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Waiting for Parousia: Angst on Film from a Brilliant Young Pole
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14578 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1988 |
2,912 Words |
| Author
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Krzysztof Klopotowski
Krzysztof Klopotowski is news editor of the Polish Daily News
(Nowy Dziennik) in New York City. He came to the United States
in April 1987, having been cultural editor of the Solidarity
Weekly (Tygodnik Solidarnosc) in Poland. |
The films of Piotr Szulkin are among the most important in the Polish film industry today. Born in 1950, Szulkin is the latest in a line of highly talented filmmakers Poland has produced (Polanski and Wajda representing earlier generations). Szulkin's films deal with the struggle inherent in the bankrupt communist ideology, the use of friends by a communist government, and the difficulties of working under the eye of the state. Although his films engage in a passionate polemic over religion in a mostly Catholic country, the author has avoided ostracism. How has this been possible?
Marxist doctrine was formulated in words. Censorship in the communist state is concerned primarily with keeping words uttered publicly uttered in line with the words of the doctrine. Films, however, are less strictly monitored than some other forms of communication because their images do not directly threaten the written word of the doctrine.
Images in a film can be ambiguous. The censor may not catch certain meanings; the author might repudiate other meanings in direct negotiations with authorities about approving the film for release. The same holds true for the script. The communist censor is obsessively concerned that so-called "negative occurrences" not be generalized. Individual occurrences of "evil" can be permitted and criticized as deviations from a supposedly good system, but the censor will not authorize any work that may actually threaten the system. These principles give film directors greater freedom of expression than writers have. Films can use ambiguous images and employ specific narrative lines, which, though often admittedly tragic, do not "generalize
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