Falstart. Losy książki Jerzego Toeplitza „Sztuka filmowa. Wczoraj, dziś i jutro” (1949)
False Start: The Fate of Jerzy Toeplitz’s Book “Sztuka filmowa. Wczoraj, dziś i jutro” (“Film Art: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”, 1949)

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses the fate of Jerzy Toeplitz’s unpublished first book on the history of world cinema. Two typescripts and the typeset version of Sztuka filmowa. Wczoraj, dziś i jutro [Film Art: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow], which was planned for publication in 1949 by the Film Institute in Łódź, are held in the archives of the city’s Museum of Cinematography. The structure of the article is based on a historiographic operation involving the analysis of the author’s position, the state of film historiography at the time of writing, and the literary form of the book. Furthermore, through collation of the three textual variants, the directions of censorship interventions are revealed. The debut work of the future classic of film historiography adheres to the convention of film-historical synthesis characteristic of the turn of the twentieth century. Its distinguishing features include its application of Marxist criticism, didactic temperament, and juxtaposition of the American and Soviet film empires, with France occupying a mediating position. At the turn of 1948/1949, Toeplitz’s publication proposal represented a transitional case between amateur and academic historiography.

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