All language subtitles for Still Alive_ A Film About Krzysztof Kieslowski

invite you to the film

Everything we have to say is

what we've experienced and understood.

Nobody can live our lives for us.

As storytellers we cannot write

or photograph anything beyond what we have experienced.

A film about Krzysztof Kieslowski

I didn't know about film or television

because I grew up in small towns.

Tiny towns, not villages.

And I kept being moved all the time. ('X-Ray', 1974)

He had an unhappy childhood.

His father's illness weighed on him.

I think it was the legacy he carried into this life.

Today when I compare my experiences with those of people

raised in Warsaw, I can see that we lived in

completely different worlds!

With different values.

Where other things mattered.

Krzysztof just came one day, in October. The school year had begun.

His uncle, Mr. Praczkowski, was the vice-superintendent.

Krzysztof was what you'd call a "skydiver".

Here was the ladies' costume shop. And the mannequins

were up there, with their fancy pin-fastened dresses.

I graduated from a great school in Warsaw,

called the High School for Theatrical Technique.

An excellent school, and unfortunately it was shut down.

I was at the Theatrical High School, ('Personnel', 1975)

but then it was closed.

- I taught there. - I remember you.

Yes, it's too bad they closed it.

He was always so busy, with girlfriends.

Ones that we didn't have.

When he had free time,

away from girlfriends, he was busy taking care of things.

Looking for screws, tyres,

gauges and belts for his motorcycle.

I didn't even have a bike and I knew

all the shops with spare parts.

friend of Krzysztof Kieslowski

director

He read 'Motor', took apart bikes,

he messed up his dorm bed, and then he got kicked out.

He was always on a tight schedule.

This was a school

for costume designers, set builders, painters and wigmakers.

But at the same time, it opened our eyes

to the incredible world of theatre. It taught that there is something beyond

shopping, politics and girls.

I wanted to become a theatre director. It was my dream.

Art, art...

We all feel it. It's in the air. It's in us.

Can you feel it?

Yes.

It feels as if you were growing.

To get into the university's directing programme, you needed a diploma.

I thought it'd be best to go first to the film school. I didn't get in.

Twice, and then I got in the third time.

It was a series of accidents.

I applied out of ambition the third time. I didn't want to direct.

FILM AND TELEVISION DIRECTING DEPARTMENT

Krzysztof walked out after the exam and did a somersault before the school.

director

He crushed his glasses.

Even though he was poor and probably didn't have another pair.

But those first two, three years

were the best at the school.

We shared a room.

That was my "golden age" in Lodz, living with Kieslowski.

'From the City of £L6dZ', 1969

No bathroom,

just this laundry room with cold water.

The toilet was in the basement, but I remember it all being fantastic!

One day in the course of time

Perhaps in our lives' fall

We'll live in this good gentle town

There must be one after all.

The school gave me so much, not just in terms of technique.

Because a school back then had to teach technique, and ours did.

Mainly it taught me awareness,

that in order to tell a story, to create,

you have to have a world of your own.

You have to believe that a few frames,

which are a funny thing, and

which you can easily tear into shreds,

contain more than what is recorded. It's not just the square that we see.

Like this, what's this? I think it's a city.

But it's not just a city. It's not just the view.

It's more than that. It's my story

that I'm telling at this moment.

It's what I have to say,

it's what I'm communicating to the person watching.

Krzysztof became a sort of mentor.

Not like a father, more like an older brother.

He discreetly watched over

my documentary and I was his assistant with...

'Concert of Requests', 1967

...and I played

the lead role in his thesis. It was a silent project.

One thing was so characteristic of him.

He would come up with a task.

It's night time, in late autumn, and suddenly he says,

"We're going to Sopot."

And I say: "Do we have to now?" He only answers,

"Just because. Pack your things. Hurry. We're going to Sopot."

It turns out

that he wanted to see a girl.

His girlfriend. I don't know.

A nice girl. She was at the art school.

I realised that as he looked for her, he did everything to avoid finding her.

That's how we ended up in Sopot. She was already gone,

but we got her home address.

And we travelled all day,

until we went out for vodka to this awful bar,

because we always went to the awful ones.

Krzysztof said, "Let's go on the pier."

Then we walked out onto the ice. The sea was frozen.

We floated on the ice. His ideas were like that.

We wrote a poem about the situation.

He wrote one line, I wrote the next, and so on, until...

But the title is from Krzysztof.

'Looking For Someone'. I would have never called it that.

I still remember it. [Robert] Bresson,

[Ingmar] Bergman and [Kazimierz] Karabasz. Those were his gods.

He was a unique student.

Astute,

and determined in studying what interested him...

director, professor at PWSFTVIT in Lédz

It was evident with his first job in his second year already

that he also had talent. He knew how to look at things.

'Concert of Requests', 1967 Kieslowski on the bicycle

School is wonderful. You have freedom. You can do the stupidest thing and

you're rarely held responsible. The worst they can do is kick you out.

I think the 60s were great. I had good teachers, like the ones

at the Theatrical High School, who showed me many important things.

