UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC IN LODZ

The Promised Land

dir. Andrzej Wajda, 1974

In The Promised Land, we can admire the current seat of the University of Music at least six times. Its interiors appear on screen for the first time in one of the opening sequences of the film. Herman Bucholc (Andrzej Szalawski) and his wife (Jadwiga Andrzejewska) pray in German in their residence.

The Academy’s concert hall was used in the film as the counting room in Bucholc’s factory, where three other scenes take place. In the first one, Karol Borowiecki (Daniel Olbrychski) admonishes von Horn (Piotr Fronczewski), an apprentice in the counting room, that it is his task to work in the factory’s interest and not to show mercy to a woman whose husband has died in an accident at the plant. In the next one, after an accident in the production hall, Karol speaks with Bucholc, who has learnt about Borowiecki’s plan to open his own factory. The last scene shot in this location is the one in which von Horn, thrown off-balance, doesn’t mince his words and socks it to Bucholc what he thinks about him. When von Horn leaves, Bucholc, initially stunned, starts to ferociously bash his servant August (Mieczysław Waśkowski) with a stick.

Also the garden that surrounds the palace and the representational drive facing 1 Maja Street appear in the film. The first one constitutes the scenery of the immodest party organised at Kessler’s (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz). When Karol finds Moryc among the party guests, he tries to deliver him the message about the increase in the customs on cotton. To that end, he sobers him up in front of the entrance to Kessler’s palace.

Read more about the film here.