{"title":"Poland under Martial Law in Netflix’s 1983 as a Critique of Contemporary Polish Socio-Politics: An Intertextual Analysis","authors":"Krzysztof E. Borowski","doi":"10.1080/2040350x.2023.2170735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350x.2023.2170735","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74586470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sexual Humiliation in Polanski’s Bitter Moon and Venus in Fur","authors":"J. R. Young","doi":"10.1080/2040350X.2023.2168119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350X.2023.2168119","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Roman Polanski’s films are master classes in entertaining an audience and keeping them engaged, but they are no mere popcorn movies. Bitter Moon and Venus in Fur excel as studies in sexual humiliation and degradation. It is a leitmotif that runs through the filmmaker’s work, from Knife in the Water to Death and the Maiden. Both Moon and Venus invoke the earlier Cul-de-Sac, ramping up the humiliation that permeates the latter and presenting it in a more provocative and titillating fashion. Polanski’s proclivities almost certainly reflect his Eastern European sensibilities and his penchant for the Theatre of the Absurd, and appear to be autobiographical as well.","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"17 1","pages":"356 - 359"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86003349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Sight and Sound Poll and Eastern European Cinema","authors":"E. Mazierska","doi":"10.1080/2040350x.2023.2169372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350x.2023.2169372","url":null,"abstract":"The Sight and Sound polls for the Best Films of all times, conducted from 1952 every decade, are an important barometer of changes in the cinematic tastes of broadly understood specialists: film critics and, in due course, filmmakers. Such judgement is not entirely subjective and neither does it reflect an objective aesthetic value of films. It is shaped by changes in cinema itself; resulting, for example, from evolutions in technology and film distribution, and many extra-cinematic factors, such as political events, as well as age, gender, race and national and regional loyalties of the judges, or their lack thereof, to list only some of the factors. The latest Sight and Sound poll for the Best 100 Films of all times, published in December 2022, attracted much attention, at least online, with commentators highlighting the difference in results from previous polls. The most revolutionary change was the de-crowning of Vertigo (1958) by Alfred Hitchcock, which is now number 2 on the list, by Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) by Chantal Akerman. This is the first time a female filmmaker has taken the number one spot since the poll’s inception. Jeanne Dielman appeared on the previous poll, but its jump of 35 places from the 2012 poll is remarkable. Another difference across the poll is the large proportion – in comparison with previous polls – of films made by women. Apart from two films by Akerman – the second being News from Home (1976) – we also find films by Claire Denis, Maya Deren, Agnès Varda, Julie Dash, and Věra Chytilová. Relatively new films also found their way into the first 100 rankings, including Parasite (2019), directed by Bong Joon-ho in 90th position, Moonlight (2016), directed by Barry Jenkins (60th) and Portrait of A Lady on Fire (2019), directed by Céline Sciamma (30th). Films made by Black and Asian directors also did well, as exemplified by the successes of Bong Joon-ho and Jenkins, in addition to Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. The last poll also stablished two directors at the forefront of what can be regarded as classics of postmodern cinema: David Lynch and Wong Kar-Wai. Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) reached 8th place and Wong’s In the Mood For Love (2000), entering the top 10 in 5th, and each of these two directors also have a second film on the list. Their films are gaining in (critical) significance. On the other hand, a notable difference from earlier incarnations of the poll is the departure of many classics, such as Lawrence of Arabia, Raging Bull, Rio Bravo alongside the disappearance of films from such directors as Nicholas Ray, Ernst Lubitsch, Luis Buñuel, or Robert Altman. Equally, films from many important younger directors, such as Pedro Almodóvar, Lars von Trier or Paul Thomas Anderson, also failed to reach the first hundred best films. By and large, the dominance of films made by white European and American male directors in such ‘best of ’ tables is coming to its end. This is ref","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"9 1","pages":"202 - 205"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89623124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gaming Eastern Europe: Production, Distribution and Consumption","authors":"Lars Kristensen","doi":"10.1080/2040350X.2023.2149122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350X.2023.2149122","url":null,"abstract":"This is the first special issue of Studies in Eastern European Cinema that addresses computer game culture within the region of Eastern Europe. The reasons for doing so are twofold. The first has to do with the idea of convergence between industries. The film and game industries are increasingly overlapping, meaning that separating the two on the levels of production and consumption is unproductive. This does not mean that films become computer games, or games become films – in the form of one media product being translated into another as transmedia adaptations. Instead, the relationship between the two industries is much more dynamic; for example, film production is borrowing tools from game production. In virtual production, large studios use computer game engines to render sets while shooting live action scenes, which make shooting faster and more effective to meet the demands of major streaming services. Another example of industry convergence is the fact that computer games are moving closer to immersive forms, where head-mounteddisplays are essential for the ultimate experience of a work, which is often less ludic and more geared toward experience design and performance arts, something that lies at the foundation of cinema. This cross-over illustrates how technological environments are converging to facilitate storytelling on a different level. The second issue that grounds this turn towards games is the fact that computer games are played by large audiences. As more and more