He liked to

observe life

and he noticed so many things around him

that were worth being told on film.

He had no choice so early in his career but to do documentaries.

We all dreamed of leaving the country and trying our luck

somewhere else in the world.

cinematographer

But he had no desire to leave Poland. He found it pretentious.

'From the City of £L6dZ', 1969

You should make films of where you live.

We loved this city, the people. Without love

you can't make films. Without some kind of closeness,

empathy or friendship.

I simply described my world.

I didn't make anything up. It's my surroundings, my place,

the place I understood,

a natural place for me.

I lived in it so I wanted to describe it and tell people about it.

Ladies and gentlemen, from the top now.

'From the City of £L6dZ', 1969

Let's take it from the top.

Music please...

From this city. ..

They got to know each other.

I was there.

There were two girls

and one of them was his girlfriend.

The other one was new. She was for me.

But the deal changed

over the course of the evening. I don't think two weeks went by

before he asked her the big question,

namely, would she marry him?

It was amazing.

Everyone else split up, but not them.

Not them.

1968 was the worst year for me,

politically.

In '68 they closed the school.

The best professors left

because they were Jews, and Jews were being fired in Poland and sent off.

That was the end of the school.

"Workers '71', 1972

This is Warsaw, Channel 1. At 6 o'clock.

Then of course Warsaw.

I only studied in Lodz, but I lived in Warsaw.

Kieslowski graduated 2 years before me and he started working.

I joined him as an assistant.

cinematographer

I wanted to work alone. It was hard,

but whenever there was a job, I took it. After some time, Kieslowski

wanted to see me in the studio cafeteria

and he said to me, "I've been watching you.

You grab

whatever comes your way. For me, for the Party...

I think in life

you have to make a decision."

EXAM WITH A CAMERA

director

When I applied to the film school,

he was making a film on the admission process.

He filmed me

on top of a bus. It was for a newsreel.

Then Karabasz recommended me

because I was his assistant,

and Kieslowski was looking for people.

That's how our work together began.

The newsreel observed the applicants

with curiosity. Is a Wajda or Antonioni among them?

They were beautiful times. It's when the really important

films were made about our system and our reality.

KiesSlowski

and later [Marcel] Lozinski were part of this trend,

together with [Andrzej] Titkow and [Bohdan] Kosinski.

"The Photograph', 1968

I can reach people and situations,

ones I would never have access to, even less so

as a normal observer.

I'd have to be on the inside to come and just watch.

director

His idea was approved

to do a panorama

of the working class.

A feature.

"Workers '71', 1972

He suggested I join him.

We were afraid of getting caught, but we risked it constantly.

We played a game of being afraid. We wanted to test the limits.

Where is the limit, the edge

on which you can still balance? Where is the point where you fall?

We tried this in many ways,

with censorship, for example.

Workers 1971: NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US

We knew we were risking a lot.

DIVISION OF LABOUR

The portrait of the working class would be a letter to the government.

We even said this once: that some of our films,

but not all, are letters to the government.

We were convinced that Communism would fall,

but we never suspected it'd happen in our lifetimes.

"Letters to the government" sounds naive

but it had the right spirit. None of us served in the Party,

more the opposite.

It was a real shock to show

that a delegate's election

can be phony. We documented it.

It's clear. We're not being heard. They just want our work.

But there will be problems until the workers themselves

can have a role in managing this factory.

He knew he was a good director.

film editor

it made working with him easier. I could be honest

about how I found a reel or film.

We'd watch a reel, maybe ten minutes or so,

and I would say, "I don't think there's a single shot here."

But...

not every director can take this.

He was strict with himself. He knew his worth and this made him different.

Warsaw's lluzjon cinema has just hosted a documentary film series

by a group of young directors called the Krakéw Documentary School.

The subject of our film is not new. That's not true.

We did the traditional documentary subjects and they were

and still are the themes of documentaries.

I don't know if this is a problem.

Maybe the way out for this art form is by changing the subject,

crossing certain limits of the documentary genre.

I don't know if this is the answer for this field we hope to keep working in.

I certainly hope to stay in it for a long time, maybe even forever.

He didn't hesitate

to use tactics to say what he wanted to say.

'Curriculum Vitae', 1975

In "Curriculum Vitae' he already had this idea.

The film was co-authored by a person tied to the Party.

The film was seen

as very important,

but inaccessible, so they said,

to the "average person". It was screened at Party conventions.

- Your wife was of another class. - Comrade,

to me she was my woman.

The film is also an indictment of the Party.

At the Party's request...

film critic

...later it was shelved.

But Kieslowski tried to do it with them,

with the Party.

Your wife is a believer. You aren't. And now who's right?

There was a church wedding. Did you or your wife ask for it?

The next film we made specifically for this kind of training.

It allowed us to stretch the boundary of censorship.

You could talk about some things. But that's always

very subjective. I don't know if it was a collaboration

with the system or not. In a sense, yes.

He always wanted more than journalism.

director

We resented him for this, even I did.

