The Law of the Looking Glass: Cinema in Poland, 1896–1939

The Law of the Looking Glass

Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series

Series Editor: John J. Bukowczyk

Framing the Polish Home: Postwar Cultural Constructions of Hearth, Nation, and Self, edited by Bożena Shallcross

Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880–1939, by Karen Majewski

Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979, by Jonathan Huener

The Exile Mission: The Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939–1956, by Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

The Grasinski Girls: The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made, by Mary Patrice Erdmans

Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile, by Danuta Mostwin

The Clash of Moral Nations: Cultural Politics in Piłsudski’s Poland, 1926–1935, by Eva Plach

Holy Week: A Novel of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, by Jerzy Andrzejewski

The Law of the Looking Glass: Cinema in Poland, 1896–1939, by Sheila Skaff

SERIES ADVISORY BOARD

M. B. B. Biskupski, Central Connecticut State University

Robert E. Blobaum, West Virginia University

Anthony Bukoski, University of Wisconsin-Superior

Bogdana Carpenter, University of Michigan

Mary Patrice Erdmans, Central Connecticut State University

Thomas S. Gladsky, Central Missouri State University (ret.)

Padraic Kenney, Indiana University

John J. Kulczycki, University of Illinois at Chicago (ret.)

Ewa Morawska, University of Essex

Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University

Brian Porter-Szûcs, University of Michigan

James S. Pula, Purdue University North Central

Thaddeus C. Radzilowski, Piast Institute

Daniel Stone, University of Winnipeg

Adam Walaszek, Jagiellonian University

Theodore R. Weeks, Southern Illinois University

The Law of the Looking Glass

Cinema in Poland, 1896–1939

Sheila Skaff

OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

ATHENS

Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

www.ohioswallow.com

© 2008 by Ohio University Press

All rights reserved

To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).

Printed in the United States of America

Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ™

16 15 14 12 11 10 09 08     5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Skaff, Sheila.

The law of the looking glass : cinema in Poland, 1896–1939 / Sheila Skaff.

p.   cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8214-1784-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8214-1784-3 (cloth: alk. paper)

1. Motion pictures—Poland—History. 2. Motion picture industry—Poland—History. I. Title.

PN1993.5.P55S44 2008

791.4309438'09041—dc22

2008006416

ISBN: 978-0-8214-4252-4 (e-book)

Publication of books in the Polish and Polish-American Studies Series has been made possible in part by the generous support of the following organizations:

Polish American Historical Association,

New Britain, Connecticut

Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish and Polish American Studies,

Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, Connecticut

The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, Inc.,

New York, New York

The Piast Institute: An Institute for Polish and Polish American Affairs,

Detroit, Michigan

Contents

List of Illustrations

Series Editor’s Preface

Acknowledgments

Guide to Pronunciation

INTRODUCTION. The Cult of Visibility

1. The First Films, 1896–1908

2. The Emergence of a Competitive Industry, 1908–18

3. From National Cinema to Cinema in the Nation-State, 1918–23

4. The Golden Years of Silent Cinema, 1923–29

5. The Transition from Silent to Sound Film, 1929–30

6. The Transition in Practice, 1930–36

7. Beyond the Talkies, 1936–39

CONCLUSION. Visual Imagery and Language after World War II

APPENDIX. Select Filmography

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

An advertisement for an early demonstration of the Cinématographe

Rialto motion picture theater in Warsaw in the 1920s

The Leo-Forbert production team during filming of One of the 36

Antek the Police Chief (1935)

Souls in Slavery (1930)

The Girls of Nowolipki (1937)

The Leper (1936)

Halka (1937)

An advertisement for The Ghosts (1938)

The Ghosts (1938)

The Dybbuk (1937)

Series Editor’s Preface

POLISH FILM AND CINEMATOGRAPHY rank among the leading examples of the cinematic arts in the late twentieth century. Sheila Skaff’s excellent revisionist study, The Law of the Looking Glass: Cinema in Poland, 1896–1939, examines the background and development of cinema and cinematography in Poland from their earliest moments in the late nineteenth century through the late nineteen thirties, when world war and political change created a dramatic break with the past and launched the country into a new phase of filmmaking practice.

