Aleksander Ford
Filmmaker, screenwriter, organizer. Born Moyshe Lipshutz in 1908 in Kiev. Studied art history. 1929-1935 founding member of Start. 1930 Lodz, the Polish Manchester is a classic among Polish documentaries, capturing as it does the life of the working-class districts in his birthplace. 1930 first feature film 'Mascot'. 1932 Legion ulicy [The Street Legion] documentary, a social study of the life of Warsaw newsboys. 1936 'The Path of Youth' [Droga młodych] documentary, a medium-length reportage on a sanitarium for Jewish children, with story based on a solidarity between Polish and Jewish children at the time of a mine strike; banned as a vehicle for the "dissemination of Communist propaganda"; the only country it was shown was France thanks to Jean Painlevé. 1937 with Zarzynski 'People of the Vistula', depicting the life of workers on the Vistula river, adapted from the novel 'Vistula' by Jerzy Kornacki and Helena Boguszewska of City Outskirts group. 1939 escapes to the Soviet Union, 1940-43 training films for the Red Army. Works closely with Bossak to establish a film unit for the Soviet-sponsored People's Army of Poland in the USSR, entitled Czołówka Filmowa Ludowego Wojska Polskiego (or simply Czołówka; spearhead), which he then heads with Stanislaw Wohl, since 1944 they make the regular Polish Film Journals newsreels under Bossak's direction; 1943-45 makes a series of documentaries. 1945 director of the nationalized Film Polski company, holding enormous sway over the country's entire film industry, rebuilds most of the film production infrastructure; Polanski 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"; resigned in 1947. 1948–68 professor of the National Film School in Łódź, where Polanski is among his students. Wajda is one of his protégés. 1968 accused of antisocialist activity and expelled from the Communist Party; denied to perform any function in film. 1969 emigrates to Israel for two years, later moves to Germany and Denmark, and eventually settles in the United States. Makes two more films, both commercial and critical failures. Blacklisted by the Polish communist government, he is excluded from discussions and analysis of Polish filmmaking. Isolated, 1980 commits suicide in Naples, Florida.
