Directory of World Cinema: East Europe

By Intellect Books Ltd

Part of the "Directory of World Cinema" series, this title includes contributions from some of the leading academics in the field. It features film recommendations from a range of genres for those interested in watching more cinema from these regions. It also features comprehensive filmography as an index. Given the prevalence of important new wave cinemas across Eastern Central Europe in the post-war, post-Stalinist era (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia), this new volume of the "Directory of World Cinema" series charts the trends of these national cinemas. In the decades since the 1970s, the continuing popularity of filmmakers from these countries (including Kieslowski, Bela Tarr, Istvan Szabo, Jiri Menzel), coupled with a recent international surge in the visibility of the cinemas of Serbia, Slovakia and Romania, means that these countries in East Central Europe are a central focus in the directory. Introductory essays of this title establish key players and explore important genres such as war, comedy, surrealism and art cinema while reviews and case studies analyze individual titles in considerable depth.For the film studies scholar, or for all those who love cinema and want to learn more, "Directory of World Cinema: East Europe" will be an essential companion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Intellect Books Ltd
• Release date: Sep 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781841505183

Book preview

Volume 8

DIRECTORY OF

WORLD CINEMA

EAST EUROPE

Edited by Adam Bingham

First Published in the UK in 2011 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK

First published in the USA in 2011 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

Copyright © 2011 Intellect Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Publisher: May Yao

Publishing Manager: Melanie Marshall

Cover photo: Popiół i diament/Ashes and Diamonds, Cybulski, Zbigniew, 1958, Film Polski

Cover Design: Holly Rose

Copy Editor: Michael Eckhardt

Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire

Directory of World Cinema ISSN 2040-7971

Directory of World Cinema eISSN 2040-798X

Directory of World Cinema: East Europe ISBN 978-1-84150-464-3

Directory of World Cinema: East Europe eISBN 978-1-84150-518-3

Printed and bound by Cambrian Printers, Aberystwyth, Wales.

CONTENTS

DIRECTORY OF

WORLD CINEMA

EAST EUROPE

Acknowledgements

Introduction by the Editor

Film of the Year

Tricks

Actors

Zbigniew Cybulski

Comedy

Essay

Reviews

War

Essay

Reviews

Art Cinema

Essay

Reviews

History

Essay

Reviews

Drama & Realism

Essay

Reviews

Surrealism & Allegory

Essay

Reviews

Poland

Directors

Reviews

Yugoslavia

Directors

Reviews

Hungary

Directors

Reviews

Czechoslovakia

Directors

Reviews

Recommended Reading

Test Your Knowledge

Notes on Contributors

Filmography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere thanks go to all at Intellect, especially May Yao and Melanie Marshall, who in addition to allowing me the opportunity to organise and oversee this project have provided the practical advice and professional support that has helped to make this a thoroughly enjoyable working experience. Many thanks also to Tony Harrild for his very able early proofreading and his useful suggestions for the editing of reviews, and to contributor Jan Čulík for checking tirelessly for the correct use of accents and improving the manuscript immeasurably by doing so. Indeed, each and every contributor has added to the quality and breadth of this manuscript and my thanks to them all for the efficiency with which they worked with me to meet deadlines and to shape and re-shape their material as required - to say nothing, of course, about the expertise they brought to bear on their written essays and reviews. Finally my warmest thanks to those close friends and family who helped more than they could know by seeing me through the rigours of this project. I couldn't have completed it without them.

Adam Bingham

INTRODUCTION

BY THE EDITOR

At the 2007 London Film Festival, to complement the British premieres of Nesfârşit/ California Dreamin’ (Cristian Nemescu, 2007) and that year’s Palme d’Or winner 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zili/4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007), a panel discussion was held specifically to discuss the viability of discussing Romanian cinema as a new ‘New Wave’ movement. Entitled ‘Romanian Cinema: the next New Wave?’ the participants (including 4 Months director Cristian Mungiu) were reserved and a little sceptical at the seemingly overnight explosion of their country’s national cinema. They made reference in particular to the eager critical canonization of a select few new auteur filmmakers on the one hand, and on the other, to the sadly sub-standard industrial infrastructure in Romania that means domestic audiences struggle to see many of even the most acclaimed and internationally successful works.

