The Authors and Genres of New Wave Cinema

Magdalena Kempna-Pieniążek

Abstract

The authors of the Kino epoki nowofalowej [Cinema of the New Wave Era], third volume of the Historia kina [History of the Cinema] (2015) edited by Tadeusz Lubelski, Iwona Sowińska and Rafał Syska draw a panorama of the New Wave era of cinema as an area of artistic poetics, and at the same time a universe of ever evolving cinema genres. Most researchers writing in this volu­me on the work of masters of the cinema, successfully realise the interpretative paradigm, according to which it is culture that speaks through the authors. Even there, where the author’s perspective reaches its limits, interpreters “read” particular genres through the prism of creative Personalities associated with them. The “author – genre” relationship in the context of the third volume of the History of the Cinema can also be seen as an opposition between artistic and commercial cinema. What seems significant in the New Wave era is the flourishing of national cinematographies and the appearance of post-colonial perspective, which was successfully incorporated into the volume.