film students emerge with gameplay experience in their toolkits, the way we study screen media, including social media and television, needs to address the media ‘next door’, of which the computer game is an important one. The current generation of university students has grown up playing games on a daily basis and are likely to continue this activity in some form. In short, it is unproductive to remain ignorant of developments in computer games while our students are playing games as well as watching films. However, this puts the spotlight on a problematic issue; namely, how we should study games and how is studying games different from studying cinema? Highlighting this here might get some game scholars out of their seats, arguing that game studies has already had this debate in the early 2000s, with Janet Murray and Esben Aarseth as the leading scholars. Some readers would argue that the field of game studies is already past this discussion, having formed its own discipline game studies. However, game studies are still a divided field dependent on which perspective we are looking at the game and indeed dependent on what kind of game is being analysed. It is still the case that many academic divisions ‘claim’ games as a core division – computer science, sociology, linguistics, education, and the arts and humanities. Regional studies, too, have to be attuned to this development, which is something that we hope to reflect through this special issue.","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"5 1","pages":"1 - 7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79200808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interview with Ágnes Karolina Bakk (ÁKB) and Alexey Izvalov (AI)","authors":"Lars Kristensen, Marcus Toftedahl","doi":"10.1080/2040350x.2022.2159161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350x.2022.2159161","url":null,"abstract":". PhD","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"2 1","pages":"98 - 105"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87113240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Officer and a Spy: Roman Polanski in the Benjaminian Interior","authors":"Żaneta Jamrozik","doi":"10.1080/2040350X.2022.2152542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350X.2022.2152542","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy (2019) represents France of La Belle Époque not through cafés, cabarets, and literary salons but as a military state of dilapidated army offices filled with half-asleep soldiers, dust, stink, and clouds of suspicion. The Third Republic seems suspended between its revolutionary past and the bleak present: the lost war with Germany and constant governmental scandals. The country recedes into the interior to try less grandeur methods like plotting, spying and surveillance. Polanski recounts the era through the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906), treated not as a designed plot but as a logical outcome of the bureaucratic system of the state. I analyse An Officer and a Spy historically alongside Walter Benjamin’s writing on the interior. Benjamin’s interior is a complex space that can function as a protective space, a space of death or inertia, a space of history and action as well as a colonising space that brings together the far and the near through colonial objects and customs.","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"137 1","pages":"313 - 334"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79733355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Educational Corpus Based Exploration of Contemporary Hungarian Cinema: Lessons of the 2021 Hungarian University Film Awards","authors":"Zsolt Győri","doi":"10.1080/2040350x.2022.2149043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350x.2022.2149043","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84667574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jan Hanzlík, Petr Szczepanik, K. Čada, Zuzana Chytková
{"title":"‘I don’t care if it’s the Third World War’: Czech cinemagoers during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Jan Hanzlík, Petr Szczepanik, K. Čada, Zuzana Chytková","doi":"10.1080/2040350x.2022.2144461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350x.2022.2144461","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82750448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Approaches to Crime and Punishment in a Historical Context: Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden","authors":"András Lénárt","doi":"10.1080/2040350X.2022.2141967","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350X.2022.2141967","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden (1994), the adaptation of a play written by Ariel Dorfman, can be interpreted on various levels. Although not stated explicitly, it is unambiguous that the background of the story is the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, though it could equally have been any East-Central European or Latin American country with a dictatorial past. This motion picture raises questions concerning human consciousness, guilt, pain and torture (both emotional and physical), revenge and moral uncertainty. Three episodes of Polanski’s life may add a special significance to this adaptation. Being a Holocaust survivor, the Polish director experienced the repression of a dictatorship and the effects of human cruelty. Furthermore, his pregnant wife was brutally murdered by the Manson Family. Also, taking into consideration that he was found guilty of unlawful sex with a minor, he knows how society and individuals punish someone for his or her crimes. The aim of my article is to examine the possible interpretations of the movie, paying special attention to Polanski’s approach towards tragedies, dictatorships (in both East-Central Europe and Latin America), and personal guilt, and also to highlight what message the film may transmit to future generations.","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"3 1","pages":"267 - 279"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79448399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Agent to Subject: Panoptic and Post-Panoptic Surveillance in Contemporary Eastern European Television Series","authors":"Veronika Hermann","doi":"10.1080/2040350x.2022.2137006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350x.2022.2137006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52267,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Eastern European Cinema","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79993691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}