The Narrative Functions of the Admonisher in Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross (2011)

Abstract

Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross (2011) offers the possibility to enter the highly complex painting of the Flemish master, crossing the boundaries between painting and cinema. The article aims to reveal how the visual motif of the admonisher, which can be found both in the theory of painting (e.g. in Alberti’s treatise On Painting) and the practice of pictorial arts (especially in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s paintings), is appropriated to compose a cinematic adaptation of Bruegel’s painting The Way to the Calvary (1564). Since the use of this narrative device, the admonisher, constitutes one of the most important motifs in the film, the main aspect of the study will focus on how the narrative functions of the pictorial figure are operated to arouse the spectators’ curiosity, leading them in the meanders of the composition, and triggering potential narrative threads. Through the analysis of the film, firstly, I will demonstrate the narrative functions of the admonisher, secondly, the logic of animating the whole movie, and finally, how the animation process explores the intermedial relationship between painting and cinema.