News

"Tadeusz Konwicki, a prominent Polish writer and filmmaker whose works during the communist era lampooned the authoritarian Soviet-imposed system, has died," reports the AP. And Radio Poland notes that as a screenwriter, "he is noted for adapting Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's novella Mother Joan of the Angels for Jerzy Kawalerowicz's cult 1961 film, which deals with possession in a 17th century nunnery. Among many other scripts, he also worked with Kawalerowicz on the epic adaptation of Boleslaw Prus's novel Pharoah. Konwicki likewise achieved success as a director with such films as Jump (Salto), the 1965 movie that became a favorite of Martin Scorsese. He also directed his own adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz's novel The Issa Valley, returning to the Lithuanian countryside of his youth." » - David Hudson...

"Tadeusz Konwicki, a prominent Polish writer and filmmaker whose works during the communist era lampooned the authoritarian Soviet-imposed system, has died," reports the AP. And Radio Poland notes that as a screenwriter, "he is noted for adapting Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's novella Mother Joan of the Angels for Jerzy Kawalerowicz's cult 1961 film, which deals with possession in a 17th century nunnery. Among many other scripts, he also worked with Kawalerowicz on the epic adaptation of Boleslaw Prus's novel Pharoah. Konwicki likewise achieved success as a director with such films as Jump (Salto), the 1965 movie that became a favorite of Martin Scorsese. He also directed his own adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz's novel The Issa Valley, returning to the Lithuanian countryside of his youth." » - David Hudson...

Mother Joan of the Angels

Written by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Tadeusz Konwicki, and Jerzy Kawalerowicz

Directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz

Poland, 1961

Tales of possession run deep through any religious or formerly religious society. They may act as a primitive explanation for madness, a cultural example of the physical manifestation of evil, or, on some occasions, a political tool. Though the horror of these events comes in accounts early enough to be placed in the Old Testament, there exists an intellectual horror of possession that pervades the modern world. Though not explicitly speaking of possession, René Descartes hypothesized an omnipotent “evil demon” thought experiment that may help with our idea of the “self”. The idea goes that this demon may be altering the physical world around us, such that our bodies, our environment, all our sensations, as well as the fundamentals of logic and mathematics may simply be an illusion. Whatever is left,...