the triumphs of the Polish film. 1 Positive voices are much rarer. One gets the impression that confessing admiration or even sympathy for Polish films made after 1989 is like sharing an embarrassing secret, admitting possessing low-brow taste and being provincial in one s outlook. This dissatisfaction with what filmmakers since 1989 have put on offer is combined with great nostalgic enchantment with films and television series made before the collapse of communism. Directors who ceased to work in the 1990s, such as Stanis aw Bareja, whose films focused on the absurdities, but also the pleasures of living under state socialism, are enjoying greatest renaissance. The self-deprecatory tone that characterises so much writing about Polish postcommunist cinema can be partly attributed to the Polish tendency to be self-critical. In no period, perhaps with the exception of the second half of the 1950s, when the Polish School was blossoming, were Polish critics satisfied with what Polish filmmakers 1 See, for example, Wajda s enthusiastic letter about Grzegorz Królikiewicz s Przypadek Pekosi skiego (The Case of Pekosi ski, 1993) to the editor of Kino (Wajda 1993: 8). 12

4 had achieved. On the contrary, there was always a wide consensus that Polish cinema was in crisis. The current criticism also can be regarded as an echo of the dissatisfaction with postcommunist reality at large. People whose hopes in a number of fields were not fulfilled, tend to take a broadly negative look at everything that surrounds them. This criticism also reflects some rather unrealistically high and conflicting requirements on the part of the critics, as well as of viewers, from the new Polish cinema. They include the expectation of capturing and critically commenting on the present day, using new idioms of expression, binding together the whole of Polish society, competing effectively with Hollywood productions and measuring up to the international achievements of the most famous European auteurs (such as those mentioned by Koterski), as well as with the greatest successes of the predecessors of contemporary directors. Some of these requirements reflect the attitudes of critics and viewers that prevailed in the communist period, others the new situation in which Polish cinema has found itself after On the whole, Polish postcommunist cinema is expected to follow both the commercial Hollywood route and the European model, and retain its function as national art. My argument here is that squeezed between the commercial power of Hollywood and the distinctive voices associated with other European national cinemas, and continuously bombarded with bad publicity, new Polish cinema attempts to fulfil these contrasting demands with a significant degree of success. However, in order to appreciate this, we should look at the totality of film production after 1989 because postcommunist cinema comprises many different voices. This heterogeneity can largely be attributed to the loss of the common enemy in 1989 that made obsolete the whole strategy of production and reception of Polish films (Przylipiak i Szy ak 1999: 167; Sobolewski 1994a: 18). It is also argued that the fall of communism led to the end of romanticism as a dominant paradigm in Polish culture, that used to furnish Polish film with unity (see Pietrasik 1991; Janion 1996). Critics also point out that the martial law of 1981 disrupted the development of Polish cinema and broke the dominant form of communication between Polish filmmakers and viewers (Przylipiak i Szy ak 1999: 168 9; Rutkowska 2000). In a wider sense, the martial law irreversibly divided the nation, fragmenting its identity in a way 13

5 that was never to be rebuilt. Although different critics point to different causes of the old unity and current disunity, there is a wide consensus that before 1981 there was a dominant, distinctive point of reference for Polish cinema that was later replaced by an array of perspectives. Not only do I not lament the current state of lack of unity, but I believe that the greatest strength of contemporary Polish cinema lies in its variety in terms of themes, characters, styles, problems, ideologies and the modes of addressing the viewer. It is indeed the case that we do not find in this period individual filmmakers matching the success of Andrzej Wajda and Andrzej Munk from the time of the Polish School, or Krzysztof Kie lowski and Agnieszka Holland of the Cinema of Moral Concern, or at least the successes of the new crop of directors are currently difficult to appreciate. However, an equivalent of the accomplishments of Wajda and Kie lowski has been achieved in the last decade and a half by a larger number of directors. However, having said that Polish postcommunist cinema is heterogeneous does not mean that it does not reveal some common traits. The most important of these account for this very heterogeneity: leaning towards autobiographism, the vernacular and everything that can be captured by the phrases small narrative and local narrative, identified with postmodernism, as opposed to the grand or metanarratives of modernism (see Lyotard 1984). This feature can be also linked to what Aleksander Jackiewicz described as the small tradition in cinema, one that focuses on the everyday, the customs, the ordinary lives. Jackiewicz lamented that Polish postwar filmmakers had neglected the small tradition by prioritising History with a capital H (Jackiewicz 1989a: ). I will argue that the most important Polish films after 1989 abandoned any ambition to represent a nation or generation and instead attempt to tell the story of a particular individual, often someone similar to the director himself. The bias towards small narratives also affects the narrative structure and style of the films. They emphasise the openness of human life and the fluidity of identity. Rather than winning or losing everything, the characters go through certain stages in their lives. If they lose, they move on and start afresh. Many of the best films of the period, for example, by Marek Koterski, Jan Jakub Kolski, Jerzy Stuhr and ukasz Wyl a ek, feel like chapters in somebody s diary. It is worth emphasising that such 14

