PRE-WAR CINEMA

The beginnings  of  the Polish cinematography were quite modest in comparison with other European countries, despite the impact made by some famous Polish film personalities on the film philosophy and during the dawn of the cinematography itself. The first such personality was Kazimierz Prószyński (1875 – 1945)-  the inventor of a pleograph; the second was Bolesław Matuszewski (1856 – 1943) who was said to be the court photographer of the Tsar Micolai II and a producer of the precious documentary on the visit made France President Faure to St. Petersburg (1897), as well as the author of some pioneering theoretical essays, e.g. „Une nouvelle source de l’Histoire. Création d’un Dépôt de Cinematographie historique” oraz „La photographie animée” (Paris,  1898).

The birth of the silent cinema in Poland was strictly accompanied, as everywhere, by the naïve joy which every new invention brings about. The same naivety surrounded the commercial approach connected with its first trials.  During this pioneering period, the conditions were dictated by the “cinema people” – i.e. film makers deprived of any preparation or experience, one-day producers, fear-stricken owners of first cinemas afraid to take any risks. Such a tendency, varying in form and intensity, would continue to dominated for years to come. The lack of any state comprehensive policy in this sector became so problematic as the ephemeral nature of privet film ventures.

The most visible  film trend of those days was a patriotic melodrama, which was only natural having in mind the newly gained independence by Poland.  This genre evoked events of the past having the romance staffage and fulfilling its propaganda and educational mission. This type of marriage, however, ended up in failure, as it happened many times before. The propaganda  absorbed the educational message, and the history lesson was diminished inevitably to its most functional and entertaining dimension. Only the most eminent Polish director of that time, Józef Lejtes, became victorious in this trial producing such films as  „Huragan” (1928) and „Młody las” (1934). In the same context, artistic achievements of Henryk Szaro („Na Sybir”, 1930) or of Michał Waszyński („Bohaterowie Sybiru”, 1936) were regarded as dubious and disputable. The majority of historical movies were doomed as too illustrative. This fate was shared by two film adaptations of Stefan Żeromski novels made in 1936; “Róża”, which was screened with such loving care and reverence by Lejtes, was censored and finally lost its strong social  significance. „Wierna rzeka”, the novel screened by Leonard Buczkowski, was limited just to a love story, losing its bitter and dramatic tones permeating the prose written  by Żeromski.

“When wars come to an end, with the map of Poland settled comfortably on cinema screens in its full scale, a film director looks hesitantly at the Polish reality, and the only thing he sees is military parades. Where is Poland, the country so alive, at work and developing, following wars, and independent  from the military parades?”, asks Stefan Żeromski in 1935 in “Wiadomości Literackie”, an elite literary periodical. This question was rhetoric. In that era, almost entire film productions, following the model of the Hollywood productions, was overloaded with banality, which provided some kind of a safety guarantee also to Polish film makers and distributors. The audience en mass favoured simplified models and repeated clichés; this created a certain yoyo effect. The groove was back as a chronic disease.

The Polish film model, created consciously or unintentionally during the between-wars period, invoked mostly the middle-class social convention patters and the landed gentry culture. The film imprinted these patterns both in its dramatic as well as entertaining and comedy genres. Commonly accepted social rules, characteristic signs of social superiority or inferiority, a career-making pattern, and the cult of patriarchate family can be recognised so easily from the titles inviting to visit the cinema. The films such as „Kobiety nad przepaścią”, „Skłamałam”, „Kłamstwo Krystyny”, „Niebezpieczny romans”, „Gehenna”, „Trędowata”, „Zabawka” offered the audience not only an expected, thriller-like plot, but also locked it within the circle of cognitive stereotypes. The world presented on screen did not put up any resistance; it did not depict or generate any crisis either.

Only in the 30s of the last century, the film found an ally in the  literature of manner with its artistic and problem-oriented ambitions. With the film adaptations of the prose written by Nałkowska, Gojawiczyńska or Ukniewska, the film departed from the simplified life perspective by introducing an unknown critical approach. It depicted the struggle for survival, found its heroes on the dregs of society, inside the world of rented tiny rooms, caretakers’ lodges and basements; heroes hard-pressed by poverty and disease, searching for love and longing for solidarity gestures. The appearance of such films did not  indicated any break-through, however, it meant  a significant departure from the commercialized film productions. This departure had a mandate of the audience demand which was so different from the one commonly accepted until then.

The changes taking place to the social awareness were marked by the establishment in 1930, still at the threshold of the sound film, of the Artistic Films Enthusiasts Association (in Polish: Stowarzyszenia Miłośników Filmu Artystycznego (START)). The term “propaganda”, which initially appeared in this name, was included for some purpose; undoubtedly, its removal was not accidental either. Leftist tendencies in the culture were increasingly present. However, only few dare to admit their left-wing inclinations openly.

Reaching far beyond the then-current film production forces one to ponder over the chances lost by the cinematography during those 20 years of the between-wars period. Just shortly speaking, it must be emphasized that the film discussion in Poland then was wiser and more interesting than it can be deduced from the filmed plots of that time. It will suffice to mention here some eminent film critics, e.g. Karol Irzykowski who defined the cinema as a “visible sign of communion between the man and the matter”; or Stefania Zahorska who was researching the development paths of film, its formal issues and experimental features; Leon Trystan, a film director and theoretician, who promoted in Poland the ideas of the French impressionism vanguard, and researched the cinematography styles and film esthetics; Jalu Kurek, a poet, and Taduesz Peiper who, as the authors of essays on the film reality and cinema specificity, revealed the links joining the film with other fileds of artistic culture.

They all showed the way, however, they lacked the vehicle they could use to travel up this unblazed trail. In such countries as France or the post-revolution Russia, the great cinema visionaries materialized their ideas. Unfortunately, it was an opposite story here. The gap between the film theory and  practice cast a shadow on the development of the Polish film industry, and what is even worse, it resulted in bad habits appearing in the years to come. The vanguard trends did not reach as far as the Polish feature film which remained coarse in its concepts, and conventional in its depicting techniques. Only the propaganda productions made during the war time England by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, by applying some experimental means of expression, remain the exception which proves the rule.

Rafał Marszałek