Polish Cinema: A History

Marek Haltof is a Professor of English at Northern Michigan University. His recent books include Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration (2018), Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema (second edition, 2015), and Polish Film and the Holocaust: Politics and Memory (2012).

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1. Polish Silent Cinema (1896-1929)Chapter 2. The Sound Period of the 1930s: Adaptations, Patriotic Melodramas, and Films in YiddisChapter 3. Cinema, World War II, and the Postwar Construction of National Identity (1939-1948)Chapter 4. Screen Stalinism: Socialist Realist Films (1949-1954)Chapter 5. Ashes and Diamonds: The Polish School (1955-1963)Chapter 6. Adaptations, Personal Style, and Popular Cinema (1964-1975)Chapter 7. Camouflage and Rough Treatment: The "Cinema of Distrust" (1976-1981)Chapter 8. The Cinema of Martial Law and Afterwards (1982-1988)Chapter 9. A Fistful of Dollars: Polish Cinema after the Wall Came Down (1989-1998)Chapter 10. Adapting the National Literary Canon and Reclaiming the Past (1999-2004)Chapter 11. The Transforming Years (2005-)AppendixSelect FilmographySelect BibliographyIndex of NamesIndex of Films

"Haltof's comprehensive, lucid, and refreshing critical history of Polish cinema significantly expands the existing literature on the topic in English... Essential for all serious libraries and very useful in the undergraduate or graduate classroom." Choice"What makes Haltof's book so wonderful is that, like a great filmmaker, he uses his subject to craft a much deeper and complex story of the Polish people and their search for a national identity... With clarity and fluidity he makes Poland come alive." Film and History