It is a pertinent point, one that has numerous ramifications for the study of national cinemas and ‘New Waves’ in general (attendant on which has generally been a distinctly international construction of perceived domestic themes and traits). However, the comments seem to be especially pointed with regard to the various, almost simultaneous, nouvelle vague movements that sprang up in East Central Europe in the decades following the World War II. Beginning with a remarkable new school of Polish cinema in the mid-1950s and thereafter continuing with New Waves in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, these epochal moments in European film-making placed their respective countries on the international map for the first time. Coming from what were closed, insular worlds, these new films offered a revelatory insight into the cultural modes and paradigms of the countries of their production, and were as a result New Waves in the purest sense of the term.

Very few works from any of this region’s countries had made any substantial impact outside their domestic borders. Thus, for many in Western Europe, indeed the world in general, the East Central European New Waves that arose at the same time as the French and Japanese nouvelle vague movements opened up the cinematic, indeed artistic practices of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. With the exception of the latter, the respective film industries of these nations had, prior to World War II, achieved stability and a measure of prosperity, especially in Poland where a film-making co-operative established in 1930 by, among others, such significant future directors as Aleksander Ford and Wanda Jakubowska, laid the foundations for the direction of the Polish film industry in the post-war years when it was re-structured as a series of more or less autonomous film-making units, each headed by a senior figure (such as Ford). It was with this structure that the Polish New School came into being on the strength of Andrzej Wajda’s Pokolenie/A Generation (1955), which led to the subsequent decade of works that put Polish cinema firmly on the international map. After the first, socially-conscious wave of the New School came the existential concerns of a second wave – directors such as Roman Polański and Jerzy Skolimowski. Their work found popular favour, but in the 1970s the old guard of Andrzej Wajda, combined with new talents such as Krzysztof Zanussi and Krzysztof Kieślowski, popularized the ‘cinema of moral anxiety’, and once again a stringent engagement with issues of modern Poland predominated. The imposition of martial law in 1981 saw many film-makers’ careers curtailed or exiled, and many works were shelved, remaining so until after the fall of Communism in 1989 (following which a new climate of audience taste clashed with the works being produced and led to severe problems for the industry).

The cinematic fortunes of Hungary, whilst inconsistent, had begun to turn for the better by the 1940s. The country had been relatively slow on the uptake of feature film production, but numbers had increased throughout the 1910s, culminating in the years 1918/1919 when, under successive short-term revolutionary governments, a record number of features were produced. The 1930s and war years saw another boom in Hungarian cinema (when a quota system in exhibition was introduced), and annual production steadily increased to a peak of more than fifty by 1943, many of which were glossy, formulaic comedies and romantic dramas. Following a post-war slump, the Hungarian industry was nationalized in 1948 (following the Communist takeover); and in 1955 there was a lessening of the hitherto tightly regimented ideological strictures of socialist realism. Following this decisive break, the seeds of the subsequent decade’s New Wave began to be sown as major directors such as Zoltán Fábri and Károly Makk took advantage of the new liberalized climate to produce challenging dramas with a strong social commitment; whilst the New Wave proper, which is generally regarded to have begun with first-time director István Gaál’s drama of several friends trying to come to terms with the death of one of their number, Sodrásban/Current (1963), began to make almost immediate headway in international circles. Many of Hungary’s most famous and revered directors began their careers around this time, including István Szabó, Miklós Jancsó, Márta Mészáros and others. Their work engaged profoundly with aspects of Hungarian society, politics and its recent history. The 1970s saw another significant development in the so-called Budapest school of quasi-documentary film-making, a group under whose prominent auspices Béla Tarr’s early features were made; but thereafter a prominence of staid genre cinema and economic difficulties led to several major directors working on international productions or co-productions. More than twelve first time directors appeared in 1990-1991 (András Bálint Kovács 2000: 107); although state investment in a still-struggling industry did not grow or develop for several years and multiplex cinemas did not appear in Budapest until 1996. As a result, alongside continuing attempts at large-scale productions, there emerged a significant trend in low-budget and documentary cinema that has invigorated production and artistic achievement.

