Table Of ContentEdited by
DANUSIA STOK
faber and faber
LONDON BOSTON
First published in 1993 by Faber and Faber Limited
3 Queen Square London we IN 3A U
Photoset by Parker Typesetting Service, Leicester
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
All rights reserved
@ Krzysztof Kieilowski, 1993
Introduction, translation and editorial commentary @ Danusia Stok, 1993
Krzysztof Kieilowski and Danusia Stok are hereby identified
as authors of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction by Danusia Stok xiii
Epigraph xxii
I BACKGROUND
Returning Home
Film School
2 THE UNIQUE ROLE OF DOCUMENTARIES
From the City of Lodi
I Was a Soldier
Workers '71
Curriculum vitae
First Love
Hospital
I Don't Know
From a Night Porter's Point of View
Station
3 THE FEATURE FILMS
In Order to Learn: Pedestrian Subway
A Metaphor for Life: Personnel
A Flawed Script: The Scar
A 'Period Piece': The Calm
A Trap: Camera Buff
Chance or Fate: Blind Chance
The Communist Virus: Short Working Day
We All Bowed Our Heads: No End
The Decalogue
A Short Film about Killing
A Short Film about Love
Pure Emotions: The Double Life of Vkronique
5 THREE COLOURS
Notes
Filmography
Index
List of Illustrations
'My father was a very wise man but I couldn't make
much use of his wisdom. It's only now that I can under-
stand some of the things he did or said.' 3
'My father was more important to me than my mother
because he died so young. But my mother was important
too and one of the reasons I decided to go to film
school.' 4
'My father had tuberculosis. He'd go to sanatoria and
my mum, me and my sister, we'd follow him.' 4
'I was never a goody-goody or a swot. I got good marks
but didn't make any special effort.' I I
'I used to go to sanatoria for children. The whole idea
was to spend time in a good climate and to have healthy
food.'
12
'My father eventually died of TB. He was forty-seven,
younger than I am now.' 14
'Then, by chance, I got into a school in Warsaw which
was an arts school. It was a fantastic school.' 17
'Later on, my mother lived in Warsaw. Life was very
hard.' 19
'I don't really talk to my daughter about important
matters. I write her letters.'
21
. . .
'I was a complete idiot pretty naive and not very
bright.' 30
(Photographs by Krzysztof Kieilowski) 'Film School
taught me how to look at the world.' 46-7
'I had already married Marysia, my present wife, when I
was in my fourth and final year.'
50
19~20' I made two so-called commissioned films.' Between
Wrociaw and Zielona G6ra (Miqdzy Wrociawiem a
Zielonq G6rq) . . .
52
21~22. . . and The Principles of Safety and Hygiene in a Cop-
per Mine (Podstawy B HP w Kopalni Miedzy).
5 3
23,24, 'Tomek Zygadlo and I directed Workers '71 (Robot-
25 nicy '711.' 56
26 'Everything concerning the Party Board of Control in
Curriculum Vitae ( ~ ~ c i owra~s sre)a l.' 61
27 'Whereas everything that the main character brings in is
fictitious.' 61
28,29 Hospital (Szpital). 'They worked their twenty-four
hours then another seven, making it thirty-one hours
non-stop.' 7 I
30 Hospital. 'We became such good friends.' 72
31~32, From a Night Porter's Point of View (Z Punkta Wid-
33 zeniu Nocnego Portiera). 'The porter wasn't a bad
man.' 76-7
34 Statzon (Dworzec).'P eople looking for something.' 80
3 6,37 Seven Women of Dzfferent Ages (Siedem Kobiet w Rbz-
nym Wieku). 83
38 , 39 X-Ray (Przeiwietlenie). 84
40 Refrain (Refren). 85
Tracking:
4 I Concert of Requests (Koncert ~~czeri)8.7
42 With Jacek Petrycki during filming of Before the Rally
(Przed Rajdem). 87
43 The Calm (Spokbj). 88
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
Behind the camera:
44 From the City of Lddi (Z Miasta Lodzi). 0 Piotr Jaxa-
Kwiatkowski. 89
45 With Jacek Petrycki during filming of Fzrst Love
(Pierwsza Mifoic?. 90
0
46 With Witold Stok during filming of Workers '71.
Andrzej Arwar. 90
47 Workers '71.0 Andrzej Arwar. 9 I
48 The Calm. 91
49 With Krzysztof Pakulski during filming of Short Work-
ing Day (KrdtkiD zien Pracy). 92
50 No End (BezK onca). 92
5 1-4 The Scar (Blizna). 100-101
5 5, 5 6 Jerzy Stuhr in The Calm (Spokdj). 107
57 On set: The Calm. 109
5 8, 59 Jerzy Stuhr in Camera Buff (Amator). I I I
60,61 Boguslaw Linde in Blind Chance (Przypadek). I 14
62 On set: Short Working Day (Krdtki Dzien Pracy). I 17
63 Artur Barcii in No End. 132
64-6 Grazyna Szapokowska in No End. I 3 2-3
67 With Slawomir Idziak and Agnieszka Holland in Can-
nes, 1988. 139
68 With Edward Zebrowski in Switzerland. 139
69 Decalogue I (Dekalog I). 147
70 Decalogue I1 (Dekalog 11). I 4 8
71 Decalogue IX (Dekalog 1x1. 148
72-6 Mirodaw Baca in A Short Film about Killing (Kr6tki
Film o Zabijaniu). 163-5
Acknowledgements
Primarily, of course, I would like to thank Krzysztof Kieilowski
who, tired as he was, agreed to let me interview him on numerous
occasions and who let me rummage through his family and 'on set'
photographs. This book is largely based on interviews recorded
with Kieilowski in Paris in December 1991 and May 1992 when
he was working on the scripts of the triptych Three Colours. A
third set of interviews, covering the triptych, was recorded in Paris
in the summer of 1993 once Three Colours had been shot.
