Polish Cinema: Uneven Histories, Uneasy Aesthetics

Catalog description

This course offers an in-depth survey of Polish cinema, spanning from the influential era of the Polish Film School (1955–65) through the Cinema of Moral Anxiety (1976–81) to contemporary, critically acclaimed cinematic expressions. We will begin with seminal works by directors such as Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polański, Andrzej Żuławski, and Krzysztof Kieślowski, exploring their unorthodox aesthetic innovations and thematic preoccupations, including Poland’s infamous legacy as a site of excessive violence during the Second World War, as well as the existential condition of individuals under socialism. Subsequently, we will transition to the post-communist era, focusing on contemporary efforts to revisit Poland’s past through haunting explorations of Polish-Jewish relationships, attentiveness towards minority groups, and the darkly comedic depictions of “the provincial” in films by Paweł Pawlikowski, Małgorzata Szumowska, and Wojtek Smarzowski, among others.