MACMILLAN Polish Popular Music on Screen

This book examines the interface between Polish popular music and screen media against the background of Polish history, cinema, and popular culture and situates that interface in a local as well as global context. It looks at Polish musicals, biographical films about musicians, documentary films and, finally, music videos. The author draws attention to the immense popularity of musical comedies in Polish interwar cinema, the enduring appeal of musical genres during the period of state socialism, despite their low status in film criticism, and the re-birth of musicals in the 2010s. Mazierska also discusses the most important stars, directors and authors of songs presented in Polish films, and points to the effect of technological changes on inception and transformation of music-centred genres of screen media, including the effect of YouTube on their growth and preservation. The book is informed by the question of how parochial and universal is Polish popular music and its screen representation. Review “After years of studying various aspects of both film theory and Polish popular music, Ewa Mazierska presents a comprehensive book on Polish audiovisual culture, focusing on detailed relations between music and moving images. As a first work that fully covers this area, Mazierska’s book is crucial not only for readers interested in the socio-cultural history of film and music in Poland, but also for everyone who finds postcolonial studies of Eastern Europe interesting.” (Dr Mariusz Gradowski, Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw) “Insightful, informative, clearly written and thoroughly engaging, Mazierska’s book explores Polish musicals, biopics, music documentaries and music videos bringing to light a fascinating history unknown to non-natives, and under-researched in Poland. While explicitly national in its focus, the observations and points of analysis introduced call for further studies and comparative approaches of popular cinemas and music in other European and World contexts. Thoroughly recommended both for its illuminating breadth and depth, and for the invitation to comparisons that it inspires. ” (Dr Lydia Papadimitriou, Reader in Film Studies, Liverpool John Moores University) About the Author Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Film Studies, at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She has published over thirty monographs and edited collections on film and popular music. They include Poland Daily: Economy, Work, Consumption and Social Class in Polish Cinema (2017) and Popular Music in Eastern Europe: Breaking the Cold War Paradigm (Palgrave, 2016). Mazierska's work has been translated into over twenty languages. She is principal editor of the Routledge journal Studies in Eastern European Cinema.