WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
WETA "WATTENBERG AT LARGE". Program on the changes wrought by the legalization of the SOLIDARITY UNION in Communist POLAND in 1980. A year after this program was made, SOLIDARITY was banned again and forced to work underground as a backlash against non-Communist organizations kicked in until the collapse of the Communist government in 1989. All footage originally shot on film.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
TLS line of people outside Warsaw grocery store, MS of empty shelves in grocery store (rationing Communist rations). Low angle MS of building with "SOLIDARNOSC (Solidarity)" banner in window, tilt down to MS of Ben Wattenberg discussing the uniqueness of Solidarity in the world, as a representative of more than 70% of Polish workers. Panning MS of people waiting in line at Solidarity office to buy Solidarity trinkets to show support for the organization; MS young woman modeling a t-shirt with familiar red "Solidarnosc" lettering. MSs of workers working in print shop, printing the Solidarity newspaper; MS/CUs of printing presses and sheets of paper rolling through presses (newspapers publishing operation); VO discusses the tenuous position of Solidarity with respect to State censorship, although Poland has the most free press of any Soviet satellite state.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
MS of Solidarity trade union leader LECH WALESA in suit before a Solidarity conference; MSs of delegates. MS of statue of Copernicus in Warsaw. MS Ben Wattenberg saying that like Copernicus' defiance of the Catholic Church, Polish intellectuals are increasingly getting away with questioning Communist orthodoxy. EST shot of clock tower at the University of Warsaw; MSs of U of Warsaw students, some reading from a Solidarity billboard, others checking out Solidarity books and other anti-totalitarian texts like George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago"; they also buy buttons & t-shirts with block letters 'EA', proud shorthand for "Antisocial Elements". CU of man's jacket lapel with Solidarity badge below a silver crucifix pin.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
MS of two young seminarian priests walking on campus of seminary in Warsaw. EXT shots of a Catholic cathedral in Warsaw, INT shots church during Catholic mass. TLS of large crane in Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk. MS/MCUs of shipyard workers discussing with Ben Wattenberg the relationship between Solidarity and the government, saying that the government is not respecting the workers' wishes; one says that Solidarity will strike again and again if demands aren't met. Cut to TLS/MSs of a GENERAL STRIKE in Warsaw, where workers and students sit across streetcar tracks to block trains, strike signs affixed to train cars. EST shot of the dilapidated and grim Communist Party Headquarters in Warsaw. Cut to MSs of Polish Premier STANISLAW KANIA with Soviet Premier LEONID BREZHNEV and other officials in a conference. MSs of large Communist Party Congress meeting.