6 features as autobiography and vernacularism do not limit these films to only local interest. After all, some of the most famous and enduring works of art are also autobiographical and focus on a limited geographical and social milieu. Conversely, work made with the intention of being universal often turns out to be parochial. As I will try to demonstrate in due course, this rule also applies to the films discussed in my book. The second common trait Polish postcommunist cinema reveals is the tendency to see the world in dark colours. The majority of films, especially those set in post-1989 Poland, are pessimistic and critical of social reality. The world represented is typically drab, the characters more often lose than win, the police, the Church, school and society at large fail them rather than helping them (see Lubelski 1994a; Micha ek 1996; Sobolewski 1999; Cesarski 2001; Mazierska 2004a). Some critics see in such a choice of characters a weakness of Polish film, largely by comparing it with American cinema that favours winners. However, rather than presenting this characteristic as a defect, I would argue that it is a sign that the filmmakers try to engage with contemporary reality and stand up for the underdog. It is also worth noting that in this respect they are not unique in the region; pessimism prevails in films produced in other countries of the former Soviet Block (Iordanova 2003: 151 2). My conviction that variety is a strength, not a weakness of Polish postcommunist cinema provides the rationale for this book. Its principal objective is to present the films that were made in the period in a way that will account for their heterogeneity. For this reason my study begins with an analysis of the Polish film industry, focusing on the changes that occurred in the production, distribution and exhibition of Polish films in the last decade and a half. Part 2 of my book is devoted to the main genres and movements that emerged or gained in significance after the fall of communism. I am using genre as the main prism through which to look at new Polish cinema for several reasons. Firstly, to reflect the fact that after 1989 Polish filmmakers revealed greater sensitivity to genre conventions than at any time before, which can be explained by its effectiveness as a tool of communicating with viewers and producing popular cinema. Thus, dividing Polish films into dominant genres and movements is a way of 15

7 tackling a large number of films. Secondly, genre is a complex concept, comprising almost every aspect of the film, including visual imagery, plot, characters, setting, modes of narrative development, music and stars, as well as issues pertaining to the reception of the film (see Cook 1985: 58). Therefore, discussing genre allows us to look at Polish film production from multiple perspectives and, paradoxically, to capture what is distinctively Polish in the filmmakers take on comedy, biopic or police cinema. Finally, adopting a genre perspective is a way to redress the imbalance between artistic/serious and popular/unserious cinema in critical discourse on Polish cinema. Part 2 consists of six chapters, devoted respectively to police/ gangster film, heritage cinema, comedy, biographical film, the New Cinema of Moral Concern and women s cinema. Some of these genres and movements, such as comedy and the Cinema of the Moral Concern, played a significant role in the previous periods of Polish cinema, others, such as police/gangster cinema, heritage film and biopic experienced a rise in production, popularity and critical recognition after It is worth mentioning here the absence of certain genres in my book, most importantly the war film, which always had a strong presence in Polish cinema. War films are still produced in Poland, most importantly by Andrzej Wajda and Jan Jakub Kolski. However, I omit them from my analysis because taken together they lack a degree of coherence allowing me to regard them as a genre. Moreover, most of them play only a marginal role in box office takings and critical discourse. Furthermore, in the case of Wajda s films one can treat them as a residue of communist cinema in postcommunist times. Kolski s war films, on the other hand, constitute an integral part of his personal cinema and will be discussed in the chapter devoted to this director. The marginalisation of war film after 1989 reflects partly a decline of interest of audiences in the Second World War and partly that certain requirements of viewers that were previously fulfilled by this genre, such as seeing adventure on screen, found their outlet in police cinema and to a certain extent, heritage film. Other genres such as melodrama, science fiction, horror, fantasy or musical film, which were poorly represented in Polish cinema before 1989, have not flourished after 1989 either. Very few films of these genres were made after the collapse of communism and the few produced, such as the fantasy 16

