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RES HISTORICA 50, 2020
DOI:10.17951/rh.2020.50.573-604
Piotr Witek
Strategie uhistoryczniania lmowego świata przedstawionego i narracji
lmowej w kinie historycznym. Analiza zjawiska na wybranych przykładach
ABSTRACT
The article deals with the issue of strategy of historicizing lm narrative and the world
presented on a screen in historical cinema. It shows with what elements the lm narrative
and the world presented on a screen are historicized. In the introduction of the article, the
most important analytical categories such as historical lm and strategies of historicizing
lm narrative and the world presented on a screen are conceptualized. Historical lm is
dened as an operational category requiring conceptualization relativized to a cultural
context of its use. A historical lm is described as a screening work covering various geno-
logical structures, the subject of which relates to the past. The strategies of historicizing the
lm narrative and the lm world presented on a screen are understood as numerous ways
PUBLICATION INFO
2019.07.01
ACCEPTED:
2020.01.15
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of equipping the lm with various signs of historicity that allow the viewer/researcher
to get an impression of the screen eect of a time shift towards the past. In the following
parts of the article, the signs of historicity that have the function of historicizing the lm
narrative and the world presented on a screen are analyzed on the examples of various
lms covering a wide spectrum of history from ancient times to the present day. The Signs
of historicity include the following elements: (1) scenery, stage design, costumes; (2) langu-
age; (3) music; (4) characterization; (5) events and characters. Strategies of historicizing the
world presented on a screen and lm narrative, which have been analyzed in the article,
play a particularly important role in the so-called classic lms made in the aesthetics of
zero style cinema.
Key words: visual history, historical lm, lm narrative, depicted world, staging, hi-
storicizing, set design, costumes, language, music, events, characters, makeup, mise-en-
scène
History has been a charming subject of interest of the cinema from
its very beginning. It is worth mentioning in this context such titles as:
The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (1908), directed by Albert Lambert
and Charles Le Bargy; The Birth of a Nation (1915); Intolerance (1916),
directed by David W. Grith; Napoleon (1927), directed by Abel Gance;
Baleship Potemkin (1925), Ivan The Terrible (1944, 1945), directed by Siergiej
M. Eisenstein; Ben Hur (1925), directed by Fred Niblo; La Grande Illusion
(1937), directed by Jean Renoir; Gone with the Wind (1939), directed by
George Cukor; Rome, Open City (1945), directed by Roberto Rossellini;
Kościuszko near Racławice (1938), directed by Józef Lejtes; Forbidden Songs
(1946), directed by Leonard Buczkowski; The Last Stage (1947); The Soldier
of Victory (1953), directed by Wanda Jakubowska; Sewer (156), Ashes and
Diamonds (1958), directed by Andrzej Wajda, and much more. Today,
historical cinema is a subject of interest of not only historians of lm and
specialists in lm studies but also of historians, especially theoreticians
and methodologists of history. They treat lm as an instrument of serious
reection on history and the past constituting a real alternative for the
ocial academic historiography. They see lmmakers as unconventional
historians who are partners for licensed researchers of past realities in the
debate on the past and history. Therefore, historical lm is considered by
historians not as a work of art – a product of social artistic practice – but
an audiovisual historical narrative able to contribute to the debate about
the past in an interesting way1.
1 See: e.g.: R.A. Rosenstone, History on Film: Film on History, London–New York–Boston–
San Francisco–Toronto–Tokyo–Singapore–Hong Kong–Seoul–Taipei–New Delhi–Cape
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Here, we should reect over the status of lm as historical narrative –
in other words, over the way in which a lm becomes historical. In one of
my previous texts, I wrote that a lm (documentary/feature lm), being
a form of modeling and recording of social experience and constructing
variants of possible worlds through the act of lming, becomes a historical
one in the case when it is considered to be such by the viewers/scholars
within particular interpretative community. Thus, perceiving a lm as
historical is related to the way in which we understand historicity in
a given system of reference. The same lm might be considered historical
in one system of reference, whereas in another one it may not deem to
be such. This means that historical lm is an operational category every
time requiring conceptualization relativized according to the cultural
context of its use. In my reections, I will use the conceptualization of
historical lm oered by Zygmunt Machwi. In his opinion, historical
lm has a syncretic character, and that means that it exists in result of
inter-genre instrumentation. So, ‘historical lm […] is a collective name,
including various genological structures, whose theme relates to the past,
is supported by historical knowledge that, combined with ction, gives
a generalized image of the past, remaining within perceptual possibilities
a viewer equipped with a specic historical consciousness’2.
Considering a given lm to be a cinematic historical narrative within
an interpretative community is conditioned by the signs of historicity, that
the author equipped the work with, and by cultural competence of the
viewer, that is by the ability to recognize in particular work the signs and
formulas serving as denotations of historicity of the screen story. Of course,
particular signs and formulas that are denotations of historicity of the
cinematic historical narrative have relative character. Depending on the
interpretative context, given signs and formulas may be recognized and
considered to be signs of historicity of a lm narrative or not. I call various
Town–Madrid–Mexico City–Amsterdam–Munich–Paris–Milan 2006; idem, Visions of the
Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History, Cambridge MA–London 1995; P. Witek,
Andrzej Wajda jako historyk. Metodologiczne studium z historii wizualnej, Lublin 2016; idem,
Kultura. Film. Historia. Metodologiczne problemy doświadczenia audiowizualnego, Lublin 2005;
M. Ferro, Cinema and History, Wayne State University Press 1988.
2 ‘lm historyczny […] jest nazwą zbiorczą, obejmującą różne struktury genologiczne,
których temat odnosi się do przeszłości, wsparty jest wiedzą historyczną, która w połączeniu
z kcją daje uogólniony obraz przeszłości, pozostający w możliwościach percepcyjnych widza
wyposażonego w określoną świadomość historyczną’. Z. Machwi, Fabularny lm historyczny
– problemy gatunku, ‘Folia Filmologica. Zeszyty Naukowe’ 1983, 1, p. 125. I developed this
issue elsewhere. See: P. Witek, Film historyczny jako gatunek dwojakiego rodzaju. Kilka uwag
metodologicznych o „(nie)użyteczności” teorii genologicznej w reeksji o lmie historycznym, ‘Annales
Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska. Sectio F’ 2011, 66, 2, pp. 87–113.
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ways of equipping lm in dierent kinds of denotations of historicity the
strategies of historicization of lm narrative and the presented cinematic
world.
Due to the fact that the conception that I respect assumes that historical
lm is a story depicting the closer or more distant past, one of the most
important signs of historicity of the lm story is, in this case, the eect of
screen shift in time towards the past. It consists in the viewer being aware
of the dierence between the world presented on the screen and the one
that he/she knows from his/her contemporary everyday experience.
Historicity of lm narrative and the presented world is manifested, in
this case, by, among others, three basic elements: scenery, scenography
and costumes. Recognizing them as historical (denoting the past) enables
us to consider the lm narrative and the presented world as historical.
Let us use as an example one of the rst historical lms, The Assassination
of the Duke of Guise. The lm is a silent story, realized in 1908, lasting
a quarter. The lm plot takes place on 25 December 1588. The Duke Guise
is a leader of French Catholics. He is also a candidate for the throne.
Summoned by the king Henry III, he goes to the castle of Blois. The ruler
prepares a trap for the duke. He orders armed with swords and daggers
courtiers to murder Guise as soon as he crosses the doorstep of king’s
apartment. The duke takes up a ght with the aackers but, outnumbered,
gives up and is killed. The king orders to burn the body of the murdered.
A very important role of dening historicity of the narrative is played
in this picture by scenography and costumes. Interiors and clothes are
stylized as the old ones. They dier from those known by the viewers at
the beginning of the 20th century from everyday experience. On the screen,
we can see men dressed in crinkled, thigh-ing trousers, stockings, high
heels shoes/slippers, caftans with capes fastened to them, they wear hats
on their heads and berets, with rapiers aached to their belts3. The look
of the interiors, clothes of particular characters and props resembles the
interiors, aires, and props known from the iconography of the epoch that
the lm depicts and from paintings presenting the 16th century, created
in the 17th, 18th or 19th century. In this context, it is worth mentioning
exemplary paintings: ‘The Death of Henry II at the Hand of a Monk’
(Hugues Merle), ‘Henry III and the Duke Guise’ (Pierre-Charles Comte),
3 M. Gutkowska-Rychlewska, Historia ubiorów, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków 1968.
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‘Ball at the Court of Henry III’ (Unknown), ‘The Assassination of Guise’
(Paul Delaroche).
The situation is not dierent in the case of lms realized in later years.
A good example may be the screenings of the novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz
‘Quo Vadis’ from 1951, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and from 2001,
directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, depicting Rome in the times of Nero4.
The scenography and costumes in these lms also play a very important
role in dening historicity of the narrative and the depicted world.
On the screen, we see architecture stylized as that typical for the ancient
Rome. One of the most typical objects is the amphitheater with open oval
arena and seats for the audience in the form of steps. This type of buildings
usually hosted games which included gladiator ghts and chariot racing.
The arena of amphitheater in the mentioned lms serves mostly as a place
of execution of Christians killed by wild animals. Buildings on the streets
of Rome and interiors of houses of Roman ocials visible in both lms
are equipped with columns typical for the ancient world, known from
preserved fragments (ruins) of ancient buildings5. We can also see, on the
squares of the Eternal City and in the interiors of the palace of Nero and
Roman senators, monuments, statues, busts, resembling ancient sculptures
displayed in contemporary museums.
