Dances with Westerns in Poland’s Borderlands

Piotr Skurowski

Abstract

This article deals with the influence of American Westerns on the work of the Polish film directors who chose to adapt the language of the film Western to construct their narrations about Poland’s postwar borderlands, including the so-called Recovered Territories and the Bieszczady region. The analysis of selected films draws on the ideological and cultural context of film- and myth-making in Poland, and points to the larger patterns of domesticating the American mass culture repertoire in Europe.