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Ashes and Diamonds: A love story

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Ashes and Diamonds: Zbigniew Cybulski's mysterious glasses
Andrzej Wajda Film-maker
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Zresztą ciekawe w swoich pamiętnikach Chaplin napisał, że... Nie, operatorzy, którzy pracowali z Chaplinem, że zawsze Chaplin ich pytał: 'Czy widać mnie z nogami?' – pytał operatora. Bo on wiedział wtedy, co ma grać, co będzie, że tak powiem, na ekranie. Zbyszek Cybulski z nogami był ważny, te takie kroki, nie wiadomo czy idzie do przodu czy idzie do tyłu, nie wiadomo czy się zwraca, czy kogoś szuka, czy sam gdzieś jest zagubiony. To wszystko było bardzo ważne, żeby go fotografować nieco dalej. A przy bliższych planach było widać tylko jego uśmiech no i te tajemnicze oczy, które muszę powiedzieć, że one też spełniały jedną ważną funkcję. Stało się coś takiego, że te okulary stały się jakby swego rodzaju antyczną maską. No bo kto się kryje za okularami? Ktoś, kto coś ukrywa. Co on ukrywa? No, to się dowiadujemy z całego filmu, to jest właśnie jego tajemnica. Tak że te okulary, których ja najbardziej się bałem, bałem się dlatego, że one były kompletnie jakby z innej epoki wzięte, no... no, z punktu widzenia zdrowego rozsądku i z punktu widzenia historii przeszłości, którą ja dobrze znałem, te okulary były zupełnie niedopuszczalne. A tu nagle się okazały jakimś elementem tajemnicy, jakimś elementem gry pomiędzy widzem, który chce zajrzeć mu w oczy, i aktorem, który z tymi oczami ucieka. Myślę, że to wszystko, te symboliczne sceny, ta sylwetka Cybulskiego, jego sposób gry spowodowały, że... też to wyraziste oświetlenie Jerzego Wójcika, takie nadwyraziste zdjęcia zrobiły to, że myśmy się przenieśli jednak jakby w inny świat, do innego zupełnie kina. Jakiegoś kina nadwyrazistego, kina, w którym te wszystkie idee nie wypłaszczyły się tak. To znaczy, jak by to powiedzieć – ten film trudno było zaatakować, bo on był filmem artystycznym. A nie tylko ideologicznym. To nie tylko ideologia mówiła do widzów, tylko coś przemawiało jeszcze, właśnie coś, co trudno było cenzorowi wyciąć nożyczkami. Jemu nożyczki wypadały z ręki, no bo nie wiadomo było, co z tym filmem zrobić. I myślę, że to jest... to jest, no, jakby ten moment, kiedy ja ostatecznie się ukształtowałem i dowiedziałem się czego ja chcę od kina, czego... w jaką stronę będę szedł, czego będę... czego będę... jakby co będę chciał w kinie dalej opowiadać. Co jest moim kinem.

It's interesting that in his memoirs, Chaplin wrote... no, the cameraman who worked with Chaplin said he always asked them, 'Can you see me with my feet?' He knew then what he's supposed to act, and what was going to be on the screen. Zbyszek Cybulski was also important with his feet, his steps, you couldn't tell whether he was going forwards or backwards, whether he's turning back or looking for someone, or if he's alone and lost. Because of this it was very important to film him from further away. On close-ups, all you could see was his smile and those mysterious eyes of his which, I have to say, also fulfilled a function. It was as if those glasses became a type of antique mask. Because who hides behind glasses? Someone who has something to hide. What is he hiding? We find this out from the film, this is his secret. So these glasses, which I had been most afraid of, afraid of because they were taken from a completely different epoch, and from the point of view of common sense and from the point of view of history and of the past, which I knew well, these glasses were quite unacceptable. But suddenly, they became part of a mystery, part of a game between the viewer, who wants to look into his eyes, and the actor who keeps turning his eyes away. I think that all of this together, these symbolic scenes, Cybulski's profile, his way of acting, made... also Jerzy Wójcik's bright lighting, the over-vivid shots meant that we had almost moved into a different world, into a completely different cinema, a cinema that was over-vivid, a cinema in which every idea had not been flattened. How can I say it, it was hard to attack this film because it was an artistic film and not just an ideological one. It wasn't just the ideology that spoke to audiences, it was something more, something the censor found it hard to cut out with his scissors. His scissors fell from his hand because it was hard to know what to do with this film. And I think that this was the moment when I was finally formed and learned what I want from cinema, which direction I was going to follow, what I was going to say through cinema, what, from now on, is my cinema.

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: Paris, Ashes and Diamonds, Charlie Chaplin, Zbyszek Cybulski, Jerzy Wojcik

Duration: 3 minutes, 21 seconds

Date story recorded: August 2003

Date story went live: 24 January 2008