Skaff’s book offers a thorough look at a subject that has yet to be studied in depth by more than a handful of scholars, possibly because of the extensive linguistic and technical expertise required to approach it credibly. The book, according to Skaff, attempts to recapture the multilingualism and social diversity of cinema in the partitioned lands and independent Poland. Indeed, rather than narrowing her own cinematic gaze and succumbing to the temptation to focus exclusively on Polish-language cinema and its relationship to Polish nationalism and nation building, Skaff wisely examines the cinematic traditions and practices among filmmakers of various ethnocultural and linguistic backgrounds in a multiethnic pre-1939 Poland. Her revisionist approach will earn the book a central place in the canon of Polish film studies. Her choice of an ending date for her study is a wise one, as well. World War II decimated the ranks of Polish filmmakers, and after the war the new Communist government nationalized the Polish film industry, bringing the chaotic-dynamic prewar era to a quiet close. Despite this obvious rupture with the cinematic tradition of the prewar years, Skaff nonetheless shows the carryover of important artistic influences and sensibilities, successfully making the argument that this cultivation of the art of looking has proven a revered tradition that reaches to the beginning of the twenty-first century.

For a volume so rich in information, the book is gracefully written and jargon-free. In this important and provocative study, Skaff displays a solid knowledge of Polish history, ambitious coverage of her topic, originality, and what one reader has called an unmistakable passion for Polish film. The Law of the Looking Glass: Cinema in Poland, 1896–1939 is a valuable work that will find a broad audience among students of Polish history, film scholars, and film buffs alike.

Publication of the Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series marks a milestone in the maturation of the Polish studies field and stands as a fitting tribute to the scholars and organizations whose efforts have brought it to fruition. Supported by a series advisory board of accomplished Polonists and Polish-Americanists, the Polish and Polish-American Studies Series has been made possible through generous financial assistance from the Polish American Historical Association, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, the Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish and Polish American Studies at Central Connecticut State University, and the Piast Institute and through institutional support from Wayne State University and Ohio University Press. The series meanwhile has benefited from the warm encouragement of a number of other persons, including Gillian Berchowitz, M. B. B. Biskupski, the late Stanislaus A. Blejwas, Mary Erdmans, Thaddeus Gromada, James S. Pula, Thaddeus Radzilowski, and David Sanders. The moral and material support from all of these institutions and individuals is gratefully acknowledged.

John J. Bukowczyk

Acknowledgments

This book was made possible with the help of several people. I would like to express my admiration for my dissertation advisor at the University of Michigan, Richard Abel, and extend my deepest gratitude to him and to Hubert Cohen, Marek Haltof, Piotr Michalowski, and Charles O’Brien for their expert advice at various stages of this project. I want to thank series editor John Bukowczyk of Wayne State University as well as Gillian Berchowitz and Rick Huard of Ohio University Press for their skillful and patient editing of the manuscript. I am grateful to staff members of the Filmoteka Narodowa, Biblioteka Narodowa, and Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw for their help in locating materials and illustrations. I appreciate everything that you have done to cultivate my hope for this project.

I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement, optimism, kindness, and generosity. Above all, my friends in Warsaw have made my research trips unforgettable. Thank you.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my nephew, William Skaff, for reminding me that words are precious.

Guide to Pronunciation

The following key provides a guide to the pronunciation of Polish words and names.

a is pronounced as in father

c as ts, as in cats

ch as guttural h, as in German Bach

cz as hard ch, as in church

g (always hard), as in get

i as ee, as in meet

j as y, as in yellow

rz as hard zh, as in French jardin

sz as hard sh, as in ship

szcz as hard shch, as in fresh cheese

u as oo, as in boot

w as v, as in vat

ć as soft ch, as in cheap

ś as soft sh, as in sheep

ż as hard zh, as in French jardin

ź as soft zh, as in seizure

ó as oo, as in boot

ą as a nasal, as in French on

ę as a nasal, as in French en

ł as w, as in way

ń as ny, as in canyon

The accent in Polish words always falls on the penultimate syllable.

