Filmowe Pejzaże Europy
Cinematic Landscapes of Europe
Contributor(s): Barbara Kita (Editor), Magdalena Kempna-Pieniążek (Editor)
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Sociology, Sociology of Culture, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: cinematic landscape; landscape in cinema; cinematic space; European cinema; contemporary cinema; the cinema of authors
Summary/Abstract: The book entitled Cinematic Landscapes of Europe is a review of contemporary European cinema from the point of view of a characteristic shot of a landscape. How do European film-makers employ a landscape? Is it significant for them and does it determine the choice of particular means and ways of filming? These questions are being answered by the authors of the ten essays. Each article takes into consideration a set of films in which a landscape plays an important role. Sometimes it is understood in a metaphoric way, as an element of authorial narration (the articles by Ilona Copik on post-industrial landscape generating social issues and the article by Wojciech Sitek on the films of “broken Britannia”). Another area of investigation is urban landscape, understood in a symbolic way (the article by Andrzej Gwóźdź demonstrating how the Berlin wall has [not] existed in the cinema and the essay by Przemysław Pieniążek which offers the interpretation of the infernal landscape of the films of Dario Argento). A comprehensive conceptualization of cinematic landscape can be found in the interpretation of Spanish cinema, in which Joanna Aleksandrowicz juxtaposes Basque and Andalusian landscapes. The article by Karolina Kostyra conforms to the peregrination of landscapes of nature, which are an inherent element of the coming-of-age films. A completely different function is ascribed to rural landscapes in the works of Jan Jakub Kolski, which are a subject of study by Jakub Zajdel, who identifies a cinematic affection to them in the biography of the director. Finally, Magdalena Kempna-Pieniążek and Natalia Gruenpeter take into consideration the authoral interpretations of landscape in the films by Bruno Dumont and Lucile Hadžihalilović.
Series: Radio, Telewizja, Film, Internet
- E-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-3170-6
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-3169-0
- Page Count: 262
- Publication Year: 2017
- Language: Polish
Noty o Autorach, Indeks osobowy, Spis ilustracji
Noty o Autorach, Indeks osobowy, Spis ilustracji
(Notes about authors, personal index, list of illustrations)
- Author(s):Not Specified Author
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts
- Page Range:245-260
- No. of Pages:16
Pejzaż za oknem. Europejskie widokówki filmowe – wprowadzenie
Pejzaż za oknem. Europejskie widokówki filmowe – wprowadzenie
(Landscape through a window. European film postcards – an introduction)
- Author(s):Barbara Kita
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:7-26
- No. of Pages:20
- Summary/Abstract:The text is an introduction to issues related to landscape in fi lm; it proposes both methodology and interpretation. Searching for research inspirations regarding the specifi cityof fi lm landscape, the author refers to painting and philosophical tradition, fi rst of all,emphasizing the increasing signifi cance of landscape in fi lm studies.Based on the example of the mediterraneity (mediterraneité), she shows how landscape „acts” in fi lm, fi lling various roles: that of an attractive fi lm postcard, a sort of decorative background for the protagonists’ actions, or of the breaking of a stereotypical valorization as, for instance, in thrillers. Th e author also proposes a classifi cation of fi lm landscape, summarizing a codifi cation of fi lm views. She acknowledges the necessity to undertake an interdisciplinary approach in studies of fi lm landscapes in the cinema.
- Price: 4.50 €
„Węgiel jest przeszłością, panno Mullins”. Krajobraz postindustrialny w kinie brytyjskim lat dziewięćdziesiątych
„Węgiel jest przeszłością, panno Mullins”. Krajobraz postindustrialny w kinie brytyjskim lat dziewięćdziesiątych
(„Coal is history, Miss Mullins”. The post-industrial landscape in British cinema of the 1990s)
- Author(s):Ilona Copik
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:27-47
- No. of Pages:21
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of this article is an analysis of selected fi lms representative of British cinema of the 1990s, set in coal-mining and industrial cities and towns in Northern England – the region most severely affected by the transformations of the post-industrial era. The landscape seen in these films is not as much a „place of action”’, a necessary background toevents, as it is an equal, permeated-with-meanings, component of a fi lm, integrated withthe logic of the narrative. The author sees the post-industrial landscape as a kind of socio--cultural realism, which provides insight into such problems as the consequences of theend of the black coal era, a technological change which entails a socio-cultural transformation, and the necessity to re-orientate the economy and identity. The landscape shown on screen is symptomatic of the place mired in crisis and full of ambivalence, reflected in the iconography as figures of ruin and desolation, but also symbols of new possibilities. The change brings about new, different signification, which is connected with the destructionof trade union working class culture and the work ethos, and with the necessity to meet thechallenges of entrepreneurship and pivatization. The post-industrial landscape of socialrealism films corresponds with the dissonance, often indicated as a characteristic trait ofBritish culture, in which the imperial myth and conservative ideology interfere with thepoetics of rebellion and anarchist tradition. In the discussed films, the spirit of defiance isclosely related to socio-economic turbulences of the Thatcher era, necessitating politicalinvolvement in a situation of a principal conflict of interest between the government andsociety, more broadly connected to the tensions between what is central/peripheral, local/global and traditional/progressive.
