Boro, L'Île d'Amour: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk

Published by Berghahn Books 2015

Boro, L'Île d'Amour

The Films of Walerian Borowczyk

Edited by: Kamila Kuc , Kuba Mikurda and Michał Oleszczyk

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782387022

Overview
Contents

About this book

There has been a recent revival of interest in the work of Polish film director Walerian Borowczyk, a label-defying auteur and “escape artist” if there ever was one. This collection serves as an introduction and a guide to Borowczyk’s complex and ambiguous body of work, including panoramic views of the director’s output, focused studies of particular movies, and more personal, impressionistic pieces. Taken together, these contributions comprise a wide-ranging survey that is markedly experimental in character, allowing scholars to gain insight into previously unnoticed aspects of Borowczyk’s oeuvre.

Author / Editor information

Kamila Kuc is a multimedia artist, curator and writer. Her films have screened in venues and at film festivals nationally and internationally: Whitechapel Gallery, British Film Institute, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Anthology Film Archives New York, Ann Arbor Film Festival. She is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on experimental media, including Visions of Avant-Garde Film (Indiana University Press) and the co-founder, with Sam Jury, of Disasters of Peace - a creative initiative that encompasses research, writing, making and curating.

Kuba Mikurda is a filmmaker and film scholar. He teaches at the Film School in Łódź where he directed a feature documentary Love Express: The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk (2018) for HBO Europe.

Michał Oleszczyk is a film critic, translator and script consultant based in Warsaw. He teaches film studies at "Artes Liberales" Department at University of Warsaw, as well as script development at Warsaw Film School. He contributes to "Cineaste" and RogerEbert.com

Kamila Kuc is a multimedia artist, curator and writer. Her films have screened in venues and at film festivals nationally and internationally: Whitechapel Gallery, British Film Institute, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Anthology Film Archives New York, Ann Arbor Film Festival. She is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on experimental media, including Visions of Avant-Garde Film (Indiana University Press) and the co-founder, with Sam Jury, of Disasters of Peace - a creative initiative that encompasses research, writing, making and curating.

Reviews

“The contributors to this collection use new archival sources to provide a comprehensive map of Boro’s career and to reestablish his place in the history of Polish and European avant-garde and art cinema. All the essays are well informed and clearly written; collectively, they provide valuable insights into Boro's often puzzling, sometimes scandalous motivations and productions.” • Choice

“Boro, L'Île d'Amour will prove an essential companion for both those readers who wish to dive deeper into specific topics, and those looking to cherry-pick individual films …one of the qualities that Borowczyk valued most in film was its ability to capture perpetual motion. [This volume] does just that: it honors the artist in flux, finding fresh points of connection, without trying to pin him down.” • Cineaste

“…a thought-provoking collection of different essays commenting on the life and films of a renowned Polish film director, Walerian Borowczyk… One of the strengths of this book is that the authors of the essays link Borowczyk’s artistic output with the social and artistic environment of Poland in which he grew up, and of France, where he spent most of his adult life.” • Slavic Review

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Introduction: A Private Universe Kamila Kuc, Kuba Mikurda and Michał Oleszczyk Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER 1 Boro: Escape Artist Kuba Mikurda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
CHAPTER 2 Borowczyk’s Kunstkamera Marcin Giżycki Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
CHAPTER 3 Animated Bodies: A Conversation between Kuba Mikurda and Jakub Woynarowski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
CHAPTER 4 Cruel Imagination: Borowczyk’s Post-traumatic Surrealism Iwona Kurz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
CHAPTER 5 The Postcard Never Sent: Guy de Maupassant and Rosalie Prudent’s Cinematic Confession Kamila Kuc Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
CHAPTER 6 Boro: The Guide for the Perplexed Fernando F. Croce Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
CHAPTER 7 Borowczyk’s Serial Labyrinth: From Goto, Isle of Love (1968) to Behind Convent Walls (1977) James Snazell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
CHAPTER 8 Immoral Toys: On Borowczyk’s A Private Collection (1973) Edwin Carels Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
CHAPTER 9 The Beast with Two Backs: On Borowczyk’s The Beast (1975) Phillip Warnell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
CHAPTER 10 Laugh in the Doll House: On Victorian Surrealism in the Films of Walerian Borowczyk Kamila Wielebska Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
CHAPTER 11 Enjoying Excess A Bataillean Interpretation of Story of Sin (1975) by Walerian Borowczyk and Stefan Żeromski Marta Rabikowska Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
CHAPTER 12 The Beach, the Bubble, and the Boudoir: The Meeting Spaces of Walerian Borowczyk and André Pieyre de Mandiargues Jonathan Owen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
CHAPTER 13 Sex and the Sacred: The Obstacles to Desire Becoming its Objects Jakub Majmurek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
CHAPTER 14 Reflecting on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981) Budd Wilkins Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
CHAPTER 15 The Perils of Emmanuelle A Conversation between Odie Henderson, Simon Abrams, and Michał Oleszczyk Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	170
CHAPTER 16 Revisiting Love Rites (1988) Kevin Lee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Walerian Borowczyk Filmography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193