The Contexts of “The Story of Sin” – the Most Popular Film in Warsaw in 1911
Abstract
The Story of Sin is the first Polish movie extending beyond one act. The author focuses on the contexts in which the film was made: the one linked with the media transformation (which in Warsaw was started by the films Den hvide Slavehandel and Afgrunden) and the emancipatory and modernising ones, referring to the work of Esther Sabelus, Kaspar Maase and Heide Satchlüpmann. The analysis of local press indicates that it was the most popular film in Warsaw in 1911, which might be linked to its subject matter connected to the theme of the “fallen woman” and the visual layer, revealing Warsaw scenery close to the viewers’ hearts. Yet analysis of the press suggests that the film was considered a threat to the “moral development of society”, as it portrayed the tensions associated with modernity and the evolution of the media society.
Keywords:
Antoni Bednarczyk, film press, WarsawReferences
Altenloh, Emilie. Zur Soziologie des Kino. Die Kino-Unternehmung und die sozialen Schichten ihrer Besucher, Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1914.
Google Scholar
Banaszkiewicz, Władysław. „Filmy i ludzie z lat 1908-1914”, in Historia filmu polskiego. Tom I: 1895-1929, ed. Władysław Banaszkiewicz, Witold Witczak, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1966.
Google Scholar
Birett, Herbert. Lichtspiele. Der Kino in Deutschland bis 1914, München: Q-Verlag, 1994.
Google Scholar
Biskupski, Łukasz. Miasto atrakcji. Narodziny kultury masowej na przełomie XIX i XX wieku, Warszawa: Narodowe Centrum Kultury, 2013.
Google Scholar
Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. Urban Legends & Their Meanings, New York – London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981.
Google Scholar
Burrows, Jon. „The Great Asta Nielsen, The Shady Exclusive and the Birth of Film Censorship in Britain, 1911-1914”, in Importing Asta Nielsen: The International Film Star in the Making 1910-1914, ed. Martin Loiperdinger, Uli Jung, New Barnet: John Libbey, 2013.
Google Scholar
Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, St. Albans: Paladin, 1973.
Google Scholar
Dębski, Andrzej. „Otchłań w Warszawie. Przyczynek do opisu przełomu medialnego i diagnozy popularności Asty Nielsen na ziemiach polskich przed I wojną światową”, in Polska i Niemcy. Filmowe granice i sąsiedztwa, ed. Konrad Klejsa, Wrocław: Atut, 2012.
Google Scholar
Dębski, Andrzej. Historia kina we Wrocławiu w latach 1896-1918, Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2009.
Google Scholar
Esser, Michael. „Fesselnde Unterhaltung. Mit weißen Sklavinnen zu neuen Ufern“, in Schwarzer Traum und weiβe Sklavin. Deutsch-dänische Filmbeziehungen 1910-1930, ed. M. Behn, München: Edition Text + Kritik, 1994.
Google Scholar
Garncarz, Joseph. „The European Fairground Cinema: (Re)defining and (Re)contextualizing the Cinema of Attractions”, in A Companion to Early Cinema, ed. André Gaudreault, Nicolas Dulac, Santiago Hidalgo. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118274453.ch17
Google Scholar
Garncarz, Joseph. Maßlose Unterhaltung. Zur Etablierung des Films in Deutschland 1896-1914, Frankfurt am Main – Basel: Stroemfeld, 2010.
Google Scholar
Gaudreault, André, and Marion, Philippe, „A Medium is always born twice…”, „Early Popular Visual Culture” 1 (2005).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17460650500056964
Google Scholar
Gaudreault, André. „Das Erscheinen des Kinematographen“, „KINtop. Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des frühen Films” 12 (2003).
Google Scholar
Grabiec, J. [Dąbrowski, Józef], Współczesna Polska w cyfrach i faktach, Kraków: Życie [1911].
Google Scholar
Gunning, Tom. „The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, ist Spectator and the Avant-Garde“, in Early Cinema. Space, Frame, Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser, London: British Film Institute, 1990.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781838710170.0008
Google Scholar
Hendrykowska, Małgorzata. „Początki kinematografii polskiej. Pierwsze dwie dekady”, in Kino okresu Wielkiego Niemowy. Część pierwsza: Początki, ed. Grażyna Grabowska. Warszawa: Filmoteka Narodowa, 2008.
Google Scholar
Hendrykowska, Małgorzata. Kronika kinematografii polskiej 1895-2011, Poznań: Ars Nova, 2012.
Google Scholar
Hendrykowska, Małgorzata. Śladami tamtych cieni. Film w kulturze polskiej przełomu stuleci 1895-1914, Poznań: Book Service, 1993.
