Michał Waszyński
Michał Waszyński (born September 29, 1904 in Kowel , † February 20, 1965 in Madrid ) was a Polish film director of Jewish descent.
Waszyński was born into the family of a blacksmith as Moshe Waks. As a young man he came to Warsaw and later to Berlin. There is no evidence of his training, particularly his internship with Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau . Back in Poland, he changed his name to Michał Waszyński and converted to Catholicism. He became the assistant to the film director Wiktor Biegański and appeared as an actor in one of his films. After 1925 he worked as an assistant to the Polish film directors Józef Lejtes, Ryszard Ordyński and Henryk Szaro .
In 1929 he made his debut as a freelance director. By 1939 he had made 37 feature films, mostly comedies. His most important work, however, was “ Der Dybbuk ” in 1937, based on the drama by Salomon An-ski with dialogues in Yiddish , a monument to the rich cultural life of Eastern European Jews before the Holocaust.
After the outbreak of the Second World War Waszyński fled eastwards to Białystok , which was occupied by Soviet troops after September 17, 1939 according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact . Under Soviet rule Waszyński was a theater director in Białystok, then in Moscow . After the attack of the German troops on the Soviet Union in June 1941 Waszyński succeeded in joining the Polish army formed by General Władysław Anders and left the Soviet Union and through Persia and Egypt to Italy and also took part as a cameraman in the battle of Monte Cassino .
Waszyński stayed in Italy after the war, where he made a Polish feature film about the Battle of Monte Cassino, and then three Italian films.
Later in his career Waszyński worked as a producer in various positions for the major American studios in Italy and Spain, as Michael Waszynski. His films include The Quiet American (1958), El Cid (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).
He died of a heart attack in Madrid and was buried in Rome.
literature
- Izabela Żukowska, Faustyna Toeplitz-Cieślak: Wizjonerzy i skandaliści kina , Prószyński Media Sp. Z oo, Warszawa 2016, ISBN 978-83-8069-321-0 , p. 260.
Web links
- Michał Waszynski in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Hannah Pilarczyk: Escape into the Spotlight . In: "Der Spiegel" June 7, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Waszyński, Michał |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Moshe Waks (Yiddish) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish film director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 29, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kovel |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 20, 1965 |
| Place of death | Madrid |