What is this symbol on Conrad Hall's shirt?

August 9, 2024 9:42 PM

In the documentary Visions of Light, cinematographer Conrad Hall is wearing a white shirt that has a red cross with a red banner flying from the top of it. I know I've seen this symbol many times before, mainly when I was a kid, and initially thought it might have something to do with Solidarność. Several attempts at Googling haven't turned up anything that looks exactly like it, though. I still have this nagging feeling it has something to do with the Revolutions of 1989, but what is it, actually?
posted by theory to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

You may have conflated the Solidarity logo with the kotwica in your memory.

It's not immediately recognisable to me (source: Polish person; emigrated as a child), and my searches haven't turned anything up yet either.
posted by confluency at 11:34 PM on August 9

(Also, Fighting Solidarity had a symbol which was derived from the kotwica and the letter S, which has similar vibes because the top of the S is facing right, like the flag, although there's no cross shape remaining in the symbol. So that could be contributing to the associations.)
posted by confluency at 11:51 PM on August 9

In playing around with image search, this is the closest I've come to the symbol in the photo. It's a cross with a red ribbon for cancer. Hall died of bladder cancer, so perhaps this was a symbol of his fight for life. If you search for cross and cancer ribbon, you'll find many variations on this theme.
posted by bryon at 5:47 AM on August 10

Similar to the Cross and Flame logo used by certain Christian denominations, although its banner comes out of the bottom, not the top.
posted by Rash at 7:42 AM on August 10

To me it looks like a lower case f where the top bar of the letter is a flag or a pennant. It looks more like the f from Fry's Electronics then anything to do with Solidarność or Christianity (which Conrad Hall to the best of my knowledge was not directly involved in either). I'd guess it is the logo for a film related business.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:42 AM on August 10