The Law of the Looking Glass

INTRODUCTION

The Cult of Visibility

WHEN HE ARRIVED IN Kraków to give the first demonstration of the Cinématographe in late 1896, itinerant Lumière exhibitor Eugène Joachim DuPont realized that counterfeit copies of the apparatus were circulating in the region. He defended his patented apparatus by referring to it as the only real one. An advertisement for the first demonstration concluded, The Lumière brothers from Lyon are the exclusive inventors of the real Cinématographe.¹ For DuPont, real may have been an expression for patented or high quality. Nevertheless, he probably knew that audiences would understand it, at least in part, as a synonym for the national-cultural institutions of France. The initial program of short films featured national symbols of European powers, including images of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, the French cavalry, and the Spanish artillery. It included none of the short films that had been shot in the lands annexed by Austria, Prussia, and Russia at the end of the eighteenth century and partitioned among them until 1918. In its emphasis on the symbols of existing nation-states rather than those of the occupied territories, the first program offered viewers the opportunity for national and personal identification with the screen images without the burden of actual participation. Although the first audience complained about the poor quality of the projection, critics expressed awe for the truth of which DuPont spoke when he claimed that his apparatus was the only real one—a complex truth that grew to encompass more than the provenance of the motion picture camera or the pictures themselves. This truth was a blurry notion of the way that things had been, were, and should be. As depicted in the first short films projected in the eastern lands, Europe was a modernizing society complete with confidence-inspiring national militaries and sausage-grinding machines. In addition to being novel, early cinema in the partitioned lands revived a distant familiarity with these objects. Its shameless kindling of nostalgia for the embryonic republic of generations past prompted viewers both to identify with and to long for a nation-state.

In the partitioned lands, cinema roused the first audiences to compare the images on the screen to the aesthetic, linguistic, and economic conditions of their own communities. Audiences, and later, filmmakers, formed a multifarious and fickle relationship with the apparatus and the screen. No writer more thoroughly describes the complexity of the situation than does Karol Irzykowski in his book on film theory, Dziesiąta muza: Zagadnienia estetyczne kina (The Tenth Muse: Aesthetic Considerations of Cinema), published in the reconstituted Poland in 1924 and republished in 1957. In a chapter titled The Law of the Looking Glass, Irzykowski considers the ways in which cinema both reflects and distorts reality. He claims that cinema allows viewers to study the world without directly engaging in it:

I once saw the moves of some English gymnasts as they marched in time, breaking up to form patterns such as stars, etc. I am not embarrassed to admit that I liked these performances in the cinema better than the many live ones I had seen. There is in man a desire to view things and events in abstraction from reality. The more directly he has experienced them, the more he would like to have them before him once again in a less committal, harmless and more exact form. This is one of the sources of art (as well as of science). For only half of the world is ruled by the principle of action; the other half is subject to the laws of reflection.²

Irzykowski argues that cinema offers an escape from the necessity of physical interaction with the world even as it extends the possibility of studying others’ interactions with it. As such, it may have cushioned the blows of modernity—including those resulting from its lack—for audiences in the partitioned lands. Irzykowski explains

In cinema, a locomotive rushes straight toward you. It is already approaching, expanding more rapidly than in reality, like a monster, in order to devour you . . . when suddenly it is surrendered, it has infiltrated you; you still feel anxiety for a moment—an anxiety that is truly nice, maybe the kind that some English lord experiences when he is hunting in the jungle with a protective shield. But if you also had heard the chug of a locomotive and the clang of its wheels and had sensed its horrifying weight, if the foul odor of its smoke had reached you, you would have been petrified and would have jumped up and run away, thinking that under the pretense of a motion picture show you had been lured into a trap. . . . But this is only an optical locomotive, a locomotive-apparition, which passes through you.³

