LUX Main Site | RSS | Site Map | Terms of Use

THE FILMS OF STEFAN AND

FRANCISZKA THEMERSON
Marcin Giżycki discusses the films of Stefan and
Franciszka Themerson.
The body of Stefan and Franciszka Themerson's
film work consists of five films produced in Poland
between 1930-1937 (Pharmacy, Europa, Moment
Musical, Short Circuit, The Adventure of a Good
Citizen) and two films made during the Second
World War in England for the Film Unit of the Polish
Ministry of Information and Documentation in exile
(Calling Mr. Smith and The Eye and the Ear).
Despite the fact that of these seven works only the
last three, respectively, have survived and the rest
are known from descriptions and single frames,
there is no doubt that the Themersons were the
most important Polish independent experimental
film-makers in the inter-war years and their films
can easily be placed among the greatest
achievements of European avant-garde film of the
time.

Stefan Themerson's interest in the cinema, as it is

documented in print, dates from 1928 when he
became a regular film columnist for the newspaper
Polska Zbrojna and his poem 'In the Cinema' was
published in the literary supplement to Głos
Prawdy. But according to his own memories,
recalled in his article from 1937, the inspiration for
his own creative film work came much earlier:

"one night long, long ago, three feet

of scratched film-scrap tore across the
screen in front of the author of this
story. The screen glittered, blazed
with its very own light and died. The
slovenly projectionist must have
joined two reels with a scratched bit
of film... Let me now praise
slovenliness. The method was simple;
in normal photograms, objects were
placed on light-sensitive paper. We
arranged them on semi-transparent
paper, using a sheet of glass for
support; the camera (an old-fashioned
box with a crank) was placed
underneath and pointed upwards with
the light source situated above the
glass. Usually, but not always, by
moving the lights (frame after frame)
we obtained movement of the
shadows and their deformations."

The above quote assures us that Pharmacy was an

interesting experiment with animation. The true
subject of this kind of animation was not drawings
or objects, but the elusive nature of pure light. The
film also contained shots of pharmaceutical
accessories and of a siphon, face, clock, and hand.
The Themerson's own photograms from 1928-1929
were used as well. The images were given a
sequence according to their poetical and visual
value. No literary script existed.

This totally innovative film aroused controversy.

The critic Seweryn Tross, who sympathized with the
avant-garde, wrote later: "Escapism from content
into the area of pure a form in Pharmacy was for us
a new and interesting experiment. It showed the
Polish public, which did not know of foreign avant-
garde films, the emotional value of cinematic image
itself, irrespective of the content. However, the
critics did not fully appreciate Pharmacy."

It was only the Themersons' next film, Europa

(1931-32), based on Anatol Stern's poem
describing in a series of images the current
condition of the world, that received wider
publicity. This was primarily thanks to the
influential critic Stefania Zahorska who wrote a
long review, titled significantly: A Good Polish Film!
The published edition of the poem, which came out
in 1929, had been illustrated and designed by
Mieczysław Szczuka to resemble a visual film
script. Both text and illustrations impressed the
Themersons. The film was silent, but it followed the
text rather closely, giving a visual equivalent of
words and expressions. Stefania Zahorska called
Europa a film poem explaining further that:

"It is not an abstract film, for it contains objects,

people, fragments of action, but all these elements
of realism were liberated from their immediate
application — the relationship between them exists
only on the level of ideology, at the threshold of
symbolism... On this level it is materially and
tangibly shown that Europe reproduces. Europe
goes through the normal cycle, and continually
gives birth — to machine gun fodder."

The difficult conditions of making the film were

emphasized in the press. Years later Themerson
commented on these opinions: "... we chose this
'primitive-ness' and took advantage of it because it
gave a directness, which one has when one sculpts
with one's own fingers." This attitude allowed him
to criticize his fellow film-makers within the avant-
garde movement (mainly the START group) for
placing too much emphasis on the financial support
of their work.