In Czechoslovakia, stable film production had begun around 1910, and the country rapidly became the pre-eminent centre of film-making, and especially film exhibition, in the Austro-Hungarian empire, something that was solidified by both international distribution (Stavitel chrámu/The Builder of the Cathedral [Karl Degl & Antonín Novotný, 1920]) and indeed international financing (the very first Slovak film, Jánošík [Jaroslav Siake?, 1921], was produced with largely American capital). After 1918 and the formation of the independent Czechoslovak Republic, film was viewed as a significant aspect of national culture, and the country saw out the silent period with an above-average 26 films per year (Hames 2009: 54). Subsequently, a number of successes were scored with a series of adaptations such as Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk or, later, Karel Čapek’s sci-fi drama Krakatit (directed by Otakar Vávra in 1947) and his play, Bílá nemoc/ The White Sickness. Although feature production decreased in the 1930s, there were a number of internationally acclaimed works and a loose movement known as ‘Czech lyricism’, something that spawned several internationally acclaimed works.

Following the variously debilitating effects of Nazi occupation and thereafter (in 1948), the transition to Communism and the dictates of Stalinism, the first graduates from FAMU (the Prague film school) began to make films that captured attention and interest. They were soon followed by a second generation, and these film-makers (Miloš Forman, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Věra Chytilová, Juraj Jakubisko among others) comprised the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s, a movement that soon cemented the country’s international visibility when three films were invited to the 1968 Cannes Film Festival. The same year saw the banning of a number of films when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed the relatively liberal climate of the Prague Spring under which many films had been produced.

Other than animated and children’s films, the Czechoslovak cinema suffered in the 1970s and shortly thereafter. As Peter Hames has noted, a new generation of film-makers seemed poised to break through in the late 1980s and in the wake of the velvet revolution (Hames 2009: 57). However, names such as Petr Koliha, Miloš Zábranský and Irena Pavlásková did not establish internationally acclaimed bodies of work; and in the last two decades only a select few outstanding examples, such as Kolya (Jan Svěrák, 1996) and the recent war film Tobruk (Václav Marhoul, 2008) have managed to secure widespread distribution.

In the future Yugoslavia, the decades before the 1940s saw only erratic film production: a very few features were complimented by companies devoted to documentaries; and beyond isolated historical works from Serbia and from one notable Croatian director (Oktavijan Miletić), there was almost no film tradition to speak of. Following World War II (during which organized production was halted) the emergent film industry was left with a serious shortage of professional persons able to engage in film-making, and thus the establishment of a viable industrial infrastructure occupied much energy in the years 1945-1950. However, some films were produced, most notably a Serbian historical narrative in the shape of Sofka (Radoš Novaković, 1948).

After a move for industrial decentralization in 1950 and the development of self-managed worker’s councils, much of the ensuing two decades saw a substantial growth in Yugoslav cinema. The 1950s saw an increase in popular genre films, whilst the 1960s saw the birth of the ‘Black Wave’, the internationally acclaimed new works from directors such as Dušan Makavejev, Aleksandar Petrović, Živojin Pavlović, Želimir Žilnik, the Slovene and Boštjan Hladnik. The domestic reception accorded some of these directors and their works was problematic. A number of titles banned and film-makers forced to work abroad, and this seemed to precipitate the lean years that followed the region’s industry in the 1970s when genre fare such as the exaggeratedly nationalistic partisan war films proved the most popular and prevalent in the wake of the migration of several prominent figures like Makavejev, Petrović and Pavlović (who found work in Slovenia in the early 1970s). A subsequent generation emerged onto the international scene in the 1980s, most prominently Emir Kusturica, Slobodan Šijan and Zoran Tadić, whose work defied a reduced number of features being made as a result of economic difficulties.

There were a number of problems attendant on the organization of this book, not the least of which was the question of where to draw the line between a large number of well-known, canonical works and those just as worthy titles that for one reason or another have not been widely seen and thus remain to receive the acclaim they largely deserve. Those well-versed in the cinemas of East Central Europe may wonder at the need to include films such as Ostře sledované vlaky/Closely Observed Trains (Jiří Menzel, 1966), Lásky jedné plavovlásky/Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, 1965), Nóż w wodzie/Knife in the Water (Roman Polański, 1962) or WR – Misterije organizma/WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Dušan Makavejev, 1971). Similarly, beside such world-renowned directors as Miloš Forman, Miklós Jancsó, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Béla Tarr and Dušan Makavejev there are a host of just as worthy names whose films remain to be widely discovered and acclaimed. Some of those included will doubtless be new to a number of readers (Dušan Hanák, Zdeněk Podskalský, even Juraj Jakubisko); whilst others may well retain name recognition without being familiar through first-hand knowledge of their films (Jerzy Skolimowski, Krzysztof Zanussi, Aleksandar Petrović). This opening volume of what will be an ongoing series on the cinemas of East and East Central Europe thus aims to serve as an introduction to both canonical and lesser-known directors, and through a juxtaposition of both perhaps use the former to help elucidate and contextualize the latter. If it errs on the side of dealing with the better-known works and their directors, then the feeling is not only that these are canonical (and thus important) for very good reasons, but also that an understanding and appreciation of their qualities and achievements (in many cases by writers from the films’ respective countries of origin) will better serve to lay the foundations for subsequent books, whose subjects will make use of the known faces of East Central European cinema as a point of departure in elucidating those films, film-makers and indeed countries which will be less familiar to a majority of the readership.

It is thus the hope with this opening volume that both seasoned viewers and newcomers to the cinemas covered herein will find work of interest and use value, and this dual task is mirrored in the contributors and approaches to the film reviews and essays that comprise the bulk of the text. A mix of western, American and East Central European specialists, academics and general film journalists, make-up the writers who have undertaken the work in this text, and their respective reviews and essays similarly employ a range of different approaches that, it is believed, best rhyme with the films and directors under consideration. This approach has helped to alleviate some of the potential enervation attached to the consideration of famous works, especially those from Czechoslovakia who have just recently returned to the critical spotlight in a new book on Czech and Slovak cinema by renowned expert Peter Hames.

There are currently more East Central European films available for home viewing than at any time before, thanks primarily to the American distributor Facets Video and the UK-based DVD distributor Second Run, both of which have specialized in the cinemas of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. At the same time, following the aforementioned Mungiu film, it seems that works from this region have become mainstays at major international film festivals, whilst full career retrospectives of the Serbian Goran Paskaljević and the Czech František Vláčil took place at the British Film Institute only two months apart in the summer of 2010. It is thus a perfect time for a book such as this, one which considers and makes reference to a number of films and film-makers that can now be accessible to a wide audience, and that can inform and elucidate much of the region’s success today. Hopefully the mix of films and contributors in this volume can benefit the novice and seasoned viewer alike, and offer an entertaining, enlightening and accessible addition to an ever expanding field of literature on these most diverse and distinctive nations in world cinema.

Adam Bingham

References

Graffy, Julian, Iordanova, Dina, Taylor, Richard and Wood, Nancy (eds.) (2000), The BFI Companion to Eastern European and Russian Cinema, London: British Film Institute.

Hames, Peter (2009), Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Tricks, Kino Swiat International.

FILM OF THE YEAR

Tricks

Sztuczki

Production Companies:

Zjednoczenie Artystów i

Rzemieslników

Kino Swiat International

Distributors:

Kino Swiat International Filmmuseum Distributie

KMBO

Primer Plano Film Group KOOL Filmdistribution

Director:

Andrzej Jakimowski

Producer:

Andrzej Jakimowski

Screenwriter:

Andrzej Jakimowski

Cinematographer:

Adam Bajerski

Composer:

Tomasz Gąssowski

Editor:

Cezary Grzesiuk

Duration:

95 minutes

Genre:

Comedy/Drama

Cast:

Damian UI

Ewelina Walendziak

Tomasz Sapryk

Rafal Guzniczak

Iwona Fornalczyk

Joanna Liszowska

Andrzej Golejewski

Grzegorz Stelmaszewski

year:

2007

Synopsis

Stefek is a young boy who spends his time with his older sister Elka or with her boyfriend Jerzy. One day at the train station he sees a man he believes to be his estranged father; and even though Elka denies it, he subsequently continues to wait around at the train station to see him as he leaves for work in the morning. After getting the idea of tricking fate into smiling on him, Stefek begins to throw money on the rail line in the hopes of winning some time with the man and having him meet his mother again, a ploy that works when he misses his train and has to spend the day in his town. However, his sister's impending job interview at a car dealership, and some unforeseen turns of fate, conspire to complicate his plans.

Critique

When I asked the writer/director of Sztuczki/Tricks, Andrzej Jakimowski, about the freshness and originality of his second feature film within the context of Polish cinema, and about any influences on his well-received sophomore effort, he replied that there were no conscious forebears to whom he wished to pay homage, Polish or otherwise. Some may quibble with this statement – given its mix of caressing, optimistic humanism, emphasis on broken families and working class, street-level naturalism one could well invoke the François Truffaut of Les quatre cents coups/The 400 Blows (1959); or indeed one may well also look closer to home and contrast with another second feature, István Szabó's Apa/Father (1966), which also looked at the plight of a fatherless young boy. However, one of the real strengths of the film is its ability to absorb any perceived forebears and stand in its own right as an organic entity in and of itself. And it is this quality in particular that marks Tricks out as a mature work by a distinctive film-maker.

Chosen as Poland's official entry in the 2009 Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, and winner of a host of other prestigious awards both in Poland and around the world, Tricks combines elements familiar to Polish cinema (its small town setting is a faded, crumbling relic of a communist past) with a largely sprightly tone that does not undermine the weight of the material. Like Jakimowski's feature debut, Zmruż oczy/Squint Your Eyes (2002), the film presents a world as seen through adolescent, pre-teenage eyes. The earlier work concerned a ten-year-old girl who leaves home to go and live on a farm after she has become disillusioned with her parents, and its follow-up similarly looks at the gulf between young and old, in this case a young boy who believes the man he spies at the train station every morning to be his estranged father.

The title thus derives from the sly inducements to fate initiated by the young protagonist to force his luck and have his perceived father bump into his mother at her place of work, and by this route bring his family back together. Through brevity of action – of short, sharp and pointed scenes of characterization, and telling, deceptively incidental narrative detail – Tricks maintains a relatively hectic pace entirely in keeping with its often hyperactive young protagonist. The director is smart enough to depart from this character's youthful belief in his own power to ‘trick’ fate and show the ramifications of his actions; the obverse image of the good luck that he creates for himself. These though are not dwelt upon at length, Jakimowski preferring instead to keep proceedings comic and largely uncluttered and uncomplicated. However, they do add up to a strangely self-enclosed world of insular cause and effect in which the same cast of characters re-appear in unexpected ways, as though the town were a veritable stage (which for the young boy it could well be argued to be). This makes for a fascinating, productive clash with the drab milieu, and underlines a point about life in Poland that, although perhaps out of date in post-communist times, nonetheless connects the narrative to its cultural context in an interesting manner. Tricky in subject matter but not in style or emotional impact, this is an unassuming gem that marks its director out as a talent to watch closely.

Adam Bingham

Popiół i diament / Ashes And Diamonds, Film Polski.

ACTORS

ZBIGNIEW CYBULSKI

Andrzej Wajda begins his own essay-reminiscence on Zbigniew Cybulski as follows:

There were a lot of ‘nos’ facing any director wanting to cast him:

No, because he won't learn the text [...]

No, because he would look funny in costume [...]

No, because he will detract attention from actors playing the main roles [...]

No, because he is difficult to work with on the set [...]

No, because he interferes with the script [...]

No, he has so many other things to do [...]

And at last no, because he would be the same as in Ashes and Diamonds [...] (Wajda 1997:221)

And yet it is Zbigniew Cybulski who created the most iconic screen role in the history of Polish film – that of Maciek in Wajda's Popiół i diament/Ashes and Diamond (1958) – and has become the only true cinematic star in Poland comparable at that time to, as Wajda enumerates, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Gérard Philipe, or Marcello Mastroianni (Wajda 1997: 223). Perhaps until this day no other actor in Poland has been able to rival Cybulski's legendary status, based in equal measure on his charismatic presence and originality, as well as on his premature death under the wheels of the train he was trying to catch (8 January 1967). A testimony to the extent of his popularity even today is the fact that he still regularly wins the very top places in rankings for the best Polish actor organized by prestigious film organizations, journals or magazines.

Zbigniew Cybulski was born on 3 November 1927 in Kniaże near Stanisławów (currently Ukraine). After belatedly finishing his studies in 1953 (due to World War II), he became involved in theatre. He was a co-founder (with Bogumił Kobiela) of the legendary student theatre Bim-Bom (1954–1960), and played and directed in theatres and cabarets in Sopot and Warsaw (Theatre of Conversations, Ateneum Theatre) and the Polish Television Theatre. However, it is for his cinematic performances that he achieved fame, and for which remains best known and most celebrated: most notably in Ashes and Diamonds, Pociąg/Night Train (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959), Do widzenia, dojutra .../Good Bye Till Tomorrow (Janusz Morgenstern, 1960), Jak być kochaną/How to be Loved (Wojciech J. Has, 1963), Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie/The Saragossa Manuscript (Wojciech J. Has, 1965), Salto/ Jump (Tadeusz Konwicki, 1965), or Szyfry/The Codes (Wojciech J. Has, 1966).

