Krzysztof Kieślowski

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Krzysztof Kieślowski (1994)

Audio file / audio sample Krzysztof Kieślowski ? / i (bornJune 27, 1941inWarsaw; †March 13, 1996inWarsaw) was aPolish film directorandscreenwriter, internationally known for his film cyclesDekalogandDrei Farben.

Life

Kieślowski was born in Warsaw, but grew up in various small towns. The move was due to the fact that his father, who had tuberculosis and a simple mechanic, was constantly looking for better treatment. At the age of 16, Kieślowski attended a school that trained firefighters, but left after three months. Without any career goal, he began in 1957 to study at the Warsaw University of Theater Studies, to whose director he was related. He decided to become a theater director , and because there was no special training for directors, he first studied film.

After he left the university and spent some time as a costumer for the theater, trying Kieślowski, at the State Academy of Film, Television and Theater in Łódź to register, the higher education institution, the already talent like Roman Polanski , Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda produced would have. However, it was rejected twice. In order to avoid his military service, he began to study art in Warsaw at short notice and also subscribed to a drastic diet in the hope that he would be rejected by the army for fitness reasons. After successfully circumventing the draft for a few months, he was finally admitted to the Łódź University on the third attempt .

He attended college from 1964 to 1968, when the government allowed a high degree of artistic freedom. Kieślowski quickly lost interest in the theater and decided to shoot documentaries instead. He also married the love of his life, Maria Cautillo, in his senior year. Their daughter Marta was born on January 8, 1972.

Documentaries

Kieślowski's first documentaries showed the daily life of simple workers, citizens or soldiers. Although he was not a political filmmaker, it quickly became apparent that trying to portray the life of Poles would inevitably lead to conflict with the government. His television film Workers '71 , which shows workers discussing the mass strikes in 1970, was only shown in a heavily censored form.

After Workers '71 he turned his attention to the rulers themselves: in the film Curriculum Vitae he combines a documentary about a meeting in the Politburo with a fictional story about a man who is under political observation. Although Kieślowski was convinced that his film made an anti-authoritarian statement, he was heavily criticized by his colleagues - it is said to have worked with the government.

Kieślowski later said he had given up the documentaries for two reasons: First, because of the Workers '71 censorship that made him doubt whether the truth could really be portrayed in an authoritarian regime, and because of an incident while filming Der Bahnhof (1980), in which a few recordings were almost used as evidence for a criminal case. He recognized that fiction not only allowed more artistic freedom, but could also portray daily life more realistically.

Polish films

His first non-documentary film was Das Personal (1975), which was shot for television and earned him his first film award at the Mannheim film festival. The staff and his next flick, Die Scar, were clearly characterized by social realism and impressed with a fairly large cast of actors. The staff shows the history of some technicians who work on a stage production and is based on experiences from their student days. The scar is about the upheaval of a small town due to a rather poorly planned industrial project. Both films were shot in a documentary style, almost exclusively with semi-professional actors. Like his earlier works, the films portray everyday life in a faulty system of government - only this time he has left out the interviews and comments.

The Amateur Filmmaker (1979), who won first prize at the Moscow International Film Festival, and The Probable Chance (1981) follow much the same line, focusing more on the views of a character rather than a whole community. During this time, Kieślowski was part of a loose association of Polish directors, including Janusz Kijowski , Andrzej Wajda , and Agnieszka Holland . The association was called Cinema of Moral Anxiety . His connection to these directors (especially Holland) repeatedly led to disputes with the Polish government. Virtually all of his films were censored, cut or not made available to the public at all, as was The Chance , which was only shown six years after completion.

Without End (1984) was probably his most political film. He showed political trials in Poland during the martial law period between 1981 and 1983 , from the rather untypical perspective of a ghost and his widow. The film was condemned by both the government and its critics. During the filming, Kieślowski made the acquaintance of two future companions, the screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz and the composer Zbigniew Preisner . At the time, Piesiewicz was a lawyer specializing in martial law, and Kieślowski was researching the subject. Piesiewicz assisted Kieślowski with the scriptwriting of all subsequent films. Film music has always played an immensely important part in Kieślowski's films, and most of Preisner's pieces are mentioned in connection with these films. Often times, the pieces of music in the film are presented as the work of a fictional Dutch composer named Van den Budenmayer .

Between 1988 and 1989 Kieślowski published the Dekalog film series . Ten short films, all of which are set in a high-rise in Warsaw, based on the ten commandments, produced for Polish television with financial support from West Germany. It is now one of the most critically acclaimed film series of all time. Dekalog was written by Kieślowski and Piesiewicz and the ten hour-long episodes were originally intended to be shot by different directors, but Kieślowski was unable to relinquish control of the project and at least each episode had a different cameraman. The fifth and sixth episodes were also filmed as longer versions and released internationally under the names A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love . Kieślowski also wanted to make an extended version of the ninth episode, A Short Film About Jealousy , but exhaustion ultimately stopped him. It would have been his 13th film within a year.

Casting

Kieślowski often hired the same actors to star in his films:

Foreign productions

Kieślowski's last four films were foreign productions, especially made with money from France . These deal with moral values, such as the ideals of the French Revolution, or existential questions, such as the Decalogue and The Chance before possibly , but in a slightly more abstract way, with fewer actors, more profound stories and less focus on society. In the following, Kieślowski's homeland Poland mostly only appeared from the perspective of other Europeans. These four films are by far some of his financially most successful productions.

