What Happened to the Polish Multitude?: Representation of Working People in Polish Postcommunist Cinema

Abstract

To my mind, 1989 corresponds to 1968. While 1968 had broken down walls that closed our society, 1989 broke down wall that defended socialism, from world market. -Antonio Negri1 Some of main changes brought about by collapse of communism were related to work. Capitalism replaced communism and, with that, free market replaced a regulated, centrally planned economy, post- Fordism replaced Fordism, and flexible employment and unemployment replaced jobs for life. However, surprisingly few Polish films made after 1989 put at center of their discourse question of work, career, class, and social advancement. Equally, little has been written on this subject. I address this gap in research by examining three Polish films made after 1989: Psy/Dogs (1992), directed by Wladyslaw Pasikowski; Komornik/Bailiff(2005), directed by Feliks Falk; and Silesia, directed by Anna Kazejak- Dawid, which is first part in an omnibus film Oda do radosci/Ode to Joy (2005), of which two remaining parts were directed by Jan Komasa and Maciej Migas. The central issue of my discussion is how situation of working people, as represented in these films, compares to that of workers in Polish films made in 1970s, last de cade before communism collapsed. Before I discuss Dogs, Bailiff, and Silesia, I characterize Cinema of Moral Concern of 1970s, last distinctive paradigm of Polish cinema. My main conceptual tool to describe similarities and differences pertaining to repre sen ta tion of work in these two cinematic paradigms is multitude, borrowed from books by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who transplanted it to postmodern discourse on work from writings of Hobbes and Spinoza.2 Multitude can be understood as a global citizens' movement against various forms of oppressions, including economic exploitation. Multitude conveys an idea that certain conditions, people belonging to different social classes might collaborate to overturn what Hardt and Negri call an Empire: an oppressive po liti cal system that spreads across national borders. Hardt and Negri use to describe po liti cal, social, and cultural conditions in late capitalist world, but this concept also adequately captures situation late socialism. The Solidarity movement in Poland, which spread to practically whole of Eastern Bloc and resulted in its collapse, was, in my view, perfect embodiment of multitude. As Slavoj Zizek notes, it was a po liti cal alliance between many divergent and potentially antagonistic positions, including conservative nationalists, business- oriented individuals, Catholic Church, farmers, artists, intellectuals, workers, and old disillusioned leftists. It happened, as Zizek puts it, under banner of a signifier which stands, as it were, on very border which separates po liti cal form from pre- political, and 'Solidarity' was perfect candidate: it is po liti cally operative as designating 'simple' and 'fundamental' unity of human beings which should link them beyond po liti cal differences.3 Of course, Solidarity as multitude was possible because of nearly universal hatred of Soviet Empire in Poland and despite numerous divisions existing in Polish society, between and inside social classes, and certain seeming advantages of living communist system. Hardt and Negri purposefully play down differences between those who make up multitude because unity in diversity is at core of this concept. The most important relation for them is that between multitude and Empire. I am, however, as interested in relation between those who belong to these social forms as between multitude (real and potential) and Empire. For this reason, I employ Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of capital, field, and habitus. At heart of these concepts is a conviction that social world should be considered in terms of relations, which are constantly shifting: the real is relational. …