We can also see, in the lm, Roman ocials traveling through the
city in sedan chairs carried by slaves. Mentions about this form of travel
through the streets of ancient Rome can be found in ancient texts – for
instance, in Seneca6. Also, gurines depicting men carrying a sedan chair
4 On screening of Quo Vadis of Henryk Sienkiewicz see: J. Słodowski, Filmowe adaptacje
Quo Vadis? Henryka Sienkiewicza, in: Sienkiewicz i lm, ed. L. Ludorowski, Kielce 1998, pp.
101–110. On visualization of ancient Rome in lm see a very interesting study: M. Wyke,
Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History, London 1997.
5 On architecture of ancient Rome see e.g.: E. Makowiecka, Sztuka Rzymu od Augusta
do Konstantyna, Warszawa 2010.
6 See: L.A. Seneka, Listy moralne do Lucyliusza, LV, zrodla.historyczne.pl, 2003, hp://
biblioteka.kijowski.pl/antyk%20rzymski/06.%20seneka%20lucjusz%20anneusz%20
-%20listy%20moralne%20do%20lucyliusza.pdf [accessed on: 10 V 2020]: ‘Gdy właśnie
wracam z odbytej w lektyce przejażdżki, czuję się nie mniej zmęczony, niż gdybym to, co
przesiedziałem, przebył pieszo. Bo dać się długo nieść to także trud; i nie wiem, czy nie tym
większy, że sprzeczny jest z naturą, która dała nam nogi, żebyśmy sami chodzili, i oczy,
żebyśmy sami patrzyli. Wygody osła biły nas tak, iż staliśmy się niezdolni do wszystkiego,
na co przez dłuższy czas nie mieliśmy ochoty. Dla mnie jednak wstrząsanie ciała było
potrzebne po to, by żółć, jeśli osiadła w ciasnych przewodach, została rozpędzona, lub
sam oddech, jeśli z jakiejś przyczyny stał się gęstszy, był rozcieńczony przez wstrząsy,
które wedle mego odczucia dobrze mi robiły’ [‘While I am just returning from a ride in
a sedan chair, I feel no less tired than if I walked what I was siing. Because leing them to
be carried long – is also a labor; and I do not know if not even bigger, as it is contradictory
with nature which gave us legs to walk ourselves, and eyes to see ourselves. Comforts
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coming from ancient Rome have been preserved. This way, the sedan chair
also performs the function of denoting both the ‘ancient’ historicity of the
world presented in the lm and the historicity of the screen story.
A characteristic emblem of the world of ancient Rome are, undoubtedly,
chariots – two-wheeled carts pulled by horses, used by the Roman army
e.g. as parade carts or by the participants of the games for races. We see
them in the lm of LeRoy several times. On the beginning, right after
the prologue, we watch the return to Rome of the 14th Legion under the
command of Marcus Vindictus who travels in a chariot drawn by two
horses. Chariots have also been incredibly well presented in the scene of
the praetorian chase after Vinicius rushing to the rescue of Lygia after the
arson of Rome by Nero. In the picture of Kawalerowicz, the chariots are
not displayed in such a spectacular way as in the American lm, however,
they appear there as well. In both lms, they resemble the ancient Roman
vehicles visible in, among others, ancient mosaics preserved to this day.
And as in the case of sedan chair, they perform the function of an ‘ancient’
denotation of historicity of lm narrative and the presented world.
Aires in lms on the ancient Rome are exceptionally emblematic –
men’s outts, worn by high ocials in particular. They included a white
tunic and a toga. Representatives of higher classes wore white tunics with
two red stripes about 4 cm wide, running down from the arms. Senators
also wore white tunics with one, 8 cm wide, red stripe running between
the arms down from the neck. Toga was an outwear. It was a piece of
material folded lengthwise. Its one edge was thrown on the left arm, then
was put on the back, while its other edge was taken under the right arm
and again thrown on the left arm, this time to the front7. In the American
version of the lm, characters from the circle of the emperor Nero wear
white gowns stylized as Roman tunics. They are similar in the lm of
Kawalerowicz. For example, Marcus Vindictus wears a white tunic with
two red stripes, Petronius and Aulus Placius wear white tunics decorated
with one red stripe. In the American screening, outwear of the Roman
high ocials resemble more of capes or coats stylized as togas. The oeuvre
of Kawalerowicz is a bit dierent – the outwear of the high ocials
looks here are togas that we can see in the preserved ancient frescoes or
weakened us, so we became unable to do anything we would not like to do for a long time.
For me, however, shaking the body was necessary for the gall, if not seled in narrow
conduits, to be dispersed, or for the breath, if for some reason became thicker, to be diluted
by the shakes that, in my opinion, did me well’].
7 See: F. Boucher, 20000 Years of Fashion. The History of Costume and Personal Adornment,
London 1959; J. Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome: The People and the City at the Height of
the Empire, New Haven 2003.
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Roman sculptures (e.g. the, so-called, Barberini statue). Tunics and togas
appearing in lms about ancient Rome, as sedan chairs or chariots, act as
denotations of historicity of the presented world and lm narrative. They
enable viewers to recognize that the lm plot is situated not in the 17th-
century France but in the ancient Rome.
Films depicting the past nearer to contemporaneity, 19th or 20th
century, are no dierent. Let us look at some examples of lms presenting
the last century.
The lm Stalingrad (2013), directed by Fiodor Bondarczuk, depicts
the siege of Stalingrad by the German army under the command of the
general Friedrich Paulus, defended by the Red Army and the inhabitants
of the city during the Second World War. The lm’s plot takes place in
a war landscape, among ruins, in the streets and on the squares piled
high with rubble. It is dicult then to expect the scenery to be a sucient
denotation of historicity which would indicate the fact that, on the screen,
we deal with a reference to a particular period in the past. Urban ruins
not necessarily have to denote a war landscape. We can easily imagine
that the city lying in rubble that we see on the screen is an eect of e.g.
an earthquake or ecological catastrophe in a non-specied time (the past,
present, and the future). For that reason, other elements play the role of
the denotations of historicity in the lm of Bondarczuk. As the lm depicts
warfare, these are, rst of all, uniforms and equipment of soldiers ghting
on both sides of the front.
German soldiers wear uniforms of eld gray color. Particular characters
are dressed in uniform jackets resembling uniform blouses (models M36,
M43) and trousers (models M37, M40, M43). Ocers wear uniform jackets
which can be associated with uniform blouses (model HBT). We can see,
on the heads of German privates and non-commissioned ocers, forage
caps, with a design referring to models M43 and M34 and helmets of
Stahlhelm type with a visible cut in front and specic neck protection in
the back, with emblems of swastika painted on the sides. In the lm, the
design of the headgear of ocers resembles round caps with hard peak
of crusher type. Soldiers and non-commissioned ocers wear two kinds
of weapon which, by their look, refer to the mauzer 98K rie and MP40
machine gun (‘schmeisser’). Ocers use short weapon that looks like
P08 gun (parabellum).
Red Army soldiers in the lm of Bondarczuk wear uniforms of green
and khaki color. Most often, they are dressed in uniform blouses with
a few buons on the chest resembling gimnastiorkas (no 35). Their design
was based on peasants’ shirts called rubaska. Equally often, soldiers
appear on the screen in quilted jackets (waciaks) resembling warm work
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clothes of kufajka/tiełofriejka type. We can see three types of headgear
on the heads of Red Army soldiers: forage caps with a star, earaps with
a star and 6-rivet helmets. Red Army soldiers in the lm use automatic
weapons with a drum magazine that look like PPSz41 submachine guns.
Ocers and commanders are equipped with short weapons which, by its
shape, resemble Soviet gun of Fiodor Tokariew’s construction so called TT
(tetetka)8.
Uniforms and armaments of both armies ghting with each other in
the lm of Bondarczuk are very similar to those known from thousands
of photographs and lm chronicles depicting German and Soviet soldiers
from the period of the Second World War. Their appearance has been
preserved and functions in the public space mainly thanks to historical
documentaries using archival chronicles and aired in thematic TV channels
such as ViaSat History, Discovery History, History or TVP Historia, as well
as historical channels on YouTube devoted to the war from the years of
1939–1945. The image of German and Soviet soldiers in the lm Stalingrad
allows viewers to easily recognize that the plot of the screened history
takes place during the Second World War, and this way clearly serves as
a denotation of historicity of the lm narrative and the presented world.
Films depicting even closer past, e.g. of the last two decades of the 20th
century, also deal with similar procedures of historicization. Let us take
a look at the biographical lm The Dirt (2019), directed by Jerey James
Tremain. It shows a story of an American band, Mötley Crüe, popular
in the 1980s and on the beginning of the 1990s, playing metal music
(described also as pop metal or hair metal)9.
One of the important features of glam metal music was a very distinctive
look of the performers, created and popularized at the end of the 1970s by,
among others, members of the group KISS. Each of the musicians of this
American band performed on stage in heavy and eye-catching makeup,
heavy boots, decorated with sequins and studs leather jackets and tight pants.
In Tremain’s lm, in the scenes depicting everyday life, we can see the
musicians from the band dressed in skinny pants, loose T-shirts, black, biker-
type leather jackets as well as jeans jackets (often with sleeves cut o presenting
taoos on their arms). The members of the group also wear long hair.
The stage image of the band diers from that of everyday life. In the
scenes from concerts, we can see the artists in provocative outts including:
8 On uniforms and armaments of German and Soviet military formations from the time
of the Second World War see: P. Rio, The Soviet Soldier 1941–1945, Histoire et Collections 2011;
J. de Lagarde, German Soldiers of World War Two, Casemate Publishers 2005.
9 On metal music see e.g.: B. Major, Dionizos w glanach. Ekstatyczność muzyki metalowej,
Kraków 2013.
