{"id":224,"date":"2008-09-04T13:10:55","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T17:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=221"},"modified":"2014-06-10T14:20:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T14:20:43","slug":"westerplatte-film-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/westerplatte-film-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Westerplatte Film Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, continuing on the subject of Westerplatte<\/a>, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard about this new Polish movie \u201cTajemnica Westerplatte<\/strong>\u201d (The Secret of Westerplatte). The movie is not even made yet, the script has barely been written, and it\u2019s already a huge scandal in Poland. For those who don\u2019t know, here\u2019s a quick recap:
\n Pawe\u0142 Chochlew<\/strong> is a relative newbie of a writer and director, he used to be an actor actually, and his first directing project was \u201cTakie \u017bycie<\/strong>\u201d (That\u2019s Life) in 2004 and, at least according to me, it was a total flop. The fact that it\u2019s not even included in the International Movie Database seems to confirm my opinion.<\/p>\n

Anyway, for his second directing project Mr. Chochlew<\/strong> decided to re-tell the story of Westerplatte. He also wrote the script and applied for funding from the government, which is normal for filmmakers in Poland. And it all went downhill from there.<\/p>\n


\nThe script was reviewed by historical experts and deemed \u201cfictional\u201d<\/em>. And that\u2019s just one of the mildest comments the experts hurled at it. Others said that the script was \u201canti-Polish\u201d<\/em>, that it \u201ctarnished the image of the heroes of Westerplatte\u201d<\/em> and that it was simply \u201cvulgar\u201d<\/em> and \u201cdemeaning\u201d<\/em>. And inaccurate from the historical perspective.<\/p>\n

Now, Mr. Chochlew<\/strong> never claimed he was making a documentary. His film was meant as a work of fiction. So why all the commotion? In the script, the defenders of Westerplatte are depicted not as heroic saints as we\u2019ve been always taught in school, but as dudes who are drinking, running around naked and generally behaving badly, to put it gently. And you simply can\u2019t have national heroes doing such things, right? Because we all know that those brave Polish soldiers fighting a losing battle still had the disposition of clean and pristine choir boys.<\/p>\n

Mr. Chochlew<\/strong> was asked to revise the script and to make it conform with our long-standing idealized images of the battle. Otherwise there will be no film, he was told.<\/p>\n

But as I read in \u201cDziennik Ba\u0142tycki<\/strong>\u201d<\/a> last week (link in Polish), now it turns out that the person who is protesting this project the loudest and accusing it of being \u201cdegrading\u201d<\/em> and \u201cinsulting\u201d<\/em> – Mariusz W\u00f3jtowicz-Podhorski<\/strong> has his own Westerplatte film in the works. But surely, this is just an awkward coincidence, right?<\/p>\n

What troubles me here is not the nasty campaign to discredit Mr. Chochlew<\/strong>\u2019s project, but the suggestion that he should self-censor its content. I thought that the days when artists, writers and directors were forced to comply with the officially sanctioned version of Polish history were long gone. I guess I was wrong.<\/p>\n

photo of the war monument at Westerplatte: Wikipedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

So, continuing on the subject of Westerplatte, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard about this new Polish movie \u201cTajemnica Westerplatte\u201d (The Secret of Westerplatte). The movie is not even made yet, the script has barely been written, and it\u2019s already a huge scandal in Poland. For those who don\u2019t know, here\u2019s a quick recap: Pawe\u0142…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2035,2132,7616,7624],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-controversy","tag-film","tag-westerplatte","tag-ww2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5404,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/5404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}