Garden of Wilanów Palace, Warsaw, Poland / Photo Credit: Pinterest - Basil Orlando
POLISH CINEMA… (In the Entertainment
industry. History of Polish Cinema)
Bruce
Bisbey…please follow me at: https://dumbdogproductionsllc.blogspot.com or https://www.facebook.com/DumbDogProductionsLLC/ thank you.
Polish Cinema
Polish Film Commission
Film Commission Poland coordinates the efforts to promote
the Polish film industry and shooting locations on the international market.
Thanks to a comprehensive database, up-to-date records from the film sector and
close cooperation with the network of 7 regional film commissions, FCP is the
first contact point for filmmakers interested in making a film in Poland and
working with Polish partners.
Objective
To highlight Poland as a shooting destination and promote
Polish film industry abroad.
The history of cinema in Poland is almost as long as
history of cinematography, and it has universal achievements, even though Polish
movies tend to be less commercially available than movies from several other
European nations.
1894
The history of the Polish cinematography began along with
the invention of Pleograph by Kazimierz Prószyński. It was a kind of cinematic
apparatus and it had been invented a year before the invention of cinematograph
by the Lumiére brothers.
1908
In this year the first Polish film was created. The title
of this film was "Prussian culture" and it presented the story of
fighting with Polishness in Poland under the Prussian rule. This film lasted 8
minutes.
1918–1945
When Poland regained its independence (after Prussian,
Austrian and Russian rules), the cinematography started to develop. Films,
which were created, presented mostly Polish historical facts. For example,
there was made a film "Miracle at the Vistula" telling about very
important Polish war in 1920.
1939 - 1945 (World War II)
During World War II, Poland was invaded by the Nazi
Germany and the Polish cinema industry stopped to develop. There were only some
people who filmed military operations and took photos. These things were used
in later films after the war.
1945 - 1955
Polish cinematography was developing well. There were a
lot of film directors, such as Andrzej Munk, Wojciech Jerzy Has and Andrzej
Wajda.
1947
Cartoons Studio in Bielsko-Biala was established. Thereby
cartoon production started. Cartoons such as "Reksio" or "Bolek
and Lolek" (a screen from this cartoon in the picture above) are very
popular among children, even nowadays in Poland and in other countries as well.
1948
National Film School in Łódź was established. This event
helped Polish cinematography to develop.
1960
One of the most cult Polish films was created. The title
of this film was "Knights of the Teutonic Order" and it told the
story of the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic war and the final Battle of Grunwald in
1410.
1980s and 1990s
In those days there was the era of so-called 'popular
cinema'. Films such as "Vabank" (a screen from this film in the
picture above), "Vabank II" and 'Kiler' (kind of comedies) were made.
One of the most cult Polish film directors those days was Jerzy Machulski.
The turn of the century
Film adaptations of cult Polish works of literature, such
as "Quo Vadis" (a screen from this film in the picture above),
"Pan Tadeusz", "With Fire and Sword" written by Henryk
Sienkiewicz and "The Revenge" written by Aleksander Fredro were made.
The turn of the 21st century
In 2005 Polish Film Institute was established, which
supports film productions in Poland. Films which gained recognition not only in
Poland, such as: "Tricks", "Katyń", "Rose" and
"Ida" (poster in the picture above) were made.
After World War II, the communist government built an
auteur based national cinema, trained hundreds of new directors and empowered
them to make films. Filmmakers like Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieślowski,
Agnieszka Holland, Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Żuławski, Andrzej Munk, and Jerzy
Skolimowski impacted the development of Polish filmmaking. In more recent
years, the industry has been producer-led with finance being the key to a film
being made, and with a large number of independent filmmakers of all genres,
Polish productions tend to be more inspired by American film.