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tight (black-red) pants, T-shirts, studded black leather bands on their wrists,
arms and forearms, wide leather belts fastened on the hips (also studded),
studded black leather collars, studded multicolored belts with visible
buckles entwining half-naked torsos, black leather armlets, black bands on
their heads with pentagram on the forehead. The image is supplemented
with spectacular makeup in the form of heavily painted cheeks, lips and
eyes. On their faces, we can see painted paerns and lines resembling body
decorations used by, for example, Native Americans. To complement this
stage image, the musicians in the lm wear long, teased hair.
The appearance of the members of Mötley Crüe presented on the screen
corresponds with the image of this kind of music groups of the 1980s,
created and popularized by the unusually popular at that time TV station
MTV (here it is important to note that the TV station appears in the lm
The Dirt), whose program was based on showing music videos, concerts
and interviews with musicians, and by illustrated music magazines of
that time (e.g. ‘Metal Hammer’) publishing, among others, photographs
of artists of the music scene. Thanks to the images produced by MTV and
illustrated music magazines, the characteristic image of the bands of the
1980s playing glam metal functions in the space of contemporary public
media. Original video materials from the 1980s, where we can see the
image of Mötley Crüe of that time, are available on YouTube on the channel
devoted to the group10. Therefore, the characteristic costumes which we
see in the screened story by Tremain eectively perform the function of
denotations of historicity in the lm narrative and the presented world
thanks to the fact that they bear similarity to the costumes of glam metal
musicians of the 1980s that we can see in the archival materials of MTV.
Historical lms not accidentally are sometimes named as costumed
lms as the styling of scenography and costumes so that they appear as
historical is indeed an important strategy of historicization of lm narrative
and the presented world.
An important element of the strategy of historicization of lm narrative
and the presented world is language which is used by the characters on
the screen. In lms speaking about older epochs – Antiquity or Middle
Ages – characters often speak contemporary languages. In the case of
10 Mötley Crüe, Ocial Website, YouTube, 30 August 2011, hps://www.youtube.com/
channel/UCq2g_Vcu3J1OwNRmdTNoxYA [accessed on: 8 VI 2019].
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the productions of Hollywood it is the English language, in European
pictures these are national languages of particular cinematographies:
French, Spanish, Russian, Polish, etc. And in the aforementioned lm
Quo Vadis (1951), directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the emperor Nero played by
Peter Ustinov, or Petronius played by Leo Genn, speak and communicate
in a beautiful contemporary American English. In Quo Vadis by Jerzy
Kawalerowicz, Nero and his circle speak in a beautiful contemporary
Polish. In the lm The Cradle (1974), directed by Jan Rybkowski, prince
Mieszko I, played by Wojciech Pszoniak, also speaks with contemporary
Polish, while the rhetoric he uses resembles strongly the rhetoric from
speeches of the Communist Party secretaries from the turn of the 1960s
and 1970s. In such cases, it is dicult to speak about the use of language
in the function of historicization of the narrative and the presented world.
However, there are many lm productions where the authors pay
aention to the language and treat it similarly to scenography or costumes,
that means, as an instrument of obtaining on the screen the eect of time
shift towards the past.
One of the most spectacular examples of this kind of procedure is the
considered controversial biblical drama by Mel Gibson entitled The Passion
of the Christ (2003). Contrary to the classic Hollywood productions, like for
instance mentioned Quo Vadis, the dialogues and speeches in Gibson’s lm
are expressed by the characters in several ancient languages – Hebrew,
Latin11, and Aramaic12 – which were used in the time and the area that
the lm talks about. Use of historical languages in their archaic sound by
the lm director in his tale of ancient times is, in this picture, one of very
important denotations of historicity. This procedure was a very successful
instrument of obtaining the eect of time shift, and, at the same time, of
historicization of the lm narrative and the presented world.
Mel Gibson’s proposal is one of a very few. Film directors usually do not
reach for such radical lm procedures of historicization of lm narrative
and screen reality. This does not mean, however, that they resign from
them completely. Easier solutions, consisting in styling of a language as
a historical one, are more frequently used. A great example of such tricks
may be Polish lms presenting the period of the First Polish Republic – the
trilogy of Sienkiewicz directed by Jerzy Homan. While watching Colonel
Wolodyjowski (1969), The Deluge (1974) or With Fire and Sword (1999), we
11 On the Latin language see: J. Safarewicz, Zarys historii języka łacińskiego, Wrocław
1986.
12 On the Aramaic language see: P. Nowicki, Język aramejski. Zagadnienia podstawowe,
Warszawa 1964.
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listen to the dialogues expressed in the Polish language which are for
an average viewer completely understandable, what means that the
characters use contemporary Polish. Nevertheless, that Polish has been
enriched with elements which do not occur in the contemporary Polish.
There are expressions such as: waćpan, waćpanna, kompanija, waszmość, waść,
as well as phrases with characteristic syntax: ‘through the intercession of
the Orszański standard-bearer, Andrzej Kmicic, to Michał Wołodyjowski
with the other stray and my other colonels, for rebel to death condemned,
I spare life and to Birczański prison I order to send them back’13, etc.
Thanks to the used styling, the language appears as Old Polish, the one
which was used in the times of the First Polish Republic14. This styling is
an eective instrument of obtaining the screen impression of time shift
and historicization of the lm narrative and the presented world.
Also lms presenting closer past use similar procedures of historiciza-
tion. A good example may be the pictures showing the times of the Polish
People’s Republic.
The lm The Great Race (1981), directed by Jerzy Domaradzki, depicts
a story of young activists of the Polish Youth Association and work
leaders from entire Poland taking part in a peace race organized by the
communist authorities in spring 1952. The characters of the screen story
speak contemporary Polish language understandable both for the viewer
watching the lm in the 1980s (when the lm was made) and for the viewer
watching Domaradzki’s picture in the second decade of the 21st century.
It might seem, then, that it would be dicult to consider the language that
is spoken by particular characters to be an eective instrument of obtaining
the eect of timeshift to the past on the screen. However, once we listen
carefully to that language, we will notice that it is strongly characterized
by the climate of the historical period presented by the lm.
We deal, in the screen story, with a rhetoric characteristic for the
Stalinist era. Communist apparatchiks in the lm, when addressing
singular person, use the second person pronoun in the plural – Polish
‘wy’ (in contrast to singular ‘ty’): ‘you know what you (wy) must do,
what a bighead you (wy) are, the success of this enterprise will be
your (wasz) success, etc. It is a typical way of addressing each other by
13 ‘za wstawiennictwem chorążego orszańskiego Andrzeja Kmicica, Michałowi
Wołodyjowskiemu z onym drugim przybłędą i innym moim pułkownikom za bunt na
śmierć skazanym darowuję życie i do birczańskiego więzienia odesłać nakazuję’.
14 On the Old Polish language see e.g.: Z. Klemensiewicz, Historia języka polskiego,
part 1, Doba staropolska (od czasów najdawniejszych do początków XVI wieku), Warszawa 1961;
idem, Historia języka polskiego, part 2, Doba średniopolska (od początków XVI wieku do ósmego
dziesięciolecia XVIII wieku), Warszawa 1965.
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communist activists ocially used in the time of the Polish People’s
Republic. The characters of the lm communicate often with each other
by the use of the term ‘comrade’ (both in masculine and feminine forms):
‘how does comrade chairman know?’; ‘there, in the room, you will nd
comrade Wrzesień’; ‘I am very sorry, comrade, I am only for a moment’;
‘comrade Fastyn has our full condence’; etc. From the beginning of the
Polish People’s Republic, the term ‘comrade’ was also used by the state
and administrative authorities.
The year 1952, when the lm plot takes place, is a time characterized
by intensication of terror of the authorities towards the society and of
the propaganda imposing the only right vision of the world dened and
respected by the communist ideology15. We deal with symptoms of this
propaganda in the language which is used by the characters of the lm
– communist functionaries and average participants of the race. In one of
the scenes, we see an ocial event of taking an oath by the sportsmen. The
text of the oath is read by a communist functionary Wrzesień. Let us recall
the words of the oath: ‘We, the Polish youth, devoted to the cause of the
ght for the only right social system – socialism, swear that we will use
our strength and courage achieved in sport for an anticipatory realization
of the six year plan’16. The text of the oath elevates, in this case, the socialist
system and everyone who works for its cause.
In the scene depicting the beginning of the next stage of the race, right
before the start, one of the participants of the competition reads an ocial
leer to the president Bierut prepared by the organizers: ‘We, the participants
of the peace race, are extending our sincere thanks to you, our best friend,
for the help and care that the people's state and the government under
your leadership have given to the mass youth movement. Only under the
conditions that you have created for us, we, young workers and peasants,
can we develop our abilities and make our fathers' dreams come true. We
send You, Citizen President, expressions of deep love and devotion, and
fruitful work for the happiness of our nation. Long live the president of
the Polish People's Republic, Bolesław Bierut’17. The text of the leer and its
15 On this topic see e.g.: M. Mazur, O człowieku tendencyjnym. Obraz nowego człowieka
w propagandzie komunistycznej w okresie Polski Ludowej i PRL 1944–1956, Lublin 2009.
16 ‘My młodzież polska, oddana sprawie walki o jedyny ustrój społeczny –
socjalizm, przysięgamy, że naszą siłę i odwagę zdobytą w sporcie wykorzystamy do
przedterminowego wykonania planu sześcioletniego’.
17 ‘My uczestnicy biegu pokoju, składamy tobie, naszemu najlepszemu przyjacielowi,
serdeczne podziękowanie za pomoc i opiekę, jaką państwo ludowe i rząd pod twoim
kierownictwem otaczają masowy ruch młodzieżowy. Jedynie w warunkach, jakie stworzyliście
nam, my młodzi robotnicy i chłopi możemy rozwijać nasze zdolności i realizować marzenia
ojców. Przesyłamy Ci obywatelu prezydencie wyrazy głębokiej miłości i oddania i owocnej
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language are symptoms of the communist newspeak and of a phenomenon
of the cult of individual from the rst decades of the People’s Poland.
