"Wesele" redirects here. For Polish films with the same title, see The Wedding (1972 film)

The Wedding (1972 film)

Wesele is a motion picture made in 1972 in Poland by Andrzej Wajda as an adaptation of a play by the same title written by Stanisław Wyspiański in 1901. Wajda also directed "Wesele" for the theatre....

 and The Wedding (2004 film)

The Wedding (2004 film)

The Wedding is a darkly comic film made in 2004 in Poland. Directed by Wojtek Smarzowski.-Plot:Janusz marries Kasia.The father of the bride, Wieslaw Wojnar, gives Janusz a brand-new-looking Audi. Wojnar has to pay several people off so that the wedding celebration can proceed smoothly...

.

The Wedding is a defining work of Polish drama written at the turn of the 20th century by Stanisław Wyspiański. It describes the perils of the national drive toward self-determination following the two unsuccessful uprisings against the Partitions of Poland

Partitions of Poland

The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...

, in November 1830

November Uprising

The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...

 and January 1863

January Uprising

The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...

. The plot is set at the wedding

Wedding

A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...

 of a member of Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

 intelligentsia (the Bridegroom), and his peasant Bride. Their class-blurring union follows a fashionable trend among friends of the playwright from the modernist Young Poland

Young Poland

Young Poland is a modernist period in Polish visual arts, literature and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was a result of strong aesthetic opposition to the ideas of Positivism...

 movement.

Wyspiański's play was based on a real-life event: the wedding of his contemporary, Lucjan Rydel

Lucjan Rydel

Lucjan Rydel a.k.a. Lucjan Antoni Feliks Rydel , was a Polish playwright and poet from the Young Poland movement.-Life:...

 at St. Mary's Basilica

St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków

St. Mary's Basilica , is a Brick Gothic church re-built in the 14th century , adjacent to the Main Market Square in Kraków, Poland...

 in Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

, followed by the wedding reception in the village of Bronowice. It was inspired in part also by the modernist painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 of Jacek Malczewski

Jacek Malczewski

Jacek Malczewski was one of the most famous painters of Polish Symbolism. In his creativity he successfully joins the predominant style of his times with motifs of Polish martyrdom.-See also:...

 and Maksymilian Gierymski

Maksymilian Gierymski

Maksymilian Gierymski was a Polish painter, specializing mainly in watercolours. He was the older brother of painter Aleksander Gierymski.As a seventeen-years-old boy, he participated in the January Uprising...

.

Plot summary

A poet marries a peasant girl. Their wedding reception follows.

The celebration of the new marriage moves on from the church to the villager's house. In the rooms adjoining that of the wedding reception, guests continually burst into arguments, make love, or simply rest from their merriment, dancing and feasting. Interspersed with the real guests are the ghosts of well-known personas of Polish history and culture, who represent the guilty consciences of the living. The two groups begin a series of dialogues. The wedding guests are hypnotized by the rosebush cane straw-wraps (chochoły) who came to life and joined the party, from the farmhouse garden. The "Poet" is visited successively by the "Black Knight" (a symbol of the nation's past military glory), the "Journalist", then by the court jester "Stańczyk" who's a conservative political sage; and by the "Ghost of Wernyhora

Wernyhora

Wernyhora is a legendary 18th century Cossack bard who prophetized the fall of Poland as well as its eventual rebirth. He has been a subject of several folklore tales and poems...

" (a paradigm of leadership for Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

). Wernyhora presents the Host with a golden horn symbolizing the national mission, and calls the Polish people to a revolt. One of the farm hands is dispatched to sound the horn at each corner of Poland, but he loses the horn soon after. Thus, the wedding guests, who symbolize a nation, waste away their chance at national freedom. They keep on dancing "the way it's played for them" (Polish folkloric proverb) like puppets, failing their ultimate mission.

Influences

A defining work of Polish drama written at the turn of the 20th century, shown multiple times on stage, this drama has had much influence on the Polish culture. It was made into a movie with the same title

The Wedding (1972 film)

Wesele is a motion picture made in 1972 in Poland by Andrzej Wajda as an adaptation of a play by the same title written by Stanisław Wyspiański in 1901. Wajda also directed "Wesele" for the theatre....

 by the award-winning Polish film director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...

, in 1972.

External links