Masculinities in Polish, Czech and Slovak Cinema: Black Peters and Men of Marble

by Ewa Mazierska

Gender, especially masculinity, is a perspective rarely applied in discourses on cinema of Eastern/Central Europe. Masculinities in Polish, Czech and Slovak Cinema exposes an English-speaking audience to a large proportion of this region’s cinema that previously remained unknown, focusing on the relationship between representation of masculinity and nationality in the films of two and later three Poland, Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The objective of the book is to discuss the main types of men populating Polish, Czech and Slovak that of soldier, father, heterosexual and homosexual lover, against a rich political, social and cultural background. Czech, Slovak and Polish cinema appear to provide excellent material for comparison as they were produced in neighbouring countries which for over forty years endured a similar political system – state socialism.

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Ewa Mazierska is professor in film studies at the University of Central Lancashire and principal editor of a journal Studies in Eastern European Cinema. She has published over twenty monographs and edited collections, including From Self-Fulfillment to Survival of the Fittest: Work in European Cinema from the 1960s to the Present, Postcolonial Approaches to Eastern European Cinema: Representing Neighbours on Screen (with Eva Näripea and Lars Kristensen), and Work in Cinema: Labor and Human Condition. Mazierska’s work has been translated into almost twenty languages, including French, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Portugese, Estonian, and Serbian.