{"id":255,"date":"2020-04-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pleograf.pl\/index.php\/2020\/04\/08\/but-indeed-i-will-be-immoral-stars-in-polish-communist-cinema\/"},"modified":"2021-06-25T11:35:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T10:35:56","slug":"but-indeed-i-will-be-immoral-stars-in-polish-communist-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pleograf.pl\/index.php\/but-indeed-i-will-be-immoral-stars-in-polish-communist-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"But Indeed, I Will Be Immoral. Stars in Polish Communist Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cinema of the Polish People\u2019s Republic era favored expressing the dominant ideology over fulfilling the audiences\u2019 expectations. It is no wonder then that contemporary state authorities were not focused on manufacturing movie stars<\/a>[1]<\/a>. In Poland, unlike in the West and especially in Hollywood, there was no huge promotional machinery that would help create celebrities. What is more, the media were not particularly interested in the private lives of actors and actresses (the primary mode for spreading such information was gossip). Meanwhile, the actors themselves sought the difference between themselves and western movie stars mostly in the economic conditions. Zbigniew Cybulski claimed there were no movie stars in Poland because actors have not been equipped with the attributes associated with celebrity, such as white convertibles or posh residences closed off from the outside world<\/a>[2]<\/a>. This became especially troublesome when they appeared on international film festivals: in 1957 Polish media awkwardly reported that Teresa I\u017cewska, who represented Polish cinematography at the Cannes Festival together with the creators of Canal<\/i> (Kana\u0142<\/i>, dir. Andrzej Wajda, 1956), would incessantly talk about her awful financial circumstances<\/a><\/i>[3]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fact that local actors and actresses were not equipped with celebrity attributes does not mean that in Polish People\u2019s Republic there were no movie stars whatsoever. Some even believe that because the stars were so few and far between, their impact was even stronger then is the case with contemporary celebrities<\/a>[4]<\/a>. The power of movie stars at the time, their ability to enchant viewers, to shape their lifestyle, influence how they behave, dress, and who they are, may be best illustrated by a scene from the cult film Girls to Pick Up<\/em> (Dziewczyny do wzi\u0119cia<\/i>, dir. Janusz Kondratiuk, 1972). At the theatre box office, the titular girls and their gentlemen callers unexpectedly cross paths with Stanis\u0142aw Mikulski, dressed in a suit and bowtie, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette, and a theatrical, blas\u00e9 Iga Cembrzy\u0144ska in a low-cut black dress and white stole. The heroines are, obviously, starstruck:<\/p>\n

\"Ewa<\/span><\/p>\n

Ewa Pielach, Regina Regulska and Ewa Szykulska in Girls to Pick Up<\/em>, source: Fototeka FINA<\/span><\/p>\n

Regina Regulska (the girl who doesn\u2019t like whipped cream): Oh sweet Jesus, look who\u2019s coming <\/em>[Mikulski].<\/em><\/p>\n

Ewa Szykulska (the girl who works in the post office): So gorgeous! Say, isn\u2019t he gorgeous?<\/em><\/p>\n

Ewa Pielach (Cheeks): Charming! So charming.<\/em><\/p>\n

Regina Regulska: You guys, she <\/em>[Cembrzy\u0144ska] brushed against my arm.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ewa Szykulska: I haven\u2019t noticed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ewa Pielach: Did you brush against her?<\/em><\/p>\n

Regina Regulska: Sure, the perfume still lingers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ewa Szykulska: I can\u2019t smell anything.<\/em><\/p>\n

Regina Regulska: That\u2019s because of your cold, you\u2019d better blow your nose.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ewa Pielach: I can, it smells amazing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because of Mikulski\u2019s charm and Cembrzy\u0144ska\u2019s perfume the girls experience almost mystical sensations. They are intoxicated by their divine splendor. Here the actors \u2013 in a decidedly glamourous setting \u2013 seem perfect, extraordinary and inaccessible. They embody the better world of the beautiful, famous and well off (or at least better off than the common citizens of Poland under state socialism) of which the countryside girls can only dream. A notebook filled with photos of movie stars \u2013 such as Claudia Cardinale, Daniel Olbrychski, Elizabeth Taylor and Jan Englert \u2013 acts as a sort of entry ticket to this phantasmal reality where their dreams could easily come true.<\/p>\n

The stars shined especially bright in the 1960s. The iconic faces and images from this era became a part of the Polish popular culture mythos: Zbigniew Cybulski with and without his dark glasses, Daniel Olbrychski in both the stadium and the boxing ring, Kalina J\u0119drusik and El\u017cbieta Czy\u017cewska in bathtubs filled with foam, Janek Kos (Janusz Gajos) and Hans Kloss (Stanis\u0142aw Mikulski), the aristocratic affectation of Beata Tyszkiewicz, the mantis smile (Ma\u0142gorzata Braunek) from Hunting Flies<\/i> (Polowanie na muchy<\/i>, dir. Andrzej Wajda, 1969), Pola Raksa\u2019s face<\/i> which made its way into popular songs. The stars of Polish People\u2019s Republic cinema did not appear suddenly in the 1960s \u2013 the glamour of Danuta Szaflarska and Jerzy Duszy\u0144ski is proof enough \u2013 but it was only then that for the first time in postwar cinematography they were situated at the very center of the prevailing cultural tendencies. If the Polish Film School and the Cinema of Moral Anxiety were movements founded on the figure of the director-auteur, the Polish cinema of the 1960s (and again later in the 1990s) is mostly associated with popular culture and movie stars.<\/p>\n

By the end of the 1950s, after the Gomu\u0142ka\u2019s thaw which was (at least to some degree) accompanied by a social thaw, the critics began demanding a uniquely Polish (female) movie star. A few factors contributed to the short-lived prosperity of the „star system of the Polish People\u2019s Republic”. First of all, in 1958 the Film<\/em> magazine together with the Film Authors Group (Zesp\u00f3\u0142 Autor\u00f3w Filmowych) encouraged by the success of the contest for the main female role in the comedy Eve Wants to Sleep<\/i> (Ewa chce spa\u0107<\/i>, dir. Tadeusz Chmielewski, 1957) began the „beautiful girls to the screen<\/em>” campaign which aimed to, as contemporary film critics claimed, fill the lack of beautiful young women on Polish film and TV screens. The campaign was, in fact, a shy attempt at eroticizing reality<\/a><\/i>[5]<\/a>. Secondly, at that time the media have promoted the figure of the „modern girl” who pondered neither political activism nor the building of socialism, dreaming instead of traveling to Paris and fashionable heavy black eyeliner. She cared not for marriage, children nor family life, what concerned her instead were new fashion trends, dating, and rock\u2019n\u2019roll (I like to listen to (\u2026) the rock music of Elvis Presley and Rommy Steel<\/i> [sic!], wrote one female reader of the youth magazine Filipinka<\/em><\/a>[6]<\/a>). Ma\u0142gorzata Fidelis, who analyzed the opinions of the young female readers of Nowa Wie\u015b<\/em> and Filipinka<\/em> youth magazines from the early 1960s, discovered to her surprise that these statements did not fit the conventional image of women under communism \u2013 overworked mothers juggling the double burden of work inside and outside the home<\/i>, but revealed various pleasures associated with being a woman<\/a><\/i>[7]<\/a>. What is more, the 1960s was a time when the state \u2013 due to the June 1960 resolution of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party regarding cinematography<\/a>[8]<\/a> (which was concealed from the film community) \u2013 was more focused on genre cinema (a vehicle of stardom<\/i>) with the intent to use its persuasive power for their own purposes. These movies \u2013 such as comedies (also musical ones), melodramas and citizen\u2019s militia crime films \u2013 were supposed to be paeans to the People\u2019s Poland. And indeed they often were.<\/p>\n

