TVP WEEKLY: Was Hanna Skarżanka the first to bare her breast in a Polish film?

MIRELLA AND JAROSŁAW KURKOWSCY: There is a belief in the popular consciousness that naked breasts only appeared on the cinema screen during the Gierek era. Usually, attention was drawn to the 1971 film Cardiogram starring Anna Seniuk. This is why we have taken this film as a reference point and metaphorically emphasised its role with the title of the book.

But in fact, as early as 1951, Hanna Skarżanka appeared in a film scene with her breasts exposed. It may come as quite a surprise to the viewer that this "first time" took place during the Socialist Realist era, when artistic creativity was subordinated to strict patterns excluding all eroticism, and the promoted ideal of femininity was the masculinised "labour leader". However, it could be said that it was an 'ideological breast', shown in the name of higher reasons.

In the superproduction of the time, Alexander Ford's film "Chopin's Youth ", a brutal French soldier tears the blouse of a protesting worker. This was the role played by Skarżanka. A further sequence in the film is an obvious reference to the famous painting by Eugéne Delacroix, in which a young girl in a loose dress and bare breasts leads 'the people to the barricades'.

Although the artist intended the image to refer to the events of the July Revolution in Paris, here the filmmakers moved the scene to 1832 to illustrate the June riots in the French capital and fit them into a well thought-out ideological template. Here, inspired by the November Uprising, the people of Paris took up arms against the privileged classes to demand social justice. In this context, the November Uprising takes on a class character and the title character - a famous composer - becomes a revolutionary.

During the Stalinist years, decisions about love plots in our cinema were made at the highest level?

This was certainly the case with the film "The First Days", directed by Jan Rybkowski (1951). In the Belvedere, the details of the love scene between the secretary of the district committee and a young female teacher were agreed. The decisions were made by Bolesław Bierut himself, deciding, among other things, whether a district-level political activist could kiss a female activist in front of the audience. We know about this characteristic event from the account of Włodzimierz Sokorski, then Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Culture and the Arts.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE Because of spicy erotica, "Dancing in Hitler's quarters" was stopped by the censors?

The film waited quite a long time to be distributed (3 years - until 1971). This, of course, is not some special result; in later years, censorship held back the release of some films for much longer periods. But what was the deciding factor in this case? It was, after all, a film adaptation of a book by Andrzej Brycht, an author with strong ties to the Gomułka establishment, though regarded as an adventurer familiar with the world of the social underclass, who could describe reality in strong succinct terms. The film "Dancing" was criticised by the important censor Henryk Olszewski for the erotic scenes taking place among teenagers. Particularly controversial was an overlong sequence of nude play by a group of 'golden youths'.

But this, in the light of the source material, was not the main problem. The eroticism could have been mitigated by cuts - an irresolvable flaw was the casting of one of the leading roles: Andrzej Łapicki, with his 'innate' charm and culture, played a wealthy German who makes the young protagonists aware of Nazi wartime crimes. It did not save the situation that this German was also a prisoner of the regime during the war.

The character of the cynical Anka, who could even serve as a role model for the young audience in such a production, was also overly amiable, according to the authorities. Thus, the issues of nudity and eroticism played an important role in this case, although ultimately not a decisive one.

Did it happen to cut out 'moments' at the request of actresses?

Such situations have occurred, although the reasons for them have varied. A characteristic example may be the cult 1971 film "The Cruise" directed by Marek Piwowski. After many alterations, re-edits and cuts to the film material, Jolanta Lothe demanded that the topless scenes featuring her be removed. Why did she change her mind when, after all, she had not protested during their filming? In the final version, she actually lost her role completely and was left with only undressed shots. After all, such could have been played by a non-professional actress-double.

Lothe's consent to the negligee was based on her acceptance of the whole acting task. The issue provoked a fierce discussion during the collation and, in the end, 'the most beautiful bust in all of Warsaw' did not appear before the eyes of the audience. Let us add that this particular undressing scene had its merits, as fans of the film and collectors of bon mots under the heading of 'observing the road to Ostrołęka' know. It is worth recalling here that 'The Cruise' was screened in cinemas for only 38 days in 1970 and in only four provinces; the film's journey to the mass audience took much longer.

The objections related to the film 'Seksolatki' (Sex teenagers), directed by Zygmunt Hübner, were of a different nature. Just before the premiere, after the screening of the finished film, the parents of Hanna Wolska, the underage lead actress, protested. The reason for the protest was precisely the love scenes, which they found unacceptable on screen (despite their prior consent).

After many discussions, letters of protest and meetings, it was decided to reshoot the controversial scenes with an understudy. In the process, the film was shortened and only released 10 months after the collation. It did not get good press, but the title attracted an audience - one and a half million viewers saw it within six months.

Sex scenes from Kazimierz Kutz's 'Pearl in the Crown' contributed to marriage breakdown?

