The course covers Polish cinema from WWII to the present, tracing the development of
film styles and genres in the context of the historical, political, and cultural features of
Polish society. The first wave of State Film School graduates (including Wajda, Munk,
and Polanski) garnered international recognition by using realist norms in combination
with intricate symbolism and absurdist allegory to critique the loss of civic values under
Communism, thus utilizing the visual potentials of film language to circumvent the limitations
imposed by “Socialist Realism” and State censorship. In the 1970s and 1980s, a
second generation of film auteurs (including Zanussi, Holland, and Kieślowski) emerged
and continued to break new ground stylistically, challenging Polish society in their “cinema
of moral concern.” In the post-Communist period, Hollywood models (in particular
the gangster film as a metaphor for capitalist norms) and international coproduction have
played significant roles. We will analyze 14 films and discuss the accompanying reading.