The history of cinema in Poland and the transition from silent to sound film, 1896--1939.

This dissertation comprises a history of cinema in Poland from 1896 to 1939, with special attention given to the changes in film production, exhibition and writing that took place before, during and after the transition from silent to sound film in 1929/1930. It contends that importation of sound film technology, accentuated a widening cultural divide between the nation's majority and minority groups. The introduction to the dissertation offers an overview of the region's political history. The first chapter examines film production in several periods, including the beginnings of filmmaking under the Russian, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, Aleksander Hertz's Sphynx production company and the foundation of a national film industry after World War I, the maturing of silent film in the 1920's, the transition from silent to sound film and the first Polish talkies, the consolidation and commercialization of the sound film industry in the early 1930's, the surge in Polish production and the emergence of Yiddish sound cinema beginning in 1936. The second chapter traces the development of cinema from the earliest traveling exhibitors to the segregated Polish, Yiddish and picture theaters and their role in the country's social structure before, during and after the transition, particularly with regard to the increasing power of cinema owners in film production and distribution. The third chapter examines selected writings of early Polish film theorists and critics, including Leon Brun, Karol Irzykowski, Antoni Slonimski, Eugeniusz Cekalski and the START group. It offers an analysis of several key issues in Polish film theory and argues for the significance of the transition as the moment of collision between the ideals of silent film as a universal language and sound film as an assertion of a specific national language. Three appendices feature a filmography, the locations of Warsaw cinemas and a list of cinema periodicals. This dissertation contends that the importation of sound film technology had far-reaching implications for the film industry and society in Poland.PhDCommunication and the ArtsEuropean historyFilm studiesLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsRomance literatureSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124315/2/3137943.pd