- Price: 4.50 €
„Złamana Brytania”. Pejzaż konfliktów społecznych w kinie brytyjskim XXI wieku
„Złamana Brytania”. Pejzaż konfliktów społecznych w kinie brytyjskim XXI wieku
(„Broken Britain”. The landscape of social conflicts in the 21st century British cinema)
- Author(s):Wojciech Sitek
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:49-76
- No. of Pages:28
- Summary/Abstract:In the 21st century, some British filmmakers negated the tone developed by the directors of the socially engaged left-wing cinema and expressed on screen the views of theright-wing political elites. As seen by the conservatists, social perversions stemmed fromthe alleged docility of the Labour Party government, which supposedly weakened the institutions, thereby enticing moral degeneration of the lowest classes. In British films of the21st century, the social crisis was blamed on the envisioned social pockets of the demoralizedpoor, labeled as „broken society” (in relation to the construct present in the Torries’narration explaining the alleged moral, economic and social decline of Great Britain). Inthe cinema of „broken Britain”, the exaggerated threat of social collapse became the groundsfor a wishful confrontation of the degenerate representatives of lower classes withthe distressed „squares” pinning their hopes upon the restoration of a strong government.
- Price: 4.50 €
Krajobrazy z murem berlińskim w filmach fabularnych podzielonego kina do roku 1989
Krajobrazy z murem berlińskim w filmach fabularnych podzielonego kina do roku 1989
(Landscapes with the Berlin Wall in feature films of the divided cinema before 1989)
- Author(s):Andrzej Gwóźdź
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:77-105
- No. of Pages:29
- Summary/Abstract:The author offers insight into fi lm images of the city with the wall, considering broad anthropological and socio-political contexts of the divided Berlin. The discussed filmsprovide a fascinating glimpse into the cultural geography of Berlin, showing how, in thecinema of the two Germanies, the figure of the wall was shaping the landscape of the dividedmetropolis. With the exception of two films in which the wall represents a propagandaemblem of the government, (Frank Vogel’s …und Deine Liebeauch, And Your Love Too,1962), and the female protagonist’s inner landscape (Heinz Thiel’s The Punch to the Jaw,1962), the cinema of the GDR was erasing the city’s internal border and creating an imageof Berlin depicted in line with political propaganda. The role of the border BranderburghGate in the films Hostess (1976) of Rolf Römer and The Architects (1990) of Peter Kahanedeserves special attention. In the first, the Gate (and the wall behind it) constitutes a picturesque figure of nostalgia in the capital’s architectonic discourse; in the latter, the image of the Gate becomes only a telling sign of the opressiveness of the city and the system whoseproduct it was. Among films produced in West Germany, the author points, among others, to Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987), permeated with signs of the city’s liminality andpolitical temporariness, Willy Tremper’s Playgirl (1965), in which the image of the wall inscribes itself in the discourse of the modern city’s memory, and Helke Sander’s The Allround Reduced Personality – Redupers (1977), presenting a woman’s project of domesticating the wall through the aesthetization of the public sphere by means of the wall.
