Cinema, Insatiability and Impure Form: Witkacy on Film

In this essay the author discusses Cinema in the work of Witkacy, particularly its absence. He refers to many of Witkacy’s Western contemporaries as being fascinated by this increasingly dominant 20th Century medium, which Witkacy seems to have ignored despite his interest and participation in a wide range of modern aesthetic practices including painting, photography, mass produced portraits, and theatre. Part of the explanation for this, it is suggested, may lay in the relative underdevelopment of cinema in Poland prior to World War II; most of the local cinema produced was in the form of highly conventional romances, with an avant-garde cinema only developing towards the end of Witkacy’s life. The author continues to present a very succinct account of how Witkacy’s work has been transmuted into the medium of Film and Television.