Early history
The first cinema in Poland (then occupied by the Russian
Empire) was founded in Łódź in 1899, several years after the invention of the
Cinematograph. Initially dubbed Living Pictures Theatre, it gained much
popularity and by the end of the next decade there were cinemas in almost every
major town of Poland. Arguably the first Polish filmmaker was Kazimierz
Prószyński, who filmed various short documentaries in Warsaw. His Pleograph
film camera had been patented before the Lumière brothers' invention and he is
credited as the author of the earliest surviving Polish documentary titled Ślizgawka
w Łazienkach (Skating-rink in the Royal Baths), as well as the first short
narrative films Powrót birbanta (Rake's return home) and Przygoda dorożkarza
(Cabman's Adventure), both created in 1902. Another pioneer of cinema was
Bolesław Matuszewski, who became one of the first filmmakers working for the
Lumière Company - and the official "cinematographer" of the Russian
tsars in 1897.
The earliest surviving feature film, the Antoś pierwszy
raz w Warszawie (Antoś for the First Time in Warsaw) was made in 1908 by Antoni
Fertner. The date of its première, October 22, 1908, is considered the founding
date of Polish film industry. Soon Polish artists started experimenting with
other genres of cinema: in 1910 Władysław Starewicz made one of the first
animated cartoons in the world - and the first to use the stop motion
technique, the Piękna Lukanida (Beautiful Lukanida). By the start of World War
I the cinema in Poland was already in full swing, with numerous adaptations of
major works of Polish literature screened (notably the Dzieje grzechu, Meir
Ezofowicz and Nad Niemnem.
During the World War I the Polish cinema crossed borders.
Films made in Warsaw or Vilna were often rebranded with German language
intertitles and shown in Berlin. That was how a young actress Pola Negri (born
Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec) gained fame in Germany and eventually became one of
the European super-stars of silent film.
During the World War II Polish filmmakers in Great Britain
created anti-Nazi color film Calling Mr. Smith (1943) about current Nazi crimes
in occupied Europe and about lies of Nazi propaganda. It was one of the first
anti-Nazi films in history being both avant-garde and documentary film.
After WWII
In November 1945 the communist government founded the film
production and distribution organization Film Polski, and put the well-known
Polish People's Army filmmaker Aleksander Ford in charge. Starting with a few
railway carriages full of film equipment taken from the Germans they proceed to
train and build a Polish film industry. The FP output was limited; only
thirteen features were released between 1947 and its dissolution in 1952,
concentrating on Polish suffering at the hands of the Nazis. In 1947 Ford moved
to help establish the new National Film School in Łódź, where he taught for 20
years.
The industry used imported cameras and film stocks. At
first ORWO black and white film stock from East Germany and then Eastman color
negative stock and ORWO print stocks for rushes and release prints. Poland made
its own lighting equipment. Because of the high costs of film stock Polish
films were shot with very low shooting ratios, the amount of film stock used in
shooting the film to length of the finished film. The equipment and film stock
were not the best and budgets were modest but the film makers received probably
the best training in the world from the Polish Film School. Another advantage
was that as Film Polski was a state organization film makers had access to all
Polish institutions and their cooperation in making their films. Film cameras
were able to enter almost every aspect of Polish life.
The first film produced in Poland following the World War
II was Zakazane piosenki (1946), directed by Leonard Buczkowski, which was seen
by 10.8 million people (out of 23,8 total population) in its initial theatrical
run. Buczkowski continued to make films regularly until his death in 1967.
Other important films of early post-World War II period were The Last Stage
(1948), directed by Wanda Jakubowska, who continued to make films until the
transition from communism to capitalism in 1989, and Border Street (1949),
directed by Aleksander Ford.
By the mid-1950s, following the end of Stalinism in
Poland, Film production was organized into film groups. A film group was a
collection of film makers, led by an experienced film director and consisting
of writers, film directors and production managers. They would write scripts,
create budgets, apply for funding off the Ministry of Culture and produce the
picture. They would hire actors and crew, and use studios and laboratories
controlled by Film Polski.
