Studia Filmoznawcze

Ucieczka z peryferiów. Filmowy system-świat i polskie kino

Miłosz Stelmach — 2024-07-16

The main aim of this text is to outline the possibilities of applying Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory to the analysis of cinema. Concepts developed by Wallerstein, especially the notion of the relationship between the core and the periphery of international political-economic systems, can help in understanding the hegemony of Hollywood cinema in the global circulation of film content, as well as the positions smaller film industries occupy in relation to it. The assumptions of this theory will be tested using the example of the cinema of Central and Eastern Europe in recent decades, allowing for the determination of its relative hierarchy in the global chain of production and consumption of audiovisual content. Special attention has been paid to Poland, presented as a model example of a local film industry attempting to emerge from the peripheral position it occupied after the political transformation of 1989.

Escape from the periphery. World-system of cinema and Polish film

Miłosz Stelmach — 2024-07-16

The main aim of this text is to outline the possibilities of applying Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory to the analysis of cinema. Concepts developed by Wallerstein, especially the notion of the relationship between the core and the periphery of international political-economic systems, can be useful in trying the hegemony of Hollywood cinema in the global circulation of film content, as well as the positions smaller film industries occupy in relation to it. The assumptions of this theory will be tested using the example of the cinema of Central and Eastern Europe in recent decades, making it possible to determine its relative hierarchy in the global chain of production and consumption of audiovisual content. Special attention has been focused on Poland, presented as a model example of a local film industry attempting to emerge from the peripheral position it occupied after the political transformation of 1989.

“Daring and Heart-Wrenching Jewish Film”— Reception of Aleksander Ford’s “Border Street” in Israel

Maciej Pietrzak — 2024-07-16

The main subject of the paper is the distribution and critical reception of the film Border Street (dir. A. Ford, 1948) in Israel at the end of the 1940s. Conducting a review of archival diplomatic reports and texts published in the Israeli press of the time, the author reconstructs the strategic rationale behind the film’s export to the Jewish state and analyzes its reception in local media. The conducted analysis demonstrates the significant popularity of the film in Israel and the considerable role Border Street played in the context of broader cultural and diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Nowa Przygoda czy Nowa Baśń? Recepcja zjawiska na peryferiach przemysłu kinematograficznego oraz światowego dyskursu krytycznofilmowego. Recenzje wybranych obrazów nurtu w czasopismach branżowych PRL-u lat lat siedemdziesiątych i osiemdziesiątych

Mateusz Drewniak — 2024-07-16

The article offers a fresh look at the Polish critical reception of the New Adventure Cinema movies within the peripherality of the People’s Republic of Poland as an American export market. The author proposes a new perspective on this topic. Instead of focusing on well-known articles and reviews, he chooses texts on particular films of the New Adventure Cinema movement from the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s. The author highlights the potential of these texts and suggests considering a different name for this trend.

Peryferie ideologii — „patrząc z ukosa” na „Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą” Wojciecha J. Hasa i „Monument” Jagody Szelc

Małgorzata Jakubowska — 2024-07-16

The main topic of the article is the use of ideological criticism (as presented by Slavoj Žižek) as a method in comparative analysis of The Hourglass Sanatorium by W.J. Has and The Monument by J. Szelc. The author not only looks for objective determinations of social reality, but also for its hidden forms. The conclusions allow us to see the dynamics of changes in the symbolic orders that implicitly organize the narrative structures of both films. Furthermore, in this perspective they become a diagnosis of the present in the face of Polish “year of dangerous dreams”.

Inspiracje, techniki i instytucjonalność. Animacja w eksperymentalnej twórczości Józefa Robakowskiego

Anna Krakowiak — 2024-07-16

Józef Robakowski’s cinematic oeuvre functions mainly as an experimental form of audiovisual art exhibited in gallery spaces. In his avant-garde activities, this intermedia artist, who originated from the Workshop of the Film Form, often reached for techniques characteristic of animated cinema, as evidenced by the author’s textual analysis of the films: Market (1970), Test 1 (1971), Attempt II (1971), Dynamic Rectangle (1971), 22x (1971), Impulsator (2000), Impulsator VI (2001), Attention light! (2004). The analysis focuses on the techniques used as well as potential or overt inspirations. Creating experimental animations, often in the spirit of ‘pure film’, the avant-gardist has been appropriated by other scientific disciplines such as art history or new media. The aim of this article is to include Józef Robakowski in the discourse of film studies, to demonstrate his stance as an animator over the course of his artistic output to date, but above all to embed the avant-gardist’s silhouette in the history of Polish animated cinema.

Inspirations, techniques and institutionality. Animation in Józef Robakowski’s experimental oeuvre

Anna Krakowiak — 2024-07-16

Józef Robakowski’s cinematic oeuvre functions mainly as an experimental form of audiovisual art exhibited in gallery spaces. In his avant-garde activities this intermedia artist, associated with the Film Form Workshop, often used techniques of animated film, as is evidenced by the author’s textual analysis of the films: Market (1970), Test 1 (1971), Test II (1971), Dynamic Rectangle (1971), 22x (1971), Impulsator (2000), Impulsator VI (2001), Attention Light! (2004). The analysis focuses on the techniques used by Robakowski as well as his potential or explicit inspirations. Creating experimental animations, often in the spirit of “pure film”, the avant-gardist has been appropriated by other scholarly disciplines such as art history or new media. The aim of this article is to include Józef Robakowski in the discourse of film studies: to demonstrate his stance as an animator over the course of his artistic work to date, but above all to place him in the history of Polish animated film.

