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NEXT STORY

Roman Polański in Revenge

RELATED STORIES

Revenge - a film about Poles
Andrzej Wajda Film-maker
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The success of Pan Tadeusz helped me to understand that there is a cinema audience willing to watch Polish films, although not every one, and perhaps it was my role, as in several earlier cases, to transfer major works of Polish literature, like The Wedding and The Promised Land, to the screen. Perhaps my role now was to adapt our great national literature, maybe this was what audiences were somehow waiting for because no one would make those kinds of films if we didn't make them ourselves. So, after Pan Tadeusz, I transferred to the screen the best known Polish comedy written in the same year that Adam Mickiewicz wrote Pan Tadeusz in 1842. It was called Revenge and was written by Count Aleksander Fredro, and making this film made me feel like an old classic. Then I remembered how when I'd travelled to Belgrade for the first time after making Ashes and Diamonds, I was 31 years old, and very soon my Serb friends, actors and friends who had worked with me on Siberian Lady Macbeth began to say about me, 'Oh, the old classic has arrived'. So I was already an old classic then, but now I realised that perhaps in some way it was my destiny that, at the end of a long life and after so many films, I should be making films that were bringing this audience together. It was an audience that was a little frightened, a little disorientated by the idea that we were going to join Europe, but what were we going to join it with, what would happen, who are we, what are we called? I think this also stirs in an adult audience, because if you get an audience of six million like you did for Pan Tadeusz, it's no longer a young audience of people between the ages of 15 and 25. To get this kind of an audience, there must be people there who have come out of their houses who don't watch other kinds of films. They have to take off their slippers, put on their shoes, buy a ticket and come to the cinema. When will they go to the cinema? When there's a film showing that says something to them. I think Revenge was that kind of film and I think it had one other recommendation, namely, that it shows Polish characters better than any other literary work in Poland, because it shows the quarrelsomeness, the inability to be reconciled, a disinterested hatred. This is very typical of the Polish character. It's included in Revenge and the actors love performing this play, vying against each other for these roles.

Sukces filmu Pan Tadeusz dał mi do zrozumienia, że istnieje widownia w kinie dla polskiego filmu, ale nie dla każdego i że być może moja rola jest, jak to już kilkakrotnie wcześniej się zdarzało, kiedy przenosiłem na ekran arcydzieła polskiej literatury tak jak Wesele, tak jak Ziemia Obiecana, że może i tym razem moja rola polega na tym właśnie, żeby być adaptatorem wielkiej, narodowej literatury, że na to w jakiś sposób oczekuje widownia, no bo takich filmów nikt nie zrobi, jeżeli mi ich sami nie zrobimy. No i po filmie Pan Tadeusz przeniosłem na ekran najbardziej znaną polską komedię, napisaną zresztą w tym samym roku, w którym Mickiewicz pisał Pana Tadeusza w 1842 pod tytułem Zemsta. Autorem jest Aleksander hrabia Fredro. I nagle, robiąc ten film, poczułem się jak stary klasyk.

Wtedy przypomniałem sobie, że jak przyjechałem do Belgradu po raz pierwszy, po filmie Popiół i diament, miałem 31 lat. Jakoś tak bardzo szybko moi przyjaciele, serbscy aktorzy i moi przyjaciele, którzy pracowali ze mną nad filmem... nad filmem Sybirska Lady Makbet, zaczęli mówić: 'O, przyjechał stary klasyk'. Więc już wtedy byłem starym klasykiem, a teraz zdałem sobie sprawę, że może to jest w jakiś sposób moje przeznaczenie, żeby na końcu długiego życia i tylu filmów zrobić filmy, które tę widownię przybliżają, tę widownię trochę i wystraszoną i zagubioną też i tym, że mamy się przyłączyć do Europy. Z czym my się mamy przyłączyć do Europy, jak to będzie, kim my jesteśmy, jak się nazywamy? Myślę, że to też budzi w tej widowni dorosłej, bo przecież jeżeli się pojawia taka widownia jak na Panu Tadeuszu sześć milionów ludzi, to już nie jest widownia młodzieżowa pomiędzy 15 i 25 rokiem życia. Żeby osiągnąć taką widownię, muszą wyjść z domu ci, którzy nie oglądają żadnych innych filmów. Muszą zrzucić, że tak powiem, ranne pantofle, ubrać buty, kupić bilet, przyjść do kina. Kiedy oni przyjdą do kina? No jeżeli jest jakiś film, który im coś mówi. Myślę, że takim filmem okazała się być także Zemsta. A Zemsta ma jeszcze jedną wielką zaletę, mianowicie pokazuje polskie charaktery lepiej niż jakikolwiek inny literacki utwór w Polsce. Bo pokazuje całą tę... tę taką zapiekłość, kłótliwość, niemożność pogodzenia się, taką bezinteresowną nienawiść. To jest bardzo charakterystyczne dla polskiego charakteru. I to jest właśnie zawarte w Zemście i aktorzy bardzo kochają grać tę sztukę na scenie i wyrywają sobie te role.

Polish film director Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016) was a towering presence in Polish cinema for six decades. His films, showing the horror of the German occupation of Poland, won awards at Cannes and established his reputation as both story-teller and commentator on Poland's turbulent history. As well as his impressive career in TV and film, he also served on the national Senate from 1989-91.

Listeners: Jacek Petrycki

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.

Tags: Pan Tadeusz, The Wedding, The Promised Land, Revenge, Ashes and Diamonds, Siberian Lady Macbeth, Adam Mickiewicz, Aleksander Fredro

Duration: 3 minutes, 30 seconds

Date story recorded: August 2003

Date story went live: 24 January 2008