In the lm, the language of communist propaganda is used in
communication between average participants of the peace race also in
everyday private conversations. In one of the scenes, we hear a dialogue of two
young boys Romek Martyniuk and Józek Butrym – Martyniuk: ‘Józek, I will
not manage to run further’18, Butrym: ‘Romuś, a true member of the Polish
Youth Association is distinguished by ghting strength, will of character and
great fortitude. […] We will prove to them that we can, not by words, but
by deeds, win not only at the construction site, defeat not only imperialists
and class enemies, but also other crooks. We will prove to them. It is an
obligation of every member of the Youth Association’19. This exchange almost
immediately brings to mind the dialogues from the propaganda socrealistic
lms20 produced in Poland in the 1940s and 1950s, commentaries from lm
chronicles of the Polish Film Chronicle and the press of that time21.
Thus, due to the similarity of the rhetoric of the language used by the
characters of the lm The Great Race and the rhetoric of the language of
the propaganda messages known from feature lms, lm materials of the
Polish Film Chronicle and the press of the Stalinist era, we can say that
the language in the picture of Jerzy Domaradzki performs the function of
a denotation of historicity of the lm narrative and the presented cinematic
world. The language that is spoken by the lm characters constitutes an
eective instrument for obtaining the screen impression of time shift
towards the past.
Historicity of lm narrative and the presented world may be
manifested also through the audio-sphere, for instance, music. Let us take
pracy dla szczęścia naszego narodu. Niech żyje prezydent Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej
Bolesław Bierut’.
18 ‘Józiu, ja nie dam rady dalej biec’.
19 ‘Romuś, prawdziwy ZMP-owiec wyróżnia się siłą walki, wolą charakteru i wielkim
hartem ducha. […] Nie słowami, lecz czynem dowiedziemy im, że potramy zwyciężać nie
tylko na budowie, nie tylko imperialistów i wrogów klasowych, ale i innych cwaniaków.
Pokażemy im. To jest obowiązkiem każdego ZMP-owca’.
20 On socrealistic cinema see: A. Madej, Socrealizm, ‘Kwartalnik Filmowy’ 1994, 6,
pp. 195–203. Also see: T. Lubelski, Historia kina polskiego. Twórcy, lmy, konteksty, Katowice
2009, pp. 143–156; M. Haltof, Kino polskie, Gdańsk 2002, pp. 75–92.
21 On propaganda in lm and press in 1944–1956 see: M. Mazur, op. cit., pp. 241–253,
283–301.
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a look at a few examples. The lm Yesterday (1984), directed by Radosław
Piwowarski, depicts the story of a group of young boys from a provincial
technical school sharing love for the music of the British group The Beatles.
Their love for the rock stars from the Islands is manifested through, among
others, the fact that the four protagonists copy the dressing style of their
idols, wear similar haircuts, take nicknames coming from the names of
the members of the band: John, Paul, George and Ringo, start their own
music band. In the lm, the main characters’ fascination with music is
the motivation for their behavior. The life of the students of the technical
school goes on around the music. They listen to the recordings of The
Beatles from music postcards, radio, or they perform the pieces of the
British artists themselves. In the lm, we can hear such pieces of music as,
among others, those from the debut album ‘Please Please Me’ (1963) and
the album ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (1964).
Taking into consideration the fact that the explosion of popularity of
The Beatles occurred in the 1960s and that we hear in the lm one of the
most known pieces of the four from Liverpool (e.g. ‘Love Me Do’, ‘And
I Love Her’) from the beginning of the group’s career, it can be said that the
diegetic music in Piwowarski’s picture successfully performs the function
of a denotation of historicity of the lm narrative and the presented world.
It signalizes eectively that the story presented on the screen takes place
in the middle of the sixth decade of the 20th century.
In the lm The Dirt, aforementioned in this article, a biographical
tale about the group Mötley Crüe playing a pop variety of metal, music
plays a very important role. Glam metal is a commercial variety of heavy
metal22, created at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, most popular in the
ninth decade of the previous century. Heavy metal as a music genre was
created on the basis of blues rock and hard rock. Simplifying, it can be
said that heavy metal music is characterized by a heavy tone achieved
with strongly distorted guitars and bass, diversied and variable tempo
of the songs (from slow and heavy to very fast), impressive guitar solos
and distinctive vocal. Glam metal combines the features of heavy metal
and pop music23. The laer is – in great simplication – characterized by
a rhythmical simplicity, ear-catching easy melodic line, usually lively
(dance) arrangement, supercial borrowings from other music styles, and
easy to remember and repeat lyrics. Thus, glam metal is characterized
by uncomplicated rhythm, tone stylized as heavy, variable tempo of the
22 See note 9 in this text.
23 On pop music see: The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, eds. J. Street, W. Straw,
S. Frith, Cambridge 2001.
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songs, impressive solos and, what is most important, ear-catching melody.
And this style of music can be heard in the lm The Dirt.
Compositions of Mötley Crüe, known from at least MTV, appear in the
lm. Following the story of the group, we listen to, among others, songs
such as ‘Live Wire’ from the album ‘Too Fast for Love’ (1981), ‘Shout at
the Devil’ from the album ‘Shout at the Devil’ (1983), ‘Girls, Girls Girls’
from the album ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ (1987), ‘Dr. Feelgood’ from the album
‘Dr. Feelgood’ (1989), ‘Kickstart My Heart’ from the album ‘Kickstart My
Heart’ (1989)24. It is the music characteristic for the 1980s. Thanks to the
fact that it is easy recognizable and associated with the ninth decade of the
previous century, it successfully serves in the lm The Dirt as a denotation
of historicity of the screen narrative and the presented world.
We encounter a bit dierent form of use of music in the lm by Andrzej
Wajda Man of Marble (1976). The lm plot takes place in two temporal
dimensions – in the mid-1970s (when the picture was realized) and in the
1950s. In the sequence showing the 1970s, we can hear a then modern,
perfectly arranged, synthesizer disco music by Andrzej Korzyński,
referring to international trends. The scenes depicting the 1950s, mostly
lm shots stylized as documentary, are most often accompanied by the
music from that time. Already in the very beginning, when we are watching
shots realized within the framework of documentary aesthetics, depicting
breaking the record by Birkut and his team, we can hear a socialist song,
coming from the background, entitled ‘Service for Poland’, beginning
with the words: ‘the song comes to the lips again’. This song appears in
the lm several times. Documentary shots depicting the rebuilding of the
capital are accompanied by the song ‘We are building a new home’. The
shots which are stylized as documentary as well as documentary shots
depicting a march going through the streets of rebuilt Warsaw, in which
young builders of Nowa Huta participate, are echoed by the song ‘The
March of Friendship’ performed by the band ‘Mazowsze’. We listed to the
mentioned songs together with the main character Agnieszka while she is
watching archival materials in the screening room. Socialist songs appear
not only in the context of monochromatic documentary shots. We hear
them in several polichromatic scenes that serve to reconstruct the social
reality of the 1950s. A good example may be the scene depicting Mateusz
Birkut and Wincenty Witek traveling by train to the eld to a show of
team brickwork. In the rst shot of the scene, with a going train we can
hear march sounds of the song ‘The March of Friendship’ coming from the
24 Music videos for these songs see: Mötley Crüe, Ocial Website, YouTube, 30 August
2011, hps://www.youtube.com/user/MotleyCrueMusic/videos [accessed on: 25 VI 2019].
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background. When the action moves to the interior of the train car, non-
diegetic music fades. Then, in subsequent shots, we see Birtkut and Witek
singing a fragment of the chorus of the song ‘The March of Friendship’
with lyrics: ‘Come on, young Slavs, come on, Greeks, Spaniards, a young
Chinese rises to the march. Soon others, black brothers from Virginia
will join, heroic Malaya, will hasten’25. In the scene depicting breaking
the brickwork record by the Birkut’s team, we can hear music played
through megaphones on the construction site. The proceeding workers
are accompanied by the songs ‘Warsaw Day’ and ‘We Are Building a New
Home’ playing in the background.
The aforementioned music examples are popular songs of the 1950s –
so called mass songs26. Because of their character – ideologically engaged
texts, arrangement, march rhythm – they associate unequivocally with the
early era of socialism. For that reason, the director used them successfully
as denotations of historicity of the presented world and the lm narrative.
Here, it is worth pointing out one more procedure which was used by Wajda.
He put together the mass songs of the sixth decade of the 20th century
and very modern music of Korzyński. In comparison to the modernist,
electronic sound, dance rhythm and music arrangement referring to
euro-disco style (the precursor of which was probably the group Silver
Convention, and one of the most known representatives of the trend – the
band Boney M, formed in 1976), the songs ‘Service for Poland’, ‘The March
of Friendship’, ‘We Are Building a New Home’, ‘Warsaw Day’, appear
especially archaic. Thus, contrasting the music of the 1970s with the music
from the 1950s, additionally emphasized, in a way, the historical character
of the laer. Thanks to this, it became for the director a perfect instrument
of obtaining the eect of time shift towards the past.
Another important aspect of historicization of lm narrative and the
presented world is characterization. Let us take a look at a few selected
examples. The Fall (2004), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicts the last
days of life of Adolf Hitler in besieged Berlin. The Führer, together with his
25 ‘Dalej, młodzi Słowianie, dalej, Grecy, Hiszpanie, młody Chińczyk do marszu
powstaje. Wnet dołączą tu inni, czarni bracia z Wirginii, bohaterscy pospieszą Malaje’.