8 Wied min (The Hexer, 2001), directed by Marek Brodzki and based on the cult novel of Andrzej Sapkowski, have been hardly groundbreaking, detracting rather than encouraging other filmmakers. By and large, Polish filmmakers choose genres for which visual exuberance is not a necessary component of success. This situation, which is typical of all countries of the old Eastern Block, primarily reflects the fact that the Polish film industry is not ready to compete with Hollywood in the field of technical mastery that films belonging to these genres require. To an extent, the lack of horror or fantasy films and the prevalence of realistic genres suggests that, contrary to the widespread accusations of critics, Polish directors do not escape from what is widely regarded as their principal obligation, namely depicting the present. Most striking in postcommunist films is the relative insignificance of the recent, communist past, including the history of Solidarity. Although Polish cinema produced after the Second World War was justly accused of distorting both the past and the present, there seems to be little desire amongst filmmakers to present a more critical and decommunising version of past events. If the past is represented at all, it is usually not the main objective of the film, but a by-product of other goals. Accordingly, films about the communist past are absorbed in such genres as comedy and biographical film or constitute an aspect of authorial cinema of such directors as Jan Jakub Kolski and Marek Koterski. Moreover, postwar Polish history is typically presented in a quite positive way and the portrayal offered tends to be stylised. This mythologising character of a large part of postcommunist cinema testifies, in my opinion, to the previously mentioned disappointment with the present. It is worth mentioning here that the genres and movements identified in Polish Postcommunist Cinema are not cast in iron. On the contrary, the borders between them are blurred. This reflects Rick Altman s assertion, with which I entirely agree, that there never were any pure genres and genres were always more the product of a specific critical look at films than a representation of objective differences existing between them (see Altman 2002). To a lesser extent these soft borders between genres account for intentionally combining the conventions of genres previously regarded as irreconcilable by contemporary Polish filmmakers. Consequently, a decision where to con- 17

9 sider a particular film is partly arbitrary and I refer to a small number of films in more than one place. Part 3 of the book is devoted to those film directors whose films have made the greatest impact on Polish cinema after 1989: Marek Koterski, Jan Jakub Kolski and Jerzy Stuhr. They enjoy the status of authors of their films thanks to their originality, personal stamp and a high degree of coherence of their entire oeuvre. This part is shorter than that concerned with genres and paradigms. This is for several reasons. Firstly, the film industry in postcommunist Poland operates in a way that is not conducive to promoting a cinema of auteurs, and especially is not helpful in forging and consolidating the careers of younger directors. Contrary to earlier periods in Polish history when talented filmmakers (Andrzej Wajda is a prime example) were able to make a new film practically every year, since 1989 directors of one or two films have had problems in securing the funds to support their second or third project and often give up on a career in film altogether, finding outlets for their energy in such media as advertising or television. Moreover, outstanding first films are often followed by less satisfactory second instalments in the directors careers, as in the case of Piotr Trzaskalski and ukasz Barczyk, testifying perhaps to the shortage of creative producers who would push the inexperienced filmmaker in the right direction. Consequently, I am omitting some filmmakers from this part because their portfolio of films still appears too small or too erratic to grant them the status that I reserved for Koterski, Kolski and Stuhr. I refer here to such directors as ukasz Barczyk, Piotr Trzaskalski, Mariusz Front and particularly to ukasz Wyl a ek, whom I regard as the most interesting filmmaker from the new guard of film directors. I am also omitting other filmmakers who made some of the most interesting films during the times of Republic of Poland (which is the official name of postcommunist Poland), such as Robert Gli ski and Krzysztof Krauze, because their work does not have the level of thematic and stylistic consistency that allows me to grant them the status of auteurs. Others, such as Juliusz Machulski, W adys aw Pasikowski and Dorota K dzierzawska, fulfil this condition but they are associated rather with genre than authorship. I am also not devoting separate chapters to such well-known figures as Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi. Although they have 18

