Andrzej Munk

[MichaelB]

Andrzej Munk (1921-1961)

"I wanted to show how the overall atmosphere of foolhardy heroism influences even those individuals who do not have that 'hero culture', and turns them into heroes.

FEATURE FILMOGRAPHY

• The Stars Must Burn (Gwiazdy muszą płonąć, 1954) - IMDB
  Black and white, 1.33:1, 66 mins.
  Reviews: Kinoblog (Michael Brooke)
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)
  
  Men of the Blue Cross (Błękitny krzyż, 1955) - IMDB
  Reviews: Kinoblog (Michael Brooke)
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)
  
  Man on the Tracks (Człowiek na torze, 1956) - IMDB/YouTube (complete feature, but without subtitles)
  Reviews: Dennis Grunes, Kinoblog (Michael Brooke), Strictly Film School (Acquarello)
  DVDs: Polart (Region 0 NTSC, Polish with English subtitles); Best Film Co (Region 0 PAL, possibly unsubtitled)
  
  Eroica (1957) - IMDB/YouTube clip (no subtitles)
  Review: Strictly Film School (Acquarello)
  DVDs: Polart (Region 0 NTSC, Polish with English subtitles); included in Best Film Co's 50 Years of the Polish Film School (50 lat Polskiej Szkoły Filmowej) box (Region 0 PAL, Polish with English subtitles); Best Film Co's separate Polish release may be unsubtitled. Second Run has announced this as a 2009 release (Region 0 PAL).
  
  Bad Luck (Zezowate szczęście, 1959) - IMDB/YouTube clip
  DVDs: Polart (Region 0 NTSC, Polish with English subtitles); included in Best Film Co's 50 Years of the Polish Film School (50 lat Polskiej Szkoły Filmowej) box (Region 0 PAL, Polish with English subtitles); Best Film Co's separate Polish release may be unsubtitled.
  
  Passenger (Pasażerka, 1961/63) - IMDB
  Reviews: Cineaste (Stuart Liebman), Cinescene (Chris Dashiell), DVD Beaver (Gary Tooze), DVD Times (Anthony Nield), Kamera.co.uk (Antonio Pasolini), The Observer (Philip French), Sunday Telegraph, Time Out (Wally Hammond), Vertigo (David Balfour)
  DVDs: Second Run (Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English subtitles)

SHORT FILMOGRAPHY

• Art of the Young (Sztuka młodych, 1949) - IMDB
  
  It Began in Spain (Zaczęło się w Hiszpanii, 1950) - IMDB
  
  Science Closer to Life (Nauka bliżej życia, 1951) - IMDB
  
  Destination Nowa Huta! (Kierunek - Nowa Huta!, 1951) - IMDB
  Reviews: Critical Culture (Pacze Moj), Kinoblog (Michael Brooke)
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)
  
  The Fairy Tale (Bajka, 1952) - IMDB
  
  Peasant Diaries (Pamiętnikach chłopów, 1952) - IMDB
  Reviews: Kinoblog (Michael Brooke)
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)
  
  The Railwayman's Word (Kolejarskie słowo, 1953) - IMDB
  Reviews: Kinoblog (Michael Brooke)
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)
  
  One Sunday Morning (Niedzielny poranek, 1955) - IMDB
  Reviews: Kinoblog (Michael Brooke)
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)
  
  A Walk in the Old Town of Warsaw (Spacerek staromiejski, 1958) - IMDB
  Reviews: Kinoblog (Michael Brooke)
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)
  
  Con Bravura (aka The Nun/Zakonnika, 1958)
  Third episode of Eroica, shot and completed but excised at the last minute - though it still survives.
  
  Polish Newsreel No. 52 A-B (Polska kronika filmowa, 1958) - IMDB
  DVD: included on Polish School of the Documentary: Andrzej Munk (PWA, Region 0 PAL, Polish with optional English/French/German/Russian subtitles)

OTHER RESOURCES

• Culture.pl - critical overview and annotated filmography (also available in Polish);
  
  Film Comment (Jan-Feb 2002) - introduction by Stuart Klawans;
  
  Film Society of Lincoln Center - introduction and detailed notes from their early 2002 Munk retrospective.

(more to follow...)

[multivitamin]

i reckon "black luck" is my favourite one. mainly thanks to genius performance by bogumil kobiela

[Matt]

Film at Lincoln Center's Virtual Cinema is currently doing an Andrzej Munk retrospective, including restored versions of:

The Men of the Blue Cross (1955), preceded by Destination – Nowa Huta! (documentary short, 1951)
Man on the Tracks (1957)
Eroica (1957)
Bad Luck (1960)
Passenger (1963), preceded by A Walk in the Old City of Warsaw (documentary short, 1958)

Each individual program is a $5 rental, or you can get a package deal for $20. Either option gives you 5 days to watch (24 hours once you press play), but I don't know when availability ends. I'd never seen any of his work before, but what I've watched has been really good so far.

[MichaelB]

You have to make allowances for Destination - Nowa Huta!, Men of the Blue Cross and Man on the Tracks being made under a compulsory Socialist Realist cultural policy, although only the first of those is unvarnished propaganda, and Man on the Tracks ranks up there with Andrzej Wajda's A Generation as the Polish feature that most intelligently works around these restrictions. But the others are flat-out wonderful - I have a particularly soft spot for Bad Luck, one of the best examples I can think of of Polish humour at its most morbidly fatalistic. (A recent film-school graduate named Roman Polanski was Munk's assistant on that film.)

[knives]

Thanks for bringing this to me attention. I’m only at those pieces of propaganda and am nonetheless enjoying it so far.

[knives]

Just finished and was blown away by Bad Luck. Out of curiosity did Kosinski ever cite it as an influence on Being There?