Marek Haltof is Assistant Professor in Film in the English Department at Northern Michigan University. He published Peter Weir: When Cultures Collide (1996) and three books on cinema in Polish, including Australian Cinema: On the Screen Construction of Australia (1996) and Author and Art Cinema: The Case of Paul Cox (2001). He is also the author of two novels published in Poland.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Polish Cinema before the Introduction of Sound
Chapter 2. The Sound Period of the 1930s
Chapter 3. Polish Films-Whose Dreams? Cinema and the Political Construction of Polish National Identity after World War II
Chapter 4. The Poetics of Screen Stalinism: Socialist Realist Films
Chapter 5. The Polish School Revisited
Chapter 6. Adaptations, Personal Style, and Popular Cinema between 1965 and 1976
Chapter 7. Camouflage and Rough Treatment: The "Cinema of Distrust," the Solidarity Period, and Afterwards
Chapter 8. Landscape after Battle: The Return of Democracy
Chapter 9. The Representation of Stalinism in Polish Cinema
Chapter 10. National Memory, the Holocaust, and Images of the Jew in Postwar Polish Films
Chapter 11. Polish Films with an American Accent

Afterword

Selected Filmography
Selected Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Film Titles

In the years since World War II, Poland has developed one of Europe's most distinguished film cultures. However, in spite of the importance of Polish cinema this is a domain in need of systematic study.

This book is the first comprehensive study of Polish cinema from the end of the 19th century to the present. It provides not only an introduction to Polish cinema within a socio-political and economic context, but also to the complexities of East-Central European cinema and politics.