The Strange Beauty of Polish Movie Posters

by



Special Guest: @SolarSands

Socials
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thekinocorner
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/TheKinoCorner
Patreon: https://patreon.com/thekinocorner

Ah! Film Posters in Poland: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18299145-ah-film-posters-in-poland

Explore more Polish posters here: https://posteritati.com/poster-country/poland

List of Polish names I said in case you want to look them up
Dorota Folga-Januszewska
Leon Chwistek
Jan Polinski
Tadeusz Piotrowski
Mieczysław Szcuka
Jerzy Hryniewiecki
Stefan Osiecki
Stanislaw Witkiewicz
Henryk Tomaszewski
Roman Cieślewicz
Jan Lenica
Andrzej Wajda
Roman Polanski
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Krzysztof Zanussi
Jerzy Kawelerowicz

Movies shown
Battleship Potemkin
Man with a Movie Camera
1984
Camera Buff
Ashes and Diamonds
On the Silver Globe
A Short Film About Love
Olympia
Werckmeister Harmonies
My Left Foot

Music

Etude Op. 10, no. 3 in E major – ‘Tristesse’
Nocturnes, Op. 32 – No. 2. Nocturne in A♭ major
Nocturnes, Op. 32 – No. 1. Nocturne in B major

All sourced from musopen.org
https://musopen.org/music/composer/frederic-chopin/

Airport Lounge – Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65 – III. Largo – Performed by Yeonjin Kim and Christopher Harding

Piano Sonata, No.31, A flat Major, Op. 110 – III. Adagio ma non troppo. Fuga. Allegro ma non troppo

source

40 thoughts on “The Strange Beauty of Polish Movie Posters”

  11. 10:18 HEADS UP; though as a Pole I appreciate, you a foreigner creator, trying to pronounce Polish surnames and you did not bad of the job, just be carefull; especially with Mieczysław Szczuka not Szcuka SZ is pronounced as SH sound in SHower, just harszer, as if you wanted to emitate the static white snow noise of the old TV, but SZ is followed by Polish CZ that is pronounced just as CH in Watch or Cz in Czech; just harsher, and "SZCZ" my dear is the hardest train of syllables to pronounce in Polish, that's why no one likes Bydgoszcz city, and szcz is usually at the end (it's easier to pronoince when cz isn't stressed like in SzCZUka, stress in on CZU)

    but… the reason for my LONG Polish pronounciation tutorial? I'm sorry Kino Corner, but the way how short and swiftly you spoke Szczuka's surname sounded a lot like SU-KA which in Polish translated to B*ch/female dog, and I had to double take on that part;
    and listen today me and my Italian classmate we had disgussion of how surnames work; and in Poland you can have a surname like Psikuta (PSI id dog's and KUTA(s) is modern word for p3nis) or Paluszek (Pinky finger) or even Stopa (Foot) and Łatwy (Easy) and it's easy to take them as a joke or misspoke them as a cursewords; SO be careful.

    [PS. 1 if you get into Hungarian Cinematography and names they also have CZ; but they pronounce it as Ci like in cinema]

    [PS; 2 I shall continue watch and add on

    Reply

  13. 28:30 for me this look like the person is trying to protect themselves with the hand. The hand is going from below like the person is not standing, but sits on the ground trying to back out using one hand and legs while defending with the other. The face of the men also would confirm we see him from below. There's possibility it's just way smaller person defending instead of person on the ground. I didn't see the movie so maybe I'm missing crucial hints.

    Reply

  16. Those posters were created in necessity. In communism time was shortage of everything ( paints , paper , printing industry ) On average salary could be equivalent 15£This shortage forced polish artist to express themselves in the "simple form" . Rude paper , mostly three colours .

    Reply

  17. Fun fact:
    In polish highschools we oftentimes get posters for movies and have to analyze and share our thoughts on how it reflects the contents of the movie or the era it was made in.

    Reply

  18. Seven Samurai is my favorite movie, but this was my least favorite poster. The movie has the vibes of a Greek tragedy, with honor, duty, desperation and outright bad luck conspiring to put the protagonists into an unwinnable scenario.

    The poster? It looks like when a 12 y.o. tries his luck at drawing "ninjas". Not bad for a 12 y.o. and not bad for a "ninja" flick, but it has absolutely nothing in common with the movie it's supposed to represent.

    Reply

  26. What you said about posters being true art for the masses is absolutely true, they had actually way bigger impact on XX century Poland than many realise. I personally remember some of these posters hanging in my town in the 80s when I was a kid. They definitely had a massive influence on me, they pulled me onto certain path in terms of interests and imagination, and that’s before I even watched movies.

    Reply

  27. Something I guess you didn't mention (I haven't watched the entire video yet but was skipping through looking for it) is Polish film poster… in the movies!
    Some directors (and/or set designers) are fond of them too and include them in their own films. The main character of the 'Beginners' movie played by Ewan McGregor lives in a flat decorated exclusively by the posters from the Polish Poster School. I'm always delighted when I spot them.

    Polish poster school lives on and there are new generations of artists adopting the aesthetics. If you ever find yourself in Warsaw, there's an entire poster museum next to the Wilanów Palace and a cool shop with polish posters (you can buy them in a postcard format too) in the Old Town.

    Reply

Leave a Comment