26 On mass songs see: M. Sułek, Pieśni masowe o Nowej Hucie, ‘Zeszyty Naukowe
Towarzystwa Doktorantów UJ. Nauki Humanistyczne’ 2010, 1, pp. 152–160. Also see:
K. Biner, Partia z piosenką, piosenka z partią. PZPR wobec muzyki rozrywkowej, Warszawa
2017.
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collaborators, friends, ocers and devoted services, is hiding in a bunker
in the cellar of the chancellery of the Reich. Waiting for the end of the war
and nal defeat, he commits suicide. Let us focus on the gure of Hitler.
Watching the lm, it is not dicult to recognize the leader of the Third
Reich. It is because, thanks to characterization, the cinematic Adolf Hitler
is very similar to the Adolf Hitler we know from preserved photographs,
ocial lm chronicles and private amateur lm shot by, among others,
Eva Braun for instance in the Führer’s residence in Berghof. The issue of
costumes has been already discussed, so I will skip it here. I will only
focus on the physiognomy.
We can observe on the archival photographs and lms from the epoch
that Hitler was a rather slim person of average height. Depending on
a photograph or lm, Hitler’s face appears as oval or oblong. There is the
particular mustache on the face in the form of a rectangle with width not
exceeding the lines marking the width of the nose. Narrow lips, often giving
an impression of being pursed. Straight nose, proportional to the size of
the face. Small eyes, narrowly apart. A bit protruding ears. Dark hair (dark
blond), looking sparse, cut short with characteristic bangs combed to the
left. When we are watching the lm The Fall and the appearing gure of
Hitler played by Brunon Ganz, we can see a face modeled on Hitler’s face
known from preserved archival images. The actor’s face is a bit oval, lips
narrow, pursed, eyes small. But when we are looking at the screen, the
most typical features of the physiognomy of the leader of the Third Reich
are immediately conspicuous: the mustache and the left-combed bangs.
They are, in this case, important emblems which serve as an element of
similarity of the lm character and the gure known from archival lms
and photographs, and this way of the lm character’s historicization. The
mustache and the bangs of Hitler are emblematic to the extent in which they
can serve to denote a gure as Hitler, even if its posture or the face shape
are a bit dierent from the paern known from archival images. This means
that characterization is a particularly important instrument of obtaining the
screen eect of time shift towards the past and can serve successfully as
a denotation of historicity of the narrative and the presented world.
Let us take a look at another example. In this context, lms or series
depicting the time of the First Polish Republic, where we deal with
representatives of the Polish gentry and magnates, can be interesting.
Also here I will be interested in physiognomy. In a good elaboration on
the website kresy.pl, Radosław Sikora made, based on the iconography
preserved from the times of the First Republic, a comparison of various
presentations of Sarmatian faces. He distinguished a few types: (1) short
or middle-long beard, mustache, not half-shaven hair, combed to the back;
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(2) relatively short beard, mustache, not half-shaven, not combed but free-
owing hair; (3) lack of beard, mustache, not half-shaven hair, combed
to the back; (4) lack of beard, mustache, almost completely shaved hair,
except for a strand combed from above the crown to the forehead; (5) half-
length beard or a long one, mustache, hair on the sides and in the back
– shaved short, hair over the forehead thick, as if twisted with a curling
iron; (6) half-length or long beard, mustache, hair on the sides and in the
back completely shaved, hair over the forehead thick, as if twisted with
a curling iron; (7) beard, mustache, head shaved except for a strand on the
top27. This list of course has a character of a model and for sure does not
exhaust the topic. Nevertheless, it can serve as a point of reference for the
reections in this part of the article.
When we are watching lms such as Colonel Wolodyjowski, The Deluge,
With Fire and Sword, or TV series such as Black Clouds (from 1973, directed
by Andrzej Konic), recognizing a Polish nobleman or a magnate is not
particularly dicult. Despite characteristic clothes and weapon, the face
appearance and the haircut are inalienable emblems of Polish nobility
in the mentioned titles. The Polish nobleman, appearing on the screen,
often looks in a way more or less similar to the aforementioned Sarmatian
paerns. In Colonel Wolodyjowski, there is a lush mustache dominating on
the faces of noble characters. Some of them, apart from mustache, have
a haircut stylized as of noblemen in the form of head half-shaven on the
back (e.g. Jan Sobieski). In The Deluge we deal with a bit more distinct
reference to the Sarmatian look. Zagłoba has a solid mustache and hair
half-shaven on the sides, above ears and in the back. Several members of
Kmicic’s team, with whom he commits robberies, also wear mustaches
and hair half-shaven in the back and on the sides, with a strand on the top
resembling a mohawk. Some of them have bit longer mustaches and not
combed, free-owing hair. In With Fire and Sword, Sarmatian physiognomy
characterizes all main protagonists, for instance, Longinus Podbipięta –
long bushy mustache and hair half-shaven on the back and on the sides
above ears. A similar haircut is worn by colonel Wolodyjowski. There
is a modest mustache also on his face. A model example of Sarmatian
physiognomy is Zagłoba with solid mustache, hair half-shaved on the
back and on the sides above ears, with a bushy hair on top. This paern
also appears in the TV series Black Clouds. It is represented by Jan Sobieski,
on whose face we can see bushy mustache, and on whose head there is
27 R. Sikora, Sarmackie fryzury pierwszych dekad XVII wieku, Kresy.pl, 20 October 2014,
hps://kresy.pl/kresopedia/sarmackie-fryzury-pierwszych-dekad-xvii-wieku/ [accessed
on: 26 VI 2019].
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a haircut shaved a bit on the back and on the sides. Also, other Sarmatian
models of physiognomy distinguished by Sikora can be found in the
mentioned lm examples. Nevertheless, the most characteristic paern
is a face with mustache and hair half-shaven round above the ears and
on the back of the head, with a short bangs combed smoothly to the
front. This kind of physiognomy in lms depicting the period of the
First Republic is like the bangs in the Hollywood productions depicting
Ancient Rome that Roland Barthes wrote about. I will recall a fragment
from his essay: ‘In Julius Cesar by Mankiewicz, all the characters have
bangs. Some curly, other others threaded, spiked, slightly greased; they
are all well-groomed. […] What then are these insistent bangs related to? It
is simply about manifesting Romanness. So you can clearly see the action
of the main spring of the show, which is a sign. A strand placed on the
forehead gives condence and no one can doubt that here he is in the old
Rome’28. Following Barthes’ reasoning, we can say that the stereotypical
Sarmatian physiognomy of the characters appearing on the screen is also
an aempt at giving an impression that the history presented in a lm
takes place in the times of the First Republic of Poland. There is almost
always a character with that typical Sarmatian physiognomy in the lms
about this historical epoch. This way, characterization, as well as styling
the appearance of the protagonists according to the Sarmatian paern of
physiognomy, can easily play the role of a denotation of the historicity of
lm narrative and the world presented on the screen.
A particularly important element of historicization of lm narrative
and the presented world are events and characters that the screen story
talks about. Here comes the question: what kind of events and characters
if every lm depicts some events and some characters? I have in mind
here characters and events which can be associated with the past, which
are to some extent known from historiography, and for that reason
are considered relatively ‘authentic’ and ‘true’, and, in consequence,
historical.
28 ‘W Juliuszu Cezarze Mankiewicza wszystkie postaci mają grzywki. Jedni kręcone,
inni nitkowane, nastroszone, lekko natłuszczone; wszystkie są dobrze uczesane. […]
Z czym tedy wiążą się owe natarczywe grzywki? Chodzi po prostu o zamanifestowanie
Rzymskości. Widać więc tutaj jak na dłoni działanie głównej sprężyny widowiska, którą
jest znak. Ułożony na czole kosmyk daje pewność i nikt nie może wątpić, że oto znajduje
się w dawnym Rzymie’. R. Barthes, Mitologie, transl. A. Dziadek, Warszawa 2000, p. 47.
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One of the procedures of historicization of lm narrative and the
cinematic world is depicting in lm so-called big historical events –
political, military, cultural, for instance, such as the Second World
War, the French Revolution, great geographical discoveries, slavery,
reformation, cultural revolution from the turn of the 1960s and 1970s,
the collapse of the Soviet block, etc. Let us recall a few examples: 1942:
Conquest of Paradise (1992), directed by Ridley Sco, presents the oversea
expedition of Christopher Columbus in order to nd a route to India, in
result of which new continents are discovered; Enemy at the Gates (2001),
directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, depicts the Second World War; Danton
(1982), directed by Andrzej Wajda, depicts the French Revolution; and
Good Bye, Lenin (2003), directed by Wolfgang Becker undertakes the
topic of the collapse of communism in the Central-Eastern Europe. Of
course, these big historical events are shown through the prism of the
events of a smaller scale contributing to that big event on the basis of the
gure pars pro toto. Great geographical discoveries appear on the screen
as the Columbus expedition (1942 Conquest of Paradise). The Second
World War appears on the screen in the form of the bale of Stalingrad
(Enemy at the Gates, Stalingrad), the bale of England (Bale of England
from 1969, directed by Guy Hamilton), the Warsaw Uprising (Sewer from
1956, directed by Andrzej Wajda, Warsaw 44 from 2014, directed by Jan
Komasa). The cultural revolution of the 1960s in the USA appears on the
screen through the prism of the career of the band The Doors (The Doors
from 1991, directed by Olivier Stone). Thus, the very act of showing
on the screen the so-called big events known from historiography and
conrmed by it, represented metaphorically (via synecdoche) through
events of a smaller scale (so-called historical episodes that are parts
of historical structures of bigger spatiotemporal range), results in
historicization of lm narrative and the presented world.
