Posts Tagged ‘Andrzej Munk’
Man on the Tracks
Człowiek na torze Poland, 1956, black and white, 80 minsNotwithstanding the fact that The Stars Must Burn (Gwiazdy muszą płonąć, 1954) and Men of the Blue Cross (Błękitny krzyż, 1955) were arguably closer to drama than documentary, Man on the Tracks is generally recognised as Andrzej Munk's first fiction feature. And in many ways this is [...]
A Walk in the Old Town of Warsaw
Spacerek staromiejski Poland, 1958, colour, 18 minsBy 1958, Andrzej Munk had already begun his second career as a maker of fiction features, and although A Walk in the Old Town of Warsaw was classified as a documentary short (and even won first prize in that category at the Venice International Documentary Festival), it works just as well as a [...]
One Sunday Morning
Niedzielny poranek Poland, 1955, colour, 19 minsAndrzej Munk's second film from 1955 is very different from the first, The Men of the Blue Cross (Błękitny krzyż), and marks another decisive break with the tenets of Socialist Realism that had dominated his early work - in particular, the sardonic humour is much more in line with reports of [...]
Men of the Blue Cross
Błękitny krzyż Poland, 1955, black and white, 56 minsEven more than The Stars Must Burn (Gwiazdy muszą płonąć, 1954), The Men of the Blue Cross blurs the distinction between fact and fiction. So much so, in fact, that at 56 minutes this is effectively Andrzej Munk's first solo feature, essentially an adventure story about a real-life [...]
The Stars Must Burn
Gwiazdy muszą płonąć Poland, 1954, black and white, 64 minsMost filmographies claim that Man on the Tracks (Człowiek na torze, 1956) is Andrzej Munk's first feature, yet two earlier entries in his filmography could also qualify, and not just because of their length. The 64-minute The Stars Must Burn, which Munk co-directed with Witold [...]
The Railwayman’s Word
Kolejarskie słowo Poland, 1953, black and white, 22 minsThe Railwayman's Word is one of those films that needs a certain amount of historical contextualisation, as its innovations are far less apparent today than they would have been back in 1953, the year of Stalin's death, and long before any cultural thaw. For all its mild unorthodoxies in [...]
Peasant Diaries
Peasant Diaries Pamiętniki chłopów Poland, 1952, black and white, 13 minsMade the year after the overtly Socialist Realist propaganda film Destination Nowa Huta! (Kierunek - Nowa Huta!), Andrzej Munk's Peasant Diaries derives from the same tradition, duly adopting many of the same archetypes and clichés (you half expect the ruddy-cheeked [...]
Destination Nowa Huta!
Kierunek - Nowa Huta! Poland, 1951, black and white, 12 minsWatching Destination Nowa Huta! for the first time, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu, as this is undoubtedly the film that inspired Andrzej Wajda's parody of an early 1950s Stalinist propaganda newsreel in his film Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru, 1977). That fake film's poster-boy [...]