American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Andrzej Wajda: History, Politics, and Nostalgia in Polish Cinema by Janina FalkowskaReview by: Peter RollbergThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2 (SUMMER 2010), pp. 386-387Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41430469 .

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386 Slavic and East European Journal

many cases, were not originally intended for application to the medium of television, e.g., Bakhtin, Lotman, Lacan, and Barthes. However, the application of their theoretical perspectives is not in any way unsuccessful, just, at times, discussed with greater attention than this reader might have preferred.

Chapters in this book could be integrated into courses in communications, folklore, and con- temporary Russian culture. It is an interesting and challenging read for anyone interested in media studies and cultural studies, and for the everyday aficionado of Russian television and other media in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods.

Rachel Stauffer, University of Virginia

Janina Falkowska. Andrzej Wajda: History , Politics , and Nostalgia in Polish Cinema. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008. Bibliography. Index. 340 pp. $34.95 (paper).

Andrzej Wajda's fame as Poland's preeminent filmmaker has not only solidified but has become unrivalled in recent years. If, in the 1970s, Krzysztof Zanussi and, in the 1980s, Krzysztof Kieslowski may have seemed to be contenders for that status, Wajda's persistence in engaging Polish audiences in an honest dialogue and his untiring stylistic self-reinvention ultimately have won him the laurels of an undisputed classic. Early on, he emerged as a Wunderkind of sorts, whose Generation (1955) and Kanal (1957) drew international attention to a country not hith- erto known as a cinematic powerhouse. Thereafter, Wajda survived flops, periods of self-doubt, and political setbacks only to consistently emerge stronger and more relevant than before. Ashes and Diamonds (1958), The Promised Land (1975), and Man of Marble (1977) have stood the test of time as masterpieces: visually opulent cinematic reflections that opened the eyes of a stunned international film community to the tragedies, triumphs, insights, and illusions of a na- tion at the heart of Central Europe. Wajda's sensitivity to large historical shifts and his ability to find valid filmic expressions for them, together with exceptional genre versatility, make him comparable in profile to Luchino Visconti and Akira Kurosawa, among others.

For more than a half century, Wajda has maintained an enviable productivity, churning out a new picture almost every year. Among his roughly forty feature films are true gems, including some insufficiently recognized ones ( Lotna , Ashes , Without Anaesthetic , to name but a few), but also less persuasive works. Yet even the least accomplished of his films contain some episode or image of unforgettable intensity.

Janina Falkowska has studied Wajda's oeuvre for many years; her efforts have already led to a monograph, The Political Films of Andrzej Wajda : Dialogism in Man of Marble , Man of Iron , and Danton (Berghahn Books, 1996). Her new book represents a systematic overview of all of Wajda's films. The first chapter chronicles Wajda's life, including artistic, administrative, political, and private aspects. Each of the following five chapters discusses the films of a partic- ular decade, from the 1950s to the 1990s, ending with Revenge (2002). Such a strictly chrono- logical structure is certainly plausible, although other organizational principles might have al- lowed for a deeper probing into overarching questions (take, for example, the various genres that Wajda excelled in, from grand historical frescoes to contemporary psychological dramas, loyal adaptations of classical literary masterpieces, etc.). Every chapter is subdivided into sec- tions devoted to an individual film.

As the author writes in her introduction, she had unlimited access to the Wajda Archive at the Manggha Center in Krakow, which has been assembled with exemplary care by the filmmaker himself. Thus, she was able to look at sketches, notes, diaries, drafts, and even correspondences with viewers. Her film analyses in this book predominantly consist of detailed plot summaries, usually two to three pages in length, complemented by surveys of national and international crit-

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Reviews 387

ical responses. As a result, thematic discussions outweigh cinematic aspects by far. Regrettably, the production histories are documented only in a few cases- given the author's access to sub- stantial background information, data such as casting decisions, choice of cinematographer, composer, etc., or budgets and box office results would have been quite useful as well. More importantly, though, the relationship between Wajda's films and the literary works on which the majority of them are based is only rarely taken into close consideration; in regards to Pilate and Others (1972), for example, readers will have a hard time realizing from the analysis that this is an adaptation of the biblical chapters of Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita , a key work for intellectuals in the 1970s whose significance goes unmentioned.

The aforementioned retelling of the films' plots is further marred by textual and factual rep- etitions which careful editing could have eliminated. The same is true for inaccuracies and in- consistencies in the spelling of proper names (Anton Czechow or Czekhov, Jeronim- rather than Hieronymus- Bosch, Mihail Bulhakov, "Mishkin" and "Rogozin" instead of Myshkin and Rogozhin, etc.). Certain unique cinematic qualities of Wajda's pictures are addressed, but mostly in passing, and they are seldom given more than superficial treatment. Thus, the author points to the painterly beauty of Wajda's images, but his feel for rhythm, the integration of music, his extraordinary ability to manipulate the narrative speed, especially through expressive cutting, and his atmospheric mise-en-scène deserve no less attention than dialogues and plot turns and their implicit political messages.

This notwithstanding, the author's candor in addressing controversial aspects of Wajda's films and their reception at home and abroad is commendable. Her work, no doubt, is driven by deep affection for the filmmaker; the personal tone of some passages lends them authenticity.

The fact that a free and independent spirit such as Wajda was able to start a successful career in Stalinist Poland and to continue to flourish under Communism for decades is nothing short of astonishing; it certainly merits further scholarly debate. In the opinion of this reviewer, one of the reasons for Wajda's success is his life-long loyalty to classical humanist ideals, which de- fine the foundation of his artistry, allowing him to be a patriot yet avoid nationalist narrow- mindedness, and to work under different sociopolitical conditions without ever becoming an ideological servant to any system. Falko wska is right in calling Wajda a genuine auteur- in- deed, a disappearing species in cinema. It is these humanist principles, rather than the imprecise notion of "nostalgia," that continue to attract Wajda to certain ideals of the past.

Overall, Falkowska's comprehensive survey of Wajda's artistic evolution is a worthwhile addition to the growing critical literature on this exceptional filmmaker. In practical terms, the monograph is also useable as a textbook and, despite the aforementioned shortcomings, can serve as a point of departure for the continuing discourse on Andrzej Wajda and his films.

Peter Rollberg, George Washington University

Philip Cavendish. Soviet Mainstream Cinematography: The Silent Era. London: UCL Arts and Humanities Publications, 2007. Illustrations. Filmography. Bibliography. Index. ix+ 184 pp. Paper.

Philip Cavendish's Soviet Mainstream Cinematography: The Silent Era charts the period from the re-establishment of the Soviet film industry in the early 1920s to the first years of the sound era. The monograph opens with a conceptual preamble which sets the scene for subsequent dis- cussions and delineates the core objective of the book: to re-evaluate the role of cinematogra- phy in the mainstream cinema of the 1920s. To facilitate this task, the author suggests a recon- sideration of the ways we perceive mainstream and avant-garde cinema in the Soviet 1920s: rather than attributing stylistic innovations exclusively to "avant-garde" cinema, Cavendish

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