At times, the aforementioned episodes presented on the screen (e.g.
the bale of England, Columbus’ expedition, the Warsaw Uprising, the
career of The Doors) also have their conrmation in historiography. This
means that they can be recognized exactly as ‘historical’. The procedure
of historicization of lm narrative and the presented world is then
additionally convincing.
Not always, however, historical episodes depicted in a lm have
a conrmation in historiography. This means that the events taking
place on the screen during big historical events have, in the case of many
lms, ‘ctional’ character, that is they did not occur in the past and were
invented for the needs of an audiovisual tale. Such situation can be found
in lms The Guns of Navarone (1961), directed by J. Lee Thompson, and
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Force 10 From Navarone (1978), directed by Guy Hamilton29. The plot of
the rst picture takes place in 1943. A group of allied commandos has
a task of blowing up a baery of German cannons located on the island
of Navarone, threatening the lives of people on one of the nearby Cheros
Islands. In the second story, a unit of commandos is sent to Yugoslavia
occupied by Germans with a task of blowing up a bridge. The fate of
partisans of Josip Broz (‘Tito’) surrounded by German army depends on
the success of this mission. The events presented on the screen in both
lms are a creation of ‘historical ction’, they do not have conrmation
in historiography. However, the actions of commandos in the lms take
place during the Second World War, so a big historical event conrmed
by historiography. Moreover, they perfectly t in the logic and structure
of that big event. The Second World War was indeed a military conict
between the Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan and their smaller allies,
and the Allies: the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Poland, France, Canada,
etc. In the lms The Guns of Navarone and Force 10 From Navarone, a group
of commandos are soldiers of the Allies ghting against German soldiers.
Historiography studies and presents activities of the Allies’ special units
against the German army during the Second World War30. This conrms
that such units existed and were realizing actions during the conict
of 1939–1945. Therefore, when we see on the screen ‘ctional’ fate of
a commandos’ unit which ts social imagination of this kind of actions
having a source in historiography, they seem, during the screening of
both lms, so credible and probable that their ‘ctional’ character goes
to the background. We are watching them as if they were ‘factual’ fate
of an ‘authentic’ unit of commandos. The actions of commandos in both
lms have been historicized through their placement in the entourage
if a big historical event such as the Second World War. This resulted in
them being shown as historical episodes, similar to many other events
of this type conrmed and described in historiography. This similarity
to such actions of special units described in historiography served as an
instrument of making ‘ctional’ events look more real, and, at the same
time, of their metaphorical historicization – they became as if ‘historical’.
In consequence, these ‘ctional’ episodes undergoing the process
of historicization were cast as functional elements of metaphorical
historicization of the screen world and the lm narrative.
29 The lms are screenings of novels by A. MacLean: The Guns of Navarone, Harper
Collins 2010; Force 10 From Navarone, Harper Collins 2010.
30 On this topic see e.g.: M. Królikowski, Komandosi. Akcje aliantów w drugiej wojnie
światowej, Warszawa 1994.
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We encounter a similar situation in the case of characters presented
on the screen. Film protagonists, whose existence and activity realized in
the past are conrmed in historiography, can also perform the function
of historicization of the screen world and lm narrative. Most often they
are historical gures that left their mark in the so-called big history,
that is, played an important role in historical events of a big scale (such
as e.g.: geographical discoveries, the Second World War, the collapse of
communism, the French Revolution, Cold War, etc.) and for that reason
are recognizable – function in social historical consciousness. Let us take
a look at some examples.
In the aforementioned lm 1942: Conquest of Paradise, we encounter
representatives of the story about the oversea expedition of Europeans
searching for the route to India, which discovers new continents instead.
The initiator and leader of the expedition is Christopher Columbus, a gure
functioning in social consciousness and imagination as the discoverer of
America. Of course, Christopher Columbus is a person whose existence
and activity are conrmed in historiography31. This way, as a recognizable
historical gure – emblematic for geographical discoveries – may
successfully serve in the lm of Sco as a denotation of historicity of the
presented screen world and the lm narrative.
In the lm Casimir the Great, directed by Ewa and Czesław Petelski,
we deal with a representation of history taking place in the 14th century
– of life and achievements of the last Polish king from the dynasty of
Piasts – with an image of Casimir the Great as an excellent medieval ruler
reinforcing and modernizing his state, developing economy and trade,
building brick fortresses and castles. The king Casimir is a historical
gure meaning that its existence, rule and activities are conrmed by
academic historiography32. The fact that it is a recognizable gure may be
evidenced by a popular saying: Casimir the Great found Poland wooden
and left it bricked33. It shows that the last Piast ruler functions in the social
31 See e.g.: J. Babicz, K. Walczak, Zarys historii odkryć geogracznych, Warszawa 1970; J.
Swiet, Kolumb, transl. M. Kalisz, Warszawa 1979.
32 See e.g.: J. Wyrozumski, Kazimierz Wielki, Wrocław 2004.
33 That stereotypical image of Casimir the Great has its source in the Jan Długosz’s
chronicle who wrote about the last Piast king: ‘Taka wielka tkwiła w nim chęć uświetnienia
i wzbogacenia Królestwa Polskiego, że podejmował bardzo trudne i znaczne wydatki na
budowę murowanych kościołów, zamków, miast i dworów, dokładając wszelkich starań,
by Polskę, którą zastał glinianą, drewnianą i brudną, zostawił murowaną i nadał jej wielki
rozgłos, co mu się też i udało. On też obudził w Polsce u wszystkich zapał do wznoszenia
murowanych budowli’ [‘He had such a great will of perfection and enrichment of the Polish
Kingdom that he was undertaking very dicult and signicant expenses for construction
of brick churches, castles, town and courts, making all eorts to leave Poland, which he
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imagination and consciousness of Poles as the one who modernized the
kingdom and thanks to that received a nickname ‘the Great’. This way,
the gure of the king Casimir the Great shown on the screen, due to its
recognition, may eectively realize the function of historicization of the
presented world and the lm narrative.
The lm Thirteen Days (2000), directed by Roger Donaldson, depicts
a dangerous episode from the time of the Cold War, the so-called Cuban
Crisis. It was a series of events within less than two weeks in October 1962
after American spying plane U-2 discovered that Soviet ballistic missiles,
which created a direct danger for the United States, were being installed in
Cuba. On the screen, we see gures that at a certain stage of the Cold War
played key roles. They include: the president of the United States, John F.
Kennedy, aorney general of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy, the
secretary of defense of the United States, Robert McNamara and a special
adviser of the president of the United States, Kenneth O’Donnell. All these
mentioned gures have been conrmed in historiography34. The most
recognizable characters are the Kennedy brothers. JFK was one of the most
popular presidents of the United States. He was assassinated in Dallas in
1963. As a result of the tragic death, and controversies around explanations
of the circumstances of the assassination, he became a gure, in a sense
legendary, about whom many books, articles and lms (among others the
famous picture JFK from 1991, directed by Olivier Stone) have been made.
Robert F. Kennedy, a younger brother of the president, performed many
important functions in the state. He was killed in an aack in Los Angeles
in 1968, shortly after he won the presidential primaries of the Democratic
Party. A tragic death in the situation when he became a US presidential
candidate, in the circumstances resembling the assassination of JFK,
also contributed to him becoming to some extent a legendary gure like
his brother. Many publications and lms (among others a biographical
picture: Bobby from 2006, directed by Emilio Estévez) have also been made
about Robert F. Kennedy. Thus, seeing both politicians on the screen, we
guess that the story in the lm Thirteen Days takes place in the seventh
decade of the 20th century. This way, showing John F. Kennedy and
Robert F. Kennedy, who are recognizable gures functioning not only
in historiography but also in lms referring to the past, can successfully
found earthen, wooden and dirty, to leave it bricked and to give it great fame, what he
managed to do. He also awakened in Poland, among all people, an eagerness to build
brick buildings’]. Jana Długosza Kanonika Krakowskiego Dziejów Polski Ksiąg Dwanaście, vol.
3, books 9–10, transl. K. Mecherzyński, Kraków 1868.
34 See e.g.: H. Brogan, Kennedy, New York 1996; W.B. Breuer, Vendea! Fidel Castro and
the Kennedy Brothers, New York 1997.
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perform the function of historicization of the presented world and the lm
narrative.
In lms talking about the past, important characters are often ‘ctional’
gures, that is, whose existence does not nd conrmation in historiography.
Can they also serve in lm as denotations of historicity of the screen
narrative and the presented world? To answer this question, let us take
a look at some examples. A good one is a miniseries of HBO production
Chernobyl (2019), directed by Johan Renck. The series depicts the history of
the catastrophe in the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in April 1986 and
the process of dealing with its tragic consequences by the authorities of
the Soviet Union, scientists, remen, soldiers, miners, and other rescuers.
In the series, there are characters known from historiography, such as,
among others: the general secretary of CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, vice-
chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Boris Shcherbina, or the
vice-director of the I. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, an academic
expert for removing the consequences of the failure of Chernobyl reactor,
professor Walerij Legasov35. The presence of these people on the screen
makes us believe, while watching the series, that it is a picture depicting
the 1980s. In the story, next to the aforementioned characters, there is
a ‘ctional’ person, important for the presented story and invented by the
creators of the lm for its needs, Uliana Chomiuk.
The gure of Chomiuk undergoes, on the screen, the process of
historicization. The protagonist is a scientist, a physicist from the Institute
of Nuclear Energy of the Academy of Sciences of the Socialist Soviet
Republic of Byelorusand a member of the governmental commiee for
emergency response in connection with the reactor failure in Chernobyl.
There was a large group of scientists working together with professor
Legasov during coping with the consequences of the explosion.