The image of the Polish female movie star \u2013 for it is her that will be the focus of our interest \u2013 was not supposed to be, as in the Hollywood star system, based on its relation to the market (the star system as a vehicle for selling products) but instead to communist ideology, like in the Soviet Union. The socialist star type, as claimed by Oksana Bu\u0142gakowa, was defined through its social and national affiliation and its opposition towards the western „bourgeois” model. In USSR the movie star was not supposed to sell perfume or jewelry but instead would function as an energy drive, an incentive to take action. That is why instead of rose bouquets she received engine pistons<\/a><\/i>[9]<\/a>. Fortunately Polish movie stars were not gifted such questionable souvenirs (although Krystyna Poradzka from Jan Rybkowski\u2019s The Bus Leaves at 6.20 <\/i>[Autobus odje\u017cd\u017ca 6.20<\/i>, 1954], who dreamt not of wedding but of\u2026 welding, would probably be delighted), which is not to say that their charm and energy were not utilized for propaganda purposes (e.g. El\u017cbieta Czy\u017cewska\u2019s body was meant to be the ground of a Polish-Soviet alliance, as in Tadeusz Chmielewski\u2019s Where\u2019s the General? <\/i>[Gdzie jest genera\u0142?<\/i>, 1963] or Leonard Buczkowski\u2019s Interrupted Flight <\/i>[Przerwany lot<\/i>, 1964]). The image of a socialist movie star had to be devoid of the very attributes that produced celebrity in the Hollywood system: the desirable glamour and sex appeal. On the one hand, there was a quest for a Polish Brigitte Bardot, that is \u2013 or so it seems \u2013 a local sex bomb, on the other hand though, such an image was inconsistent with both the puritanical Polish woman (The Polish Mother) as well as the equally puritanical socialist woman (the socrealistic super-woman). Consequently, the female stars on the screen could be self-reliant and competitive (which functioned as emancipatory) but their bodily and sexual expression had to be suppressed. Sexuality and the body were perceived by the state as the bearers of destructive, irrational and uncontrollable elements that hindered the development of socialism. The prudery of the state \u2013 less restrictive still in Poland than in the Soviet Union<\/a>[10]<\/a> \u2013 was accompanied by the prudery of the Catholic Church: the communist morality was equally puritanical as the religious morality.<\/p>\n

\"Kalina<\/span><\/p>\n

Kalina J\u0119drusik in A Cure for Love<\/i>, <\/i>fot. Jerzy Bielak, source: Fototeka FINA<\/span><\/p>\n

No wonder then that the „modern girls” \u2013 when they finally found themselves in the West of their dreams (in Paris or New York) \u2013 acted out the years of Polish People\u2019s Republic asceticism, affirming corporality and performing their sexuality (El\u017cbieta Czy\u017cewska\u2019s „obscene” Manhattan shows<\/a>[11]<\/a> or Anna Prucnal\u2019s risqu\u00e9 role in Sweet Movie <\/i>[dir. Du\u0161an Makavejev, 1974] which stripped her of Polish citizenship<\/a>[12]<\/a>). Other movie stars, who remained in Poland, headed in a similar direction at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. As their era slowly draws to a close, Lucyna Winnicka in The Game<\/i> (Gra<\/i>, dir. Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1968), Ewa Krzy\u017cewska in Jealousy and Medicine<\/i> (Zazdro\u015b\u0107 i medycyna<\/i>, dir. Janusz Majewski, 1973) and Kalina J\u0119drusik in The Promised Land <\/i>(Ziemia Obiecana<\/i>, dir. Andrzej Wajda, 1974) demand the things that up until then \u2013 for various reasons \u2013 had to remain outside the frame: the movie star glamour, the excess of femininity, bodily insubordination, sexual pleasure and eventually their own subjectivity. They carry out Kalina J\u0119drusik\u2019s cause, who in A Cure for Love <\/i>(Lekarstwo na mi\u0142o\u015b\u0107<\/i>, dir. Jan Batory, 1965) had promised: But indeed, I will be immoral<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The Master and Margarita<\/b><\/p>\n

Lucyna Winnicka created her most outstanding roles in her husband Jerzy Kawalerowicz\u2019s films: Real End of the Great War<\/i> (Prawdziwy koniec wielkiej wojny<\/i>, 1957), Night Train<\/i> (Poci\u0105g<\/i>, 1959) and Mother Joan of the Angels<\/i> (Matka Joanna od Anio\u0142\u00f3w<\/i>, 1960), her role in the latter earning her the 1962 French Film Academy award, \u00c9toile de cristal<\/i>, for best foreign actress. It was after the international successes (which included awarding the film with the Jury Prize at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival) that she achieved the status of a West-European type movie star: a local Monica Vitti or Jeanne Moreau. This status is especially emphasized in The Game<\/i>, where we encounter an image of a relationship in crisis: the characters live in a perpetual hang-up, looking for salvation in the arms of a lover (him) or in casual sex (her). Winnicka plays here the role of the architect Ma\u0142gorzata, however, it quickly becomes clear that the role\u2019s power comes from the blending of reality and fiction, from blurring the lines between the actress and the character. Even the opening scenes are significant. First the husband (Gustaw Holoubek) shrouded in darkness tells of his loneliness and how Ma\u0142gorzata is unable to understand him, then we see a close-up of his wife\u2019s face \u2013 a typical opening of the star movies, however, in Kawalerowicz\u2019s film, the close-up does not bring the at-homeness<\/i> typical of the star system<\/a>[13]<\/a>. A wince passes through Winnicka\u2019s face, she casts down her eyes and turns her head away \u2013 from her husband but also from us, the audience. The woman \u2013 despite her closeness \u2013 does not invite identification, she pulls away, distances herself. It is obvious that the actress and not the portrayed character will be the focus of attention. Then, through swift montage Kawalerowicz connects close-ups of pedestrian\u2019s eyes and street views \u2013 random characters enter the frame, obscure our view, the film world becomes a kaleidoscope of blurry spots, anticipating the relationship between the main characters on the one hand, and on the other the relation between the movie and the viewer, both based on the opposition between showing and hiding (i.e. the extramarital affairs or the autobiographical dimension of the events pictured on screen).<\/p>\n

