Prisoner-of-war stories in the movies (the case of Andrzej Munk’s Eroica)

Abstract

This paper analyses Polish feature films which deal with the subject of POW camps during World War II, especially the so-called oflags (German: Offizierslager), i.e. Wehrmacht camps for officers. In Poland, nearly 200 feature films about World War II and the Nazi occupation were made in 1945–1999, with only eight raising the topic of POW camps. Eroica directed by Andrzej Munk is one of the first examples, and the best-known one. It depicts the social world of the oflags in a grotesque and ironic light, which was acclaimed by film experts but criticised by historians. The theoretical and methodological approach used in the sociology of art and in historical sociology can be invoked to analyse all the elements of the communication system: the creator, the work, and the audience in their social and historical context. The sociological analysis presented here only concerns the content of the film (the juxtaposition of “the truth of time” and “the truth of the screen”) and its social reception among different categories of viewers, each with their specific competences. The theoretical concepts developed by S. Ossowski, A. Kłoskowska, P. Francastel, E. Panofsky and P. Bourdieu are used here, alongside historical and sociological analyses of POW camps (D. Kisielewicz, A. Matuchniak-Mystkowska). The paper presents a certain research idea and describes methods that can be used to pursue it.