There are a number of people whom I'd also like to thank for
their support, assistance and encouragement: Witold Stok, Jacek
Petrycki, Grazyna Petrycka, Marcel Lozinski, Ann Duruflb, Mar-
ysia Kieilowska, Tadeusz ~encz~kowskAi,n na Pinter and, most
certainly, Tracey Scoffield for her extremely helpful editorial
assistance.
I would like to thank the British Film Institute for its permission
to include quotations from the Guardian Lecture held with
Krzysztof Kieilowski in April 1990.
Excerpts from Kieilowski's reflections written for the monthly
cultural magazine Du (Zurich, Switzerland) have been worked
into the text. The passages are my own direct translation of
Kieilowski's original words.
Stills and photographs appear by courtesy of: Krzysztof Kie-
ilowski as well as Andrzej Arwar, Piotr Jaxa-Kwiatkowski,
Monika Jeziorowska, Jacek Petrycki, Archiwum Film Polski,
Archiwum WFD, Gala Film Distributors, MK-2, TVP Archiwum
Filmowe.
Introduction
Alongside Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski
and Krzysztof Zanussi - all from the Lodi Film School - Krzysztof
Kieilowski has become one of the best known of Polish film-
makers. Yet it took a while before his talent was recognized in the
West. Camera Buff (Amator), made in 1979 and winner of the
Grand Prix in Moscow, brought his name to the Western film
buff's attention but it is only with No End (Bez Korica) and, more
importantly, with the Decalogue (Dekalog), made in 1988-9, that
his reputation has spread through the general - though not yet
-
commercial market. But by this time Kieilowski already had
several feature films to his name, not to mention numerous award-
winning documentaries.
In fact, it is with documentaries that Kieilowski's career started.
And one kind of documentary in particular, in the Poland of the
1960s and I ~ ~ O sSto,o d in a class of its own. These documentaries
played a dual role in that they were both artistic and political -
political in the sense that, with the help of various ruses at the
expense of the censors, they strove to depict reality as it was and
not as the Communists claimed it to be. In this way, they were
precursors of the 'cinema of moral anxiety', a movement in feature
films which strove to awaken social consciousness. As naturally as
the 'cinema of moral anxiety' developed from the documentaries
of the 1970s~s o Kieilowski's features developed from his docu-
mentaries; so much so that in Personnel (Personel), for example,
documentary devices were used to enhance and add authenticity to
a fictitious plot. To this day, Kieilowski claims to make features
according to documentary principles as his films evolve through
ideas and not through action.
Kieilowski argues that all his films except one, perhaps -
Workers '71 (Robotnicy '71) - are about individuals and not
politics, but it would be hard to deny that most of them, especially
the earlier works, strongly reflect the political climate of their time.
A general view of recent events in Poland will therefore help the
xiv KIE~LOWSKIO N KIE~LOWSKI
reader of this book to understand why Kieilowski is considered
not only a leading film-maker in his home country but also a
controversial one. Many Poles love him but others view his work
and person with considerable reservation, believing that he flirted
with the Party in making such films as Curriculum vitae
(~yciorysH).e has been accused of being an opportunist, and of
having betrayed himself and Poland.
In person, he is certainly a self-declared pessimist, his expression
serious more frequently than not, his eyes intent behind the
glasses. But when a smile does make an appearance, you immedi-
ately sense its sincerity. There's a wealth of unsuspected warmth
and dry humour behind the daunting seriousness of his
demeanour. When 1 spoke to him in Paris he was tired. Tired from
an extremely heavy schedule, certainly, with three features to write
and complete in two years, but also tired of politics, and tired of
the Poles7 expectations of him to be something he doesn't want to
be - a political animal. As he frees himself from the oppressive
confines of politics, so his films more evidently touch upon themes
common to humanity, and the question of what it means to be
human.
Kieilowski was born in June 1941 in Warsaw. His childhood
was nomadic, as Krzysztof, together with his mother and sister,
followed his father, who was suffering from tuberculosis, from
one sanatorium town to another. (It is surprising to hear him
speak of tuberculosis between one puff of a cigarette and another,
between one cough and another.) No doubt the majority of child-
ren brought up in Poland at this time suffered numerous hardships
but that in no way lessens individual suffering and it is hard to
imagine that the constant uprooting which young Krzysztof
experienced did not leave any trace on him. He didn't speak much
about his childhood when I questioned him. Certainly, he told me
the odd anecdote or reminiscence, but it all seemed fragmented.
The phrase 'I can't remember' kept recurring - possibly as a
subconscious way of obliterating pain. But that's conjecture -
Kieilowski is reticent and wary by nature. Yet he does seem to
have mastered the art of manoeuvring his answers to suit his
purpose or to cut them short. Be that as it may, I did find him very
responsive and co-operative in many talks with him in his Paris
flat.
Kieilowski7sf irst professional training, at the age of sixteen, was