The final scene of the complex and dynamic (due not only to the quick montage and broad color palette but also Czes\u0142aw Niemen\u2019s hit single Dziwny jest ten \u015bwiat <\/i>placed <\/i>on the soundtrack) initial sequence is dominated by feminine glamour (the beauty, the spectacle, and the surface) and the oppressive gaze. The camera observes Ma\u0142gorzata from above, vertically, as she walks along the pier. Her red dress is in stark contrast with the dark backdrop, her blonde hair is being blown by the wind, in the background, we hear the sound of waves. The image is both sensual and unsettling since we get the impression that the woman is being watched (the high vantage point). Eventually, she turns around, looks directly into the camera, shakes her head in a declining gesture and smiles mockingly. The husband, who we now see from her point of view, is meant to be the spectacle\u2018s recipient. He gestures expressly, shouts something but neither the heroine nor us, the viewers, can hear him. But I want to catch a cold<\/i>, the woman keeps repeating. The camera\u2019s viewpoint implies power and constraint and the drunk heroine\u2019s excess indicates resistance and opposition towards its controlling and oppressive gaze. The affective initial sequence is bookended by an abstract, smeared image of Winnicka\u2019s body trapped in a freeze frame: behold a shattered glamour-object from which an autonomous subject is yet to emerge<\/a>[14]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In fact, it is a film about freeing oneself from the limiting and chaffing gaze, about gaining freedom which you are not sure what to do with, about loneliness, weariness and the boldness to push limitations. Ma\u0142gorzata is looking for renewal, she is provocative and seductive, while simultaneously fearing the insecurities of freedom. The gist of the heroine\u2019s situation is conveyed accurately through the hunting scene. The woman sneaks slowly between the trees. She is seducing the hunters who watch her attentively. Being the object of desire gives her pleasure (she smiles gently). When one of them shoots, she panics \u2013 she covers her face with her hands, screams, and runs away as if she was the game that the men hunt. Deathly images pass in quick succession before our \u2013 and her \u2013 eyes: Ma\u0142gorzata in funeral attire or a wedding dress carried by men at a graveyard. A moment later we see a close-up image of dead hares. It is not so much a warning (if the woman continues to disregard the traditional morality, she will share \u2013 in her love life \u2013 the fate of the dead animals) as a visualization of the process of abandoning this image of herself which was valid and vivid in her marriage but becomes a painful burden beyond its framework. The freedom from another\u2019s gaze forces the heroine to invent herself anew.<\/p>\n

Ma\u0142gorzata is looking for renewal through the experience of her own body: she reciprocates the gazes of strangers, she goes to bed with a newly met young man (played by a young S\u0142awomir Idziak), she initiates an intimacy lined with lesbian desire with a female friend, she is supposed to take part \u2013 together with a sexually experienced bride, who proudly declares that she had already had thirty lovers and she does not intend to stop at that after the wedding \u2013 in „group” sex at a wedding reception at a greenhouse owner\u2019s. This excess of the heroine\u2019s sexual experiences must have brought forth reluctance in 1968 Poland. Indeed, The Game <\/i>marks the limit of what can be seen as normative in Polish cinema of that time, it shows that sexual freedom was seen as excess, hostile in particular to the working class<\/a>[15]<\/a>. The censorship took a good look at the film\u2019s „lasciviousness”: In this film (\u2026) there are a lot of sensitive and even vulgar sex scenes, among them as much as five sexual intercourses: in the car, in the greenhouse, a scene suggesting lesbian lovemaking, a naked man etc. The film is more infused with eroticism than those from the western cinema which present sex scenes in a more discreet manner<\/a><\/i>[16]<\/a>. <\/i>The intercourses were counted scrupulously even though no sex is actually shown in the movie: Idziak was undressed once, a woman\u2019s breasts were shown, even the rape scene is focused exclusively on the characters\u2019 faces shown in extreme close-up. The film was of course associated with western cinema not only because of the representation of sex but also the voyeuristic style which did not correspond with the socialist aesthetic (Kawalerowicz forces us to spy on his characters<\/a><\/i>[17]<\/a>). The state in the Polish People\u2019s Republic either limited erotic representations in movies (at least till the end of the 1960s) or encouraged them (in the 1980s), such images served either subversive or (more often) reactionary functions. Regarding Kawalerowicz\u2019s film, the censorship had no doubts: Suggestions of such a morality should not be popularized because they are harmful and even dangerous to a large segment of the movie-going audience.<\/i> (\u2026) The ideological and political message of the film contradicts our assumptions<\/a><\/i>[18]<\/a>. The Game <\/i>was indeed dangerous but not because of a woman\u2019s bared bosom or exposed male buttocks \u2013 it was the brave praise of liberty, individual freedom and diversity (also of sexual practices) that made it so.<\/p>\n

\"Lucyna<\/span><\/p>\n

Lucyna Winnicka and Gustaw Holoubek in The Game<\/em>, source: Fototeka FINA<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers have often indicated the autobiographical subtext of the film based on Jerzy Kawalerowicz and Andrzej Bianusz\u2019s original screenplay because it\u2019s not only the final film the director and his star made together but also a foreshadowing of the end of their marriage. Paulina Kwiatkowska mentions this in the margins of her analysis of Winnicka\u2019s acting. In her opinion the film tells, among others, the story of the aging of a woman\u2019s body: in a scene taking place in a beauty salon the actresses face is covered in a mud beauty mask which gives the impression as if she was undergoing <\/i>(\u2026) an unstoppable decay, as if she was rotting before our very eyes<\/i>. The author views the capturing of this process as one of Kawalerowicz\u2019s greatest achievements<\/i> while simultaneously adding that the scenes should be considered<\/i> (\u2026) an intentional effort to discredit his wife\u2019s image<\/a><\/i>[19]<\/a>. The film keeps repeating scenes and words which are not rooted in the movie\u2019s narrative tissue hinting instead at Kawalerowicz and Winnicka\u2019s private life. Take for instance the scene in which Ma\u0142gorzata boasts to her husband that her project was acknowledged in an architecture contest, which he outright downplays: So some professor will nod his head over a model where \u2013 at the very bottom, at the end \u2013 your name is signed, so<\/i> what?<\/em>. And where should my name be? Under yours?<\/i> \u2013 the woman responds. <\/i>After separating from the director and after a gradual<\/a>[20]<\/a> withdrawal from acting <\/i>Winnicka will exclusively use her own name writing articles, books, making demands on behalf of actors deprived of opportunities to act, as in the notorious article Nie spisani na straty<\/i> published in 1974 in the Polityka<\/em> weekly, engaging in ecology and traditional medicine, or forming the popular Akademia \u017bycia collective. It did not bring her as much recognition as her remarkable roles in Kawalerowicz\u2019s films, yet it certainly allowed her to express herself in her own way (The first book (\u2026) was perhaps more my own than any one of my roles<\/a><\/i>[21]<\/a>, she said years later). Actress? …Why would you want to talk about the „dead” me? <\/i>\u2013 she mused in a conversation with Maciej Maniewski \u2013 That part of my life is over. And there was not a single moment when I would regret that decision. (\u2026) I prefer to be myself. To play well this most important role \u2013 my life<\/a><\/i>[22]<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