He portrayed certain characters we judged as negative as so complex.

Friends called him "Party tear-shedder."

The camera is not a tool for correcting the world. It'd be a usurpation.

The camera doesn't correct anything. It can just tell what is.

His material was shot in days.

‘Seven Women of Different Ages'

or, late in his filmography,

'Hospital', that was like his "Emergency Room".

Maybe with the exception of 'First Love'

they were mostly topics for which you didn't need much patience.

Quite often the situation would give him

very good, fast shots immediately.

We say "documentary", but it was not

that he wanted to catch the fleeting reality.

First he would have an idea.

And then he would go as deep into this reality as possible.

And in the editing stage he'd put it together so tightly

that there was no room left.

But it was all part

of a plan that he was interested in.

Achieving something big. What is life? How was it planned?

'Seven Women of Different Ages', 1978

'Seven Women' was a formal idea,

because it was supposed to be one woman's story.

It begins when she is a little girl in ballet school.

Then she is in middle school. She grows up,

she goes onstage,

then it's her debut, it's her moment,

and she's gone. Finished.

But he couldn't do a story for 30 years about one woman.

So he made it about seven different women

at seven points of their ballerina lives.

First position. Round shoulders. Up to the belly button...

It's a film about how short life is. That it's only a moment.

We think we have so much more time, and can get so much done.

We think it's all before us, but it's not true.

In reality it's just a brief instant.

The method was simple. We don't observe

any objective reality, we just film situations.

Sometimes the situations are ones we provoke in a moral way.

He had integrity.

He blocked his film 'I Don't Know',

one about a man ruined by the Party mob in 1979.

The man tells his whole story. Even though it's already Solidarity,

he never showed this film, to protect the man's privacy.

So the Party wouldn't get back at him.

FROM A NIGHT PORTER'S POINT OF VIEW

I had mixed feelings

about this film. I still do because of how

I relate to the main character.

'From a Night Porter's Point of View', 1977

The main thing was

that he had to become friends with the characters.

Even the night porter, we came to like him.

We got along.

He was the product of an ideology.

He didn't become that way on his own.

So we treated him as a person, a well-meaning person

who happened to be crazy

when it came to inspections.

Kieslowski befriends this guy. And then he blocks

his own film from further circulation

so it ends up being a prop in a feature film.

When I was writing my first reviews,

everything was pre-Solidarity, it was all about "the awful system".

And the Cinema of Moral Anxiety was exposing this system.

But Kieslowski was somehow different.

He didn't want to expose everything. Because he saw only people everywhere.

I don't feel any moral anxiety.

I don't like this term for the Polish cinema of the 70s.

It stereotypes and that annoys me.

The Grand Prize goes to director Kieslowski for

"Seven Women of Different Ages"

and 'From a Night Porter's Point of View'.

When he won in Krakow, we were sitting next to him,

Agnieszka Holland and I.

actor and director

The whole assembly laughed!

He lowered his head more with each round of laughter,

as if he were ashamed for the man

on the screen.

And Agnieszka made it worse and said, the way she does,

"You made the guy look like a real jerk."

I still remember his expression.

When he said he was finished with documentaries,

I remembered this incident. I asked myself, since when.

At some point he had had enough. ‘Night Porter' was a turning point.

I was probably able to capture a piece of the truth in some films,

especially the documentaries, But not many times. This is rare.

I capture people, in feature films and documentaries.

People who can't cope. People shuffling off somewhere,

without knowing where, or what for.

And they're powerless

against the things that happen to them,

and they don't know what to do.

That's us.

None of us can deal with our reality,

with life.

‘Slate', 1976

Back then I didn't know it was so hard.

I only found out after over a dozen years of working.

Edward Zebrowski first asked me

whether Kieslowski could go to Tor.

I said, "Sure, why not?"

I had already realised a few things from his documentaries.

director

He was one of the few directors

who ask themselves questions, important ones, like

"W hy? n

The question is "how to live?"

How to live so you can look yourself in the eye in front of a mirror?

How to live to preserve some kind of moral purity?

His first TV movie was a funny production.

First he did it from the script.

'Pedestrian Subway', 1973

He saw the material near the end.

cinematographer

He thought it was phony, not real.

And we had this experimental idea to start over.

And he walked with a camera

behind Andrzej Seweryn and shot it like a documentary.

In the end there were two films. A classical version,

the way features are shot,

and a second one, more amateur.

Eventually he combined them, in the documentary style.

The script was by [Ireneusz] Iredynski,

with dialogues too.

I have made a lot of bad movies. I hate 'Pedestrian Subway'.

Then his film 'Personnel' was the first to really strike me.

I preferred his films that were on the border

between documentary and fiction.

A feature built out of a documentary. It was a revelation for me.

We showed the same world.

reporter and writer

He in his films, I in my journalism.

A world now called "the Communist age".

‘The Calm', 1976

A boring world, filled with poverty.

Not the world

of Italian neorealism.

There was no beauty, no beautiful faces,

no Lucia Bose or Raf Vallone.