Chomiuk in the lm is a person from such a group. We can say that she
is a collective character, focusing in a metaphorical way the experience,
aitudes, activities of all scientists being part of the emergency commiee.
In the lm, the woman participates actively in the action, conrmed in
historiography, aimed at removal of the consequences of the explosion
in the nuclear power plant. She collaborates with professor Legasov, she
is his right hand, she has the same competencies as Legasov who, in the
lm, is a ‘historical’ character. She meets and talks with the vice-chairmen
Shcherbin who is also a ‘historical’ character. Through these dramaturgic
35 D.R. Marples, Historia ZSRR. Od rewolucji do rozpadu, transl. I. Scharoch, Wrocław
2006. On the catastrophe in Chernobyl see e.g.: Po Czarnobylu. Miejsce katastrofy w dyskursie
współczesnej humanistyki, eds. I. Boruszkowska et al., Kraków 2017.
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procedures, the ctional status of the gure of Uliana Chomiuk is no longer
important. It is because she becomes inscribed into the structure and logic
of the situation presented on the screen, of an ‘authentic’ historical event
in which ‘authentic’ historical gures participate. This way, the character
of Uliana Chomiuk is metaphorically historicized. As such, she also can
serve as a denotation of historicity of the lm narrative and the presented
screen world.
Let us take a look at another example. An aforementioned TV series,
Black Clouds tells the story of a Polish nobleman, a colonel in the Prussian
army, Krzysztof Dowgird, who declines service in the electoral army,
heads to the territory of the Polish Republic to serve for the Polish king.
The series is a ‘cloak and dagger’ type of tale, which does not aspire to be
a serious reection about the past. Nevertheless, it is some kind of a record
of culturally conditioned imagination of the past world of the 17th century
on the Polish-Prussian borderland. Of course, the main characters are
‘ctional’: mentioned colonel Dowgird and his sergeant, Kacper Pilch. The
adventures of the protagonists are also ‘ctional’. At the same time, the
main characters and their stories, have been historicized in a few ways.
(1) Scenery, scenography, costumes, that look like 17th-century aire,
architecture, interiors known from iconography of the epoch, that is so-
called historical entourage, in which the plot takes place.
(2) Language stylized as Old Polish used by the characters.
(3) These ‘ctional’ characters meet in the lm ‘historical’ ones, known
from historiography and recognizable. The colonel and his sergeant talk
with the hetman Jan Sobieski, realize the politics he carries out orders of
the famous magnate, the future king of Poland.
(4) The gure of Dowgird, although ‘ctional’, is created on the basis
of the ‘authentic’ gure of colonel Krysian Ludwik Kalkstein-Stoliński,
evidenced in historiography, who, in the second half of the 17th century,
took the lead of the opposition against the elector Frideric, as a result
of which had to ee from Prussia to Poland in 1670. After crossing the
border, Kalkstein-Stoliński was tricked into the residence of the Prussian
ambassador in Warsaw, captured by the electors’ services, transported to
Klaipeda where – in 1672 – was sentenced to death and killed36.
The character of Krzysztof Dowgird is based on an ‘authentic’ person
whose existence is conrmed in historiography, and, for that reason, he
36 On this topic see: K. Jarochowski, Sprawa Kalksteina 1670–1672, Warszawa 1878, pp.
38–132. Electronic version: Robarts Library, Internet Archive, University of Toronto, 1
October 2010, hps://archive.org/details/sprawakalksteina00jaro/page/n5 [accessed on: 25
VI 2019].
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appears as its cinematic avatar that represents it metaphorically in the
screen through a reference to the non-lm – historical – knowledge. As
such, the character is historicized. Colonel Krzysztof Dowgird can be, as
if, identied with colonel Krystian Ludwik Kalksten-Stoliński. Once we
intellectually combine the ‘ctional’ gure with the ‘authentic’ one, the
former may appear as a historical gure and this way serve as a denotation
of historicity of the lm narrative and the presented world. This eect is
supported by the strategies of historicization explained in the points (1)–
(3). Watching the series depicting the fate of colonel Dowgird, we have an
impression that it depicts the period of the rst Republic.
Another situation can be found in the already recalled lm, Man of
Marble. One of the main characters of the tale of Wajda is a work leader,
Mateusz Birkut. Of course, the young worker from the 1950s is a ‘ctional’
gure.
For these reections, important is the fact that the protagonist of Wajda’s
lm refer to an ‘authentic’ gure of workers – work leaders making several
hundred percent of the norm, evidenced in historiography, who in the
1940s and 1950s were promoted by the communist propaganda as workers’
avant-garde and the elite37. This way, we can say that the character of
Birkut, as the previously discussed character of Uliana Chomiuk from the
series Chernobyl, is a collective protagonist focusing experiences, aitudes,
emotions of many ‘authentic’ people that were part of the workers’ elite
in Poland in the fth and sixth decades of the 20th century. And we
could stop here and say that this reference to a certain type of people,
existing in the past and conrmed in historiography, is an eective way
of historicization of the gure of Mateusz Birkut. This, in turn, allow us to
think that Wajda’s protagonist may serve as a denotation of historicity of
the lm narrative and the presented world.
In Man of Marble, we deal with one more way of historicization of the
main character. It consists in the fact that the character of Mateusz Birkut
not only refers to a certain type of people from the past but has his own
concrete prototype. It was a worker, a work leader from Nowa Huta – Piotr
Ożański38. According to the rules of that time, Ożański was making on
average 200% of the norm. He was also breaking records in laying bricks.
The rst one, when, on the occasion of 22 July, together with ve bricklayers,
he laid about 35 thousand bricks. The next one, on 26 September, on the
occasion of the completion of the October Revolution; then 66 thousand
37 H. Wilk, Kto wyrąbie więcej ode mnie? Współzawodnictwo pracy robotników w Polsce
w latach 1947–1955, Warszawa 2011.
38 Ibidem, pp. 278, 319–324.
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bricks were laid. All the records broken by Ożański were carefully staged
by the authorities. During the second action of breaking the record,
Ożański got burnt by a hot brick, becoming a hero overnight. He received
a state recognition – Silver Cross of Merit. He entered the Poviat Board of
the Polish Youth Association in Nowa Huta, was appointed a member of
the Poviat Commiee of Peace Defenders and became a delegate for the
Congress of Peace Defenders in Warsaw. Ożański’s private life was also
subordinated to the requirements of ideology and propaganda: the party
selected him a work leader as a wife. After some time, he stopped being
needed by the party, and press interest in him faded. The famous worker
did not manage to bear the weight of the situation in which he was put. He
succumbed to alcoholism, was expelled from work, forced to leave Nowa
Huta and forgoen39.
Looking at the short description above and the lm fate of Birkut, it is
not dicult to notice some far reaching analogies in the life stories of Piotr
Ożański and the character of Andrzej Wajda. If we take into consideration
the fact that the gure of Birkut has its prototype in an ‘authentic’ worker,
we may treat it as a cinematic avatar representing him, in a metaphorical
way, on the screen through a reference to non-lm historical knowledge. As
such, this gure becomes historicized. This means that the cinematic work
leader Mateusz Birkut is, as if, the work leader Piotr Ożański. Combining
intellectually, through analogy, the ‘ctional’ character with the ‘authentic’
gure, grounded in historiography, we get an impression that the rst
of them appears, as a result, as a ‘historical’ gure. In consequence, the
‘ctional’ character, which is historicized, can play the role of a denotation
of historicity of the lm narrative and the presented world.
Summarizing the reections developed in this text, it should be said
that the discussed strategies of historicization of lm narrative and the
presented screen world concern, rst of all, elements of the presented
world – so called mise-en-scène40. They play particular role in lms realized
within the framework of the aesthetics of zero style41 characterized by
a lm form – consisting of, to simplify, such elements as picture texture,
39 Ibidem.
40 On mise-en-scène see e.g.: D. Bordwell, K. Thompson, Film Art. Sztuka lmowa:
wprowadzenie, transl. B. Rosińska, Warszawa 2010, pp. 128–159.
41 On zero style in cinema see: M. Przylipiak, Kino stylu zerowego. Z zagadnień estetyki
lmu fabularnego, Gdańsk 1994.
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camera work, editing, structure of narrative – that remains for the viewer
transparent, invisible. Thanks to this, the viewer focuses not on the ways
of presenting historical world – places, events and characters, but on the
things that the picture represents instead. This means, in the case of lms
of zero style, that the elements of mise-en-scène are the ones that play
a fundamental role in dening historicity of the presented world and lm
narrative. The laer, formally being transparent in creating the screen
eect of time shift to the past, in some way makes place for the elements
such as characterization, costumes, scenography, language, music.
Analyzing the staging strategies of historicization of lm narrative and
the presented world, I decided that it is also worth discussing two other
elements appearing in the function of denotations of historicity but not
being elements of mise-en-scène. They include the events and characters
presented on the screen which can be associated with the past due to the
fact that, to some extent, they refer to events and gures known from
historiography. Thanks to these references, screen events and characters
participate in creating the impression of the eect of time shift towards the
past in the act of actualization of lm work by a viewer/researcher.
The article devoted mainly to the role of mise-en-scène and events and
characters in historicization of lm narrative and the presented world does
not exhaust the topic. It leaves, outside the scope of reection, the role of
cinematic form and formal cinematic means of expression in the process of
historicization of the presented screen world and lm narrative. Because
cinematic form is an exceptionally important instrument of obtaining the
screen eect of time shift, I discuss this issue in a separate text.
(translated by Anna Topolska)
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Filmography
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Człowiek z marmuru [Man of Marble], Poland 1976, dir. A. Wajda.