„Vive la putain!”<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

After the premiere of Jealousy and medicine<\/i>, Aleksander Led\u00f3chowski wrote: In this movie the director has accomplished a historical turn. For the first time on our screens, a character emerged who is a woman in every inch, who embodies nothing but femininity. <\/i>(\u2026) She is indeed the first lady of Polish cinema \u2013 Rebeka \u2013 putain!<\/i>[23]<\/a>. „Vive la putain”<\/i>, exclaims the critic, adding that language-decency reasons will not allow him to express this punchline in Polish. Led\u00f3chowski recognized the appearance of a new image in the Polish People\u2019s Republic cinema \u2013 that of a glamourous woman. The first glamourous woman, in his opinion, was Ewa Krzy\u017cewska.<\/p>\n

Rebeka is neither from a Polish nor a communist context. She is derived from American cinema. Janusz Majewski had always preferred American cinema, Hitchcock and Wilder, to experimental and auteur productions. In his own films, he often invoked the glamour aesthetic which seduced the audience with associations of pleasure and sexuality, fame and fortune, beauty and spectacle; an aesthetic especially linked to femininity and consumption \u2013 actually, to a safe and inviting femininity which was itself an object of consumption<\/a>[24]<\/a>. Although this style took on its most spectacular form within the Hollywood star system, it began in the 1830s when the barmaid was introduced into 19th<\/sup> century London society. On the one hand, separated from the clients by the counter \u2013 as noted by Agata \u0141uksza after Peter Bailey \u2013 she becomes an object to regard and desire, on the other, the very same counter makes her unattainable<\/a>[25]<\/a>. Ewa Krzy\u017cewska\u2019s debut role is, in fact, the barmaid<\/a>[26]<\/a>. Krystyna from Ashes and Diamonds<\/i> (Popi\u00f3\u0142 i diament<\/i>, dir. Andrzej Wajda, 1958) quickly becomes someone to look at: Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) notices her reflection in the mirror just before leaving the locale and decides to conquer her. He chooses a table that lets him observe the girl freely. He gets irritated when someone obscures the view: what an idiot, for the love of God!<\/i> Krystyna is the focal point of Maciek\u2019s looks, but in the beginning, she pays no attention to him (or at least seems not to). What is interesting though is that Wajda\u2019s barmaid \u2013 the „cultural prototype” of glamourous femininity<\/a><\/i>[27]<\/a> \u2013 has little in common with the splendor aesthetic. Certainly, she is young and beautiful but also modest, lost and a little naive (still, the shadow of her eyelashes in the sex scene is definitely glamourous). The glamour in Ashes and Diamonds <\/i>turns out to be situated elsewhere: Cybulski as Maciek<\/i> \u2013 Tadeusz Lubelski wrote \u2013 was someone far-out, out of this world, and at the same time his silhouette resembled that of a hooligan passed by in the street<\/a><\/i>[28]<\/a>.<\/i> The fusion of exceptive elements: the out-of-ordinary (far-out<\/i>) and the everyday (someone passed by in the street<\/i>) forms the star personality. Therefore, the glamour of Wajda\u2019s film is not connected to a female character but a male one. B\u0142a\u017cej Warkocki wrote that it was Cybulski who in Ashes and Diamonds <\/i>took on the role of the sex bomb<\/a>[29]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Krzy\u017cewska\u2019s body was transformed into a spectacular object of desire only in her final film \u2013 Jealousy and Medicine<\/i>. This is well illustrated by a scene taking place in the cinema where a showing of Jan Nowina-Przybylski and Konrad Tom\u2019s Love Manoeuvers<\/i> (Manewry mi\u0142osne<\/i>, 1935) is about to take place. The movie is less important, however, than Rebeka\u2019s theatrical appearance. She enters the screening room as if it was the catwalk: she is wearing a fur coat, a feathered pillbox hat and red lipstick. She stops, motionless, narrows her eyes and takes a look around the room while striking graceful poses. Finally, she appears against the screen and becomes a projection of men\u2019s \u2013 or at least Widmar\u2019s (Mariusz Dmochowski) \u2013 phantasies. Due to the use of then-fashionable zooms through which the woman\u2019s face is rapidly brought closer to us the director lets us know that the main character \u2013 who is soon to be seduced by Rebeka and married to her \u2013 cannot take his eyes off her. Therefore, we are dealing here with feminine beauty, close-ups, and static shots, that is, everything that in the classic era of Hollywood cinema served to create the female star (as opposed to the „masculine” action dynamics)<\/a>[30]<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Ewa<\/span><\/p>\n

Ewa Krzy\u017cewska and Andrzej \u0141apicki in J<\/em>ealousy and Medicine<\/i>, <\/i>source: Fototeka FINA<\/span><\/p>\n

Polish cinema rarely told stories of women whose screen presence was focused on the expression of corporeality. Rebeka cheats on Widmar with the handsome hospital director Tamten (Andrzej \u0141apicki) and, of course, thinks nothing of it. She is seen as a woman who lay up with half the town<\/i>, as her rival remarks enviously, what is proved not only by the affair with the doctor but also the unexpected and inconvenient keepsake left by an uhlan. What is more, no punishment befalls her for her indiscretions: in the film finale she is neither disfigured, made look older nor deceased. She is the one who \u2013 endowed with sexual power \u2013 is behind all of the men\u2019s actions, performing, therefore, an important narrative function. As Led\u00f3chowski wrote: Without Rebeka, there would be no movie. There would neither be a trace of the male characters<\/a><\/i>[31]<\/a>. Interestingly, the critic noticed in her the embodiment of „true femininity” even though \u2013 or maybe because of the fact \u2013 she is a markedly artificial woman, exaggerated, hyperbolized. The viewer feels as if he was taking part in a spectacle in which Krzy\u017cewska impersonates a woman. Like a performance. Like a masquerade. Anna Tatarkiewicz noticed it as early as the movie\u2019s premiere: Rebeka is a downright masterpiece of artifice, conventionality, inauthenticity. Only the actress\u2019 beauty is true here, a little exotic, a little cattish: almond-shaped, slightly slanting eyes, broadly spaced cheekbones, prominent lips, a limber silhouette<\/a><\/i>[32]<\/a>. <\/i>In her classical essay Womanliness as masquerade<\/i>, which has become an inspiration for feminist thought, Joan Riviere wrote that a stable, natural, authentic femininity is a pipe dream. The woman imitates authentic femininity which is always already an imitation itself. Gender turns out to be a surface, the domain of masquerade and spectacle through which that which is natural becomes overly theatrical, artificial and excessively present<\/a>[33]<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Rebeka, a<\/i> masterpiece of artifice<\/i>, exposes the performative status of femininity and suggests that gender roles are (ostentatiously) performed. But the glamour in Jealousy and Medicine<\/i> is shown to be not only potentially emancipatory but also potentially objectifying. In the opening scene of Widmar\u2019s dream through slow, contemplative tracking shots the camera shows Krzy\u017cewska\u2019s naked, writhing (in ecstasy?) body bathed in red while Wojciech Kilar\u2019s music makes the image even more extraordinary. In the process, the movie star visual code connoting luxury, artifice, and sensuality connects two exclusive tendencies here: on the one hand it refers to the capitalist West, marks an escape from reality into a world of fantasy and dreams, exposes, through Krzy\u017cewska\u2019s single-sex masquerade, the staging of gender roles, while on the other hand it confirms and stabilizes the patriarchal system through the scenes fetishizing her body.<\/p>\n

