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The perspective of new animism offers an approach to the subjectivity and the relation between nature and culture, the human and non-human, as well as the animate and the inanimate, that differs from the one founded on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Marginal in Polish culture, this current can be found in film representations of paganism that nevertheless lend it the status of a repressed phenomenon or one tamed by the context of Christianity. The authors of contemporary Polish films that refer to this tradition look for an alternative to a world that is hierarchical, dualistic and based on an anthropocentric model. They connect with paganism though their egalitarian attitude towards animals (Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor), respect for the agency of plants (Agnieszka Holland’s Charlatan), belief in spirits beyond the Christian context (Małgorzata Szumowska’s Never Gonna Snow Again and Body), awareness of the natural environment (Katarzyna Klimkiewicz and Dominga Sotomayor Castillos’s La Isla) or reference to tribal cultures (Zbigniew Libera’s Walser). At the same time, these works re-evaluate said tradition, treating it as a “rescue perspective” in the face of the current civilizational crisis.
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The conventions of the post-apocalyptic cinema enforce a specific aesthetics, and its visual dominant is often dirt. This element is usually contrasted with the alleged purity of the world before a catastrophe. Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller, 2015) seems to be an example of this strategy. However, the article shows that Miller’s work reveals an interesting ambivalence: suggesting the legitimacy of the dirt-purity opposition typical of the convention, the film simultaneously undermines it. Therefore, in Mad Max: Fury Road we can see three different systems of meaning based on these categories. The first one is a consequence of the accepted convention, the next two show the original author’s vision and represent a successful artistic attempt to overcome the typical perception of some features of the post-apocalyptic world. The article uses elements of Roland Barthes’s semiotic analysis of film, as well as Mary Douglas’s findings on the category of dirt and purity in culture.
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The article is devoted to "Through and Through" ("Na wylot", 1972) – the debut feature film of Grzegorz Królikiewicz. The author, basing his argument on the materials from the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute, New Files Archive and private collections, carefully reconstructs the production, distribution and promotional contexts of the film, also embedding them in a political context. Using the accounts of witnesses, excerpts from the film and daily press, he demonstrates, that although the critics, on balance, rated the film highly, it enjoyed only moderate interest from the audience, often meeting with very sharp reactions. The text resembles the film’s receptive context, heated discussions around it, violent replicas of both the critics and the director himself. Thanks to such extensive documentation, the text also refutes some myths that for years have grown around Królikiewicz’s work.
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#MeToo i transformacja
The article analyzes the transformational potential of the #MeToo movement in terms of personal experience, institutional, and social transformations, looking first of all at the dynamics the movement has created in theater in Poland and around the world. The author unveils the systemic dimension of violence encoded in invisible and standardized relations of domination and subordination, inscribed in the two models which are still very common in Polish theater: the "master and apprentice" model defining the position of a director and the "feudal" model visible in institutional relations.Looking at the "Gardzienice" case and the reactions of the public to the testimonies exposing violence, the author also mentions examples of institutional and systemic reactions to similar situations in British and Belgian theater. In this way, she outlines possible directions for action in Polish theater. She asks questions about the transformative and emancipatory potential of the #MeToo movement, emphasizing the necessity to consider an intersectional perspective, to build alliances and to practice promiscuous care.
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Artykuł jest próbą krytycznego zestawienia i omówienia dwóch wystaw odbywających się jednocześnie w Warszawie, "Tu Muranów" (Polin) oraz "Rhizopolis" (Zachęta). Autorka przygląda się ewolucji postaw dwójki artystów, Joanny Rajkowskiej i Artura Żmijewskiego od ich wspólnej wyprawy do Izraela/Palestyny na początku XXI wieku po dzisiejsze realizacje odczytywane jako etap ich pracy z pamięcią, historycznością i przestrzenią.
