Filmoteka Muzeum

This abstract film by Bruce Checefsky was based on a script by the avant-garde poet, Jan Brzękowski, published in 1930 in Cracow’s literary magazine “Linia” and the French magazine “Cercle et Carré”. The script was an illustration of Brzękowski’s theory of abstract film. According to the poet, “upon drawing up an abstract film script, there are only two methods to choose from: either be guided by fantasy and accept it as the sole principle of creative practice, or adopt a normative factor that combines images into an artistic structure”. Having rejected the first method, which was dominant in the surrealist film productions at the time, he pursued the possibility of making a film with a robust structure, based on combining fragments without anecdotal content – film forms – following the adopted principle: image identity, similarity or complementarity of forms, contrasts, etc. The choice of the overriding principle was of secondary importance and did not exclude the application of other rules at the same time. It was of key importance, however, to “preserve the logic of abstract structure of the film script”. Checefsky addressed the poet’s never-realised concept with his motion picture made with a 35 mm camera from the 1940s, on a monochrome film hailing from the era when the script was released.

References: J. Brzękowski, Kobieta i koła [film script], “Linia”, 1931, vol. 1; reprinted in: M. Giżycki, Walka o film artystyczny w międzywojennej Polsce, Warsaw 1989.
 

(AK)