The shock of cinema<\/b><\/p>\n

Kalina J\u0119drusik, with the help of her husband Stanis\u0142aw Dygat, has elevated herself into the role of a sex icon \u2013 a role she took on altogether knowingly. This image \u2013 as in the case of Rebeka \u2013 was otherworldly. Kazimierz Kutz, who named J\u0119drusik Polish People\u2019s Republic\u2019s first Madonna<\/i>, noted that Dygat loved American cinema and that his wife turned out to be an embodiment of this fascination: She was the fulfillment of his Hollywood dream, a dream of the captivating American phenomenon of the clich\u00e9<\/a><\/i>[34]<\/a>. <\/i>American cinema was also J\u0119drusik\u2019s love, although Kutz insists that Dygat\u2019s love for Hollywood was more passionate: Sta\u015b has often locked himself in the house when a good American movie was playing [on TV] to sob his heart out. Kalina did the same but also during Soviet films<\/a><\/i>[35]<\/a>. <\/i>In Dygat\u2019s room, there was a picture of the connotation of the apex of the star system<\/i> <\/i>\u2013 Marilyn Monroe<\/a>[36]<\/a>. Kalina J\u0119drusik was supposed to become a Polish Marilyn<\/a>[37]<\/a>. Yet the American star\u2019s eroticism was soothing and safe while J\u0119drusik was called \u2013 as she herself proudly admitted \u2013 the first vamp<\/i>.<\/p>\n

At the center of this spectacle of femininity, according to Iwona Kurz, sexual pleasure was situated: While <\/i>(\u2026) the entirety of this image and the relation between a man and a woman [in J\u0119drusik\u2019s films] occurs in the most traditional version of female submission and passivity, the emphasis on sexuality is subversive or in any case clearly violates the norm<\/i>[38]<\/a>. <\/i>In A Cure for Love<\/i> J\u0119drusik\u2019s character, Joanna, impersonates a gang liaison which helps her infatuate a prince charming (or in this case: an officer of the Citizens\u2019 Militia). The anecdote is not what is important here. The woman either waits for the phone to ring or lingers around the house in a half-open dressing gown or takes baths or dresses up for a midnight rendezvous with a stranger (naturally, she dresses up in the actress\u2019 characteristic little black dress with a very low cut back \u2013 all the way to the edge of possibility<\/i>, as the star would probably say). It is clear that it is J\u0119drusik\u2019s body that counts here above all, a body that is superabundant, overly intense and pronounced. This image reduced <\/i>(\u2026) femininity to sexuality <\/i>(\u2026) but then blew up sexuality to the limits of kitsch<\/i>[39]<\/a>, Kurz wrote.<\/i><\/p>\n

In the 1960s the actress\u2019 image was based on exaggeration but also ease, lightness, and irony. This image will change with the famous role of Lucy Zuckerowa, a rich Jewish woman, in Andrzej Wajda\u2019s The Promised Land<\/i>. Apparently, the director wanted, or at least so J\u0119drusik presumed, for Lucy\u2019s body to be the body of a woman who has never been loved<\/a><\/i>[40]<\/a>. It was to become a lowly body, a material body, the antithesis of the glamourous version of femininity. Agata \u0141uksza noted: The glamour goddess does not create \u2013 the glamour goddess manifests herself as a „body-for”, an aesthetic body extracted from the ambivalent context of sweat, blood, bodily fluids. She is not meat \u2013 she neither births nor rots; she is a vision<\/a><\/i>[41]<\/a>. <\/i>At the beginning of the movie Lucy seems to be an eroticized object of desire: in the first scene she appears in she is lying on a chaise longue wearing only her lingerie while the camera exposes her bare shoulders, strong makeup, and sensuous voice. Likewise in the theatre scene, where she is equipped with all the attributes of the glamourous woman: an evening gown with a low-cut neckline, a fur coat, a fan, and diamonds. She lures Karol Borowiecki (Daniel Olbrychski) with her swooning gazes, feigned submissiveness, but above all with secret information, attainable only to the moguls of the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a textile industry. It is very different in the orgy scene in the parlour-car of a train: Lucy\u2019s body appears here as a body marked with secretions, a mating and craving body. The impassioned character bites into Olbrychski\u2019s flushed, liberated body with a fervor similar to her earlier greedily eating (or rather: devouring) food with her fingers. The director puts together sex and food, lust and hunger, so Zuckerowa \u2013 but not Borowiecki \u2013 becomes marked with a primal, predatory, unrestrained and dangerous eroticism. This meaning is emphasized by the parallel montage of the aforementioned orgy scene with shots of a chaste Polish woman, Anka, making vehement efforts to separate mating dogs. This image becomes particularly problematic when seen through the lens of the ethnic and national identities of the characters. Wajda juxtaposes the image of a promiscuous Jewish woman skilled in the art of manipulation (sexual expansiveness) with the figure of an innocent and „pure” Polish woman (the reduction of sexuality)<\/a>[42]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Kalina<\/span><\/p>\n

Kalina J\u0119drusik and Daniel Olbrychski in The Promised Land<\/i>, fot. Renata Pajchel, source: Fototeka FINA<\/span><\/p>\n

Lucy is, however, a contradictory character: on the one hand she stabilizes the negative stereotypes of gender, nationality, and ethnicity (it is because of her character, among others, Wajda was accused of antisemitism and misogyny), on the other though inherent to this character is a \u2013 less often analyzed \u2013 subversive power, best proven by the audience\u2019s reception of her. Lucy Zucker in the parlour-car is a shock, it is the „primal scene”<\/a>[43]<\/a> of Polish cinema. The viewers reacted as if Kalina J\u0119drusik was the first to reveal the sensual body to Poles. As if the actress \u2013 even though neither of the two sex scenes shows her naked \u2013 exposed her fellow-countrymen to sex for the first time<\/a>[44]<\/a>. The sex had been noticed, among others, because firstly Wajda\u2019s film reached a broad audience and secondly \u2013 because movie stars took part in the scene. The actress told the story herself \u2013 vibrantly, with an exaggeration natural to her: After „The Promised Land” some older man who noticed me in the supermarket exclaimed that I should not be allowed to show my face among decent people, he even spat at my feet. This is upsetting but also intriguing, how such people don\u2019t believe in the power of the actor\u2019s talent but instead ascribe to him qualities he does not possess<\/a><\/i>[45]<\/a>. <\/i>The viewers saw J\u0119drusik within Lucy, they presumed that the actress was not acting but was being herself onscreen. Jerzy Gruza commented on this interestingly: Poland was like that back then, that was how they reacted. It is a sort of psychological defect in the Polish people, that pretense, make-believe, the actor\u2019s craft can lead to such hatred. Why, Kalina was performing, she was not being herself. And yet she was \u2013 for those people of course<\/a><\/i>[46]<\/a>. <\/i>This bodily expression, which Zbigniew Zapasiewicz will call insanely audacious<\/a><\/i>[47]<\/a>, <\/i>breeds hatred (but also fascination).<\/p>\n

