The poster for the film Eroica was designed by Roman Cieślewicz in 1957. It is composed of three parts like the original version of Andrzej Munk’s film, which was based on Stawiński’s stories. Each of them is a sort of reckoning with the mythologised wartime past. The first tale is about the Warsaw shyster Dzidziuś [‘Babyface’] Górkiewicz (Edward Dziewoński), who accidentally finds himself taking part in the Warsaw Uprising. The second is about a German POW camp in which Polish officers were interned. A legend circulated among the inmates about the successful escape of one Lieutenant Zawistowski. In truth, he was simply hiding in a ventilation duct, but, in so doing, he gave others the illusory hope of someday escaping their oppression. So this is a story of heroism, but a heroism that doesn’t pay as it does not result in actual success. Munk took the title from Beethoven’s Third Symphony in E-flat Major. The poster features characters from the two parts of the film that were screened for the general public. There was, in fact, a third part titled ‘The Nun’ (Zakonnica), but it was unfortunately not included in the final product. Unlike the film, the poster preserved the three-part format. Its central section, filled with text, surprises the viewer with its overwhelming blackness.
The poster for Andrzej Munk’s 1960 film Bad Luck based on the story ‘The Six Incarnations of Jan Piszczyk’ (Sześć Wcieleń Jana Piszczyka) by Jerzy Stefan Stawiński was designed by Roman Cieślewicz using the technique of … a paper cutout. It tells the story of an unfortunate opportunist (played by Bogumił Kobiela), who tries to ingratiate himself with the current authorities, taking on different characters as necessary. Each time, however, it turns out that it’s too late for the changes either because they no longer make sense or else they somehow backfire on him. The artist placed a photo of Piszczyk in the centre with a surprised look on his face, which underscores the irony of his fate. His neck is adorned with a blue ribbon, the Virtuti Militari medal of honour and an inverted rose, which refers to the plot of the film, in which Piszczyk accidentally becomes a national hero. He is surrounded by paper-cutout hands pointing at him. The pointing testifies to the importance of the character, but, at the same time, it looks like people are pointing at someone who is strange or out of place. The colourful nature of the poster – with a great deal of pink – is suggestive of the nature of the film, a comedy that reveals human folly. In reality, life means a constant series of troubles that surround and torment people.
The poster for Andrzej Munk’s Passenger (a film completed after Munk’s death by his colleague Witold Lesiewicz) displays the face of the main character, Liza (Aleksandra Śląska), in meaningful distortion. The film is based on the story and radio drama by Zofia Posmysz about the chance meeting of a concentration camp functionary and a former prisoner years after the war. The encounter takes place aboard a luxury yacht. It explores the renewed relationship of the perpetrator and the victim, Marta (Anna Ciepielewska), in an entirely different place and time. The originality of Munk’s film lies in its polyphonic nature, how the very same event can be described in many different versions depending on the perspective and the person of the teller of the tale. These deformations are represented by a graphic anamorphosis, which can be associated with the idea of vanitas, transience, through an association with paintings – such as Hans Holbein’s Ambassadors, for example. The asceticism, the calligraphic quality of the poster attests to the black and white vision of reality in the camps which is obliterated by the ambivalent relationship of the two characters.