The first was La double vie de Véronique ( The Two Lives of Veronica , 1990) with Irène Jacob in the lead role. The great commercial success enabled Kieślowski to have much higher budgets for his last films, the trilogy Drei Farben ( blue , white , red ) with Marin Karmitz as producer - the three colors are supposed to symbolize the three values ​​of the French national flag. Drei Farben was not only his artistically most ambitious work (besides the Decalogue ), but also his most commercially successful work. With the three films he won a number of international prizes, for example the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for best film ( three colors: blue ) and the Silver Bear for best director ( three colors: white ) at the Berlinale, as well three nominations for the Academy Awards . The trilogy is widely recognized as an outstanding achievement in contemporary cinema.

Death and inheritance

Kieślowski's grave

Krzysztof Kieślowski died on March 13, 1996 at the age of 54 of a heart attack during heart surgery. He was buried in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw. A sculpture stands on the tombstone, the hands of which imitate the classic square view through the camera. The small sculpture is made of black marble and is about one meter high. The cast plate with Kieślowski's name and dates is in front of it.

Years after his death, he is remembered as one of the most influential European directors, and his works are constantly shown in film classes at universities around the world. The 1993 book Kieślowski über Kieślowski describes his life in his own words and is based on interviews with Danusia Stok. It is also the subject of the biography Krzysztof Kieślowski: I'm So-So (1995) by Krzysztof Wierzbicki.

Although it had been said that Kieślowski would retire after Drei Farben , he was at the time writing scripts for a new trilogy, again assisted by Piesiewicz. It should be called Heaven , Hell and Purgatory and was inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy . As planned for Dekalog , the scripts were to be shot by different directors, but after Kieślowski's premature death it remained open whether he would not have made the films himself. The only finished script Heaven was realized by Tom Tykwer and released in 2002 at the Toronto International Film Festival . Piesiewicz has now made scripts from the other two scripts - back then only 30-page fragments. As in Hell by Bosnian director Danis Tanović was released in 2005 with Emmanuelle Béart , Hope followed in 2007 (director: Stanisław Mucha ).

The Polish actor and director Jerzy Stuhr , who participated in various Kieślowski films and co-wrote the script for Der Filmamateur , realized another Kieślowski work in 2000 under the title The Big Animal ( Duże zwierzę ).

Kubrick on Kieślowski

Stanley Kubrick wrote the foreword to Kieślowski & Piesiewicz, Decalogue: The Ten Commandments , London: Faber & Faber, 1991. In it he says:

“I'm always reluctant to pick one point out of the work of a great filmmaker, because there is always the risk of simplifying or even decimating the whole thing. But in this book by Krzysztof Kieślowski and his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, it should not go unnoticed that the two not only have the rare talent to tell their ideas, but also to dramatize them. As they go through the stages in their films, they manage to captivate the audience so that they can really explore what's going on in the film, instead of just being entertained. They do this with such a wonderful technique that you never know what exactly is going to happen and only later realize how much they have touched your inner being. "

- Stanley Kubrick : January 1991

Filmography

Documentaries and short films

  • 1966: Urząd
  • 1968: Zdjęcie
  • 1968: Z miasta Łodzi
  • 1970: Byłem żołnierzem
  • 1970: Fabryka
  • 1971: Robotnicy '71: Nic o nas bez nas
  • 1971: Przed rajdem
  • 1972: Między Wrocławiem a Zieloną Górą
  • 1972: Podstawy BHP w kopalni miedzi
  • 1973: Murarz
  • 1974: Prześwietlenie
  • 1974: Pierwsza miłość
  • 1975: Życiorys
  • 1976: Szpital
  • 1976: slap
  • 1977: never like
  • 1977: Z punktu widzenia nocnego portiera
  • 1978: Siedem kobiet w różnym wieku
  • 1980: The train station (Dworzec)
  • 1980: Gadające głowy

Feature films

The following films were made based on his scripts:

  • 2000: The Big Animal (Duże zwierzę) , directed by Jerzy Stuhr
  • 2001: Heaven , directed by Tom Tykwer
  • 2005: As in Hell (L'enfer) , directed by Danis Tanović

Awards and honors

Krzysztof Kieślowski has received countless prizes for his documentary and feature film work. The following list is not complete, as his film Three Colors: Red alone received 15 awards in different countries.

International film festival in Mannheim

Grand Prix for The Staff (1976)

Polish weekly " Polityka "

1976 “Drozdze” award

Moscow International Film Festival

The first prize for the film Der Filmamateur

Venice Film Festival

1993 the Golden Lion for the film Three Colors: Blue

Berlin International Film Festival

Berlinale 1980 - Otto Sibelius Prize for The Amateur Film
Berlinale 1994 - Silver Bear for Best Director ( three colors: white )

15th Lubus film summer in Lagow

1985 Prize for the complete artistic work.

Cannes Film Festival

1988 FIPRESCI Award for A Short Film About Killing
1991 FIPRESCI Prize for The Two Lives of Veronica

European Film Academy

1988 Felix Prize for a short film about killing

British Film Institute

In 1990 he was made an honorary member of the British Film Institute for "outstanding contribution in the field of film".

French Ministry of Culture

Awarded him the Order of Literature and Art in 1993

Bible and Culture Foundation

Awarded the Foundation Prize for Bible and Feature Film in 1994

Danish CJ Sonning Prize

1994 for his contribution in the field of film and European culture.

Academy Awards

1994 Oscar nomination in the field of directing for Three Colors: Red

European Media Prize (Girona)

In 1996 he received the European Media Prize (Girona)

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Member since 1995

Radio and TV Faculty of the University of Silesia in Katowice

Has had his name since 2000.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Original quote , English, accessed on October 20, 2010
  2. ^ Foundation Bible and Culture - Awards. Retrieved December 27, 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Krzysztof Kieślowski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

items

personal data
SURNAME Kieślowski, Krzysztof
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish film director and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1996
Place of death Warsaw