"Is it possible," he asked, "that the lack of funds

could really stand in the way of the creation of any
art?", "Such an avant-garde," he added on another
occasion, "which takes money for its work, is out of
the question today; it would have to abandon the
directions and aims which make the term avant-
garde legitimate." Themerson did, however, allow
for the making of commissioned films —
educational shorts and commercials treating them
not only as a decent source of income, but also as
an interesting problem to solve. Moment Musical,
for example, advertised the fashion merchandise
(baubles and trinkets) of Wanda Golińska, and
Short Circuit, a commission by the Institute of
Social Affairs, was a warning against the careless
handling of electricity. Both were accepted
positively by critics.

Moment Musical, made in 1933, was the

Themersons' first sound film. This three-minute
commercial was set to Ravel's (according to other
sources, it was to Rimsky-Korsakov's) music which
had been transferred from a disc onto a film
soundtrack and then precisely analyzed. The
products advertised served as the elements of
moving compositions animated on the photogram
stand described above. Movements were accurately
synchronized with the music. The nature of the
objects (glass, porcelain, jewellery) served
perfectly for Themersons' concept of an animated
'light image.'

Their next film, Short Circuit, was also a

commissioned work. Made in 1935 for the Institute
of Social Affairs, the film warned against the
careless handling of electricity. It contained a semi-
abstract sequence (around 60 meters long), set to
the original music by Witold Lutoslawski. The film-
makers analyzed Lutoslawski's piece note by note
using the method of their previous production. All
the movements of forms on the screen and the
editing were precisely synchronized with sound.
The film shared the fate of the Themersons' earlier
films and once again one has to get an impression
of it from preserved stills and press reviews.
Stefania Zahorska described Short Circuit as "a
dramatic poem."

"The story takes place without people. It begins

with electric wire, badly hung on a broken and
cracked fuse, fixed with an unnecessary nail.
Winding around the walls, it explodes into flames,
and ignites the screen with a series of sparks, a red
warning for danger. This film makes poetry of
objects, lines, spots, lights. It is a drama of
electricity, it is a short circuit of forms run out of
breath, it is a convincing oration of the pictures
themselves. A beautiful film."

The Themerson's following film was made under

the aegis of SAF, the Film Authors' Cooperative (the
organization co-founded by them), and premiered
in March 1938. Titled The Adventure of a Good
Citizen, it has luckily survived. This film is of an
entirely different nature than the earlier works. The
authors themselves called it an irrational
humoresque, in which every obvious poetical
aspiration of the decent citizen can be seen by all.
"The main hero is Everyman, a citizen and obedient
worker, who takes literally the statement: There
won't be a hole in heaven if you go backwards"
(the subtitle of the film). He gets up from his desk
and begins to wander through the town, carrying a
mirrored wardrobe to the woods and up a hill.
Finally, he flies up onto the roof of a house, sits on
the chimney and plays the flute. He stops for a
moment and turns to the audience: "One must
understand the metaphor, ladies and gentlemen!"
His wandering provokes a reaction from his fellow
citizens who quickly form a demonstration and
follow the protagonist carrying banners: "THERE
WILL BE A HOLE IN HEAVEN," "DOWN WITH
WALKING BACKWARDS," etc. However, instead of
capturing the creator of this chaos, the crowd gets
the wardrobe, now without a back since it no
longer has anything to hide.

The film turned out to be as provocative as the

march backwards; despite the warm response of
the more enlightened critics, it was attacked by the
press and badly received by the public. It was
booed and screening was suspended. Adrian
Czermiński was right in seeing the sources of this
reception in the psychology of the good souls who
treat real life as the only tolerable form for their
own and the surrounding world's expression. Any
departure from this principle will be censured as
incomprehensible, an attempt to bait the "good
citizen" and often simply as "an aberration."