In a two-minute love sequence together with Olgierd Lukaszewicz, non-professional actress Lucja Kowalik was there. The male audience fully appreciated her assets. Unfamiliar admirers laid flowers at her door. Not everyone, however, considered this episode to be a cause for praise. Such publicly displayed nudity did not fit into the traditional customs of Silesian women. Lucia's husband did not know that his wife had agreed to the 'undressing scene'. When this came to light, he is said to have snidely told the director that he "didn't think his wife was up to anything, and here was such a surprise". After a while, the Kowaliks divorced, and the gossipers spread the word that the husband, deep down, couldn't bear to see his wife undressed on screen after all.

One Polish artist had her negligee cut from the film's domestic version, leaving it for foreign viewers...s

"Charms" by Beata Tyszkiewicz only appeared in the export version of "Ashes", but not because of censorship measures, as one might think (censorship in the People's Republic of Poland graded strictness according to the audience: works intended for the mass audience in the country were subject to the greatest restrictions). In this case it was different. It was the realisation of a specific clause in her contract with the actress that demanded this from the producer and director. Years later, Tyszkiewicz came to the conclusion that it made little sense and was due to her inexperience and young age.

And where did the directorial self-censorship in Andrzej Wajda's "Promised Land" come from?

This is indeed an intriguing question. The role of Lucy Zucker was originally to be given to Violetta Villas. However, the insatiable, highly sensual woman was played by Kalina Jędrusik. Passion in a railway carriage is played with incredible bravado and rapacity. The actress imbued her performance with so much sex that even without the negligee, the scene evoked strong emotions and was memorable for the audience. Jędrusik recalls that not long after the film's premiere, an elderly man shouted at her in a shop that she should not show herself in public.

Edward Gierek, after a screening organised for members of the Politburo and their wives, stated that the film would have been excellent if two pornographic scenes had been cut from it. He was referring to the erotic sequences in the carriage and the train. Interestingly, film critics during this period were forbidden to criticise "Promised Land"; the censors were given special guidelines on the matter.

Undoubtedly, the so-called 'moments' in the screen adaptation of this novel by Władysław Reymont were hotly debated at the time. According to Sebastian Jagielski, they caused a shock in Poland. They probably also played a part in the final outcome of the Academy Awards: supposedly, the lack of an award (in our view, the film absolutely deserved one) was due to accusations of anti-Semitism and the echoing of national prejudices.

The film was re-edited in 2000. Andrzej Wajda shortened it considerably, claiming that the once-lauded narrative rhythm had become too slow on the threshold of the 21st century. With no regrets, he also got rid of the erotic scenes: because they used to be "sensational", and today "everybody shoots them".

We are not convinced by such an explanation - the making of the film less attractive, probably in the name of some ill-understood correctness (moral? political?), did great harm to the film. A great masterpiece of Polish cinematography has been castrated, mutilated, and that personally by the director himself!

Wajda's correctness intentions are also evidenced by a scene added in 2000: Lodz bankers and accountants - very different people (also in terms of nationality) - make music together. The characters, who think only of money and tariffs, suddenly meet to play some Mendelssohn or Schumann quartet together. According to the director, the addition of such a scene 'deepens' the meaning of the film. It is difficult to agree with this.

In People's Poland, who decided on the allocation of age categories to cinema films?

The Commission for the Eligibility of Films for Children and Young People was the body responsible for this, and the system had been in force since 1964. At the time, there were four categories ('unrestricted', 'under 12', 'under 15', 'under 18'). These were later slightly modified (e.g. the "under 16" category appeared). Already in the 1960s, these restrictions (especially the magic eighteen year old) became embedded in the consciousness of young people, becoming a symbol of the overprotective concern of the older, still wartime, "too conservative" generation of parents. It is no coincidence that the band "Czerwone Gitary", in one of their iconic songs, divided many of life's situations (including going to the cinema) into permitted "up to the age of 18" and permitted "from the age of 18". The cinemas generally adhered to these restrictions (that's how we remembered our own experience in this case).

How did "moments" from "A Matrimonial Guide", "The Cardiogram", "The Anatomy of Love", "Locked Up" or "Jealousy and Medicine" end up on market stalls?

Actresses in negligees and other daring shots from films could be bought as prints at the famous Różycki Bazaar in Warsaw, for example. Some became extremely popular, such as the already mentioned love scene with Anna Seniuk and Tadeusz Borowski from the film "The Cardiogram".

Cinematographers, not the film ones, but those screening films in cinemas, took advantage of the boom in such products in a country devoid of 'dirty magazines' and cut out individual frames with 'naked women' with a view to profitable prints. The excuse in such a situation was that the tape allegedly broke. The cuts reportedly made their presence known through minor skips during projection.

This was visible proof of the uniqueness and attractiveness of the shot and admiration for the actress's charms. Today, it is difficult to say precisely how widespread this practice actually was and what the road from film to bazaar photo actually looked like.

Nudity in communist cinema did not provoke any spectacular controversy?

In the public space, we did not see such spectacular disputes - at least until the early 1970s -. This is our (somewhat surprising, however) finding after an extensive archival search and review of a considerable number of titles in the press at the time. We think this was due to a number of factors. First and foremost, the nudity shown in cinemas at the time was subject to many 'production' restrictions. These accompanied the making of the film from the very beginning, starting with the initial screening of scripts. The self-censorship of the filmmakers and the already well-established habits of Polish cinematography played a huge role.