There were only poor, tired people. Everything seemed sad and boring.

We were afraid that this boredom would seep into our work,

into my reporting and his films.

8 pork chops and 4 bottles of vodka.

This film

was the first time we showed the actor as more than a face.

He gives his views, his collaboration.

He often uses dialogue that he comes up with on his own.

He needed a face for 'The Calm', but couldn't find any.

We started shooting before we cast the part

for Socha, Mietek Socha. He's the leader of the workers.

And Krzysiek kept saying

the face was supposed to be like our set designer Michat Sulkiewicz.

I looked all over, but there was nobody with a face like his.

Yet he still wanted his Michat Sulkiewicz.

We postponed shooting for a day, then 2, 3...

On the fourth day we needed someone with the face of Michat Sulkiewicz!

But there wasn't one. Ultimately Sulkiewicz got the part.

Excuse me for reaching across your food.

Then I heard how he spoke.

When Sulkiewicz said, "Excuse me for reaching across your food",

we all laughed. It became our saying:

"Excuse me for reaching across your food". It became his line in the film.

I also had a girlfriend. Somehow.

I love the film. The hero needs nothing for survival.

He wants to earn a little.

He wants a bed, a TV, a wife, kids and nothing else.

I think that this attitude, which became the drama of the film,

is shared by many people, including myself.

In 'The Calm' there is the horse leitmotif.

They simply appear again and again. Nobody knows why.

He just said the hero would see horses.

He came with the word "surplus". Everything needs a surplus.

It should have something extra, best of all a metaphysical surplus.

It's hard to create it. Eventually it was all he ever made.

I like to work with wood. Unfortunately I have no talent.

I've made more than 100 things out of wood.

Useful things with right angles, like a table.

And never once in my life have I succeeded in making a right angle.

He could take apart wristwatches...

and put them together again.

screenwriter and lawyer

Same with motorcycles and car engines.

Whenever I had a job to do at the house, he'd come with his toolboxes,

put in all the screws, take locks off doors, hang up the lamps...

A lot of people look under the hoods of their cars,

when they saw him coming,

knowing he'd move them aside and fix whatever was wrong.

He spoke of the camera with such affection. He called it his "film".

"Let's begin, film", he would say.

That's what he said for "camera".

The jury...

‘Camera Buff', 1979

'Camera Buff'

was mostly improvised. Even the cinematography

was a kind of improvisation.

There were also elements of the documentary style.

And even the editing later was not done according to the script,

but rather he stuck to the methods

common for a documentary.

Suddenly he says, "We have to shoot a scene".

You're walking with the boss and he says

suddenly

that what you did is only half of the truth.

You're firing an honest man.

And for what? For my films!

"You complain that the money was stolen. That it's a scandal."

"I just wanted to show the truth." The boss asks, "What truth?"

"You don't know everything," he said. "The money went to the preschool.

And your daughter goes to this preschool.

And you don't even know this, Mr. Mosz."

And I say, "Krzysiek, let's write a dialogue.

Stefan Czyzewski, may he rest in peace, will speak it.

You're going to let your opponent have the last word?"

He said, "Yes, I know. Uncle will take the fall."

He always called himself "uncle".

That was the first time the film world reacted.

How could he let a communist be right?

But what could I do? That scene was necessary.

I wanted him to look in a mirror and talk mostly about himself,

because he had so much to say.

He gained more and more courage and didn't hide in the outside world.

You've ruined it!

I didn't do a scene after that because I thought

it was too much to have him sacrifice everything.

Then he starts to think. He turns on the camera,

points it at him, and internalises.

It's almost a programme. Of course, it's a programme.

My own programme. I don't deny it.

Good morning, Mr. Kieslowski. What brings you to Katowice?

- A first-year course. - Directing? - Yes.

Can you tell us what makes the courses here so special?

They say classes are more interesting here than at other schools. Is that so?

I don't know. I haven't been to the other schools.

Do you enjoy coming here to teach?

- My car broke down today... - That wasn't my question...

Yes, generally.

I do like it.

I can tell

my younger colleagues what I think.

Class with students in Katowice, 1980

For example, why one makes films.

It doesn't matter if she thinks so.

She is upset and trying to calm down.

He arrives two hours late.

Does he think she is still there waiting for him?

- Exactly. - Yes, he thinks so.

She's waiting? For two hours?

Create the situation! What does it look like? A rough sketch.

Quickly! You can't take too long. It's a simple situation.

The West rejected Krzysztof for a long time. It remains a mystery why.

director

I don't know why,

but Cannes rejected his work regularly.

He became known as a "local" filmmaker, one of little appeal internationally.

The Cannes director,

Gilles Jacob, wrote to Andrzej Wajda.

(Vice-president of the Tor film studio)

And he came to me asking for 'Blind Chance'.

Then [Andrzej] Zutawski came on behalf of Gilles Jacob.

It was a real blow for us

because Jacob didn't want the film for the festival.

But I didn't let up. They wanted to show it elsewhere.