Considering the sophisticated means used, The

Adventure of a Good Citizen was undoubtedly the
most advanced film in the artists' entire output. In
addition to live action, transformed in various ways
(acceleration, reverse movement, negative images,
etc.), unconventional takes (eg. from a camera
lying on its side), the film contained, among other
things, lyrical fragments composed of abstract
reflections of light and even abstract effects
painted directly on the film. Thus, considering both
the technique and the plot, the film must be seen
as a complex cinematic collage. The music,
composed by Stefan Kisielewski, also played an
important role. According to a critic "it was just
what the film needed."

Soon after the completion of The Adventure of a

Good Citizen, the Themersons left Poland. When
the war surprised them in France, they were
separated. Stefan joined the Polish army in France
and Franciszka escaped to England. They met again
in England in 1942. There, they made two more
films, Calling Mr. Smith and The Eye and the Ear.

Calling Mr. Smith (1943) was a propaganda film

addressed to the average citizen of the British
Isles. The Mr. Smith of the title, whose refusal to
recognize the truth of the Nazi crimes secured him
peace of mind, was to be shaken by the image of
the war. There was particular stress on the
annihilation of culture in the countries occupied by
the nation of Goethe and Beethoven. The film
required a great deal of labor and, as usual,
demanded a craftsman's technology. This time, a
special table for trick photography was used, and
hand-made slides were filmed through a softening
condenser and color filters, creating an expressive
effect for Gothic architecture, etc. Nevertheless,
the film had a special mission to perform,
determined by the time and the people to whom it
was addressed. This necessity influenced the final
shape of the work.

The Themersons' last film, The Eye and the Ear,

was also made in England in 1944-45. The film
consists of four parts, each based on a song from
Karol Szymanowski's Słopiewnie. In the second and
third part, the film is an abstract graphic
transposition of the music (if one does not count
Piero della Francesca's Nativity, which serves as a
background to various abstract patterns). The
movement and shape of the geometrical forms on
the screen reflect exactly the main melodic line as
well as the instrumental elements. Technically the
film was made in a simple as well as an inventive
way. In the second part organ-like forms were
created by glass sticks. Triangular smoke-like forms
symbolizing notes were achieved by passing the
light beams emitted by small bulbs through a
special lens. Other geometric forms were cut out of
paper and superimposed. The close-ups of della
Francesca's singing angels were composed so as to
give the impression of one angel moving his lips to
the tune. In the last part a glass container filled
with water become a receptacle for small clay balls.
The camera, placed as before, pointed upwards
from below.

The film, although reminiscent of similar abstract

music films by Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye or Norman
McLaren, differs from them in one essential point.
While the artists mentioned above attempted to
create visual equivalents to music, the Themersons'
approach was of a more scientific character. They
treated the film medium as a tool for the analysis
of musical structure. The film has been provided
with comments which explain the precise function
of each element appearing on screen.

In 1983 Stefan Themerson wrote to this author:

"Experiment — exercising to see the result. We

planned Europa not as an experiment in this sense
but as a work of art. Yet The Eye and the Ear was
done as a consciously designed experiment. Not
every avant-garde dealt with experiments and not
every experiment equalled avant-garde."

The Eye and the Ear closed the Themersons' film

period. "Do you remember," Stefan Themerson
wrote to Alexander Ford in 1945, "our meeting in
Paris a long time before the war? It was then that
we parted with film for good. Although here, in
London, more under the pressure of circumstances
than a real, mad, frantic artistic need (the only one
that counts), we returned to film making and made
two short pieces... Yet, as we were working on
them, we realized more acutely than before that
the 'film fever' had left us, probably for good."

Marcin Gizycki
Copyright: Marcin Giżycki. First appeared in Polish
Art Studies VIII, 1987, and in The Themersons and
the Gaberbocchus Press: An Experiment in Publishing
1948-1979, 1993, MJS Books and Graphics (on the
occasion of an exhibition of the same title held at la
Boetie, Inc, 9 East 82nd Street, New York, NY 10028,
between October 1993 and January 1994.

< back to Artist's home