Representation of "Reality" in Socialist Society : An Analysis of Polish Documentary Films in the 1950's

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  • 社会主義体制における現実の表象 : ポーランド・ドキュメンタリー映画の検討から
  • シャカイ シュギ タイセイ ニ オケル ゲンジツ ノ ヒョウショウ ポーランド ドキュメンタリー エイガ ノ ケントウ カラ

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Abstract

How did the socialist utopian imagination affect the minds and thought of the people who lived in the former socialist Eastern Bloc? What kinds of idea and practice did it create? In answering these questions, this paper analyzes Polish documentary films in the 1950's, and considers how such films represented reality in socialist Poland in its relationship with this utopian imagination. In the era of socialist realism (1949-55), documentary films triumphantly depicted reality in Poland as that destined to become the model of the future socialist utopian society. But such representation dramatically changed when a great socio-cultural change occurred in 1956, the socalled "Thaw." Then, new documentary films in the "Black Series" (Czarna Seria) which appeared with the Thaw depicted reality as disillusionment with the regime's utopian projects. From an analysis of films, this paper argues that these two kinds of film marked two different perceptions of reality, that of the utopian imagination and of the post-utopian imagination. Such a difference implies that within socialist projects in the Eastern Bloc, which is normally regarded as a monolithic "totalitarianism," there existed various imaginative possibilities which were in conflict with each other.

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