What does it mean though that that was how [Poland] reacted<\/i>? Even if the socialist morality which banned or limited erotic representations caused the „lewd” images to be more stirring than expected, this does not explain everything. Why was it this role and this scene that caused such a shock? Why did it stir the audience so much? The sex in The Promised Land<\/i> is based on excess (both visual and audial). Lucy is not a traditional, passive object of desire but an active woman hungry for sex (in various forms, e.g. fellatio in the carriage), who engages in it with whomever she chooses and derives pleasure from it, which might have produced dread and insecurity. She also bankrupts Borowiecki \u2013 both morally and financially. What is more, the asymmetry marking the lovers \u2013 the mature, rich Foreigner and the young Polish man dependent of her, or rather the information she possesses \u2013 is associated with the cultural taboo of miscegenation (sex between representatives of different nations, races or ethnic groups). What is of particular interest, however, is that in the scene in the parlour-car Lucy laughs loudly \u2013 wherein lies, I reckon, a wild, sadistic and rebellious force. The codes of femininity are subject here not just to hyperbole but also to a grotesque distortion. And the grotesque body, just like the camp body, according to Caryl Flinn, precludes closure, firmness, and security and also violates social and textual boundaries in a variety of ways<\/a><\/i>[48]<\/a>. <\/i>That is why Lucy Zucker\u2019s unruly, exuberant laughter still proves dangerous, as evidenced by the fact that even in 2000 Wajda himself got scared of it and removed the legendary scene from the re-edited version of the film.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Through conveying certain social meanings and values \u2013 Richard Dyer wrote of the Hollywood star system \u2013 the movie star image reveals ideological contradictions inherent in culture and society. The magical synthesis<\/em> of opposing values, on the one hand, reinforces and consolidates the system, while on the other, undermines and destabilizes it<\/a>[49]<\/a>. Michel Foucault\u2019s advice that discourses can be both agents of authority and points of resistance is valuable as well: There is not, on the one side, a discourse of power, and opposite it, another discourse that runs counter to it. Discourses are tactical elements or blocks operating in the field of force relations; there can exist different and even contradictory discourses within the same strategy; they can, on the contrary, circulate without changing their form from one strategy to another, opposing strategy<\/a><\/i>[50]<\/a>. On the one hand, the carnal excesses of Winnicka, Krzy\u017cewska, and J\u0119drusik \u2013 risqu\u00e9 for the times \u2013 challenged the conventional body policy; The Game<\/i> especially proved to be an affirmation of freedom and a subjectivity free of the repressive gaze. On the other though, the women\u2019s defiance stabilized and supported the prevailing system as well \u2013 or so it seems; for instance, Lucy\u2019s unbound, rebellious eroticism reinforced the gender and national (the Poles\u2019 superiority, inferiority of the Other) stereotypes, while the movie star glamour in Jealousy and Medicine<\/i> was unsettling because it was linked to a vulgar Americanism <\/i>but at the same time due to the fetishizing of female nudity, as in the initial scene, it consolidated the patriarchal system.<\/p>\n

Ma\u0142gorzata, Rebeka and Lucy are the last significant (or the last in general, as is the case with Ewa Krzy\u017cewska) roles in our heroines\u2019 careers. The 1970s were not a time of movie star glamour (it surfaced perhaps only in heritage films). Actresses were no longer finding their way to the movie screen from magazine covers, they no longer fixed their eyes on Marilyn Monroe. In the new cinema, the body is no longer supposed to be \u2013 as in the glamour aesthetic \u2013 stylized, sophisticated and perfectly controlled but natural and casual instead. Filmmakers point their cameras at the everyday, laidback, unfettered body while glamour is the realm of artifice, excess and masquerade. In lieu of a theatrical gesture \u2013 a common motion, often improvised (e.g. Maja Komorowska in Krzysztof Zanussi\u2019s Behind the Wall<\/i> [Za \u015bcian\u0105<\/i>, 1971]), instead of a bright red dress and pearls \u2013 slacks and a comfortable shirt (e.g. Jadwiga Jankowska-Cie\u015blak in Janusz Morgenstern\u2019s To kill this love <\/i>[Trzeba zabi\u0107 t\u0119 mi\u0142o\u015b\u0107,<\/i> 1972]), movement and rush rather than elaborate poses (e.g. Krystyna Janda in Andrzej Wajda\u2019s Man of Marble <\/i>[Cz\u0142owiek z marmuru<\/i>, 1976]). In the second half of the 1970s the actresses of the bygone decade \u2013 not just Lucyna Winnicka and Kalina J\u0119drusik but Pola Raksa and Beata Tyszkiewicz as well \u2013 seem to come from a different cinematic reality. The movie stars will return to Polish cinema in the 1980s but they will be different stars, they will serve a different function and raise different hopes.<\/p>\n

