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This thesis is an attempt at an analysis of Andrzej Wajda's political films, Man of Marble, Man of Iron and Danton in a broad cultural and historical context. The manuscript is divided into five chapters. The first chapter, "The Political Film of Andrzej Wajda--Issues of Methodology", presents a theoretical basis for the discussion of political film. Bakhtin's dialogism complemented by linguistic pragmatics provides the methodology used in the thesis to illustrate the dialogical process of meaning formation in political films of Andrzej Wajda. Chapter two discusses Wajda as the carrier of the political message, while chapters three, four and five, respectively, contain the historical, the dramatis personae and the aesthetic discourses in the films under study.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

This study examines resistance against totalitarian propaganda in select movies produced in regions subjected to Soviet-imposed totalitarian system. From 1939 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Central-Eastern Europe has experienced two of the most devastating and genocidal political systems in the history of the humankind. Nazism was destroyed with the end of WWII, and met widespread condemnation. Sovietism, commonly known as Communism, survived WWII and the Soviet totalitarian empire rose to the position of the world's second superpower. Effective and organized Soviet propaganda generated a new convincing image of Sovietism as a harmless, friendly and progressive system. In this situation, the extremely important role of maintaining moral consciousness has fallen to the artistic world, specifically film. The scope of my thesis is to explore and analyze the responses to the Soviet totalitarianism in movies produced in European states of the Soviet bloc, between 1956 and 1989. My thesis aims to offer a critical reading of the chosen movies as well as their historical and political conditions. I point out how filmmakers articulated their resistance and analyze it in the context of national culture. The movies I chose to discuss express the reality of everyday life during the Soviet era. Their dissection reflects the mutual influence of history and art in general and in the Soviet bloc in particular. Hence, I offer a reading of the past expressed in the subjective vision of the cinematographic art. Movies not only reflect certain fragments of the reality, they also play an important role in constructing a collective memory. Discussing them from this angle leads to an understanding of the current perception of the past in those countries.

No description available.