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The aim of the paper is to analyse The Light Princess (1864), a fairy tale by George MacDonald, and its musical adaptation from 2013 staged in the Royal National Theatre in London. The authors of the lyrics are Samuel Adamson, a playwright, and Tori Amos, a singer, who is also responsible for the music in the show. The fairy tale tells the story of a young princess cursed to be devoid of weight and the ability to feel sadness, as well as of her process of maturing into an adult woman. The author of the paper presents similarities and differences between the original tale dating to the late 19th century and its 21st century adaptation, along with their ties to folktale tropes. The analysis aims not only to set forth the vision of adulthood as described by MacDonald, but also to propound how the definitions of adulthood and womanhood could have changed over the course of a century of dynamic emancipation of women. According to the author, while MacDonald consciously subverts multiple fairy tale tropes, Adamson and Amos introduce modern elements to the text without integrating them into the fairy tale adaptation and with little regard for its folk inspirations. Driven by the desire to rewrite a modern, feminist version of the 19th century fairy tale, Adamson and Amos often achieve opposite results.
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Recently, the term “non-memory” (which should not be equated with oblivion) has gained importance in the Polish discourse on memory. It seems that scholarly discussions analysing the issues of World War II and post-war experiences have been dominated by the language of psychoanalysis; however, it is worth taking into consideration also vernacular languages. The author discusses the issues of memory and non-memory in relation to the extremely traumatic post-war experiences depicted in the two short films "Nie sądzić" ("Not to Judge", dir. Pawlina Carlucci Sforza and Magdalena Lubańska, 2017) and "Wielki strach" ("The Fear", dir. Pawlina Carlucci Sforza, 2020). They deal with this issue from different perspectives: the first in a more indirect way, the second – directly. People returning from forced labour in Germany after World War II were plundered and murdered by a local gang in a forest near Przeworsk. Traumatic knowledge about these events had been hidden for over seventy years.
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The article explores the impact of the digital revolution on animal representation in feature films. The author analyses computer-generated animals in the context of the progress of CGI and the effects of seamlessly compositing photorealistic animation with live action material. The author studies the phenomenon that has been developing since the 1990s in the context of visual effects studies and animal studies. He emphasizes the issue of progressive anthropomorphising of digital animals in the live action cinema of the last decade. The author differentiates three basic strategies for creating perceptually realistic animals, depending on the degree of their internal personification and external anthropomorphism or cartoonishness. Analysing "The Lion King" (dir. J. Favreau, 2019) the author notes a new trend, characteristic of hybrid cinema (a mélange of photorealistic animation and live action material): representations of deeply anthropomorphized fauna maintaining hyper-realistic physiognomy.
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The article describes the anniversary exhibition dedicated to the theater and film actress Domnica Darienco. The exhibition was inaugurated in the Reading Room “Psycho-pedagogical, real, natural sciences. Arts” of the USARB Scientific Library.
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Artykuł jest próbą syntetycznego nakreślenia sytuacji czarnych Niemców i Niemek po 1989 roku w kontekście pozjednoczeniowych konfliktów pamięci. W kontrze do względnie konsensualnej polityki pamięci drugiej wojny światowej i Zagłady, mającej scalać podzielone przez 40 lat niemieckie społeczeństwo, omawiane w artykule prace Laury Horelli oraz Mwangi Hutter, unaoczniają istnienie rywalizujących ze sobą dyskursów, których stawką jest dookreślenie tożsamości współczesnych Niemiec. Zakłócają tym samym przeforsowywaną w licznych pozjednoczeniowych publikacjach i wystawach traktujących o specyfice niemieckości i niemieckiej sztuki, spójną narrację, stanowiąc apel o poszerzenie symbolicznych granic niemieckości.
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At the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of Andrzej Munk’s The Passenger, Tadeusz Lubelski said that for Jean-Luc Godard, this was the best war film ever directed. Although it would be difficult to find documents confirming these words, the author of the article decided to rethink this statement and answer the question why The Passenger could be considered as the best war film. In so doing, the author attempts to perform the “work of imagination” which Didi-Huberman proposed as a method of fight against “the unimaginable”, a fight which is always undertaken “in spite of all”. In this article, the premises of Didi-Huberman’s method and Benjamin’s historical materialism are used to rethink montage in The Passenger. This work is a unique example of a film finished after the death of its author. The unusual montage used in The Passenger invites reflection about the trauma of image. At the same time, it is an exceptional testimony of image extracted from the mud of “the unimaginable”, an image saved from oblivion.
