Aleksander Ford

Aleksander Ford

Aleksander Ford (November 24, 1908, Kiev, UkraineApril 4, 1980, Naples, Florida, United States) was a Polish film director. Polish filmmaker Aleksander Ford played a key role in establishing Poland's international reputation for excellent cinema. One of Ford's protégés was perhaps the world's best-known Polish director, Andrzej Wajda.

After a year of making short silent films, Ford made his first feature-length film, "Mascot", in 1930. He did not use sound until "The Legion of the Streets" (1932). When World War II erupted, Ford went to the Soviet Union and worked closely with Jerzy Bossak to establish the film unit for the Polish military in the East.

After the war, Ford headed the government-controlled Film Polski and held enormous sway over the country's entire film industry. He and a core of dedicated colleagues who were affiliated with the Polish communist party rebuilt most of the film production infrastructure after 1945. While discussing this group, Roman Polanski concluded in his biography: "They included some extremely competent people, notably Aleksander Ford, a veteran party member, who was then an orthodox Stalinist. (…) The real power broker during the immediate postwar period was Ford himself, who established a small film empire of his own."

Ford did use his films to voice his discontent and expose the effects of the new regime upon Jews and the poor, as in his documentaries "Children Must Laugh" (1936) and the award-winning "Eighth Day of the Week" (1959). Both films were banned in Poland. He is perhaps most famous in Poland for directing the film "Knights of the Teutonic Order", based on a novel of the same name by Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz. Ford continued making films in Poland until a resurgence of anti-Semitism during the late 1960s led him to spend two years in Israel. Ford later lived in Denmark and eventually settled in the United States.

After leaving Poland in 1968, Ford made two more feature films, both of which were critical and commercial failures. In 1973, he created a movie version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel "The First Circle", a Danish-Swedish production that recounted the horrors of the Soviet gulag. In 1975 he made "The Martyr", an English language, Israeli-German co-production based on the heroic story of Dr. Janusz Korczak.

After 1968, Ford was blacklisted by the communist Polish government, making him a non-person in contemporary discussions and analysis of Polish filmmaking. In "The Black Book of Polish Censorship", the basic listing for censors in Poland in 1970s, Ford's name was listed among many other banned names. He left Poland for Germany, later Israel, Denmark and finally the U.S. Isolated, he committed suicide in a Florida hotel.

elected filmography

* "The Martyr" (1975)
* "The First Circle" (1973)
* "The First Day of Freedom" ("Pierwszy dzien wolnosci", 1964)
* "Knights of the Teutonic Order" ("Krzyzacy", 1960)
* "Eighth Day of the Week" ("Ósmy dzien tygodnia", 1959)
* "Five Boys from Barska Street" ("Piątka z ulicy Barskiej", 1954)
* "Youth of Chopin" ("Młodość Chopina", 1952)
* "Border Street" ("Ulica Graniczna", 1949)
* "" ("Majdanek - cmentarzysko Europy", 1945)
* "Children Must Laugh" ("Droga mlodych", 1936)
* "Legion of the Streets" ("Legion Ulicy", 1932)

ee also

* Cinema of Poland
* List of Polish language films

External links

*imdb name|id=0285497|name=Aleksander Ford
* [http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/misi032.htm Essay on Ford and post-World War II film censorship in Poland]


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  • Aleksander Ford — est un réalisateur et scénariste polonais, né Mosche Liwczyc, le 24 novembre 1908 à Kiev (aujourd hui Ukraine), mort le 4 avril 1980 à Naples (Floride). Biographie Cette section est vide, insuffisamment détaillée ou incomplète. Votre aide est la… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Aleksander Liwczyc — Aleksander Ford (* 24. November 1908 als Aleksander Liwczyc in Kiew, Ukraine; † 4. April 1980 in Naples, Florida, USA) war ein polnischer Filmregisseur. Ford, der in Warschau studierte, war einer der erfolgreichsten Filmregisseure im Polen der… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • Aleksander Skrzynski — Aleksander Skrzyński, 1925 Aleksander Józef Graf (Hrabia) Skrzyński (* 18. März 1882 in Zagórzany (Galizien); † 25. September 1931 in Ostrów Wielkopolski (Autounfall)) war ein polnischer Politiker und Ministerpräsident …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Aleksander Skrzyński — Aleksander Skrzyński, 1925 Aleksander Józef Graf (Hrabia) Skrzyński (* 18. März 1882 in Zagórzany (Galizien); † 25. September 1931 in Ostrów Wielkopolski (Autounfall)) war ein polnischer Politiker und Ministerpräsident …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Ford —   [fɔːd],    1) [fɔrt], Aleksander, polnischer Filmregisseur, * Lodz 24. 11. 1908, ✝ Los Angeles (Calif.) 29. 4. 1980; einer der Hauptgründer der polnischen filmkünstlerischen Bewegung um 1945, Organisator der Filmproduktion in Polen; emigrierte… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Ford, Aleksander — (1908 1980)    The controversial father of post 1945 Polish cinema, Ford started his career with a series of documentary films in 1928. His much praised narrative debut, The Legion of the Street (Legion ulicy, 1932), voted the best film of the… …   Guide to cinema

  • Ford, Aleksander — (1908 80)    Polish film director. Born in Lodz, he studied at Warsaw Univeristy. His first feature film, Mascot, was made in 1930. At this time he became a co founder of the Society of the Devotees of the Artistic film. His 1932 film The Street… …   Dictionary of Jewish Biography

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