Author(s): Tadeusz Cegielski,Grażyna Szelągowska / Language(s): Polish
Issue: 06/2011
FILM FROM THE TIMES OF THE POLISH PEOPLE REPUBLIC
IN THE RECOGNITION OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGES
Summary
The sources of popular culture are the object of research on many diverse phenomena
and cultural, political as well social changes, from the early Modern Times through the
19 and 20 century. This research is marked by its interdisciplinarity, using methods th th and
theories of various social sciences and humanities: linguistics, literary studies, cultural
studies, anthropology. Film, notwithstanding its artistic valour, remains a product of popular
(mass) culture, so it should be interpreted and analyzed as a mass source. It is, on the one
hand, a work of a collective creator (the director, the camera man, the actors), on the other
hand, it is a product of the film industry. Film as a mass source turns out to be a useful
tool allowing to discover the phenomena in question, thanks to which it becomes possible
to approach a given cultural or social phenomenon. The authors propose to abandon the
traditional singular analysis of particular films and to see away from their intellectual and
esthetic value in order to examine their functions which is representative for a given
époque, area or milieu.
The authors find the following phenomena, which are reflected in the reality of the
film, particularly characteristic of social and cultural changes in the times of the Polish
People Republic: 1. The conflict of generations and the birth of counterculture: parents
– children – youth in the film from the real socialist period, 2. Changes in the social
structure: the ways of social promotion and degradation.
Trans. M. Bucholc
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