The change in political climate gave rise to the Polish
Film School movement, a training ground for some of the icons of the world
cinematography, e.g., Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water, Rosemary's Baby,
Frantic, The Pianist) and Krzysztof Zanussi (a leading director of the
so-called cinema of moral anxiety of the 1970s). Andrzej Wajda's films offer
insightful analyses of the universal element of the Polish experience - the
struggle to maintain dignity under the most trying circumstances. His films
defined several Polish generations. In 2000, Wajda was awarded an honorary
Oscar for his overall contribution to cinema. Four of his films were nominated
for Best Foreign Language Film award at Academy Awards with five other Polish
directors receiving one nomination each: Roman Polański, Jerzy Kawalerowicz,
Jerzy Hoffman, Jerzy Antczak and Agnieszka Holland. In 2015, Polish filmmaker
Paweł Pawlikowski received this award for his film Ida.
It is also important to note that during the 80's, the
People's Republic of Poland instituted the martial law to vanquish and censor
all forms of opposition against the communist rule of the nation, including
outlets such as cinema and radio. A notable film to have emerged during this
period was Ryszard Bugajski's 1982 film Interrogation (Przesluchanie), which
depicts the story of an unfortunate woman (played by Krystyna Janda) who is
arrested and tortured by the secret police into confessing a crime she knows
nothing about. The anti-communist nature of the film brought about the film's
over seven-year ban. In 1989, the ban was repealed after the overthrow of the
Communist government in Poland, and the film was shown in theaters for the
first time later that year. The film is still lauded today for its audacity in
depicting the cruelty of the Stalinist regime, as many artists feared persecution
during that time.
In the 1990s, Krzysztof Kieślowski won a universal acclaim
with productions such as Dekalog (made for television), The Double Life of
Véronique and the Three Colors trilogy. Another of the most famous movies in
Poland is Krzysztof Krauze’s The Debt, which became a blockbuster. It showed
the brutal reality of Polish capitalism and the growth of poverty. A
considerable number of Polish film directors (e.g., Agnieszka Holland and
Janusz Kamiński) have worked in American studios. Polish animated films - like
those by Jan Lenica and Zbigniew Rybczyński (Oscar, 1983) - drew on a long
tradition and continued to derive their inspiration from Poland's graphic arts.
Other notable Polish film directors include: Tomasz Bagiński, Małgorzata
Szumowska, Jan Jakub Kolski, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Stanisław Bareja and Janusz
Zaorski.
Among prominent annual film festivals taking place in
Poland are: Warsaw International Film Festival, Camerimage, and International
Festival of Independent Cinema off Camera, New Horizons Film Festival as well
as Gdynia Film Festival and Polish Film Awards.
Cinema audience
The Communist government invested resources into building
a sophisticated cinema audience. All the cinema were state owned and consisted
of first run premiere cinema, local cinema and art house cinemas. Tickets were
cheap and students and old people received discounts. In the city of Lodz there
were 36 cinemas in the 1970s showing films from all over the world. There were
the Italian films of Fellini, French comedies, American crime movies such as
Don Siegel's "Charley Varrick”. Films were shown in their original
versions with Polish subtitles. Anti-communist and cold war films were not
shown, but a bigger restriction was the cost of some films. There were popular
film magazines like "Film" and "Screen", critical magazines
such as "Kino". This all helped to build a well-informed film
audience.
Sources,
References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked
In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New York Film Academy, The
Balance, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide Magazine, Media Match, Quora, Creative
Skill Set, Investopedia, Variety, No Film School, Daily Variety, The Film
Agency, Best Sample Resume, How Stuff Works, Career Trend, Producer's Code of
Credits, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Entertainment Careers, Adhere
Creative, In Deed, Glass Door, Pay Scale, Merriam-Webster, Job Monkey, Studio
Binder, The Collective, Production Hub, The Producer's Business Handbook by
John J. Lee Jr., The Culture Trip, Film Museum, academia.edu,
Ola K, Sutori,
The Guardian, Calvert Journal, Local Life, Polish Film Commission, http://filmcommissionpoland.pl/,
Cinando, A Foreigner's Guide to Polish Cinema, Bartosz Staszczyszyn
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