Steinwurzel, Seweryn

(1898-1983)

   Steinwurzel is generally regarded as the best Polish cinematographer before World War II. The son of a respected owner of a Warsaw photographic studio, Steinwurzel quickly gained a reputation in the mid-1920s as an innovative cinematographer working on films in Yiddish and Polish directed by Bruno Bredschneider, Zygmunt Turkow, and Henryk Szaro and by directing his only film, The Rivals (Rywale, 1925). Among more than forty films that he photographed were some of the best examples of prewar Polish cinema, including classics by Aleksander Ford (The Legion of the Street, 1932), Józef Lejtes (The Line, 1938), Juliusz Gardan (The Leper, 1936), and Leon Trystan/Joseph Green (A Letter to Mother, 1938). Steinwurzel was praised by critics for his professionalism, technical expertise, and artistic leanings. After the outbreak of World War II, he found himself in the territories occupied by the Soviets. In 1941 he joined the newly formed Polish army led by General Władysław Anders and served in its film unit as a camera operator and editor. After 1947 Steinwurzel settled in Brazil, where he worked in the film industry as a constructor and technologist. He moved to Israel in 1975, where he spent the last years of his life.

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof