Jahoda, Mieczysław

(1924-)

   Accomplished cinematographer who worked on several influential Polish films. While still a student at the Łódź Film School (from which he graduated in 1953), Jahoda worked as a second camera operator on Jerzy Kawalerowicz's films The Village Mill (1952), A Night of Remembrance (1954), and Under the Phrygian Star (1954). Stanisław Lenartowicz's expressionistic Winter Twilight (1957) became his first film as a cinematographer. The dreamlike visual style of Wojciech J. Has's early films owes a lot to Jahoda, who photographed Noose (1958), Farewells (1958), The Saragossa Manuscript (1965), and Ciphers (1966). During the Polish School period, he also photographed Ewa and Czesław Petelski's The Artillery Sergeant Kaleń (1961) and Jan Rybkowski's films Meeting at Bajka Cafe (1962) and Truly Yesterday (1963). Jahoda is also known for pioneering several techniques; for example, he photographed the first widescreen Polish film in Eastmancolor, The Teutonic Knights (1960, Aleksander Ford). Later he continued working with Rybkowski (Ascension Day, 1969), Tadeusz Chmielewski (I Hate Mondays, 1971), Tadeusz Konwicki (How Far from Here, yet How Near, 1972), Jan Batory (The Lake of Mysteries, 1973), and Andrzej Kondratiuk (Scorpio, Virgo, and Sagitarius, 1971). Jahoda continued his career as a cinematographer until 1987, also teaching at the Łódź Film School. In 1978 he codi-rected with Janusz Rzeszewski the musical comedy Hello, Fred the Beard (Hallo Szpicbródka, czyli ostatni występ króla kasiarzy). His last films were made with director Stanisław Jędryka, for example Upside Down (1983) and I Died to Live (1984).

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof