Literature had a strong role in the preservation of language and national identity in Polish society, which was often divided by social class and life philosophy, as well as by the geo-political borders of its three dominant neighbors - Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary. Furthermore, during the totalitarian Communist regime classic literature sometimes offered crafty ways of avoiding censorship



When faced with the challenge of writing a two-page article about six important films by great directors, it is not surprising that you might fall into the trap of generalizing. The only thing these films, selected for yet another outstanding program of Polish films in Tuškanac, have in common is their country of origin, the era of their production (in the years immediately following WW II) and the type of literature that inspired them.

Polish cinema, unlike many world film traditions, has always been very closely connected to national literature. As early as 1911, Antoni Bednarczyk made a film based on the novel The Spring to Come, by Stefan Żeromski, one of the most famous writers of modern Poland (two other film adaptations of the same novel were made in 1933 and 1975). During the silent era screenwriters found inspiration in literature by Adam Mickiewicz, Wladyslaw Reymont and the aforementioned Żeromski. The first Polish sound film, shot in 1930 by the director Bolesław Newolin, was based on the play The Morality of Mrs. Dulska by a fierce adversary of the petty bourgeois, Gabriela Zapolska, (The Morality of Mrs. Dulska).

After WW II, and especially during the golden age of the 1950s which saw the “Polish school” develop into a world-wide phenomenon, Polish directors very often and eagerly used literature as a source of inspiration for films. The reasons for this are simple. Literature has always played a strong role in the preservation of language and national identity in Polish society, which has often been divided by social class and life philosophy as well as by the geo-political borders of its three dominant neighbors - Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary. Furthermore, during the totalitarian Communist regime classic literature sometimes offered crafty ways of avoiding censorship. Polish filmmakers, like their colleagues the world over, have drawn from literature because of a personal affinity for its creative poetics. It seems almost unnecessary to add that Polish literature is among the greatest and most relevant in the world.

In 1955 Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004) revisited childhood in his native country Lithuania in a nostalgic story about growing up, The Issa Valley. It was also a logical choice for his ten years-younger countryman, colleague writer and great filmmaker Tadeusz Konwicki (1926). The two authors became close because of the intimacy-sparking experience of losing their home country as well as, in the early 1980’s, shared political views. The Nobel Prize for literature, awarded to the emigrant Miłosz in 1980, is also in some sense an award for the Polish “inner emigrants” - among which Konwicki holds a distinguished place of moral authority - who marched towards general Jaruzelski’s tanks holding the “Solidarnośći” flag.

War interrupted the distribution of what is probably the best film by Jerzy Zaorski (1947) Mother of Kings. Made in 1982, it was presented for the first time five years later in Berlin. A novella by Kazimierz Brandys (1916-2000) written in 1957 was the logical choice for this director in a time of political turmoil, the time of the Stalinist “warmer climate”, as well as massive worker strikes. It tells the story of the Kralj family, a woman and her four sons who went from being active participants of a workers’ strike to victims of the heartless Stalinist regime. Several years later, in 1966, the author suffered a similar fate when he stepped outside the embrace of the Polish Communist Party.

In 1956, a peculiar rebel, Marek Hlaska (1934-1969), who had a significant influence on the 1960’s generation in many countries, wrote a long story, Eighth Day of the Week. Two years later Aleksander Ford (1908-1980) directed a film adaptation of it, but the movie was immediately censored and Polish audiences only saw it after democratic changes came about. Hlaska’s young rebels against social norms, “victims of their own heroism” (Zdravko Malić), proved to be lethal not only to themselves but also to the ruling powers. The film shared the destiny of a Ford documentary about Polish anti-Semitism, Children Must Laugh (1936), as both were banned.

Andrzej Wajda (1926) was never a favorite of Polish censors. However his famous film adaptation of the still controversial novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski (1909-1983) Ashes And Diamonds, also filmed in 1958, enraged not only the Communist government, but also its abundant opposition. This impressive story takes place over the course of five days in May of 1945. WW II had officially ended for Europe, but continued in Poland with a fratricidal reckoning for recent anti-fascist comrades-in-arms, members of the pro-western Homeland and the pro-international National Army. An author is accused of favoring the Communists, no small sin at the time. In this masterpiece Wajda managed to avoid the pitfalls of social realism. Its hero Maciek, who dies while carrying out orders to kill Communist secretary Szczuka, became hugely popular. The role was brilliantly acted by the charismatic Zbgniew Cybulski, a sort of James Dean-type who was tragically squished to death by a train.

The Promised Land, the second Wajda film in this program, is an adaptation of the naturalist novel by the Nobel Prize winner Władysław Reymont (1867-1925). It is a story about the bloody roots of industrialization at the turn of the 20th century set in a mixed Polish-Jewish-German textile center in Łódź. It was filmed in the mid-1970’s, a time remembered as la belle époque of real-socialism. It did not cause any negative reactions but was, in fact, praised as the author’s great comeback from a creative crisis.

And finally, Quo Vadis, a historical novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) from 1896, served as the inspiration for Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s last film, made in 2001. Unlike the book’s author, who won a Nobel Prize in 1905 for this saga about the persecution of Jews in Nero’s Rome, the director of this film did not add anything to his opus other than the distinction of having shot the most expensive Polish film of all time. His film Mother Joan of the Angels (screenplay by Konwicki based on Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s prose) was nominated for an Oscar and might even be the best film adaptation of a literary work in the history of Polish cinema. (Mladen Martić)