Film jako utwór: the set film, and the language of technique

You must study either one text and one film, or two texts, and write one essay on each. Work out how to make that decision analytically rather than by preference.

1. 01Start from the fact that the two essays are worth the same

   Each essay is marked out of 40 by an AO4 grid worth 20 and an AO3 grid worth 20, and there are two of them in two hours. There is no senior and junior work: an easier second work does not exist, only a work you have prepared less. So the decision is not which work you would enjoy but which pairing you can produce two equally strong essays on, in Polish, under an hour each.

2. 02Compare the preparation cost honestly

   A film can be studied properly in perhaps eight to ten hours of viewing and note-taking; a novel or a play takes considerably longer to read in Polish, and reading in a second language is slow work. A text-plus-film pairing therefore usually costs less total time than two texts. That is a legitimate consideration and not a shortcut, provided the hours saved go into analysis rather than disappearing.

3. 03Compare the vocabulary cost, which runs the other way

   A film essay requires the specialised Polish lexicon of technique - kadr, ujęcie, plan, montaż, zbliżenie, ścieżka dźwiękowa - which a student is unlikely to meet anywhere else in the course. A second text reuses the literary lexicon the first text already required. So two texts is cheaper in vocabulary and dearer in time, and text-plus-film the reverse. Neither is simply better, and knowing which cost you are paying is the point.

4. 04Test each option against the question types you will face

   Every question requires a critical and analytical response to form and technique. For a film that means camera work, editing and sound, which are visible and can be described precisely from a second viewing. For a prose text it means narrative voice, structure and perspective, which require a reader who has been tracking them from the start. Ask yourself which kind of evidence you are currently better at producing, and be honest, because the grid does not care which you prefer.

5. 05Decide, then design the two-work timetable together

   Whatever the pairing, plan both works from the start rather than finishing one before beginning the other. A candidate who reads the text in the autumn and watches the film in the spring arrives at the exam with one work fresh and one half-forgotten, and the fresher essay cannot compensate for the other. Alternate: a fortnight on one, a fortnight on the other, with the notebooks kept in the same format so that the essay method transfers.

Result: The decision is a pairing decision, not a film decision. Two texts costs more reading time and less new vocabulary; one text and one film costs less time and requires the specialised lexicon of film analysis. Both essays are worth 40 marks, so whichever pairing is chosen must be timetabled in alternating blocks so that neither work is stale by the exam.

From your own viewing notes you have this raw record: a long scene, shot almost entirely from a distance with the camera not moving, in which a group of people wait; near the end the camera cuts, for the first time in the scene, to a single face in close-up, and the music that has been playing throughout stops. Turn it into analysis.

1. 01Name the techniques before interpreting anything

   There are four here and it helps to list them: plan ogólny, the distant shot scale; nieruchoma kamera, the static camera; the cięcie do zbliżenia, the cut to a close-up; and the cisza, the sudden absence of music. Four techniques is more than a 300-word essay can analyse, so this paragraph will use the pair that work together - the cut and the silence - and mention the other two as the context that makes the pair effective.

2. 02Write the description in Polish, accurately

   Przez większą część sceny kamera pozostaje nieruchoma, a wydarzenia pokazane są w planie ogólnym. Note pozostaje, imperfective, for a state maintained throughout; pokazane są, a passive with być and a passive participle, which is the natural Polish for what a film does rather than what a person does; and w planie ogólnym, locative after w. The description is doing grammatical work for the AO3 grid at the same time as it establishes the evidence.

3. 03Name the change, which is where the argument starts

   Dopiero pod koniec reżyser decyduje się na cięcie i przechodzi do zbliżenia, a jednocześnie milknie muzyka. Dopiero is the crucial word: it marks the shot as the first of its kind and therefore as deliberate. Decydować się na takes the accusative; przechodzić do takes the genitive. Jednocześnie ties the two techniques together, which is what makes the next sentence possible.