Fine! And through Zutawski they said

the film dealt with

political events in postwar Poland

that viewers wouldn't understand. Why bother?

Krzysztof says, "I'll cut them out. I don't even care anymore."

We have to sow, though we don't know where.

The wind carries the seeds to the earth. We don't know who or where harvests...

'Blind Chance' and 'Short Working Day'

were two films responding to Solidarity in 1980.

And there were more. 'No End'

was in response

to martial law in Poland. This film really lived it.

Kieslowski said that he had lost interest in making films.

Unless there was a machine gun in the camera,

then yes.

He was radical in that sense.

But then less than a year later, he didn't sign

a protest letter for me.

NO END

'No End', 1984

Hanna Krall bumped into us.

It was winter,

at a grey, dingy Warsaw café somewhere on Marszatkowska Street.

I talked the whole time.

He listened, as usual. I was a lawyer

mainly working on the opposition

back then. But we still found

two hours to sit together and exchange views

that were removed from the grandiosity

of collective thought.

I think this all had an effect on 'No End".

One day he comes over, sits down and says to me, "Listen to this story!

Somebody is talking to me in the dark. I can't see him.

He's saying something, and I'm not sure what."

Maybe there were important reasons

why he changed his subject of interest.

You couldn't stop him from doing it.

I died...

four days ago...

A few days later he came back and said,

I can see him now, it is a man.

I see his face, but it's still dark.

And you know what? He's dead, I think."

A hero who's dead.

Krzysztof was fascinated by this. I had a close friend

who died of cancer while we were filming.

He had been a courageous and talented defence lawyer.

A good lawyer.

Played by [Jerzy] Radziwitowicz, the "Man of Iron". The lawyer dies.

He showed the death of an idea and the emptiness that remains.

He showed that fulfilment can only come in the afterworld.

I realised

only when we were shooting

that this film was a developed attempt to show objective reality.

These characters take on dual meanings,

like Krzysiek used to say, about life.

This is not the time to win. Pretend you're not there,

if you want to stay in the game.

The lawyer in the film

tries to get the hero

to betray his idealism. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's better

to resist something and avoid going to prison.

[Aleksander] Bardini, the lawyer, tries to convince

the worker who led the uprising not to continue with his hunger strike.

I can't watch you wear yourselves down

- ...any more. - Because you can't allow it!

Don't allow it! Yell it! "lI won't allow it!"

Go on, die! Jump out of the window!

But there are bars.

Exactly!

You can only do things within the bounds of the system.

Kieslowski's film shows despair, loneliness, the end of something.

It was very real. It conveyed

our very real emotions,

so it couldn't be met with any official praise.

After December 13 you decided to live.

- You didn't go at the tanks. - Do you think it was wrong?

If you make a decision to live, you'd better be able to withstand a lot.

We really got kicked around for the film.

By the authorities, the opposition and the church.

A Jesuit magazine published an article by [Krzysztof] Ktopotowski,

himself an agnostic,

exposing Krzysztof as a non-Catholic.

He warned people not to be led astray by the metaphysics in his films.

Krzysztof was very hurt. For him it was like being cast away

from a gate he didn't want to come to yet.

I can still remember the jokes he made.

When we made plans for Sunday, and I was going to church with my wife,

we'd have to agree to meet in a spot far away from the church

so that nobody would suspect him of going.

I wasn't in Poland at this time and much I know is only second hand.

During his trips abroad, I could see how he suffered.

There were times when his best friends would refuse to shake his hand,

or they yelled at him, as if to say, "Get lost, you communist pig!"

composer

But the music got rave reviews.

I was so inexperienced that I asked Kieslowski

whether he still wanted to work with me.

I thought he wasn't satisfied. And he said, "This is just the start."

Perfect!

On-set footage from 'Dekalog'

Krzysztof escaped into his work

instead of having a breakdown like any normal person.

It was very heroic on his part.

And desperate. The work was desperate.

After all he didn't need to rush 'Dekalog'.

It could have taken a couple of years. But he wanted to exhaust himself

and silence other things.

That's why we made 'Dekalog'.

We made it because we were sad, because we had been beaten,

because nothing made sense, around us or in us.

So Piesiewicz thought

we have to go back to those most basic questions.

A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING

These films are joined

by a common title, a common idea, the word 'Dekalog'.

But at the same time each one is a separate film.

They are films

in which I try to skin my characters several times over.

On-set footage from 'Dekalog'

Nobody believed anything would come of it.

Some kind of competition for cinematographers, they said.

I simply said no.

I was meeting with the opposition,

I was filming underground things,

and suddenly I'm asked to work on

films with things that seemed contrived, having nothing to do with my life.

So I thought no. I shouldn't be involved in this.

I remember. People told me not to do

the music for 'Dekalog'.

Why make a film about the Ten Commandments when people are in jail?

Why not films about the opposition, Solidarity and magazines?

And I almost just left.

- You have to sense the moment. - Yes.

I can see you out of the corner of my eye.