Białe dni, czarne śniegi i strachy na wróble. O kinie jakuckim

Piotr Wąsala — 2024-07-16

The aim of this article is to familiarize the reader with the selected works, names, and trends (genre cinema, the “Sakhawood” phenomenon) that have dominated the Yakutian cinema in the context of the history, belief system, and national identity of the Sakha. A chronological overview of the respective stages of development (e.g. ongoing professionalization of film crews and the democratization of the medium itself) of the discussed cinema — understood as a component of world cinema — concerns the years 1986–2022, i.e. from the production of the first Yakutian-language film until the present day — the period of increasing recognition of many of the films and the acclivous aspirations of the filmmakers.

„Bałkańskość” w wybranych słoweńskich filmach fabularnych XXI wieku

Maša Guštin — 2024-07-16

In the 21st century, within Slovenian culture, new phenomena such as “Balkan culture” and the “čefur” subculture have emerged, which are also reflected in film. In Slovenian film production of the last two decades, there is a noticeable presence of a certain form of “Balkanness”, which essentially stems from Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav relations. The creators of Slovenian films of the years 2000–2020 not only integrate and build upon the components of this new Slovenian “Balkan culture” but also establish its canon. This article attempts to identify the phenomenon of this specific “Balkanness” in Slovenian narrative film of the first two decades of the 21st century.

Cyrkularne inscenizacje tożsamości. O jednoujęciowych filmach Shahrama Mokriego

Tomasz Poborca — 2024-07-16

The goal of this article is to reopen the debate over the relationship between aesthetics and ethics, using Shahram Mokri’s innovative poetics as an example. The author employs structural, comparative, and ideological analysis methods to examine Iranian one-take films. He situates the director’s filmography within the broader context of Iranian cinema history and provides a detailed description of the narrative loop tactics employed by Mokri in his works. Then he interprets the original style using Gilbert Simondon’s ontological concept of individuation and Judith Butler’s queer theory. Thus, he combines a look at the periphery of film production with an examination of the marginal position of entities resisting discursive hegemony. The author argues that the epistemic dissonance that results from the confrontation of a long take’s apparent realism with mise en abyme narrative strategies and chronological aporicity has the potential to reflect the complex nature of identity lability without resorting to explicitly political or philosophical content.

Zacieśnianie więzi. Realizacja założeń „audience development” przez Azjatycki Festiwal Filmowy „Pięć Smaków”

Jakub Zawodniak — 2024-07-16

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally redefined the way film festivals operate. The article frames these recent changes in the logic of earlier and broader trends. Using the concept of the fourth phase of development of film festivals and the notion of audience development, the author describes the case of the Five Flavours Asian Film Festival and analyses the types of initiatives implemented by the festival organizers. In the final part of the article, the author presents the results of a study conducted on Facebook group dedicated to fans of the festival.

Rzeczywistość w anime, anime w rzeczywistości. Nowe praktyki fanowskie

Agnieszka Kamrowska — 2024-07-16

The article focuses on anime with realistic settings based on Japanese locations and on new practices among viewers inspired by these films. Japanese animation is famous for its ability to create fantasy landscapes and otherworldly sceneries, yet it is not known for its pursuit of realism. Animation, as a medium, is used for creating new worlds rather than depicting the existing one. But in the last two decades by presenting real sites in Japan, anime has made a remarkable shift in its orientation towards realism. Director Shinkai Makoto has established his career on rendering digital images of places from his surroundings and turning them into movies. Many other animators followed in his footsteps and created series depicting real-life locations from Tokyo as well as rural Japan. Kyoto Animation Studio is famous for using detailed renderings of real-life locations as settings of its nichijōkei anime series. These new practices in creating anime have resulted in new practices among viewers, such as seichijunrei and butaitanbō. In these new fan practices the evolution of anime as a medium can be observed: from one that creates fantastic landscapes into the one that gives a new visibility to existing locations.

Nieuchwytny fenomen aktorstwa filmowego: metoda analizy strukturalnej Jana Mukařovskiego a psychologia komunikacji

Maciej Krauze — 2024-07-16

The thesis is a polemic against Jan Mukařovský’s method of structural analysis of acting. The author accuses him of excluding the actor’s subjectivity as well as the psychological factor. Instead, he is proposing to extend the reasoning with the theory of communication psychology — a field of study dealing with the relationship between emotions and their articulation. In the first part, Mukařovsky’s conclusions are confronted with communication psychology. The second one describes the representation of female hysteria in film as an example of acting that is resistant to structural analysis.

Martwe krajobrazy Roya Anderssona

Justyna Machaj — 2024-07-16

This article focuses on Roy Andersson’s signature landscapes using theatrical (theatre of the absurd) and painting (the trompe d’oleil effect, the aesthetics of tableaux vivants) motifs. The author presents the complex web of roles that landscape fulfils in the Swedish director’s cinematography: the emotional landscape of the characters, the narrative frame of the film stories, and the position of the non-living actor. The author thus proves that for the Swedish director, landscape is not just a passive background for screen events, but an active co-creator and catalyst of meaning.