Black-and-White Sensations of History and Female Identity in Contemporary Polish and Czech Cinema

Abstract

This chapter addresses the aesthetic of black-and-white filmmaking in the digital age, with special attention to the ways in which the black-and-white image manifests its perceptual otherness in between the analogue and the digital, the natural and the artificial, the cinematic and the photographic. Through examples taken from contemporary Polish and Czech cinema, including Hi, Tereska! (Cześć, Tereska, Robert Gliński, 2001), The Reverse (Rewers, Borys Lankosz, 2009), Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013), Papusza (Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze, 2013), Cold War (Zimna wojna, Paweł Pawlikowski, 2018) and I, Olga Hepnarová (Já, Olga Hepnarová, Tomáš Weinreb and Petr Kazda, 2016), it discusses the uses and functions of the black-and-white image rendering female identity caught in the grip of Eastern European history. The black-and-white image is often associated with high artistry and the photographic quality of film; accordingly, the emphasis is laid on photographic compositions, static shots, long takes and tableau moments, which confer on the digital monochrome subtle sensations of intermediality.