- Price: 4.50 €
Jako w piekle, tak i na ziemi. Topografia włoskiego kina grozy na przykładzie filmów Daria Argenta
Jako w piekle, tak i na ziemi. Topografia włoskiego kina grozy na przykładzie filmów Daria Argenta
(As it is in hell and on earth. A topography of Italian horror cinema based on the example of Dario Argento’s films)
- Author(s):Przemysław Pieniążek
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:107-131
- No. of Pages:25
- Summary/Abstract:The characters populating the world of Dario Argento’s films are mainly witnesses to a dramatic incident (for instance murder) or persons under a threat and, not always throughthe fault of theirs or willfully, faced with events which are the outcome of chaos pervadingthe psyche of a masked perpetrator, or of an activity of forces of infernal provenance. Themost vivid examples of this narrative are: the Three Mothers Trilogy (1977–2007), emphasizing supernatural motifs, and Phenomena (1985), not deprived of fantastic staff age. However, as the author of the article argues, the space of ordeal in Argento’s films is not limited to topics characteristic of horror films. After all, hell is, what the director himself indicates, mainly a state of a depraved mind, whose mental projection often determines film diegesis, making the set an analogue of the (heavily distorted) mental landscape.Films such as Deep Red (1975), Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971), Opera (1987) or TheStendhal Syndrome (1996) broaden the spectrum of the director’s characteristic infernalmotifs by strictly spatial categories. Moreover, the author of the article points to the factthat the deliberations about archetypal images, rooted in the psychological thought of CarlGustav Jung, constitute extremely helpful categories for our understanding of the functioningof the infernal landscape in Dario Argento’s films. In most cases, hell, according to theItalian director, seems to be deprived of a metaphysical element; rather, it is a metaphor ofthe darkest nooks and crannies of human minds and unconsciousness which, burdenedby various traumas and suppressed desires, influences the characters’ perception of theirsurrounding world.
- Price: 4.50 €
Pejzaże wyobrażone. Kraj Basków i Andaluzja w kinie hiszpańskim
Pejzaże wyobrażone. Kraj Basków i Andaluzja w kinie hiszpańskim
(Imagined landscapes. Basque Country and Andalucia in Spanish cinema)
- Author(s):Joanna Aleksandrowicz
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:133-160
- No. of Pages:28
- Summary/Abstract:An analysis of Spanish films from the years between 1990 and 2015 shows how the fi lm landscapes of Basque Country and Andalusia have become symbols of local culturesand conveyors of identity. The grotesquely exaggerated landscape, along with peculiar weather, chiaroscuro and a range of colors, can also be an element of stereotypical portrayalsof regions and a source of humor in Spanish comedies. The symbolism of Andalusianlandscapes is particularly complex. On the one hand, they are identified with the uniquenessof a little homeland, and on the other hand, they are stereotypically perceived as a mark of entire Spain. Then, Basque Country, situated in the North is regarded as an opposition to the Spanish South in terms of landscape and culture. Both Basque and Andalusian landscapes are associated with particular character types and genre schemata, not infrequently juxtaposed in the narrative as a counterpoint.
- Price: 4.50 €
Sorrento albo inny Doboszów – prowincjonalni marzyciele znad rzeki, której nie ma
Sorrento albo inny Doboszów – prowincjonalni marzyciele znad rzeki, której nie ma
(Sorrento, or, different Doboszów. Provincial dreamers on a river that does not exist)
- Author(s):Karolina Kostyra
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:161-182
- No. of Pages:22
- Summary/Abstract:The article is an attempt at an analysis of the fi lm Nad rzeką, której nie ma (On ariver that does not exist), directed by Andrzej Barański in 1991, by setting it in a landscapeof fi lm tales about coming of age. The coming of age cinema usually uses its own imagery convention, whose main feature is permanent presence of nature: wild, lush, romantic or idylic. Lakes, high grass and forest allow a young person to get lost and, then, find the way back in accordance with a fairytale optics. Barański’s fi lm uses this attribute of the genre contrarily, by situating in the landscape of coming of age in a little town unstoppable nature on a par with images of the familiar buildings. Dominant in the iconography of the river which does not exist are dirt roads, weathered ruins and benches overgrown with grass. This kind of locations of the non-existent Doboszow invokes familiar points from a cultural map of all little towns, where young residents hang out lazily in the viccinity of a railway station, awaiting with hope for the mysterious visitors. Under these modest conditions, the heroes of Nad rzeką, której nie ma fantasize about getting away from the peripheries towards the unattainable exotic lands, at the same time becoming more and more inseparable from the land of their childhood. For Admiral, Ataman, Pasha and Chief, this space seems tedious and ambient, broad and narrow at the same time; finally, however, situating itself the nearest to the nostalgic „boyhood paradise“. The author of the article invokes the poetics and the main thought of Barański’s fi lm, asking a question if, with age, one grows out of the spell of little towns and conceptions of unstoppable nature. In the discussed fi lm, coming out of a childhood idyl, if it exists at all, is being realized in tranquillity coinciding with the tissue ofmelancholic provinces.