How about Mr. Aleksander? Can you see him?

As produced I tried to

sell the first two parts of 'Dekalog'

so that we could buy film to finish the project.

I went to different countries

and everywhere they turned me down.

The major TV stations

called it pointless and had a problem with the title as well.

And the same people signed big contracts with us when it became a success.

They showed it on prime time and loved it.

On-set footage from 'Dekalog'

A character appeared in 'Dekalog'

played by Artur Barcis, a kind of angel,

who looks upon those people who can't deal with

their lives and break the Ten Commandments.

He looks upon them with compassion. And this angel,

this someone, this is him.

It's his gaze through the camera, present in all his films,

including the documentaries.

Who is this guy? The milkman, a guy carrying a ladder.

He said it's an angel.

director, producer, assistant on 'Dekalog'

I said, "if he's an angel, show it."

But he said it had to be this way.

He leans

over the murder in 'A Short Film About Killing', steps into his skin

and seems to have empathy for the hero

who is somehow caught up

in life.

I had little regard for his offer.

His arguments about it being a good screenplay

were lost on me.

I knew that it would mean

two months of participating in murders and hangings, dirty things.

On-set footage from "Three Colours: White'

Shooting films wears you down. Early mornings, not sleeping at night.

It's rain. It's a little roof where we wait for the rain to pass,

or for them to bring whatever was missing. This is film.

This is how films are made. And satisfaction comes rarely,

and not for everyone.

actress

I never looked into the camera.

It was outside, on the roof.

They would tell me, "Move to the left,"

because the window was warped.

"Look down!", because they couldn't see my eyes.

'A Short Film About Love', 1988

Krzysztof would call over the megaphone, or come in and say

"I've had enough of spying on you since 4 am. I must be crazy."

Starting with 'Dekalog' he gained an interest in women.

That's why all those actresses from all over the world wanted to work with him.

Catherine Deneuve really wanted a role in "Three Colours: Blue'

She even wrote to Krzysztof, saying she would appear for nothing.

All actresses wanted to play for him, including Nicole Kidman, whom I met.

They'd drop everything

to get a script of his and play for him.

I had a feeling that all his characters were versions of him.

He saw himself either as a mysterious beautiful woman,

or as a dorky Pole reared on

vodka and potatoes.

"Three Colours: White', 1993

I wouldn't say that... Olaf Lubaszenko was also him,

but the truth shone through in certain moments.

When he worked with Olaf, he would say,

"You wouldn't do that. You'd do this."

'A Short Film About Love', 1988

Or "Grazynka, when this happens, the woman does such and such."

You have such soft hands.

Don't be afraid.

And he told Grazyna what a woman would do in that situation.

Was it good?

That's all there is to love.

Go to the bathroom and wash up.

Toward the end of filming, he said the happiest moment was

when you have everything wrapped up, you shut yourself in the editing room

and you rediscover the soul of the film,

as he used to say.

He aged as he worked on 'Dekalog'. He wore himself out.

In the morning he'd select the footage. At 9 am, he'd join us on the set

when we were starting to shoot. At 9 pm, we would finish up

and he'd go to the editing room and work until midnight.

Then he'd talk to the actors and cameramen about the following day.

It was impossible to manage it, but he did it.

'A Short Film About Killing' was met with resistance

at Cannes, at first.

But after that things went smoothly.

I didn't expect this award.

I hope Poland is in Europe.

And then the festivals started fighting over 'A Short Film About Love".

The Berlinale complained that it went to San Sebastian first.

Spain had beaten them. Krzysiek had his favourites too.

They did an extra screening at the Berlinale.

The crowd was huge.

Because here was a film from Poland.

But that didn't matter. Things could happen

inside these buildings that could only be deciphered based on the films.

Everything is in them already. Nothing refers to

outside symbolism.

'‘Dekalog, Nine', 1989

He didn't find out and he won't find out.

director

I was on the jury when he got a Felix

for 'A Short Film About Killing'.

it was a time when everyone except one wonderful British critic

said it was a film about the end of Communism.

And that Communism would destroy itself.

director

We first met in the men's room

at the first European Film Awards.

At the time he had

a kidney condition, so he had to go a lot,

every half hour or so.

He'd run into Marcello Mastroianni

who kept going in there to smoke.

And Wim Wenders would enter to wash his hands, because he was nervous.

And this,

the three of us in the men's room,

that was his dream about European cinema come true.

director, KiesSlowski's student

This place, the artists' house Bethanien

brings back lots of memories. Memories of

many meetings, with Krzysztof Kieslowski,

in a group of other students.

Laughter and tears, searching together.

We made mistakes, we were desperate. We were happy when things worked out.

It was his first real contact with young people

from another country.

What interested him

was the similarity between the unfulfilled needs

and desires.

translator, co-ordinator of Berlin film workshops

Of the young Germans, the young Poles and his own characters.

Later he said that if your tooth hurts, it hurts the same.

Whether you're African, German or Polish, pain is pain.

I met him

at a time

director, KiesSlowski's student

when he was at rest

and we talked a lot about this.