4. 04State the effect - this is the analysis

   Efekt jest taki, że widz, który przez całą scenę obserwował grupę z dystansu, zostaje nagle postawiony bardzo blisko jednej twarzy, i to w ciszy. The sentence works because the effect is stated as a change in the viewer's position rather than as a property of the image. Zostaje postawiony is a passive with zostać and a perfective participle, exactly right for a single completed change, and it arrived because the meaning wanted it.

5. 05Draw the conclusion the evidence supports, and no more

   Nie jest przypadkiem, że oba środki zostają użyte dopiero w tym momencie: film przez całą scenę odmawiał widzowi bliskości, a teraz mu ją narzuca. Note what this does not claim. It does not say what the character is feeling, which the evidence does not establish; it says what the film does to the viewer, which the evidence does establish. That discipline is the difference between the good and the excellent AO4 bands.

6. 06Count the words and check the balance

   Four sentences, about eighty words of Polish - roughly a quarter of the essay - with one described sequence, two named techniques, one stated effect and one conclusion. That is the correct proportion. A student who spends a hundred and fifty words on a single sequence has half an essay left for everything else, and an essay whose second body paragraph is missing loses more than a detailed first paragraph gains.

Result: Przez większą część sceny kamera pozostaje nieruchoma, a wydarzenia pokazane są w planie ogólnym. Dopiero pod koniec reżyser decyduje się na cięcie i przechodzi do zbliżenia, a jednocześnie milknie muzyka. Efekt jest taki, że widz, który przez całą scenę obserwował grupę z dystansu, zostaje nagle postawiony bardzo blisko jednej twarzy, i to w ciszy. Nie jest przypadkiem, że oba środki zostają użyte dopiero w tym momencie: film przez całą scenę odmawiał widzowi bliskości, a teraz mu ją narzuca.

Here is a student's paragraph, written from good notes but in the wrong mode. Diagnose it sentence by sentence and rewrite it as analysis without adding any new knowledge about the film. Bohater przyjeżdża do miasta i szuka pracy. Spotyka dawnego znajomego, który obiecuje mu pomóc. Potem idzie na spotkanie, ale nikt się nie pojawia. W końcu wraca do domu i długo siedzi przy oknie. Ta scena jest bardzo smutna i pokazuje samotność bohatera.

1. 01Label every sentence

   Sentences one to four all say what happened: przyjeżdża, spotyka, idzie, wraca, siedzi. That is four sentences of narration out of five. The fifth is an interpretation - the scene is sad and shows loneliness - but it is asserted rather than derived, and the adjective smutna is a report of the writer's feeling rather than a claim about the film. Four narration, one unsupported claim, zero description of technique. Against the AO4 descriptors this is the limited band, and no improvement to the Polish would move it.

2. 02Identify the one piece of evidence hiding in the paragraph

   The last event - the character sits by the window for a long time - is the only one that carries any information about how the film is made, because długo is a statement about duration and duration in cinema is a matter of shot length and editing. Everything else is plot. So the rewrite keeps that one detail, converts it into a technical observation, and discards the rest of the sequence into a single locating clause.

3. 03Write the locating clause, compressed

   Pod koniec sekwencji, w której bohater bezskutecznie szuka pomocy... That single subordinate clause does the work of the first four sentences: it locates the moment, it names what the sequence is about, and it costs nine words. Bezskutecznie, meaning without success, replaces the entire narrative of the failed meeting. Compression of narration into a subordinate clause is the core technique of this section and is worth practising until it is automatic.

4. 04Convert the surviving detail into description of technique

   ...reżyser pozostawia bohatera w jednym, bardzo długim ujęciu przy oknie, bez cięcia i bez muzyki. Now the director is the subject, the technique is named - a single long take, no cut, no music - and the observation is checkable by anyone who has seen the film. Pozostawiać kogoś w czymś takes the accusative and then the locative. Note that no new knowledge has been introduced; długo has simply been read as what it is, a fact about the film's editing.

5. 05State the effect instead of the feeling

   Dzięki temu widz zostaje w tej scenie razem z bohaterem dłużej, niż chciałby zostać, i sam zaczyna odczuwać czas, który mija bez żadnego wydarzenia. The claim is now about what the technique does to the viewer, which is derivable from the evidence, rather than about how the writer felt, which is not. Zostaje is a passive-like construction with zostać, and niż chciałby introduces a conditional - two structures the AO3 grid rewards, arriving because the sentence needed them.

