Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller
Item #43610 Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]. written, directed by, Wanda Jakubowska, Wojciech Urbanowicz, photographs.
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]
Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]

Ostatni Etap (The Last Stage) [The First Feature Film on the Subject of The Holocaust] [A SCARCE COLLECTION OF MATERIALS RELATING TO THE FILM, INCLUDING THE PUBLISHED SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL THEATRICAL PROGRAMS, FILM STILLS AND PHOTO-POSTCARDS]

Warsaw: Film Polski/ Filmowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1947-1955. First edition. Softcover. The groundbreaking Polish motion picture Ostatni Etap (meaning 'The Last Stage'), is considered the first post-war feature film to portray the experiences of prisoners in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. The film primarily focuses on the experiences of a central group of women in the Auschwitz-Berkenau concentration camp. In a shocking instance of art imitating life, the film's director and co-writer Wanda Jakubowska (1907-1998) was herself a survivor of Auschwitz, and in July of 1947, began filming this powerful semi-autobiographical work at the very same location she was held as a prisoner less then 3 years earlier. Additionally, some other members of the cast and crew had been prisoners at Auschwitz and numerous local townspeople and Red Army soldiers were cast as extras. The director also utilized original uniforms and equipment from the camp as costumes and props. The content of the film is based on the director's own harrowing experiences and those of her fellow female prisoners.

The film was widely seen in Poland, and received an international release in nearly 30 countries between 1948 and 1954. It was nominated for a number of international awards, winning the top prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival (Czechoslovakia) in 1948, the first year it was given. It was also nominated for the Grand International Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1948, and for a BAFTA Award in 1950.

Jakubowska' film was the earliest cinematic effort to discuss the Holocaust in any detail, and the first work of its kind to be produced in the post-war period, in which the full extent of the Nazi atrocities had become widely acknowledged and understood. Although it remains somewhat obscure today, Ostatni Etap has been recognized as a powerful, groundbreaking, and significant film. In retrospect, it has been seen as being quite influential on later films about the Holocaust, and an archetype for setting certain cinematic precedents in its depiction of the subject matter. The film's frank, dark and realistic quasi-documentary style, and use of real stories and locations led its director to refer to it as a "paradocumentary". Additionally, its impassioned moral appeal and introduction of certain images of life in a concentration camp have now become familiar mainstays in portrayals of the horrors of life under Nazi oppression. The film has been visually quoted to one degree or another in many notable films since, ranging from George Stevens’s 'The Diary of Anne Frank' (1959), and Alan Pakula’s 'Sophie’s Choice' (1982), to Steven Spielberg’s 'Schindler’s List' (1993). Of particular note is the enduring and infamous image of a transport train slowly moving through Auschwitz's "death gate." Likely the most significant testament to its power is the fact that some shots from this feature film were presented as actual documentary footage (although unacknowledged) in Alain Resnais’s groundbreaking and acclaimed expose, 'Night and Fog' (Nuit et Brouillard, 1955), and a few other works.


Content of the collection:

1) Film Program:
Ostatni Etap. Warszawa (Warsaw): Film Polski, 1948. First Edition. Oblong 12mo (6 x 8") [6 pages, including printed covers], 2-fold. Original photo-illustrated oblong sheet folded (6 pages), with wrappers printed in black & white with blue. Black lettering on the front cover. Program from the film's original Polish theatrical run. Includes cast and crew credits, as well as a one page appraisal and analysis of the film's content. Includes a few striking images from the film. Text in Polish. Some age toning to wrappers. With some very minor rubbing and chipping along the bottom edge of the front cover. Program in overall good+ to very good, and protected in modern mylar.

[WITH]

2) Two original silver gelatin photographs. These stills from the film's production in 1947 are believed to have been shot by Wojciech Urbanowicz, the official still photographer for the film. Each measures 5 1/8 x 7 2/8" and has the production company Film Polski's ink stamp on the verso. Prints in very good condition, and protected in modern mylar.

[WITH]

3) Screenplay:
Jakubowska, Wanda; Artur Kaltbaum (ed.). Ostatni Etap [Screenplay]. Warszawa (Warsaw): Filmowa Agencja Wydawnicza (The Film Publishing Agency), 1955. First edition. Octavo, 149pp., [3]. Original illustrated wrappers in grey, blue and red, with black lettering on front cover and spine. The officially printed screenplay is illustrated throughout with fine b/w photogravure images, includes many still images of powerful scenes from the film, each captioned, and interleaved throughout the screenplay.

The initial sections begin with an appraisal of the film by Polish film scholar and professor Jerzy Toeplitz (1909-1995), who was a co-founder and director of the famous Polish Film School in Lodz. This is followed by the text of the speech honoring Jakubowska and presenting her with an award at the World Peace Council in Warsaw in 1950, and the transcript of an interview conducted with the director, by film critic Jerzy Gizycki (aka 'J. Z. Terazycki', 1919-2009). These sections include a photo-portrait of director Wanda Jakubowska, and an image of her receiving the award, both printed in gravure. Following the text of the screenplay are final sections containing international reviews of the film, a list of countries where it was screened, an extensive index listing references to, and reviews of, the film - both in Polish and international publications, a full list of production credits, and finally an errata sheet tipped in.

Some minor to light rubbing to extremities, and along the spine. Back cover with some light water staining and foxing. Interior with a few light sporadic water stains and smudges throughout, with most text and images unaffected. Wrappers in good+, interior in very good condition overall.

[WITH]

4) Photo-Postcards:
Ostani Etap, 5 Fotosow. [1948]. A collection of 5 b/w promotional photo-postcards for the film. The five images are printed in photogravure, and depict the leading actresses from the film, in character. All are still connected to each other in vertical orientation, in a leporello style, with a printed photo-illustrated cover in black and purple. All images contain the ink stamp of the Film Publishing Agency on the verso. A few minor to light stains, mostly in the margins, with a few images affected. In very good- condition overall.

[AND WITH]

5) Kvindelejren Auschwitz (Ostantni Etap). Copenhagen: P. Hansen's Bogtrykkeri, [1952]. 7 pages. B/w photo-illustrated wrappers, with black lettering on the front cover. Danish theatrical film program, with the title translated into Danish (literally 'Women's camp Auschwitz'). Printed to coincide with the film's theatrical run in Denmark, starting January 4th, 1952, this booklet is photo-illustrated throughout with stills from the film, cast and crew credits, and informative text on the background of the film and of Auschwitz. The back wrapper of this variant printing includes local Danish press reviews of the film. Wrappers with some minor creasing to the bottom corner, and a few small ink stains on the back cover, otherwise in very good condition overall. Item #43610

Bibliographic resource: Haltof, Mark. Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration. Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press, 2018.

Price: $3,250.00