Sensing the End: Modernism, Lateness, and Polish Cinema examines modernist cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, particularly by directors such as Tadeusz Konwicki, Wojciech Jerzy Has, and Andrzej Zulawski, combining a theoretical approach with historical discernment, analysis, and interpretation to interrogate the selected films' relation to postwar modernity and explore the theme of modernist cinema within the cultural and artistic paradigm, both within and outside of Poland.
The book presents an interdisciplinary understanding of modernism, which addresses theoretical and historical studies related to cinematic modernism, with a particular focus on philosophy, literature, and art history. The reactions of Polish cinema of the 1950s and 1960s to the global movement enabled the emergence of a specific form of modernism, which encapsulated the Eastern Bloc's cinematic postwar modernity and led to a phase of lateness in the 1970s, referred to as the decadent phase. The heart of this book focuses on Polish films from this late period, primarily between 1971 and 1984, to highlight subjectivity, self-reflection, and the pursuit of formalism accompanied by a singular authorial presence of the filmmakers and non-classical narrative patterns.