Films Which Wanted to See in a Different Way: In the Bauhaus Circle
Andrzej Gwóźdź
gwan1@poczta.onet.plUniversity of Silesia (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4779-5942
Abstract
The author attempts to define the phenomenon of film technique in the “zero point of cinema”, with reference to selected films made within the circle of Bauhaus’s “new vision” at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s (Amateurfilm Dessau by Ivana Tomljenović from 1930 and several films by László Moholy-Nagy, particularly Architects’ Congress. Film Diary /1933/). The text concerns the phenomenon based on ignoring technical standards of the medium and/or questioning them to the point of explicit denouncement of the idea of development as a negative reference point, and at times even total rejection of the idea. In the discussed films, visuality perceived as a means to manage the authority of power is contrasted with the right to look (based on “countervisuality”), which is expressed particularly in the staging of seeing the act of looking. It is about a state in which perception practices are not appropriated by visual constructs, since the social machine has not yet arranged the functioning of the photography-film machine; this creates an impression of staging and directorial poverty.
Keywords:
countervisuality, cinematic apparatus, „new vision”, photogram, BauhausReferences
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Authors
Andrzej Gwóźdźgwan1@poczta.onet.pl
University of Silesia Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4779-5942
Full Professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Silesia (Katowice). For many years he was also a researcher and lecturer at the University of Lodz, as well as a visiting professor at universities in Konstanz and Shanghai, and a lecturer at universities in the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany and Latvia. He is particularly interested in the theory of film and new media, and the anthropology of imagery. His recent publications include two monographs on German cinema: Zaklinanie rzeczywistości. Filmy niemieckie i ich historie 1933-1949 [Enchanting the Reality: German Films and Their Histories 1933-1949] (2018) and Kino na biegunach. Filmy niemieckie i ich historie 1949-1991 [Rocking Between the Poles: German Films and Their Histories 1949-1991] (2019). Moreover, he is the author of Powtórka z Kutza [Revising the Works of Kazimierz Kutz] (2019), as well as the originator and editor of several dozens of anthologies and collective volumes devoted to media theory, history of film reflection, history of Upper Silesian cinema, and various filmmakers. His recent publications include: W poszukiwaniu polskiej Nowej Fali [In Search for the Polish New Wave] (in collaboration with M. Wach, 2017), Widzialność wyzwolona [Liberated Visibility] (in collaboration with N. Gruenpeter, 2018), Z góry widać lepiej. Niedokończone rozmowy z Kazimierzem Kutzem. Rozmawiał Andrzej Gwóźdź [You Get a Better View from Above: Unfinished Conversations with Kazimierz Kutz. Interviewed by Andrzej Gwóźdź] (2019). In 2005-2009 he was the president of the Polish Association of Cultural Studies; in 2006-2014 he was the editor-in-chief of the quarterly Kultura Współczesna. He is the founder, and, since 2015, the vice-president of the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies.
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