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Innocent Sorcerers and the most difficult time in my life
Andrzej Wajda Film-maker
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I think the time's come to speak about the most difficult period of my life. Namely, after these first successes and my first very obvious failure in the form of Lotna, I began to look for new subjects for myself, new subjects for my films. Unfortunately, over the next years, for several successive years, I couldn't find myself. The films made in that time were not well defined, not very successful. In short, each year I made one film. I'll begin with Innocent Sorcerers which was a modern film about contemporary youth. As I've said, at that time the world that was being shown, Jerzy Andrzejewski had written the screenplay, this world was mostly the world of the film school in Łódź, and I think that a young director like Romek Polański or one of the others would have made a better film than I did. I immersed myself in a world which wasn't really mine. In addition to this, I couldn't find the actors who could have been this pair; I don't think this was Tadeusz Łomnicki's finest role. He was made to play someone who had been created, whereas the actor ought to have been a person of those times, but I couldn't find anyone like that. I couldn't make up my mind; Cybulski was too old to play that part and I couldn't see any young actors. Skolimowski would have played that part the best, but he was just starting out as an actor. He'd helped write the dialogue for this film. So that's the film. After that, I went back to the subject of war.

Myślę, że teraz powinienem opowiedzieć o najtrudniejszym okresie mojego życia. Mianowicie po tych pierwszych sukcesach i po pierwszej takiej wyraźnej klęsce w postaci Lotnej zacząłem poszukiwać dla siebie nowych tematów, zacząłem szukać, jaki mógłbym zrobić film. I niestety, następne lata, kilka lat pod rząd nie mogłem się odnaleźć i filmy zrobione w tym czasie okazały się mało wyraziste, mało udane, mało... No, krótko mówiąc, co roku robiłem jeden film i zacznę od Niewinnych czarodziei, który był filmem współczesnym o współczesnej młodzieży. Jak powiedziałem w tym czasie ten świat przedstawiony, bo Jerzy Andrzejewski napisał scenariusz do tego filmu, ten świat raczej był światem Szkoły Filmowej w Łodzi i myślę, że lepiej by ode mnie zrobili ten film wtedy młodzi reżyserzy – Romek Polański czy inni. Krótko mówiąc, zanurzyłem się w jakiś świat, który nie do końca był moim światem. Jeszcze w dodatku nie mogłem znaleźć aktorów, takich, którzy by stanowili tą parę. Nie myślę, żeby to była najlepsza rola Tadeusza Łomnickiego. On musiał grać takiego kogoś wykreowanego. Tymczasem powinno się znaleźć po prostu aktora, który by był jakby osobą tego czasu, ale na takiego aktora nie mogłem trafić. Nie zdecydowałem się, że tak powiem, Cybulski już był za stary do tej roli, a nie widziałem młodych aktorów. Najlepiej by to zagrał Skolimowski, no ale wtedy Skolimowski stawiał pierwsze kroki i był współautorem dialogów w tym filmie. Tak że to jest film... Potem wróciłem jeszcze raz do tematyki wojennej.

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: Lotna, Innocent Sorcerers, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Zbyszek Cybulski, Roman Polański, Tadeusz Łomnicki, Jerzy Skolimowski

Duration: 2 minutes, 17 seconds

Date story recorded: August 2003

Date story went live: 24 January 2008