Because film is a visual medium, Irzykowski implores filmmakers to pay attention to the consumption of its imagery by viewers. Audiences lord over the screen, according to Irzykowski. In doing so, they become masters of the terrain presented there, impassively devouring even the most terrifying images. He writes

By all appearances, photographic objectivism is one of the cinema’s features. However, a certain mystical possessiveness resides in humans, which identifies seeing with having. This is why cinema aims to make the world optical. . . . It not only renders what we usually see. It also spies for us, persistently and courageously, that which we do not see because of inaccessibility or impatience. It shows the struggle of a polyp with a crab in the water, it breaks a horse’s gallop into its components, it sees in ellipsis how grass grows; in the end, it even makes us believe that it sees unusual and supernatural things (special effects, fantasy films).⁴

Two issues are at stake here. First, Irzykowski’s claim that cinema is an entirely visual medium derives from an intellectual tradition that considered an organic desire to overcome linguistic barriers an essential element of Polish national culture. For more than a decade before writing his book, Irzykowski had been declaring his opposition to the transition from silent to sound film, which occurred in independent Poland in 1929 and 1930 and which contributed to the widening divisions among speakers of the welter of languages encompassed by the new state. Irzykowski, for one, considered words amorphous, insubstantial, and detrimental to communication. Inside the motion picture theater, language differences led to ethnic tension, segregation, and even violence. In his view, cinema was undergoing the same sort of basic cultural transformation of the soul that happened in the invention of writing or script. However, those changes took place slowly, while this one is occurring abruptly and before our own eyes.⁵ His struggle to cut short this transformation is one of the major issues in the region’s cinema.

The second issue arises as early as the first projections. Viewers’ mystical possessiveness of the objects on the screen is of particular relevance to the partitioned lands. Cinema granted audiences a peek at the symbols of modern national consciousness, of which they had long read and heard. They had seen these symbols in still photographs, but now they could glean meaning from people’s interactions with them and the other objects on the screen. Every movement, from the way that the leaves rustled to the tipping of a hat, took on meaning. Film exposed movement—and, therefore, motivation—that viewers brought under their control by the very act of comprehending it. Irzykowski writes, The optical surface of the world is becoming larger. Let’s imagine that it had been twisted, wrinkled, and creased until now and that the folds are now slowly smoothing out, in order to obey the law of reflection.⁶ Yet Irzykowski accentuates the potential for misunderstanding the world through cinema. He concludes, Cinema is a cult of visibility. Cinema registers the world, but it may also turn it into fiction.⁷ What, then, may it turn into fiction?

Because cinema in Poland is associated with the country’s political and cultural situation, a brief introduction to Polish history may be helpful. In the late eighteenth century, Austria, Prussia, and Russia annexed parts of the region. In the partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795, the empires carved new borders through the corresponding eastern, northwestern, and southwestern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Res Publica, until, little by little, it ceased to exist. The Polish constitution passed on May 3, 1791, which promised to create a modern constitutional monarchy, never had a chance to take hold. For the most part, the territories’ ties to the empires were based on historical, ethnic, or geographical connections that existed only on paper. In reality, the inhabitants retained many of the diverse cultural, religious, and linguistic traditions known under the Res Publica. The languages spoken in the region included German, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish. A serf-labor, agrarian socioeconomic structure remained intact for many years. Members of the powerful Roman Catholic Church lived alongside Jews, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, and Uniates. Most significantly, a revolutionary spirit—a free, curious, polyglot spirit—took hold during the final partition. The opening line of the anthem adopted by the newly formed Polish foreign legion in Italy, "Jeszcze Polska nie umarła, kiedy my żyjemy" (Poland has not died as long as we live), illustrated the new sense of nationhood.⁸

Consequently, in 1896, cinema did not arrive in Poland but in parts of Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire, where descendents of some of the inhabitants of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had carried on a century-long struggle for independence. Inhabitants were usually allowed to move freely among the formerly Polish areas of the empires, though for most of the nineteenth century, their opportunities were limited by informal social restrictions on movement between classes, in particular the continued exploitation of peasants and Jews (even after the abolition of serfdom) by landowners. The political and cultural state of affairs of the region varied according to empire and period. As a result, each part of the region greeted the introduction of cinema a bit differently.