Cybulski's stardom cannot be explained without the recourse to the national dimension of his screen persona, and especially the particular historical and political situation that contributed to, or even perhaps enabled, it. The role which undoubtedly defined not only Cybulski's future career as an actor but his almost mythical existence in the popular Polish imagination was that of Maciek in Ashes and Diamonds. Critics have pointed out that the unprecedented success of the film, and its unparalleled importance, is in large measure due to the thoroughly original and unconventional creation of Cybulski, who managed to imbue the historical film and the character of Maciek with an utterly modern and contemporary sensibility (Helman 1997). It is a well-known anecdote told by Wajda that Cybulski came to the set on the first day dressed in his own jeans, jacket, and dark glasses (which became his identification mark) and insisted on playing in his own clothes, much against the script's historical accuracy. In point of fact, he simply played himself in the film; and it is these qualities of integrity, familiarity and contemporariness which became the staple of Cybulski's screen persona and made film critics often use his first name in writing about him. Along with his intensity and youthful anger, they earned him the nickname of the Polish James Dean.

However, Ashes and Diamonds, which depicts the last day of World War II when Poland was virtually on the brink of civil war and, as it later turned out, the beginning of the Soviet occupation was also important as it talked about a vital moment in the history of Polish people. In a country in which film is treated as high art and the director is a conscience of a nation and a prophet with a mission to talk about issues of national importance, it is Cybulski who, like no other actor before him, appropriated this mission for acting. One of the criticisms levelled at the film on its release was that its portrayal of the Home Army members was, in contrast with the Communist Szczuka, negative and thus geared towards censorship. But, as played by Cybulski, Maciek is a Home Army member who totally seduced the audience with his intensity and likeability, as well as with the prevalent streak of a tragic hero that is endemic within him. He was the one whom the audience could not forget. He said extra-verbally what Wajda could not say due to censorship. His style of acting not only embodied the tragic Polish history and touched on several central issues connected with national identity, but also personified the experience of the whole nation.

Significantly it was also the actor's own experience: Cybulski was raised in the atmosphere of fervent patriotism and Catholicism (which often overlap in Poland), and his idiosyncratic saying, ‘Be a Pole’, was often condescendingly laughed at by his fellow actors (Lubelski 2007: 97). His ideological zeal, as well as his understanding of acting as a mission he had to fulfil has often been commented upon, and Wajda recounts that he once came back to Gdańsk from Warsaw where he had a meeting with students the previous day because he believed that he got the answers wrong (Wajda 1997: 225), According to Mirosław Przylipiak, one explanation for Cybulski's almost mythical existence as an actor in Poland is that he neatly inscribed into his roles both the prevailing national discourse and his belief in his vocation (Przylipiak 1997). The other, he continues, is that the phenomenon of stardom, closely related to national ethos and national identity as defined by Cybulski, became a paradigm for the very idea of stardom in the history of post-war cinema in Poland, and was bequeathed to such actors as Daniel Olbrychski, Jerzy Stuhrand Bogusław Linda. Paradoxically, some believe that it also stifled his career as he was constantly measured (and perhaps also measured himself) against his role as Maciek. The guilt over the inability to find another great role for Cybulski is what gave rise to Wajda's Wszystko na sprzedaż/Everything for Sale (1969) after the actor's untimely death, this being a film entirely organized around the film star who has not arrived on the set; who has indeed ‘disappeared’. The myth was born in the very fabric of film performer's dual presence and absence.