I found it very interesting. I always felt political.

He didn't, I think.

At the time, my interests included

radical politics. Like the Red Army Faction

in Germany.

He'd just shake his head, smiling gently,

as if to say, "You little idiot. You haven't a clue. You live

in another country and don't know what it's like to work in Poland."

And he said, "Andreas, politics is dirty. All I care

about any more is if there's paper in the toilet when I have to go."

The success of 'Dekalog'

died down. It had been phenomenal, a success in the West.

The contrast between how Kieslowski was treated at home and there

must have been overwhelming.

Then he started searching for his own path, but it wasn't easy.

He didn't speak any other languages to his beloved viewers.

On-set footage from "The Double Life of Véronique'

- Congratulations. - Thank you.

Stop! Very nice!

I received a script that said, "Véronique sings a beautiful song."

That's all. It just went through me.

Kieslowski came to Krakow and asked me, "Well?", "Well what?"

"Have you read the script?" I say, "Of course!"

"But how carefully?" "What do you mean?"

"What about the music?" "What music?"

"And what's here? Read it aloud!"

"Véronique sings a beautiful song." "Exactly!"

I ask, "But what does she sing?" He replies, "I don't know."

"How long?" "Don't know."

"What's it about?" "Don't know."

So I ask him what he does know. "That it's a beautiful song."

I asked, "What if the song doesn't turn out? Why make this film?"

"I don't know why. But the song needs to turn out."

"The Double Life of Véronique', 1991

Both women sing and have heart trouble.

One sacrifices her life for her career and dies. The other one lives.

What a metaphor for Krzysztof's own life, later!

director, KiesSlowski's translator

Art, career or life?

On-set footage from "The Double Life of Véronique'

Later on he learned English well,

communicating with actors.

But I translated "The Double Life of Véronique'.

Except the conversations with [cinematographer Stawomir] ldziak,

which I regret. I know they must have been fascinating.

Cut! How was that?

That was really a very fortunate film.

The chemistry was there, and the way

everything was done...

it was all so warm, SO joyous, So pleasant.

We were experimenting.

We tried a filter here, put the camera there,

or there.

They thought of new solutions all the time, like a couple of boys

trying out all those wonderful toys of the cinema.

Under no circumstances should anyone get up from their seat!

He made that marble specially for that scene

where Véronique looks through it.

Props played an important role in this script.

actress

Because both Véroniques are often alone,

the relationships to objects are important.

Where did the magic ball come from?

Some people like to carry around a chestnut.

Krzysztof was the kind of person who'd have one in his pocket, or a stick.

Maybe Marta,

his daughter, wanted a marble. No one knows where it came from.

Lonely characters often carry around little things.

Working with Iréne was strange at first,

because he almost cast someone else.

Later it turned into a two-way fascination.

He was a real mentor to Iréne,

more important than just a director.

Iréne, can you hear me? Turn so the guys see your profile.

He asked me to improvise a few scenes. I'm alone,

the telephone rings, but no one's there. I look into the camera

wondering if there is anyone on the line.

Krzysztof suggested jogging in the Tuileries Garden.

"Are you serious?" He was.

He wanted to watch me run, because my character was always running.

Then over coffee he asked me

if I recall ever running after something desperately.

I exclaimed, "Yes, after a bus."

It wasn't the answer he expected.

He was very stressed

during 'The Double Life of Véronique'. He was afraid

it would get rejected and he'd have trouble coping.

I came to Paris for the end of 'Véronique'

and was terrified of how he looked.

I had the feeling that there was lots of self-destructive testing of his limits.

It seemed childish to commit suicide by work,

yet at the same time he seemed to be invincible.

The world around him changed.

Suddenly he was faced with a wall that he never intended to climb.

As soon as he thought he was done, it turned out that he still had to

promote his film or give a talk.

There was so much. And he couldn't stop it.

He was depressed after 'Véronique'.

It was the first time he had

such serious mental problems.

I once made a documentary called "Talking Heads'.

In it I asked people "who are you?" and "what do you want?"

Afterwards, I thought about these questions.

I realised that I can't answer them myself.

I don't know who I am or what I want.

If there's anything I want, I think it's peace.

But I haven't found peace and I won't find any either.

So I don't think I'll have what I most want.

"Three Colours: Blue', 1993

When I think about him, I see his gaze.

Penetrating blue eyes behind a cloud of smoke.

actress

His grey skin too,

but mostly his penetrating, bright eyes.

And a smile in the corners of his mouth that never went away.

Our first meeting was in my office.

producer of the "Three Colours' trilogy

We talked about ethics and morality.

I told him,

"I want to do a film with you." And he replied,

"Sure. I have an idea, a trilogy about

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity."

We thought of it like this: there's a catastrophe,

a few people survive. It's purely chance that it's them and not others.

So we'll talk about the survivors.

"Three Colours: Red', 1994

it's like when we looked through

the windows in 'Dekalog'. Behind each window is a person

struggling with some problem.