The conservative traditions of Catholic society also played their part. The final product, as far as we are interested, was therefore quite stereotypical. At the same time, it must be remembered that the public sphere in the People's Republic of Poland was largely characterised by double standards and hypocrisy. It is noteworthy that echoes of disputes about nudity in individual films appear in transcripts of (obviously also censored) discussions that were held at the time, for example after film screenings at workplaces. One might therefore suspect that these issues were discussed vigorously in the privacy of the home.

Erotica has influenced the modernisation of our cinematography!?

Such a statement sounds a bit strange. We have just entitled one of the subsections of the book "Nudity as a catalyst for the transformation of Polish cinema?" - with a question mark at the end. This question is related to at least a few attempts in Polish cinematography of the late 1960s and early 1970s to search for new narrative modes and new genre forms.

We paid particular attention to the aforementioned "The Cruise" by Marek Piwowski, "The Woodpecker" by Jerzy Gruza and "The Game" by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. In such films, nudity and love scenes were a certain component of experimentation inscribed in the subjective narration of the protagonist, or the new-wave discontinuity of events, the structure of a surrealist joke, in the mixture of realistic and unrealistic convention, in the innovative form of a diary or an essay, etc.

One can speculate that the intention of the filmmakers was to step outside the stereotypes in terms of morality in order to promote the postulated 'modernisation', the 'Europeanisation' of our cinematography. It does not seem, however, that these efforts brought about any permanent transformation in the direction they expected.

Why did the cinematographies of Eastern European countries import our actresses for the undressing sequences? - vide Irena Karel in the East German sci-fi production "Signals MMXX"

In this respect, the People's Republic of Poland was the freest barrack in terms of morals, moreover adorned with the charms of beautiful women. On a more serious note: the difficulty of satisfying material needs and managing the rebellious Eastern Bloc society, the largest outside of the "workers' and peasants' homeland", prompted successive government teams to grant certain concessions, including in the area of art and entertainment. This is how the foundations of this 'merriest barrack in the camp' were formed.

These factors were not present in such intensity in any other country of the so-called people's democracy. Hence the greater freedom of our filmmakers in the field of morals, giving others the opportunity for rationed 'imports' of erotica (as part of the supported cooperation of the 'progress camp'). Thank you, by the way, for drawing our attention to another film with just such an 'import', made in co-production with East German cinematography.

Since I've evoked the leading sexbomb of People's Poland, she was a candidate for the role of Rebecca Widmar in "Jealousy and Medicine"....

A sheet of paper handwritten by director Janusz Majewski with fittings for the casting of particular roles in this film has survived. As it happens, some of the actors considered in the first stage already had other professional commitments overlapping with the shooting deadline, so they naturally dropped out.

For the role of Rebecca, rehearsal shoots were conducted, but only in clothes. Janusz Majewski paid particular attention to the face during casting. The Filmoteka Narodowa (National Film Archive) has preserved photographs of female candidates who never appeared on screen.

In the end, Majewski engaged Ewa Krzyżewska for the role of Rebecca, whom he had not considered at all before. On the contrary, he thought she had an uninteresting beauty and a terrible figure (about her figure he still hasn't changed his mind). But he did notice her unique eyes and unusual gaze. A look that, in his opinion, could convince the viewer that she was capable of driving men crazy.

Walerian Borowczyk realised a sex-filled plot in Poland through a foray?

The scandalous filmmaker made "Immoral Tales" in 1973 about sex-addicted women living in different historical eras. When a year later he embarked on the filming of "History of Sin", based on the book by Stefan Żeromski, he already had a reputation as a director of erotic films. Everyone was against this project, from the film community itself, to the authorities of the time, as well as the hierarchy of the Polish Church.

In order to obtain permission, the director therefore resorted to a trick. Together with Stanisław Różewicz - the director of the Tor film team - he went to the Ministry of Culture, where he slipped in that he had already spoken to the bishop and knew of the Church negative stance on the making of the film. And then... the authorities perversely agreed, but later closely watched and supervised the making of the film.

As can be assumed, the agreement to film a screen adaptation of a controversial work by a controversial director actually had an additional bottom: in this way, the image of People's Poland as a country of artistic independence and diversity was promoted - hence the premiere of this film at the Cannes Film Festival. Let us remember that Gierek's team was keen on the image of a 'modern, European' power (with which one could do sensible business and lend it money), and that in the second half of this supposedly deceitfully 'aborted' decade it was struggling with growing social discontent, a financial crisis and market shortages (hence 'naked women' instead of meat and sugar in the shops). Not surprisingly, in the lean and rebellious 1980s, exuberant eroticism and nakedness in the official cultural mainstream were assigned the role of a kind of 'safety valve'.

– Interviewed by Tomasz Zbigniew Zapert
-Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

The authors of the book are a married couple and university lecturers associated with the University of Warsaw.