6. 06Close with the conclusion the question wanted

   Samotność nie zostaje więc opowiedziana, lecz narzucona widzowi przez sam czas trwania ujęcia. The original's word samotność survives, but it is now a conclusion supported by an argument rather than an assertion. Nie ... lecz is a strong correlative; zostaje narzucona is a passive with a perfective participle. Five sentences have become three, the knowledge is identical, and the paragraph has moved from the limited band to a defensible position near the top of the grid.

Result: Pod koniec sekwencji, w której bohater bezskutecznie szuka pomocy, reżyser pozostawia go w jednym, bardzo długim ujęciu przy oknie, bez cięcia i bez muzyki. Dzięki temu widz zostaje w tej scenie razem z bohaterem dłużej, niż chciałby zostać, i sam zaczyna odczuwać czas, który mija bez żadnego wydarzenia. Samotność nie zostaje więc opowiedziana, lecz narzucona widzowi przez sam czas trwania ujęcia. No new knowledge was added: four sentences of narration were compressed into one subordinate clause, and the single technical detail already present was read as evidence.

You want to use the fact that a film's release was delayed for several years after it was completed. Write the paragraph in Polish so that the documented part is stated and the interpretive part is attributed.

1. 01Separate the documented from the interpreted before writing

   Documented: the film was completed in one year and released several years later. Interpreted: why - whether the delay was a political decision about this film specifically, a consequence of the general conditions of the period, or a combination. The second is exactly the sort of claim a 300-word essay cannot afford to defend, and exactly the sort that an attributive frame lets you use anyway. Sorting the two takes thirty seconds and decides the grammar of the whole paragraph.

2. 02State the documented fact plainly

   Film powstał w roku, który podaje specyfikacja, ale na ekrany wszedł dopiero kilka lat później. Wejść na ekrany is the idiomatic Polish for a film's release and is worth having; powstać is the neutral verb for a work coming into being, which avoids committing to a completion date the specification does not give. The sentence is short because a documented fact needs no hedging - hedging a fact reads as uncertainty about the fact rather than as care about its interpretation.

3. 03Attribute the interpretation rather than asserting it

   Przyczyny tego opóźnienia bywają różnie oceniane: zdaniem części krytyków decydowały względy polityczne, według innych - ogólne warunki, w jakich pracowało wtedy kino. Bywają oceniane is an impersonal passive that puts the disagreement itself in the subject position, which is a very economical way of naming a debate. Zdaniem and według both take the genitive. The dash carrying the ellipsis of the repeated verb is standard Polish and saves four words.

4. 04Turn the context back onto the film, which is the only reason it is here

   Niezależnie od przyczyny sam fakt opóźnienia zmienia sposób, w jaki dziś ogląda się tę scenę: widz wie to, czego nie mógł wiedzieć pierwszy widz. Niezależnie od takes the genitive. This is the sentence that converts background into evidence, because it identifies a specific consequence for a specific viewing experience rather than leaving the fact standing on its own. Without this sentence the previous two are decoration, however accurate.

5. 05Make your own claim, clearly marked as yours

   Moim zdaniem właśnie ta różnica w wiedzy widza jest dziś głównym źródłem napięcia w tej scenie. Moim zdaniem is doing precise work here: it signals that what follows is an argued position rather than a reported fact, which is exactly what the grid wants in a conclusion. A candidate who has attributed carefully throughout earns the right to this sentence; one who has asserted everything has given the reader no way to tell which claims are theirs.

6. 06Check the ratio

   Five sentences: one documented fact, one attributed debate, one consequence for the film, one argued claim, and no narration at all. Roughly ninety words. That is a context paragraph that would satisfy the AO4 requirement to evaluate the cultural and social contexts, and it contains not one sentence of history for its own sake. If the paragraph could survive the film being replaced by a different film, it is background and should be cut.