Google Scholar
Importing Asta Nielsen: The International Film Star in the Making 1910-1914, ed. Martin Loiperdinger, Uli Jung, New Barnet: John Libbey, 2013.
Google Scholar
Kłys, Tomasz. „Film niemiecki w epoce wilhelmińskiej i weimarskiej”, in Historia kina. Tom I: Kino nieme, ed. Tadeusz Lubelski, Iwona Sowińska, Rafał Syska, Kraków: Universitas 2009.
Google Scholar
Kuhn, Annette. Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality. 1909-1925, London: Routledge, 1988.
Google Scholar
Lewicki, Arkadiusz. Seks i dziesiąta muza. Erotyzm, relacje intymne i wzorce genderowe w kinie przedkodeksowym (1894-1934), Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2011.
Google Scholar
Loiperdinger, Martin. „Abgründe (Przepaść) – początek długometrażowych filmów fabularnych we Wrocławiu, in Wrocław będzie miastem filmowym… Z dziejów kina w stolicy Dolnego Śląska, ed. Andrzej Dębski, Marek Zybura, Wrocław: Gajt, 2008.
Google Scholar
Loiperdinger, Martin. „Afgrunden in Germany: Monopolfilm, Cinemagoing and the Emergence of the Film Star Asta Nielsen, 1910-11“, in Cinema, Audiences and Modernity. New Perspectives on European Cinema History, ed. Daniel Biltereyst, Richard Maltby, Philippe Meers, London – New York: Routledge, 2012.
Google Scholar
Maase, Kaspar. Die Kinder der Massenkultur. Kontroversen um Schmutz und Schund seit dem Kaiserreich, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2012.
Google Scholar
Müller, Corinna. Frühe deutsche Kinematographie. Formale, wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Entwicklungen 1907-1912. Stuttgart – Weimar: Metzler, 1994.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-03560-8
Google Scholar
Piispa, Lauri. „Asta Nielsen and the Russian Film Trade“, in Importing Asta Nielsen: The International Film Star in the Making 1910-1914, ed. Martin Loiperdinger, Uli Jung, New Barnet: John Libbey, 2013.
Google Scholar
Sabelus, Esther. Die weiβe Sklavin. Mediale Inszenierungen von Sexualität und Groβstadt um 1900, Berlin: Panama Verlag, 2009.
Google Scholar
Schlüpmann, Heide. Unheimlichkeit des Blicks. Das Drama des frühen deutschen Kinos, Basel – Frankfurt am Main: Stroemfeld, 1990.
Google Scholar
Shail, Andrew. „Introduction. Cinema’s second birth”, „Early Popular Visual Culture” 2 (2013).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2013.785714
Google Scholar
Słodowski, Jan. „Dzieje grzechu – historia adaptacji filmowych”, in Żeromski na ekranie, ed. Jan Pacławski. Kielce: Kieleckie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1997.
Google Scholar
Authors
Andrzej Dębskikwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of Wrocław Poland
Kieruje projektami Kino polskie i niemieckie na pograniczu kultur i Historia kina na Dolnym Śląsku do 1945 r. (Centrum im. W. Brandta Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego). Autor Historii kina we Wrocławiu w latach 1896-1918 (2009) i współredaktor tomów zbiorowych: Unterwegs zum Nachbarn. Deutsch-polnische Filmbegegnungen (z B. Braun i A. Gwoździem /2015/), Sylwester Chęciński (z R. Bubnickim /2015/).
Statistics
Abstract views: 84PDF downloads: 48
License
Copyright (c) 2015 Andrzej Dębski
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.
In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Andrzej Dębski, Early Cinema Period in Lower Silesia , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 110 (2020): Beyond Human Being
- Andrzej Dębski, Revisiting the Repertoires of Cinemas for Poles in Occupied Kraków , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 117 (2022): Unknown/Hidden Cinema
- Andrzej Dębski, Subscription Video on Demand in Germany , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 124 (2023): Streaming
- Andrzej Dębski, Paulina Korneluk, Lviv’s Cinemas During World War II , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 127 (2024): Empirical Film Studies
- Andrzej Dębski, Changing Preferences: “Ad Vocem” , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 122 (2023): Landscapes, Panoramas, Territories
- Andrzej Dębski, From Spectacle Art to the Cinema of Attraction, or the Intermedia Character of a Film Trick , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 99 (2017): Tricks, Special Numbers, Attractions
- Andrzej Dębski, Early Cinema as a Spectacle: The German Example , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 85 (2014): Film and Media – the Past and the Future