Biographism in Contemporary Cinema

Marek Hendrykowski

Abstract

Hendrykowski begins his reflections with the remark that biographism is becoming an increasingly clear aspiration of contemporary cinema and may at the same times constitute a response to the deep crisis of today’s film culture and to audiovisual culture in general. According to Hendrykowski, one of the symptoms of the crisis is depersonalization of the forms of screen performance which results from the dominant role of ”no man’s” (anonymous) look on the world and on man in today’s films. This analysis leads him to assert that contemporary cinematographer wishes to be a ”biographer” again (modeled on the first cinematographic devices of the late 19^th century, like Biograph or Bioscope), while the life-writing with a camera is not just an elusive fad of today’s cinema. The author stresses the vital cognitive role of biographism that leads to an understanding of the macro-process of the biographisation of contemporary cinema. Hendrykowski closes by saying that biographism constitutes the mature and conscious response of some filmmakers, including Woody Allen, Mike Leigh, Spike Lee or Jim Jarmusch, to digital irrealism and an anonymous nature of cinematic performance.