Result: Film powstał w roku, który podaje specyfikacja, ale na ekrany wszedł dopiero kilka lat później. Przyczyny tego opóźnienia bywają różnie oceniane: zdaniem części krytyków decydowały względy polityczne, według innych - ogólne warunki, w jakich pracowało wtedy kino. Niezależnie od przyczyny sam fakt opóźnienia zmienia sposób, w jaki dziś ogląda się tę scenę: widz wie to, czego nie mógł wiedzieć pierwszy widz. Moim zdaniem właśnie ta różnica w wiedzy widza jest dziś głównym źródłem napięcia w tej scenie.

Practice material written in the style of the paper, not a past paper question. Question: W jaki sposób sposób filmowania wpływa na to, jak widz ocenia bohaterów? Odwołaj się do konkretnych scen. Produce the plan.

1. 01Decode the question first, in thirty seconds

   Two elements: sposób filmowania, the way of filming, which is the technical half, and jak widz ocenia bohaterów, how the viewer judges the characters, which is the effect half. The question is therefore about the relation between the two, and an essay that describes technique without reaching judgement, or describes the characters without reaching technique, has answered half. Odwołaj się do konkretnych scen is an instruction: unlocated evidence will not do.

2. 02Line one - the qualified thesis

   Sposób filmowania nie tyle podpowiada widzowi ocenę bohaterów, ile decyduje o tym, kogo widz w ogóle ma szansę zrozumieć. Nie tyle ... ile ... is a correlative that qualifies rather than contradicts, which is exactly the shape the AO4 grid rewards, and it converts a yes-or-no question into an argument about mechanism. Written before anything else, it makes the remaining five lines almost automatic.

3. 03Lines two and three - two pieces of four-part evidence

   Line two: wczesna scena - bohater A pokazany w zbliżeniach, kamera podąża za nim; wniosek - widz dostaje dostęp do jego twarzy. Line three: ta sama sytuacja z bohaterem B - plan ogólny, kamera nieruchoma; wniosek - widz ogląda go z zewnątrz. Each line carries location, content, technique and claim in about twelve words. The pair is deliberately parallel, because a contrast between two treatments of the same kind of moment is the strongest evidence a film essay can offer.

4. 04Line four - the technical observation that goes beyond the pair

   Montaż: sceny obu bohaterów zestawione bezpośrednio, bez sceny pośredniej; efekt - porównanie narzucone widzowi. This is the line that lifts the essay from two observations to an argument about design, because it points at a decision made in the cutting room rather than in the shooting. It also supplies the answer to the question's second half: the judgement is produced by the juxtaposition, not by anything either character does.

5. 05Line five - the concession, honestly chosen

   Co prawda w drugiej połowie filmu sposób filmowania bohatera B się zmienia, jednak zmiana przychodzi wtedy, gdy ocena widza jest już ukształtowana. A concession that names a genuine counter-example and then answers it with a point about timing is worth more than one that concedes something trivial. Co prawda ... jednak ... is the frame; note that the answer, not the concession, is where the marks are.

6. 06Line six - the conclusion, and a check of the whole plan

   Wniosek: kamera nie ocenia bohaterów wprost, ale rozdziela między nich dostęp do widza, a ten podział jest już oceną. Then check the plan against both grids: AO4 wants an answer to the question, accurate detail, evidence supporting conclusions and evaluation - all present. AO3 wants accuracy and range - so note two or three structures to deploy where the meaning invites them, here a passive for zostają zestawione, a conditional in the concession, and the nie tyle ... ile correlative already in the thesis. Ten minutes, six lines, and the remaining fifty are transcription.

Result: Plan: (1) teza - sposób filmowania decyduje nie o ocenie wprost, lecz o tym, kogo widz może zrozumieć; (2) dowód - bohater A w zbliżeniach, kamera podąża; (3) dowód - bohater B w planie ogólnym, kamera nieruchoma; (4) technika - bezpośrednie zestawienie montażowe narzuca porównanie; (5) ustępstwo - co prawda sposób filmowania B się zmienia, jednak za późno, by zmienić ocenę; (6) wniosek - rozdzielenie dostępu do widza jest samo w sobie oceną.