Gorycz wygnania is an original analysis of Davies's work - dense and complex, which has had a distinct renaissance in Great Britain recently.Davies - called "Proust of the cinema" - has made only seven films in 30 years.The author treats the first five films by Davies as a single, autobiographical film text, exploring their mutual dependencies and indicating the astonishing formal and substantial unity of these works.He accentuates their original time structure and omnipresence of cinema - metaphorical, auto-thematic and inter-textual.He also shows the deep relationship between this "autobiographical cycle" and two later films by this director (the last ones, so far), which are adaptations of literary works written by Kennedy Toole and Edith Wharton.At the end of the book, there is a record of an interview with the director from January 2008.

Michał Oleszczyk's book reveals his film-theory passion and personal attitude to some films, which has surprisingly extensive consequences.The author takes a dangerous position, somewhere between cool theoretical analysis and uncritical admiration of the films' substance itself.He also remains humble in front of the film text - he prefers building more and more levels of meaning above those given by the artist himself to de-constructing them.As he puts it himself, you get easily rooted in Davies's filmography, exploring its depth instead of travelling around.

Film critic Michał Oleszczyk graduated in Film Theory at Jagiellonian University. He is the laureate of the Krzysztof Mętrak Prize (2005) and holder of a scholarship of the Minister of National Education and Sport (2004/2005).At the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora at Jagiellonian University, he is preparing his doctor's thesis about film criticism of Pauline Kael.He publishes in Kino, Tygodnik Powszechny and collective works (including Mistrzowie kina amerykańskiego, edited by Łukasz A. Plesnar and Rafał Syska, Autorzy kina europejskiego edited by Alicja Helman and Andrzej Pitrus).

Publishing house: Ha!art, Kraków 2008.
Normal price 35 PLN
Price for pass holders 26 PLN

Excerpt of the book