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Translated by Klaudia Rachubi\u0144ska
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<\/a>[1] See: A. Skwara, Film Stars do Not Shine in the Sky Over Poland: The Absence of Popular Cinema in Poland<\/i>, [in:] Popular European Cinema<\/i>, R. Dyer, G. Vincendeau (eds), Routledge, London 1992, pp. 220\u2013231; I. Kurz, Twarze w t\u0142umie. <\/i>Wizerunki bohater\u00f3w wyobra\u017ani zbiorowej w kulturze polskiej lat 1955\u20131969<\/i>, \u015awiat Literacki, Warszawa 2005. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[2] Z. Cybulski in conversation with S. Janicki, W stron\u0119 gwiazd<\/i>, \u201eKino\u201d 1966, no 1, p. 47. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[3] B. Giza, Ku transnarodowo\u015bci. Sukcesy polskiego kina na Festiwalu w Cannes w latach 1946\u20131966 w korespondencjach publikowanych przez magazyn \u201eFilm\u201d<\/i>, [in:] Kino polskie jako kino transnarodowe<\/i>, S. Jagielski, M. Podsiad\u0142o (Eds), Universitas, Krak\u00f3w 2017. No wonder then that during future editions of the festival local press would focus on the glamourous \u2018world-class\u2019 adornment of our actresses (eg. of Aleksandra \u015al\u0105ska during the showings of Andrej Munks The Passenger<\/i> [Pasa\u017cerka<\/i>, 1963] in Cannes). [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[4] A. Szar\u0142at, Celebryci z tamtych lat. Prywatne \u017cycie wielkich gwiazd PRL-u<\/i>, Znak, Krak\u00f3w 2014. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[5] I. Kurz, Twarze\u2026<\/i>, p. 119. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[6] Dziewczyna 1960. <\/i>Kolorowe dziewcz\u0119ta<\/i>, \u201eFilipinka\u201d 1960, No 6\u20137. As cited in: M. Fidelis, Are you a modern girl? Consumer Culture and Young Women in 1960s Poland<\/i>. In: Penn S., Massino J. (eds) Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe<\/i>, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2009, p. 177. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[7] M. Fidelis, op. cit., p. 172. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[8] Uchwa\u0142a Sekretariatu KC w sprawie kinematografii<\/i>, [in:] Syndrom konformizmu? Kino polskie lat sze\u015b\u0107dziesi\u0105tych<\/i>, T. Miczka, A. Madej (eds), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu \u015al\u0105skiego, Katowice 1994, pp. 27\u201334. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[9] O. Bu\u0142gakowa, Gwiazdy i w\u0142adza<\/i>, transl. T. Szczepa\u0144ski, \u201eKwartalnik Filmowy\u201d 2005, No 49\u201350, pp. 49, 56. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[10] I. Kalinowska, Seks, polityka i koniec PRL-u: o cielesno\u015bci w polskim kinie lat osiemdziesi\u0105tych<\/i>, [in:] Cia\u0142o i seksualno\u015b\u0107 w kinie polskim<\/i>, S. Jagielski, A. Morstin-Pop\u0142awska (eds), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiello\u0144skiego, Krak\u00f3w 2009, pp. 68\u201369. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[11] I elaborate on this in another article: S. Jagielski, \u201eNiech mnie wszyscy kochaj\u0105\u201d. Transnarodowe cia\u0142o El\u017cbiety Czy\u017cewskiej<\/i>, [w:] Kino polskie jako kino transnarodowe<\/i>, red. S. Jagielski, M. Podsiad\u0142o, Universitas, Krak\u00f3w 2017. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[12] See: A. Prucnal, J. Mailland, Ja urodzona w Warszawie<\/i>, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krak\u00f3w 2005. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[13] In Hollywood\u2019s classic era, opening movies with close-ups of film stars created a spectatorial at-homeness in the story-world prior to entry, as if responding to a felt need to humanize an experience of film as inherently alienating, grey and disenchanted<\/i> (P. Coates, Faces and \u201eFaciality\u201d<\/i>, [in:], idem, Screening the face<\/i>, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2012, pp. 24\u201325). [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[14] Paulina Kwiatkowska analyses Ma\u0142gorzata\u2019s character in the same vein, seeing her as a broken woman attempting to regain herself once more not because of a man nor love but purely for her own sake<\/i> (Rytmy somatograficzne \u2013 Lucyna Winnicka w filmach Jerzego Kawalerowicza<\/i>, \u201eKwartalnik Filmowy\u201d 2013, no 83\u201384, p. 95). It is important to note here that during the film\u2019s premiere the heroine was not at all regarded as a feminist figure, on the contrary: Kawalerowicz, this Polish Renoir, who loves and understands women<\/i> \u2013 Alicja Helman wrote \u2013 made a misogynous movie<\/i> this time.<\/i> (\u2026) In our film, indeed not replete with portraits of women, there was no character equally annoying and stupid  <\/i>(Gra zwana ma\u0142\u017ce\u0144stwem<\/i>, \u201eKultura\u201d 1969, no 22). Those two perspectives are an excellent example of how much the reception of both The Game <\/i>and Winnicka\u2019s character has changed over the last 40 years. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[15] The censorship noted that The Game <\/i>may contribute to an increase in anti-intelligentsia attitudes since it exposes the characters\u2019 high material status which, as was believed, was conductive to promiscuity. (M. Fik, Z archiwum G\u0142\u00f3wnego Urz\u0119du Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk (6). Pa\u017adziernik \u2013 grudzie\u0144 1968<\/i>, \u201eKwartalnik Filmowy\u201d 1995, no 11, p. 129). [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[16] Ibidem. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[17] Ibidem. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[18] Ibidem. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[19] P. Kwiatkowska, op. cit., p. 93\u201394. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[20] After the \u2013 both professional and private \u2013 separation with Kawalerowicz, the actress will play her most significant roles abroad (e.g.  322<\/i>, dir. Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k, 1969; 25 Fireman’s Street<\/i> [T\u00fczolt\u00f3 utca 25<\/i>], dir. Istv\u00e1n Szab\u00f3, 1973) while in Poland she will show up \u2013 less and less \u2013 mostly in guest appearances and supporting roles (e.g. Through and Through <\/i>[Na wylot<\/i>], 1972 and Permanent Objections<\/i> [Wieczne pretensje<\/i>], 1974, both directed by Grzegorz Kr\u00f3likiewicz; Index <\/i>[Indeks<\/i>], dir. Janusz Kijowski, 1977, prem. 1981). Ewa Mazierska writes more on Winnicka\u2019s foreign film roles: E. Mazierska, Train to Hollywood: Polish Actresses in Foreign Films<\/i>, [in:] Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context<\/i>, E. Mazierska, M. Goddard (eds), University of Rochester Press, Rochester\u2013New York 2014, pp. 153\u2013173. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[21] M. Maniewski, Poci\u0105g do \u017cycia<\/i>, \u201eFilm\u201d 1997, no 4, p. 102. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[22] Ibidem. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[23] A. Led\u00f3chowski, Latarnia w salonie<\/i>, \u201eKino\u201d 1973, no 12, p. 24. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[24] S. Gundle, C.T. Castelli, The Glamour System<\/i>, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke\u2013New York 2006. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[25] A. \u0141uksza, Glamour, kobieco\u015b\u0107, widowisko. Aktorka jako obiekt po\u017c\u0105dania<\/i>, Instytut Teatralny im. Zbigniewa Raszewskiego, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Warszawa 2016, pp. 59\u201360. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[26] Janusz Morgenstern claimed that he was the one to notice Krzy\u017cewska, then a freshman student of the Krak\u00f3w Academy for the Dramatic Arts, on the set of Antoni Bohdziewicz\u2019s Lucky Boots<\/i>(Kalosze szcz\u0119\u015bcia<\/i>, 1958). The actress herself said that Wajda noticed her photograph in the \u201cPrzekr\u00f3j\u201d magazine and immediately saw her as Krystyna. The photo however did not provide her name. K. Tomasik, Ewa Krzy\u017cewska. <\/i>Naga tajemnica<\/i>, [in:] idem, Demony seksu<\/i>, Wydawnictwo Marginesy, Warszawa 2015, p. 20. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[27] A. \u0141uksza, op. cit., p. 60. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[28] T. Lubelski, Wajda<\/i>, Wyd. Dolno\u015bl\u0105skie, Wroc\u0142aw 2006, p. 75. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[29] B. Warkocki, Nie na sprzeda\u017c<\/i>, [in:] Wajda. Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej<\/i>, ed. J. Majmurek, Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, Warszawa 2013, pp. 128\u2013139. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[30] L. Mulvey, Close-ups and Commodities<\/i> [in:] idem, Fetishism and Curiosity<\/i>, Indiana University Press \u2013 British Film Institute, Bloomington \u2013 London, 1996, p. 45. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[31] A. Led\u00f3chowski, op. cit., p. 22. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[32] A. Tatarkiewicz, Ewa Krzy\u017cewska: Rebeka<\/i>, \u201eFilm\u201d 1973, no 38, p. 6. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[33] See: J. Riviere, Womanliness as a<\/i> Masquerade<\/i>, [in:] Formations of Fantasy<\/i>, V. Burgin, J. Donald, C. Kaplan (eds), Methuen, London 1986, pp. 35\u201344; M.A. Doane, Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator<\/i>, [in:] Film and Theory. An Anthology<\/i>, R. Stam, T. Miller (eds), Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Massachusetts-Oxford 2000, pp. 495\u2013509; J. Butler, Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade<\/i>, [in:] idem, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity<\/i>, Routledge, New York and London 1990, pp. 43\u201357. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[34] K. Kutz, Kalina, ta, kt\u00f3rej ju\u017c nie ma<\/i>, [in:] idem, Portrety godziwe<\/i>, ed. J.F. Lewandowski, Znak, Krak\u00f3w 2004, p. 70. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[35] Ibidem. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[36] L. Mulvey, op.cit., p. 48. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[37] Dariusz Michalski seeks the analogy between the Polish star and Marylin Monroe in both actresses\u2019 private lives, e.g. comparing Dygats\u2019 marriage to Monroe\u2019s relationship with Arthur Miller (D. Michalski, Kalina J\u0119drusik<\/i>, Iskry, Warszawa 2010, pp. 361\u2013376). In her analysis of the theatre play Kalina <\/i>(Teatr Polonia, dir. Ma\u0142gorzata G\u0142uchowska, Warsaw, prem. 2013) featuring Katarzyna Figura as J\u0119drusik, Agata \u0141uksza points out the similar source of both stars\u2019 hyperbolic femininity: Norma Jeane went through<\/i> (\u2026) abortions and miscarriages, she was not meant to experience motherhood \u2013 she became Marilyn Monroe. Kalina loses a child, loses her uterus \u2013 she will be a sex icon<\/i> (A. \u0141uksza, op. cit., p. 174). [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[38] I. Kurz, op. cit., p. 183. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[39] Ibidem, p. 184. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[40] As cited in: D. Michalski, op. cit., p. 316. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[41] A. \u0141uksza, op. cit., p. 29. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[42] E. Ostrowska, Obco\u015b\u0107 podwojona: obrazy kobiet \u017cydowskich w polskim kinie powojennym<\/i>, [in:] Gender-film-media<\/i>, E.H. Oleksy, E. Ostrowska (eds), Rabid, Krak\u00f3w 2001, pp. 133\u2013145. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[43] Linda Williams uses this Freudian term to describe those films on the American cinema screens which became landmarks in the history of representing traumatic sexual acts. See: L. Williams, Screening Sex<\/i>, Duke University Press, Durham 2008, especially the chapter: Primal Scenes on American Screens (1986\u20132005)<\/i>. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[44] From the beginning of the 1970s the female body held no secrets from the Polish film viewers  (e.g. The Cardiogram <\/i>[Kardiogram<\/i>], 1971, and Anatomy of Love<\/i> [Anatomia mi\u0142o\u015bci<\/i>], 1972, both directed by Roman Za\u0142uski; Run Away Nearly<\/i> [Uciec jak najbli\u017cej<\/i>], dir. Janusz Zaorski, 1972; Pearl in the Crown <\/i>[Per\u0142a w koronie<\/i>], dir. Kazimierz Kutz, 1972) no other sex scene, however, had made sucha an impression on the viewers as the one from The<\/i> Promised Land<\/i>. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[45] As cited in: J. Szczerba, Co ja, Jezus Chrystus jestem?<\/i>, \u201eWysokie Obcasy\u201d 2009, no 32, p. 12, a suplement of \u201eGazeta Wyborcza\u201d, 8.08.2009. J\u0119drusik\u2019s words are confirmed by El\u017cbieta Starostecka\u2019s opinion: from now on people judged Lucy Zuckerowa as Kalina J\u0119drusik and Kalina as that woman with her behavior. And they just removed her from the list of decent, even honest actresses <\/i>(D. Michalski, op. cit., p. 318). [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[46] As cited in: D. Michalski, op. cit., p. 319. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[47] As cited in: ibidem, p. 322. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[48] C. Flinn, The Deaths of Camp, [in:] Camp<\/i>: Queer Aesthetics And The Performing Subject,<\/i> F. Cleto (ed.), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1999, p. 447\u2013448. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[49] R. Dyer, Stars<\/i>, 2nd<\/sup> ed., Palgrave Macmillan, New York 1998, pp. 20\u201332. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[50] M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume I: An Introduction<\/i>, transl. R. Hurley, Pantheon Books, New York 1978, pp. 101\u2013102. [back]<\/a><\/p>\n

