The Law of the Looking Glass. Sheila SkaffЧитать онлайн книгу.
1920s
The Leo-Forbert production team during filming of One of the 36
Antek the Police Chief (1935)
Souls in Slavery (1930)
The Girls of Nowolipki (1937)
The Leper (1936)
Halka (1937)
An advertisement for The Ghosts (1938)
The Ghosts (1938)
The Dybbuk (1937)
Series Editor’s Preface
POLISH FILM AND CINEMATOGRAPHY rank among the leading examples of the cinematic arts in the late twentieth century. Sheila Skaff’s excellent revisionist study, The Law of the Looking Glass: Cinema in Poland, 1896–1939, examines the background and development of cinema and cinematography in Poland from their earliest moments in the late nineteenth century through the late nineteen thirties, when world war and political change created a dramatic break with the past and launched the country into a new phase of filmmaking practice.
Skaff’s book offers a thorough look at a subject that has yet to be studied in depth by more than a handful of scholars, possibly because of the extensive linguistic and technical expertise required to approach it credibly. The book, according to Skaff, “attempts to recapture the multilingualism and social diversity of cinema in the partitioned lands and independent Poland.” Indeed, rather than narrowing her own cinematic gaze and succumbing to the temptation to focus exclusively on Polish-language cinema and its relationship to Polish nationalism and nation building, Skaff wisely examines the cinematic traditions and practices among filmmakers of various ethnocultural and linguistic backgrounds in a multiethnic pre-1939 Poland. Her revisionist approach will earn the book a central place in the canon of Polish film studies. Her choice of an ending date for her study is a wise one, as well. World War II decimated the ranks of Polish filmmakers, and after the war the new Communist government nationalized the Polish film industry, bringing the chaotic-dynamic prewar era to a quiet close. Despite this obvious rupture with the cinematic tradition of the prewar years, Skaff nonetheless shows the carryover of important artistic influences and sensibilities, successfully making the argument that “this cultivation of the art of looking has proven a revered tradition that reaches to the beginning of the twenty-first century.”
For a volume so rich in information, the book is gracefully written and jargon-free. In this important and provocative study, Skaff displays a solid knowledge of Polish history, ambitious coverage of her topic, originality, and what one reader has called an “unmistakable passion for Polish film.” The Law of the Looking Glass: Cinema in Poland, 1896–1939 is a valuable work that will find a broad audience among students of Polish history, film scholars, and film buffs alike.
Publication of the Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series marks a milestone in the maturation of the Polish studies field and stands as a fitting tribute to the scholars and organizations whose efforts have brought it to fruition. Supported by a series advisory board of accomplished Polonists and Polish-Americanists, the Polish and Polish-American Studies Series has been made possible through generous financial assistance from the Polish American Historical Association, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, the Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish and Polish American Studies at Central Connecticut State University, and the Piast Institute and through institutional support from Wayne State University and Ohio University Press. The series meanwhile has benefited from the warm encouragement of a number of other persons, including Gillian Berchowitz, M. B. B. Biskupski, the late Stanislaus A. Blejwas, Mary Erdmans, Thaddeus Gromada, James S. Pula, Thaddeus Radzilowski, and David Sanders. The moral and material support from all of these institutions and individuals is gratefully acknowledged.
John J. Bukowczyk
Acknowledgments
This book was made possible with the help of several people. I would like to express my admiration for my dissertation advisor at the University of Michigan, Richard Abel, and extend my deepest gratitude to him and to Hubert Cohen, Marek Haltof, Piotr Michalowski, and Charles O’Brien for their expert advice at various stages of this project. I want to thank series editor John Bukowczyk of Wayne State University as well as Gillian Berchowitz and Rick Huard of Ohio University Press for their skillful and patient editing of the manuscript. I am grateful to staff members of the Filmoteka Narodowa, Biblioteka Narodowa, and Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw for their help in locating materials and illustrations. I appreciate everything that you have done to cultivate my hope for this project.
I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement, optimism, kindness, and generosity. Above all, my friends in Warsaw have made my research trips unforgettable. Thank you.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my nephew, William Skaff, for reminding me that words are precious.
Guide to Pronunciation
The following key provides a guide to the pronunciation of Polish words and names.
a is pronounced as in father
c as ts, as in cats
ch as guttural h, as in German Bach
cz as hard ch, as in church
g (always hard), as in get
i as ee, as in meet
j as y, as in yellow
rz as hard zh, as in French jardin
sz as hard sh, as in ship
szcz as hard shch, as in fresh cheese
u as oo, as in boot
w as v, as in vat
ć as soft ch, as in cheap
ś as soft sh, as in sheep
ż as hard zh, as in French jardin
ź as soft zh, as in seizure
ó as oo, as in boot
ą as a nasal, as in French on
ę as a nasal, as in French en
ł as w, as in way
ń as ny, as in canyon
The accent in Polish words always falls on the penultimate syllable.
The Law of the Looking Glass
INTRODUCTION
The Cult of Visibility
WHEN HE ARRIVED IN Kraków to give the first demonstration of the Cinématographe in late 1896, itinerant Lumière exhibitor Eugène Joachim DuPont realized that counterfeit copies of the apparatus were circulating in the region. He defended his patented apparatus by referring to it as the only “real” one. An advertisement for the first demonstration concluded, “The Lumière brothers from Lyon are the exclusive inventors of the real Cinématographe.”1 For DuPont, “real” may have been an expression for “patented” or “high quality.” Nevertheless, he probably knew that audiences would understand it, at least in part, as a synonym for the national-cultural institutions of France. The initial program of short films featured national symbols of European powers, including images of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, the French cavalry, and the Spanish artillery. It included none of the short films that had been shot in the lands annexed by Austria, Prussia, and Russia at the end of the eighteenth century and partitioned among them until 1918. In its emphasis on the symbols of existing nation-states rather than those of the occupied territories, the first program offered viewers the opportunity for national and personal identification with the screen images without the