While some of Cybulski's roles after Ashes and Diamonds openly embodied the tragic fate of the Polish war generation, some were less overtly dramatic and profound, such as How to be Loved, Giuseppe w Warszawie/Giuseppe in Warsaw (Stanisław Lenarto-wicz, 1964), Jump, and unquestionably in The Codes (although even in these films an evocation of a romantic national mythology is discernible). In a number of other films, such as Ósmy dzień tygodnia/The Eighth Day of the Week (Aleksander Ford, 1958), Krzyż Walecznych/Cross of Valor (Kazimierz Kutz, 1959), Night Train, Good Bye Till Tomorrow, and L'Amour à Vingt Ans/Love at Twenty (Andrzej Wajda, 1962), it has been argued that Cybulski represents a lover (Stachówna 1997). However, Cybulski represents more than just a lover, but the one whose masculinity is closely related to Polish Romantic mythology: he is slightly infantile, obsessively devoted to his cause (regardless of whether it is a fight for his Motherland or love for a woman), ready for all sacrifices, including his own death, and almost stupidly cavalier. Just like the heroes of freedom-for-Poland narratives who are ready to die for the Motherland against their better judgement, the lovers in the above works persist in their pursuit of unrequited love. In Night Train, for example, the protagonist Staszek is ready to die in his pursuit of a woman named Marta by jumping several times in and out of a train, and the intensity of this ardour defines his whole attitude towards life (in one scene, which uncannily prefigures Cybulski's own death, the train attendant remarks that he ‘has seen the brave ones without legs’). As a lover in this film, Cybulski is utterly desirable, not only because of his looks but chiefly as a consequence of the well-entrenched type of Polish masculinity that he embodies. Along with The Eighth Day of the Week, the best example of this character type is Jacek in Goodbye till Tomorrow, a man in the grip of amour fou, who represents a typically Polish masculinity (in fact he embodies Poland) in opposition to Margueritte, who is French (Ostrowska & Rydzewska 2007). Harriet Anderson aptly identifies this national model in Cybulski himself when she says, ‘He was crazy; he had a Polish temperament. I was charmed.’

Wajda's sentiment that none of the roles after Maciek in Ashes and Diamonds offered Cybulski the opportunity to show the breadth and depth of his talent has often been reiterated. However, even though the feeling of regret at the death of such a young actor is totally understandable, it is difficult to agree with such a diagnosis. While this role and the film itself did create a unique, almost cathartic, experience for Polish audiences, it was as much Cybulski's talent and personality as being in the right place at the right time that made this film and its protagonist such a resonant creation. In subsequent years, he did essay great characters and showed the versatility of his talent, but the 1960s were not conducive for anything as heroic as Wajda's film (it is not without reason that this time is sometimes called ‘small stabilization’). Cybulski's range of talent is clearly visible in two comedic roles of 1964: in Giuseppe in Warsaw, and in a film much admired by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, The Saragossa Manuscript. Shortly before his death he appeared in The Codes, where his maturity and skilful restraint are praiseworthy; and even the small episode of the coach Księżak in Jowita/Jovita (Janusz Morgen-stern, 1967) is masterfully, subtly executed by the actor. While one can regret that Polish cinema did not offer Zbigniew Cybulski another role worthy of Maciek, we should rather celebrate the greatness of his talent, as many of the parts that he created are truly unforgettable and gems in their own right.

Joanna Rydzewska

References

Helman, Alicja (1997), ‘Popiół i diament- Początek legendy’, in Jan Ciechowicz and Tadeusz Szczepański (eds.), Zbigniew Cybulski. AktorXX wieku, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.

Lubelski, Tadeusz (2007), ‘Andrzej Wajda angażuje Zyszka Cybulskiego’, in Tadeusz Lubelski and Konrad J. Zarębski (eds.), Historia Kina Polskiego, Warsaw: Fundacja Kino.

Ostrowska, Elżbieta and Rydzewska, Joanna (2007), ‘Gendered Discourses of Nation(hood) and the West in Polish Cinema’, Studies in European Cinema, 4:3, pp. 187-198.

Przylipiak, Mirosław (1997), ‘Aktorstwo jako misja. Testament artystyczny Zbigniewa Cybulskiego’, in Jan Ciechowicz and Tadeusz Szczepański (eds.), Zbigniew Cybulski: AktorXX wieku, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.

Stachówna, Grażyna (1997), ‘Zbigniew Cybulski - amant’, in Jan Ciechowicz and Tadeusz Szczepański (eds.), Zbigniew Cybulski:. AktorXX wieku, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.

Wajda, Andrzej (1997), ‘Fenomen Cybulskiego’, in Jan Ciechowicz and Tadeusz Szczepański (eds.), Zbigniew Cybulski: AktorXX wieku, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.

COMEDY

The Witness, Hungarofilm.

In an interview from the BBC television documentary series Omnibus, the Czech film-maker Ivan Passer, director of the comedy Intimní osvětlení/Intimate Lighting (1965), remarked that the genre of comedic cinema that became so prevalent a part of the Czech