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With Fire and Sword

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Looking for a film topic for the new audience
Andrzej Wajda Film-maker
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So now I'm coming to the end of a time I'd call a period of total confusion and attempts at finding myself in this new situation. Above all, I'd been searching for an answer to the question what does this audience want, what has happened here, how can I meet this audience once again? If the subject of war seen with a new vividness, shown with greater immediacy, in a way in which it had never been shown before I made Holy Week didn't interest anyone, if The Crowned-Eagle Ring which exposes the hidden machinations of the Party and their battle with the AK in '45 didn't find an audience, then where am I to go? What, so to speak... Then there was Miss Nobody where I went out to meet a youthful audience but they disregarded me. All I could do was to abandon my beloved profession of film director, but I didn't want to do that because I didn't blame the audience, I blamed myself for obviously having misjudged the times we were living in, that there is an audience and that it wants to see something. Of course, it wanted light entertainment, it wanted to laugh, it wanted to be frightened by gun battles; I knew all this but that didn't interest me.

I tak dobiegam do końca tego okresu, który bym nazwał okresem totalnego zamieszania w moim... próby odnalezienia się w nowej sytuacji. Przede wszystkim szukałem odpowiedzi czego chce widownia, co się tu wydarzyło, jak się z tą widownią spotkać ponownie. Jeżeli temat wojenny, zwłaszcza zobaczony z nową ostrością, gwałtownością pokazany, tak jak nie był nigdy przedtem pokazany, jak mi się to udało zrobić w Wielkim tygodniu nie interesuje nikogo, jeżeli Pierścionek z orłem w koronie, który pokazuje, że tak powiem, odkrywa kulisy machinacji partyjnych i walki z Armią Krajową w 1945 roku, nie znajduje żadnych widzów. To... to gdzie ja mam iść? Czego, że tak powiem... Jeszcze w dodatku Panna Nikt, gdzie wyszedłem naprzeciw młodzieżowej widowni, a ta widownia po prostu mnie zlekceważyła. Mogłem tylko się rozstać z moim ukochanym zawodem reżysera filmowego, ale tego nie chciałem robić, dlatego że nie myślałem o tym, że winna jest widownia, tylko że ja widocznie źle oceniam czasy, w których my żyjemy, że istnienie jakaś widownia, że ta widownia coś chce zobaczyć. No oczywiście, że chce zobaczyć kino rozrywkowe, że chce się śmiać, że chce się tam wystraszyć od jakieś strzelaniny, to wszystko wiedziałem, ale to mnie nie interesowało.

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: Miss Nobody, Holy Week, Crowned-Eagle Ring

Duration: 1 minute, 54 seconds

Date story recorded: August 2003

Date story went live: 24 January 2008