Writers as Movie Heroes
By: Joseph Serwach
Tags: Life Lessons, Poland, Writing, Leadership, Inspiration

Writers as Movie Heroes

America’s top grossing films feature superheroes and fantasies. Imagine a nation where real writers, artists and poets are heroes.

The top U.S. films are all fantasy (Avengers, The Lion King, Toy Story 4 and Captain Marvel). Major new Polish films feature stories of true writers and poets fighting the powerful to change the world.

That contrast between heroes (American and Polish) struck me when I realized I first considered journalism when I was a boy noticing Clark Kent was a newspaper reporter and Superman. My ancestry is Polish and a number of true Polish stories center on writers who actually did change the world.

America, the Super Power, demands larger than life superheroes. In Poland, a land that was conquered and enslaved for 183 of the last 224 years, artists (including writers, poets, painters and actors) had to use their gifts to keep the Polish culture and history alive during the decades Polishness was forbidden.

November 11, Veteran’s Day in America, is the 101st anniversary of the end of World War I, and Polish Independence Day, the date Poland rose from 123 years of slavery to be reborn. As you write your next story, imagine true heroes like this:

Piłsudski.

In the new film Piłsudski aka “Pilsudski,” we meet Józef Piłsudski right after he has been arrested in 1900 for publishing an underground newspaper. His writing called for revolution against Russia (one of three neighbors who wiped Poland off the map from 1795–1918).

The film starts in an insane asylum where he has been drugged and is a delusional mess when his people help him escape. He goes on to organize a fighting force, becoming the George Washington of Poland.

Mr. Jones

Ukraine, Russia and fake news? Mr. Jones, an award winning-Polish film coming to America in 2020, tells the true story of the newspaper reporter who revealed The Holodomor, how Russian despot Joseph Stalin starved between 3.3 million and 12 million Ukrainians in 1932–33. The New York Times’ Soviet Union correspondent covered up the story.

Pan T

Pan T, a comedy, tells the story of a Warsaw writer resisting the power of communist overlords in 1953 Poland when tyranny was forcing writers and the rest of Polish society to write the communist ruler’s version of reality. Mr. T, sees his work unpublished because he keeps trying to slip the truth into his work. The government fears him, not knowing the difference between his fictional and non-fictional stories.

Love and Mercy: Faustina

Love and Mercy: Faustina was a big hit in Poland and attracted a massive 100,000 American fans during its debut in October. It tells the true story of the young nun, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, called “Jesus’ secretary.’’ She wrote a 700-page diary detailing her conversations with Jesus that has been published around the world. It’s being brought back in December.

The Divine Plan

The Divine Plan, an American film that debuted November 6, tells the true story of a Polish poet, prolific writer and actor, St. John Paul the Great, and how he partnered with another artist/actor, Ronald Reagan, to win the Cold War. This year is 20 years since John Paul’s 1999 Letter to Artists where JPII wrote: