Juliusz Kleiner’s Theory of Humanistic Research as Applied to Film Studies
Abstract
The author recalls the 1929 essay “U wrót nowej estetyki” [“At the Gates of a New Aesthetics”] by Juliusz Kleiner (1886-1957), an eminent Polish humanist and philologist, and considers it as one of the most important publications within prewar Polish film thought. Lewicki primarily draws attention to the act of ennoblement of film in the scientific world, as well as Kleiner’s important observations on film as an art guided by new principles of creation and characterized by a new mode of reception. The main part of the article is an attempt to apply Kleiner’s other, strictly philological works and the methodology developed therein to film studies as an academic discipline, which was taking shape in the late 1950s and early 1960s (individual remarks concern, among other things, the issue of analysing a work, the theory of the historical process, as well as the principles of interdisciplinary comparative studies). (Non-reviewed material; originally published in Kwartalnik Filmowy 1957, no. 28, pp. 3-17).
Keywords:
Juliusz Kleiner, history of film thought, literary studies, humanistic research methodsReferences
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Authors
Bolesław W. Lewickikwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Poland
Born in 1908, died in 1981; Polish film expert, film theoretician, historian and methodologist of film studies, promoter of film education. He started his scientific, publishing, and cultural work while still a philology student at the John Casimir University in Lwów. He spent the war years in five concentration camps (including Auschwitz), and included his memories of this time in the book Wiesz, jak jest [You Know How It Is] (1974, reprinted in 2012). After the war, he settled in Łódź and founded the Department of Film Studies at the university there in 1959. He also contributed to the establishment of the Lodz Film School and was its rector and long-time lecturer. Author of three books (Wprowadzenie do wiedzy o filmie [Introduction to Film Knowledge] /1964/, Scenariusz. Literacki program struktury filmowej [Screenplay: The Literary Programme of Film Structure] /1970/ and Kino i telewizja [Cinema and Television] /1974 – editor of the volume and its co-author/), as well as several hundred scientific articles (the bibliography of his dispersed works includes approximately 750 items; in Kwartalnik Filmowy alone – in the 1951-1965 edition – he published nearly 20 articles). In 1995, Ewelina Nurczyńska-Fidelska and Bronisława Stolarska prepared the volume O filmie. Wybór pism [On Film: A Selection of Writings] collecting 30 articles by Lewicki from different periods of his activity.
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