10 remained very active in the last decade and a half, making films with a frequency matching the earlier periods in their careers, playing important roles in many institutions of Polish cinema and being very vocal in discussions concerning the future of Polish film industry, their production since 1989 does not match their previous achievements and has lost the power to stimulate discussion. At the end of this book there is an appendix with the dates of the main events in Poland s recent history. Privileging genres and authors in the structure of the book inevitably means marginalising other ways of classifying films and discourses surrounding them. One such criterion is the age and experience of the filmmaker. The reason that I decided to divide most of the films under consideration into comedies, police films, heritage films or biopics, rather than into films made by young and old directors, is my conviction that the factor of age plays a smaller role in defining Polish film production of the 1990s and 2000s than in, for example, the 1950s and 1970s. Although directors of a certain age show a predilection to certain themes and styles (for example literary adaptations are favoured by the oldest directors, whilst the younger ones would more likely choose films set in contemporary times and featuring young people), films of the same type are often made by directors belonging to different generations. Moreover, for reasons mentioned above, after 1989 young directors have fewer opportunities to change dramatically the direction of national cinema than in equivalent periods in the past. In addition, the very concept of a young director is increasingly problematic, as many filmmakers such as Jan Jakub Kolski, ukasz Wyl a ek, Piotr Trzaskalski, Andrzej Jakimowski or Dariusz Gajewski were in their late thirties or early forties when they made their full-length feature debut. Consequently, we observe the lack of a dominant generation of filmmakers after Another important lens used to look at the cinema is that of gender. Although gender does not provide the skeleton of this book, it is used extensively within the chapters. I am discussing the representation of men and women on screen, filmmakers attitudes to the contentious issue of the roles of males and females in the new Poland and male and female stardom. Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, one chapter in my book is devoted specifically to women s cinema. 19

11 The image of Polish postcommunist cinema that will emerge from this work is one of coherence of themes and of approaches, but also of discontinuities and transformation. I am looking at the legacy of various paradigms and directors in the films made after 1989, such as the tradition of adapting the masterpieces of Polish literature, the second life of the Cinema of Moral Concern and the influence of Andrzej Munk, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kie lowski and Wojciech Jerzy Has have on younger directors. Most of all, however, I am searching for the presence of new subjects, ideas, styles and new influences. I am trying to establish what is parochial and what is universal in Polish postcommunist films, what is only of local interest and what appeals to international audiences, as well as what ages quickly and what remains fresh. However, given the recent nature of this material, I shall avoid extensive evaluation and regard my conclusions as provisional. Generally, I perceive my book as establishing the groundwork into Polish postcommunist cinema, providing data for more selective and deeper discussion and bolder assessments. In the light of what has been said so far it should be clear that Polish postcommunist cinema is used here as a term describing a period in the history of Polish cinema, not a movement, a paradigm or a unifying style. Similarly, by calling Polish cinema after 1989 postcommunist I am not implying that Polish cinema before that date was communist in the sense of following the precepts of communist art, but only that it was produced during the period labelled communism. Although I am normally applying a broad definition of Polish cinema that includes all types of films, in this book I am focusing on full-length feature films produced between 1989 and The reason is not my lack of appreciation of other types of films, such as short films and experimental work, but my belief that they deserve a lengthy discussion for which there is insufficient space in this study. Rather than pay them token recognition and risk distorting their image, I decided not to consider them at all, hoping that I will be able to return to them in future. I am also leaving out Polish directors working abroad, such as Krzysztof Kie lowski, Roman Pola ski or Agnieszka Holland due to the fact that their work is extensively discussed in other publications. Similarly, the relative lack of attention paid to such filmmakers as Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi in part is a 20

12 consequence of the fact that even after 1989 Polish cinema is largely associated with their films and they are more likely to be discussed than those of their younger colleagues. By contrast, the rest of Polish postcommunist cinema for the English-speaking reader is terra incognita. Having said that, I should mention here some of the most important publications in English covering this area. They include The New Polish Cinema, edited by Janina Falkowska and Marek Haltof, published by Flicks Books in 2003; Special Issue 2 of the online journal KinoKultura, devoted to Polish cinema, edited by El bieta Ostrowska and published in 2005; numerous articles in the online journal Kinoeye and Chapter 7, East Central European Cinema Since 1989, in Dina Iordanova s book Cinema of the Other Europe, published by Wallflower Press in 2003, that situates Polish cinema in the context of cinemas of other countries from the old Soviet Block. The book is based on personal research into the area of Polish cinema after 1989 that has lasted almost as long as postcommunist cinema itself. So far the fruits of my investigation have been presented in a number of articles. Small fragments of them are used in this book and two chapters are predominantly based on articles previously published. A preliminary version of Chapter 3 was published with the title In the land of noble knights and mute princesses: Polish Heritage Cinema in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, No 2, 2001, and Chapter 8 with the title Domesticating madness, revisiting Polishness: The Cinema of Marek Koterski in Journal of Film and Video, No 3, They are reprinted with the permission of the publishers. 21