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Der Untergang [The Fall], Austria, Germany, Italy, 2004, dir. O. Hirschbiegel.
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Gone with the Wind, 1939, dir. G. Cukor.
Good Bye, Lenin, Germany 2003, dir. W. Becker.
Iwan Groznyj [Ivan the Terrible], USSR, 1944, dir. S.M. Eisenstein.
Intolerance, USA, 1916, dir. D.W. Grith.
JFK, USA, 1991, dir. O. Stone.
Kanał [Sewer], Poland, 1956, dir. A. Wajda.
Kazimierz Wielki [Casimir the Great], Poland, 1975, dir. E. and C. Petelscy.
Kościuszko pod Racławicami [Kościuszko near Racławice], Poland, 1938, dir. J. Lejtes.
La Grande Illusion, France, 1937, dir. J. Renoir.
L’Assassinat de duc de Guisse [The Assassination of the Duke Guise], France, 1908, dir. A. Lam-
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Miasto 44 [Warsaw 44], Poland, 2014, dir. J. Komasa.
Napoléon [Napoleon], France, 1927, dir. A. Gance.
Ogniem i mieczem [With Fire and Sword], Poland, 1999, dir. J. Homan.
Ostatni etap [The Last Stage], Polska, 1947, dir. W. Jakubowska.
Pan Wołodyjowski [Colonel Wologyjowski], Poland, 1969, dir. J. Homan.
Popiół i diament [Ashes and Diamonds], Poland, 1958, dir. A. Wajda.
Potop [The Deluge], Poland, 1974, dir. J. Homan.
Quo Vadis, USA, 1951, dir. M. LeRoy.
Quo Vadis, Poland, 2001, dir. J. Kawalerowicz.
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The Birth of a Nation, USA, 1915, dir. D.W. Grith.
The Dirt, USA, 2019, dir. J.J. Tremaine.
The Doors, USA, 1991, dir. O. Stone.
The Guns of Navarone, USA, Great Britain, 1961, dir. J. Lee Thompson.
The Passion of the Christ, USA, 2004, dir. M. Gibson.
Thirteen Days, USA, 2000, dir. R. Donaldson.
Wielki bieg [The Great Race], Poland, 1981, dir. J. Domaradzki.
Yesterday, Poland, 1984, dir. R. Piwowarski.
Zakazane piosenki [Forbidden Songs], Poland, 1946, dir. L. Buczkowski.
Żołnierz zwycięstwa [The Soldier of Victory], Poland, 1953, dir. W. Jakubowska.
1492: Conquest of Paradise, France, Spain, USA, 1992, dir. R. Sco.
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Iconography
Ball at the Court of Henry III, Unknown, 1580, Musée du Louvre.
Henry III and the Duke Guise, Pierre-Charles Comte, 1855, Musée du Château de Blois.
Barberini statue, Unknown author, 1st half of the 1st century BC, Musei Capitolini, Rome.
The Death of Henry II at the Hand of a Monk, Hugues Merle, 1863, Musée national du château
de Pau.
Assassination of the Duke Guise, Paul Delaroche, 1838, Musée du Château du Blois.
Phonography
A Hard Day’s Night, 1964, The Beatles.
Budujemy nowy dom [We Are Building a New Home], 1949, lyrics: W. Stępień, music: Z. Goz-
dawa.
Dr. Feelgood, 1989, Mötley Crüe.
Girls, Girls, Girls, 1987, Mötley Crüe.
Kickstart My Heart, 1989, Mötley Crüe.
Please Please Me, 1963, The Beatles.
Pochód przyjaźni [The March of Friendship], 1951, lyrics: E. Fiszer, music: T. Sygietyński, J.T.
Klukowski.
Shout at the Devil, 1983, Mötley Crüe.
Służba Polsce [Service for Poland], 1951, lyrics: S. Wygodzki, music: W. Lutosławski.
Too Fast for Love, 1981, Mötley Crüe.
Warszawski dzień [A Warsaw Day], 1964, lyrics: S.R. Dobrowolski, music: T. Sygietyński.
Web sources
Mötley Crüe, Ocial Website, YouTube, 30 August 2011, hps://www.youtube.com/chan-
nel/UCq2g_Vcu3J1OwNRmdTNoxYA [accessed on: 8 VI 2019].
Seneka L.A., Listy moralne do Lucyliusza, LV, zrodla.historyczne.pl, 2003, hp://biblioteka.
kijowski.pl/antyk%20rzymski/06.%20seneka%20lucjusz%20anneusz%20-%20listy%20mo-
ralne%20do%20lucyliusza.pdf [accessed on: 10 V 2020].
Sikora R., Sarmackie fryzury pierwszych dekad XVII wieku, Kresy.pl, 20 października 2014,
hps://kresy.pl/kresopedia/sarmackie-fryzury-pierwszych-dekad-xvii-wieku/ [ac-
cessed on: 26 VI 2019].
Artykuł podejmuje problematykę strategii uhistoryczniania lmowej narracji i świata
przedstawionego w kinie historycznym. Pokazuje za pomocą jakich elementów lmowa
narracja i świat przedstawiony są uhistoryczniane. We wstępie zostają skonceptualizowa-
ne kluczowe kategorie analityczne – lmu historycznego i strategii uhistoryczniania lmo-
wej narracji oraz świata przedstawionego. Film historyczny jest pojmowany jako kategoria
operacyjna wymagająca za każdym razem konceptualizacji zrelatywizowanej do kultu-
rowego kontekstu jej użycia. Na potrzeby artykułu lm historyczny określany jest jako
dzieło ekranowe obejmujące różnorodne struktury genologiczne, którego temat odnosi się
do przeszłości. Strategie uhistoryczniania lmowej narracji oraz lmowego świata przed-
stawionego są w tekście pojmowane jako rozliczne sposoby wyposażania lmu w różnego
rodzaju oznaki historyczności, pozwalające uzyskać w akcie aktualizacji dzieła przez wi-
dza/badacza wrażenie efektu ekranowego przesunięcia w czasie ku przeszłości. W kolej-
PIOTR WITEK604
DOI: 10.17951/rh.2020.50.573-604
nych częściach artykułu na przykładzie różnych lmów obejmujących szerokie spektrum
dziejów od starożytności po współczesność analizowane są oznaki historyczności w funk-
cji uhistoryczniania lmowej narracji i świata przedstawionego. Składają się na nie: (1)
sceneria, scenograa, kostiumy; (2) język; (3) muzyka; (4) charakteryzacja; (5) wydarzenia
i postacie. Przeanalizowane w tekście strategie uhistoryczniania świata przedstawionego
i ekranowej narracji odgrywają szczególnie istotną rolę w lmach zrealizowanych w este-
tyce w. stylu zerowego, charakteryzującego się przezroczystością lmowej formy.
Słowa kluczowe: historia wizualna, lm historyczny, narracja lmowa, świat przed-
stawiony, inscenizacja, uhistorycznianie, scenograa, kostiumy, język, muzyka, wydarze-
nia, postacie, charakteryzacja, mise-en-scène
Piotr Witek – (born 1972), PhD with ‘habilitation’, Maria Curie Skłodowska Universi-
ty, Institute of History, Department of Methodology of History, Lublin. Scholarly interests:
methodology and epistemology of history; history and theory of screen media; audiovi-
sual turn in contemporary culture; (audio)visual history; the role of photography, lm,
television and new media in presenting the past and historical reection; techno-science,
techno-history; unconventional histories; historicity of contemporary culture; historical
policy. Author of two monographs: Andrzej Wajda jako historyk. Metodologiczne studium z hi-
storii wizualnej (Lublin 2016); Kultura. Film. Historia. Metodologiczne problemy doświadczenia
audiowizualnego (Lublin 2005); co-editor of several volumes: Świat z historią, eds. P. Witek,
M. Woźniak (Lublin 2010); Historia w kulturze współczesnej. Niekonwencjonalne podejścia do
przeszłości, eds. P. Witek, M. Mazur, E. Solska (Lublin 2011); Klio na wolności. Historiograa
dziejów najnowszych w Polsce po 1989 roku, eds. M. Kruszyński, S. Łukasiewicz, M. Mazur,
S. Poleszak, P. Witek (Lublin 2016); Historiograa w kontekstach nieoczekiwanych? Wobec
zmiany i ciągłości: pejzaże współczesnego dyskursu historycznego, eds. E. Solska, P. Witek,
M. Woźniak (Lublin 2017); Historie alternatywne i kontrfaktyczne. Wizje – Narracje – Metodolo-
gia, eds. E. Solska, P. Witek, M. Woźniak (Lublin 2017); Między nauką a sztuką. Wokół proble-
mów współczesnej historiograi, eds. E. Solska, P. Witek, M. Woźniak (Lublin 2017). Author
of several dozen studies in the methodology of history and visual history, inter alia: Film
historyczny jako gatunek dwojakiego rodzaju. Kilka uwag metodologicznych o ‘(nie)użyteczności’
teorii genologicznej w reeksji o lmie historycznym, ‘Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skło-
dowska. Sectio F’ 2011, vol. 66, 2; Andrzej Wajda as Historian, in: A Companion to the Historical
Film, eds. R.A. Rosenstone, C. Parvulescu (Malden 2013); Multimedia jako jeden z wariantów
kulturowej gry w historię. Metodologiczne problemy przedstawiania przeszłości w epoce ekranów,
in: Język a multimedia, eds. A. Dytman-Stasieńko, J. Stasieńko (Wrocław 2005); Geschlossene
und oene Geschichtspolitik. Die polnische Dimension des europaischen Ringens mit der Vergan-
genheit, (Aus dem Polnischen von Sandra Ewers), ‘Historie’ 2009/2010, Folge 3.