The southern region of Galicia, which was under Hapsburg rule, included the present-day Ukrainian towns of L’viv (Ger. Lemberg, Pol. Lwów) and Drohobych (Ger. Drohobytsch, Pol. Drohobycz). In 1846, Austria also annexed Kraków (Ger. Krakau), the most culturally active city in the region. Consequently, the areas arrogated to Austria-Hungary (as the imperial state was known after 1867) became the most densely populated of the partitioned regions. The late 1860s brought the emancipation of the Jews, who long had maintained a degree of cultural and linguistic latitude, and greater freedoms for everyone else. Speakers of German, Polish, Ukrainian, and Yiddish enjoyed a great deal of cultural autonomy, which allowed for an active university life as well as publications and theater productions in several languages. It should come as no surprise, then, that the very first demonstrations of moving pictures in the partitioned lands took place in Kraków.

The northern and western parts of the former commonwealth, including the Baltic Sea area called Pomerania and the southwestern area of Silesia, were under control of the German Empire, or Kingdom of Prussia, and comprised a mixture of German-speakers and Polish-speakers. The cities of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Gdańsk (Danzig), Królewiec (Königsberg, present-day Kaliningrad), Poznań (Posen), and Wrocław (Breslau) were part of this region. The Prussian lands of the former commonwealth enjoyed more economic stability than the other partitions as well as such social privileges as obligatory elementary school education (from 1825). But its Catholic and Jewish residents experienced severe limitations on their religious and cultural activity. In many areas, the majority of inhabitants were Lutheran and German-speaking.

The Russian partition constituted almost 60 percent of the lands of the former commonwealth but was less densely populated than either Galicia or Prussia. It included parts of present-day Belarus (including Minsk), Lithuania (including Vilnius and Kaunas), and Ukraine (including Zhytomyr). This area witnessed much insurrectional activity during the partitions for several reasons, including friction between the large percentage of Polish-speaking Catholics living there (as high as 80 percent) and the Russian-speaking, Orthodox ruling class as well as several reactionary political moves by both Russia and the insurgents.

Twentieth-century Polish filmmakers often sought their subject matter in the major events of the nineteenth century, seeing in them the essence of Polish nationhood. Literature dealing with failed uprisings, in particular, inspired many a filmmaker. The first revolt, known as the November Uprising of 1830–31, spurred the Great Emigration, in which several thousand military and intellectual leaders fled to Paris and other European cities out of fear of reprisals. Many of these intellectuals turned the failure of the revolution into an internationally supported movement for independence. They drew plans for the reinstitution of the former borders and formed a literary movement known as Polish Romantic nationalism, which flourished in the 1830s and 1840s. The Polish Romantics, particularly their most important poet, Adam Mickiewicz, took very seriously the unifying possibilities of the Polish language. Their attachment to the language was as political as it was emotional and nostalgic. It offered proof that a nation could flourish as a diaspora of citizens of various empires and countries. However, their attachment to language was also universalistic, asking speakers of other languages to understand its messages, even if they could not understand its words, and to align themselves with its cause. Many of them looked to mysticism and religious radicalism to find expression for a homeland that existed without land—a home in words, simultaneously universal and national. In their longing for and preoccupation with the fate of the nation, they wrote passionate, imploring poetry and drama that drew from the traditions of Slavic folklore, kabbalah, Martinism, and other mystical outlets of expression. They glorified patriotism and strove to awaken a Polish national consciousness, which they felt was asleep within the hearts and minds of Polish-speakers. A second failed insurrection in 1846 and revolutionary activity in other parts of Europe during the so-called Spring of Nations in 1848 strengthened the resolve to regain independence. A third failed insurrection, the January Uprising of 1863 in the Congress Kingdom, was a turning point for the nationalist movement. Russian powers renamed the area Vistula Land and removed its autonomy, triggering the transformation of its socioeconomic structure. Insurgents were executed or deported to Siberia, the Polish nobility lost its status, and local languages were made unofficial. The Polish nationalist movement reacted by intensifying its campaign in the German Empire. In Galicia, where cultural autonomy accompanied a lack of economic control, some people expressed a need for agricultural modernization and economic overhaul.

