Cinema as Optic Poetry: On Attempts to Futurize the Cinematograph in Poland of the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

In Anatol Stern's memoirs published in 1963 under the telling title Gld niejedoznacznosci (Hunger for Ambiguity), he wrote: vehemence of our struggle for a new art in the 1920's and '30's probably reminded some of religious wars or the War of the Roses... Despite drastic theoretical differences, the leading innovators held similar views about the future of militant art.I True, the hunger for ambiguity which tormented the young Polish artists of those days who launched a campaign for a new-or rather modern-art spawned a plethora of diverse isms, artistic trends and groups justifying the need for and sense of unusual and shocking forms of expression and behaviour. The first spontaneous attempts to explode the traditional artistic order resulted in scandalous artistic events and a number of vague, often incomprehensible, theoretical declarations. The high emotional tension and unbridled passion that gripped the young rebels often plunged their creative minds into the traps of solipsism and intolerance. The common struggle for a new art almost turned into a civil war, with avantgarde groups combating each other, and individual artists changing their views, of proclaiming new trends, and speaking different languages. The multitude of articulation styles, incoherence, and fragmentary nature of expressed ideas, the carefree attitude toward and disregard for linguistic rules-all these were features of the cultural phenomenon whose only aim was to legitimize a progressive conception of thinking about art. The atmosphere of excessive exultation and adolescent fun suffusing the artistic breakthrough was additionally fueled by those critics and snobs among the public who were out to quench their thirst for scandal and uncompromising novelty; however, most professional critics, such as Karol Irzykowski, found it hard to distinguish between the various artistic programmes, trends and group, and viewed the entire phenomenon as a generation transforming a large area of human activity because personal divisions in the groups were blurred and the same artists pronounced themselves in different periods to be expressionists, futurists. formists. etc. Literature and art historians are still confronted with many problems in regard to this recent episode in Poland's culture. The programmes and evolution of the various artistic trends are hard to reconstruct and comprehend. Writes Alina Kowalczykowa: main difficulty lies... in that climate... something that is impossible to recreate. The more so since among the plentiful diaries from those times there is not one that would keep a record of something as inconsequential as the petty scandals among futurists. So there is also a documentation barrier.2 Therefore, the hallmarks of Polish futurism that will interest me most here are the hazy institutional frameworks, the fluid matter of the media discovered by artists, and the sketchy character of theoretical slogans put forward by them. These features are most likely the result of the Polish avant-garde's trailing behind the cultural reforms abroad. Futurism came to Poland only when it entered its period of decline in Italy and Russia. On the one hand, the Polish artists wanted to join the European intellectual and artistic movements and with this in mind embraced the programmes of Italian reformists and let themselves be influenced by Russian experimentators and French Dadaists in artistic creation; on the other hand, the national criteria and values cherished by Polish artists made for the originality of their contribution to the universal reform of art. The awareness of one's uniqueness, often manifested by the artists, was the key factor here. One of their number was Jalu Kurek, described by Filippo T. Marinetti as possessing a futuristic talent, who made this declaration in his introduction to Chora fontanna (The Sick Fountain): was not a pure futurist. Of course, I was an heir and student of Marinetti but I was in the senior class. …