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Following article relates to issue of ‘synergy in architecture’ and it brings up problematic aspect of urban area, namely the urban infill. Urban infill is no doubt bonding element in narrow downtown’s development. Architects while projecting buildings in such localizations they have to face characteristic issues that is space limitations. Another problem is referring new designed building to existing spatial context in historical. At the end construction solution applied during connecting new building to existing ones is a problem that needs to be tackled on. Text talks about urban infill as a positive part of a building completing frontage in a city. It introduces urban infill as a synergistic element which means added, increasing value of a place where it is built. Through the positive aspects of urban infill’s examples there are effects shown which can be elected by this architectural form. In downtowns development necessity of filling ‘gaps’ in frontage is something effortless and common. It is important to mold this type of building in the correct way. Both choosing correct form and function might be crucial. Article in its predominant part is based on examples of this type of objects in limits of Lublin city. In a past few years there have been lots of new buildings arisen to infill downtowns development. Comparing this objects and analysis of its form and function is a base to worded conclusions.
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In this conversation Piotr Tomaszuk discusses one of his recent production called “Faustus. A New History”. Based on translations of various versions of the myth (Christopher Marlow, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and August Klingemann), the play explores most profound depths of human nature in the past and in the present.
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The author of the article attempts to explain the successful reception of the Wierszalin Theatre in the West by using the example of Dziady – Noc pierwsza and Noc druga (Forefathers’ Eve – First Night and Second Night) directed by Piotr Tomaszuk. In order to do so she uses the concept of a “global addressee”, that is an English speaking addressee with at least a basic knowledge of the European history of literature, drama, and theatre of the nineteenth and twentieth century. The author demonstrates that despite the specifically local colour of the Polish drama by Adam Mickiewicz as well as its theatre adaptation by Wierszalin, the production is deeply rooted in the European tradition of the Romantic mystery play, especially well-known from the lyrical and confessional dramas by George Gordon Byron and followed by the so-called “poor theatre” of the twentieth century as well as the “theatre of death” by Tadeusz Kantor.
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By the late 1920s in Europe new art directions were regarded as already completed phenomena, a part of “avant-garde tradition.” Such views were expressed by Jean Arp and El Lissitzky’s in their book Kuntismen (1925), and by Amédée Ozenfant’s in Art. Bilan des arts modernes en France (1928). Similar opinions were also voiced by Jan Brzękowski, a Polish poet and critic, who regarded this time as a period of “establishing certain values” rather than new breakthroughs. In this article I discuss Brzękowski’s strategies as a spokesman of modern art, an intermediary between the Parisian artworld and Polish avant-garde, an author connected with constructivism (a member of “a.r.” group), and also with surrealist circles in Paris. My main focus is his magazine “Sztuka Współczesna – L’Art Contemporain” (1929–1930) and his series of articles “Mileages,” in which he summarizes the developments of modern art. Conscious of the “wearing up” of avant-garde ideas and critical about seeking “novelty” for its own sake, Brzękowski tried to establish a progressive position based on the idea of formal discipline and creative construction. While rejecting a mimetic conception of art, he argued for abstract artistic form that would be “anchored to the bottom of life,” thus emphasizing the interplay of abstract and figurative elements and their dialectic.
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This article concerns the Warsaw period in the life and work of Helena Modrzejewska. The years 1869-1876 are the least researched and described period in the entire career of this actress. The article refers to Zbigniew Raszewski’s essay Modrzejewska – a Varsovian, debating the significance of the experience of the Krakow theatre in Modrzejewska’s work. In the light of a factual analysis, he presents the actress as a Drama Artist of Warsaw theatres, posing questions about the evaluation of the experience of working on the Warsaw stage in the context of her career. The methodological framework of the article is an attempt to see the principles of realistic idealism, i.e. the model style of the art of acting in the nineteenth century, not only in the actress’s stage performance, but also in social life and the iconographic material based on Jan Mieczkowski’s photographs.
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