A Fistful of Dollars: Polish Cinema after the 1989 Freedom Shock

Abstract

The year 1989 was a turning point not only in Polish history but also for the Polish industry. The state-controlled and -owned industry was transformed into independent studios/companies which could now make their own decisions about finances and production. The year 1990 brought another important and long-awaited decision: the abolition of censorship. Film producers and directors became responsible for both the content and the financial success, or failure, of their products. On one hand, this decision gave companies considerable freedom in the sphere of coproduction and distribution in the West. On the other, in spite of limited government subsidies during the transition period, this independence forced them to concentrate on the commercial aspect of their productions. As a consequence of these recent political transformations, hidden archives and victimized dissidents no longer constitute the Polish film landscape. The last banned film, Ryszard Bugajski's Przestuchanie (Interrogation, 1982), was released in 1990 following the distribution of other shelved films dealing mostly with the psychosocial pressures of Stalinism, such as Jerzy Domaradzki's Wielki bieg (Great Race, 1981), Agnieszka Holland's Kobieta samotna (A Lonely Woman, 1981), Krzysztof Kieslowski's Przypadek (Blind Chance, 1981), and Janusz Zaorski' s Matka Kr6low (Mother of Kings, 1982). But by the time of their release, some of these temporally dislodged films had lost much of their artistic impetus. Interrogation, Blind Chance, and other political films of the early 1980s are members of a dead class; political metaphors and symbols prevalent before 1989 no longer dominate the industry. Film-making has ceased to be a national and social mission and has once again become a strictly professional endeavor. Rather than being more than cinema, it has now shrunk (without negative connotation) to being simply cinema, and exists somewhere on the margins of Polish life.