At this time, there emerged a new literary movement, Positivism, which supported organic work, scientific progress, and economic reform. Positivist writers such as Eliza Orzeszkowa and Bolesław Prus examined daily life in the empires, the relationship between human beings and nature, and Polish history in their novels. The Positivists were avid translators, acquainting readers in the partitions with Western traditions and encouraging the influx of new ideas and technology. They supported industrialization, openness to other countries, and free labor, which resulted in the migration of the emancipated peasants and minorities to large cities. In 1887, visionaries and intellectuals took notice of yet another example of Positivist ingenuity: the publication of a guide to the artificial language Esperanto, written by Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, of Białystok (Bielastok). In later years, many Positivists took an active interest in cinema and saw their works adapted for the screen, and film critics were counted among the most avid proponents of Esperanto.⁹ At the same time, Yiddish emerged from the neighborhoods and the shtetls as a rich language, full of original metaphors and colorful proverbs expressive of the folkloric traditions of Jews in the region. It, too, became a source of inspiration for filmmakers.

It was in the 1890s, toward the end of the Positivist movement, that local activists began to form political organizations. The multiplicity of these organizations and of the schools of thought that separated them demonstrates the ideological chaos that accompanied the introduction of cinema. The Polish Socialist Party (PPS) came into being in 1892 to promote the reestablishment of the Polish state and the implementation of a socialist program. Józef Piłsudski soon became its leader. A year later, Rosa Luxemburg and other doctrinaire Marxists formed the Social Democratic Party (SDKP). Although the SDKP sought to bring socialism to the region, it did not seek Polish independence. A modern Polish nationalist party, the National Democratic Party, found a leader in Roman Dmowski, whose nationalist ideology was decidedly xenophobic, anti-Jewish, and anti-German. Dmowski demanded the full assimilation of non-Polish minorities to his view of Polish tradition, which did not include the custom of religious and linguistic tolerance known in the former Res Publica.

The actual role of language in daily life varied according to time and place, ranging from the liberal policies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the strict prohibitions on use of language in education and government that characterized the Congress Kingdom of Poland. In the hearts and imaginations of Polish speakers, Polish flourished. To speak Polish—for Jews and Lutherans, as well as for Catholics—was to be Polish, and to be Polish was, with little room for exception, to long for a homeland. One of the main arenas for the cultivation of this desire for national sovereignty was Polish-language theater production. In spite of its limitations with regard to language, early traveling cinema fulfilled at least one function that theater could not. As entrepreneurs traveled with their exhibits, moving constantly among the small towns in the empires, they were potential carriers of the kinds of information—national, educational, social, and cultural agendas—that supporters of Polish autonomy wanted to transmit.

The first two decades of cinema were also the last decades of the partition period, a chaotic time in those regions. Discrepancies among the empires in the levels of modernization, education, and wealth, as well as in the general feeling of community made the thought of reunifying Poland difficult. Piłsudski and the PPS supported the Russian Revolution of 1905 by organizing strikes and boycotts in the Russian partition. Reaction to the revolution varied among the many political groups vying for popular support, but this particular activity of the PPS drew attention to Poles’ possible willingness to engage in armed conflict to bring about independence. In this atmosphere