But indeed, I will be immoral. <\/i><\/b>Stars <\/b>in Polish Communist Cinema<\/b><\/p>\n

The authorities in power during the period of the Polish People\u2019s Republic did not focus on producing stars, yet it does not mean that there were no stars in Polish cinema then. In the early 60s, there appears a substitute of a \u201ccommunist star system\u201d. Its shape was affected by the Thaw and subsequently by the turn towards genre cinema (the vehicle of stars). The image of the socialist female star was supposed to be void of those attributes that made a star in the Hollywood system: glamour and sex appeal. The article concentrates on three female stars of the 60s: Lucyna Winnicka (The Game<\/i>), Ewa Krzy\u017cewska (Jealousy and Medicine<\/i>) and Kalina J\u0119drusik (The Promised Land<\/i>). At the end of that decade and in the early 70s, when their epoch was becoming a thing of the past, they all assert features that previously had to be left outside the frame: glamour, an excess of femininity, corporeal insubordination, sexual pleasure and own subjectivity. Their bold bodily excesses, on the one hand, contested the prevailing policy of the body, and, on the other hand, they stabilised \u2013 to some extent \u2013 the dominating system.<\/p>\n

Key words:<\/b> Polish cinema, stars, communism, femininity, body, sexuality, glamour, ideology, Lucyna Winnicka, Ewa Krzy\u017cewska, Kalina J\u0119drusik<\/p>\n

Sebastian Jagielski<\/strong> \u2013 film history scholar, adjunct at the Film History Department of the Polish Institute of Audiovisual Arts of the Jagiellonian University. Received honourable mention in the Inka Brodzka-Wald Competition for the best doctoral dissertation on contemporary humanities (2013). Author of the book Masquerade of Masculinity. Ho<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cinema of the Polish People\u2019s Republic era favored expressing the dominant ideology over fulfilling the audiences\u2019 expectations. It is no wonder then that contemporary state authorities were not focused on manufacturing movie stars[1]. In Poland, unlike in the West and especially in Hollywood, there was no huge promotional machinery that would help create celebrities.… Czytaj wi\u0119cej »But Indeed, I Will Be Immoral. Stars in Polish Communist Cinema<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[429],"tags":[32,33,34,35,36,37,266,39,40,41,42,967],"ppma_author":[43],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pleograf-kwartalnik-akademii-polskiego-filmu-nr-5-2019","tag-cialo","tag-ewa-krzyzewska","tag-glamour","tag-gwiazda-filmowa","tag-ideologia","tag-kalina-jedrusik","tag-kino-prl","tag-kobiecosc","tag-lucyna-winnicka","tag-prl","tag-seksualnosc","tag-special-issue"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t