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Jana Jakuba Kolskiego filmowe pejzaże z pamięci i wyobraźni
Jana Jakuba Kolskiego filmowe pejzaże z pamięci i wyobraźni
(Jana Jakub Kolski’s film landscapes from memory and imagination)
- Author(s):Jakub Zajdel
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:183-200
- No. of Pages:18
- Summary/Abstract:The author has made an attempt at describing the human and geographical landscape in Jan Jakub Kolski’s films from the so-called Popielawy series. Initially, critics related his early films to magical realism, strongly present in Ibero-American literature. However, in the mid 1990s, they verified this view, focusing on the anchoring of “Popielawy” films in folk culture. The author argues that sources of the fi lm stories about Popielawy can also be traced to the views of the Romantics. His analyses of Kolski’s films accentuate the resemblances between the construction of the world and actions of the characters in the Popielawy series and the assumptions of the Romantic way of cognition of the world. Simultaneously, in these films, the director works out the history of his own family, relating to the experiences and professional activity of his grandparents and father. The author points to the fact that in his depictions of peasants, Kolski polemicizes against the myth ingrained in communist propaganda of the moral law of poor villagers to distribute the possessions of their richer neighbors and property owners among themselves.
- Price: 4.50 €
Dumontland: pejzaż duchowej pustyni
Dumontland: pejzaż duchowej pustyni
(Dumontland: The landscape of a spiritual desert)
- Author(s):Magdalena Kempna-Pieniążek
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:201-225
- No. of Pages:25
- Summary/Abstract:Set, most frequently, in the realities of the Flandrian province, Bruno Dumont’s realisations convey a picture of reality in which traditional systems of values have been questioned, or, even degraded. Watched with a clear eye, the landscapes in The Life of Jesus,contrast, in their diversity, with bare existence of the protagonists. Intoxicatingly beautiful,almost pictorial locations of Humanity and L’il Quinquin become the scene of heinouscrimes, and lavish nature in Outside Satan seems to herald the return to the pagan experiencing of the world. Although the characters in Dumont’s films spend a considerableamount of time in the bosom of nature, gazing into space and their surrounding reality,the landscapes in these films do not serve contemplation, as understood in the cinema oftraditional spirituality. Here, nature is not a source of beauty or the sense of balance; rather,it hides the abomination of primordial instincts and a spectacle of death. In a sense, itsirrepressibility and ability to regenerate cyclically stand in contrast to the spiritual void ofcivilization tainted with a sense of the end and decline. The author characterizes the topography of Dumontland, in which the opulence of nature becomes a paradoxical reflectionof the spiritual void, which is the space of existence of post-modern man. The specificity ofDumont’s landscape, presented in this way, reveals the spectrum and complexity of issuesthat are the centre of the French director’s work.
- Price: 4.50 €
Pejzaże głębin. O osobnych światach Lucile Hadžihalilović
Pejzaże głębin. O osobnych światach Lucile Hadžihalilović
(The landscapes of the deeps. On the separate worlds of Lucile Hadžihalilovic)
- Author(s):Natalia Gruenpeter
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Photography, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
- Page Range:227-244
- No. of Pages:18
- Summary/Abstract:The author performs an analysis of Innocence and Evolution – the films of Lucile Hadžihalilović, which she proposes to treat as a diptych due to similarities in the thematiclayer and plot, as well as significant parallels in the construction of presented worlds. The ambiguous morphology of the surroundings and meaningful landscape shots are viewedin two dimensions: on the one hand, as references to the structure of myth, fairytale andutopia; on the other hand, as elements of the depiction of nature. Besides forest, sea or underwater landscapes, this way of depiction includes, among others, poetic pictures of atmospheric phenomena and observations of vegetation and animal life, which are endowed with symbolic meaning. Among her sources of the depiction of nature, the author indicates documentary films of Jean Painlevé and the fascination with an element of water present in the works of surrealists. Moreover, Lucile Hadžihalilović approaches the aquatic imagination as a manifestation of underwater optics, which performs a symbolic function.
- Price: 4.50 €