We're all like that. Here we're showing it through a catastrophe,

a shipwreck that leaves a few accidental survivors.

Who are they? That's what binds the three parts.

Polish businessman, Karol Karol,

Dominique Vidal, French citizen...

This film

was a response to 'Blind Chance',

which showed the pointlessness of life.

In the last scene of 'Red' he wanted to save the heroes

from the first part of the 'Three Colours' trilogy.

It was his way to play God.

By saving these characters.

And a young model who studied in Geneva,

Valentine Dussaut.

He gave life, he took it. He gave death. He gave love and he took it away.

He became God.

I thought he would be afraid! Towards the end of his life, I think he was.

I'd tell him, "This will haunt you yet." Then I'd touch wood.

When I read the treatment for 'Red', I said, "I like it but...

I am a bit jealous. The judge has a lot of you.

But Valentine doesn't."

"Three Colours: Red', 1994

He identifies both with Valentine and the judge.

He joins in the dialogue between youth and experience in a personal union.

I think he was in both.

When we decided to shoot the Trilogy, we faced a great risk.

No one could say whether the first part would be a success.

On-set footage from 'Three Colours: Red'

Three difficult, expensive films.

Three films in succession. It was a titanic job.

On the first day

we shot the hospital scene, under the sheets,

after the husband and child have died.

"Three Colours: Blue', 1993

We worked for 24 hours. We couldn't shoot there for long.

There was a general sense of panic,

and producer Marin Karmitz said

"if it looks like this at the start, what will the end be like?"

The camera peers under the sheets

where I'm lying and crying.

I realised what he meant by intimacy.

It was a very intimate scene!

Shooting films was always very painful for him.

He liked writing.

He loved editing,

but on the set

he always suffered.

It was about realising his ambitious plans.

They were mine too, namely shooting a European film

in several languages,

with crews from different countries,

on different sets in Poland, Switzerland, France...

Krzysztof Kieslowski...

I watched him in Venice where he went with 'Blue'.

It was a huge success!

The standing ovations lasted more than 30 minutes.

He stood there, so helpless and scared.

I remember how he sat there the next day

looking as serious as on the pictures...

He had bags under his eyes and was chain-smoking...

I'll never forget

that image

my whole life.

The first thing I realised after his death

was this wonderful, lively Venice where he sat there

so solemn, as if he'd just lost something.

screenwriter, Kieslowski's translator

After the premiere there's always a moment for the photographers. A pit

you throw the director into.

He stands there, alone, surrounded by

paparazzi yelling,

"Smile!" "Look this way!" It's grotesque. Krzysztof stands there

grinning like some diva

in this pit. It was terrible.

It was hard for him to play the role of the icon he had become.

Some artists can think of nothing else

but becoming an icon.

Maybe they never become one, but they are ready.

But he didn't believe it. And he wasn't prepared.

"Three Colours: Red', 1994

Film for me talked about visible things,

things you can touch. The rest didn't count.

With time, I came to learn

that the most beautiful things in all film

were the stories about the things you can't see.

In Krzysztof's films, especially in his masterpiece,

the Trilogy near the end of his life,

I see the long trajectory he followed, from pragmatic materialist,

even cynic, in a way,

to becoming a person

who was a real humanist.

Eventually he made films about what you can't see.

I met with him a few weeks before his death.

I was here in Poland.

I had seen him a year before. I was worried that he was so dispirited,

that the Trilogy had exhausted him.

He said that he wouldn't make any more films.

I don't know anyone who could calmly say,

"I'm finished with films. I'm going to retire,"

like Kieslowski did in Berlin. His fans were shocked,

even Wim Wenders, who he always talked to.

Many thought it was immature or coy, and said

he'll make another film. But I knew he wouldn't.

One reason for stopping is fear,

fear my language won't be understood.

Between 1984 and 1993

we made

17 feature films together.

He was afraid that his luck would turn. There were already signs.

I knew

the mechanics of French critique.

They generally raise someone high only to topple him. Success rarely lasts.

It's a huge responsibility to accept so much money

and spend it on things

that seem important right now,

not knowing if I'll need it. Tomorrow they may speak a different language.

Krzysztof Kieslowski with his wife Maria

We started seeing each other more when he finished.

He'd come out to Masuria more often

- to relax. - When we were in Masuria,

we didn't talk about films. Krzysztof would wear

a beret.

We cut wood on my table saw.

I helped him build his house.

And he helped me with mine. We talked about hammers and nails,

where to buy things like anti-corrosive paint and tar...

He started to really like life towards the end.

So I stayed positive.

Krzysztof Kieslowski with his daughter Marta

He had his first attack in Masuria.

He came to our house and asked for an aspirin because he couldn't breathe.

After his heart attack I visited him and said something like

"we all love you."

He cried and I saw how sensitive he had become.

Something serious had happened to him

and he seemed to need these emotions.

"In two days I'm going back to the hospital

for another coronarography.

Awful."

He closed the letter with "what are you doing in that awful US?

You could practice your English here,

with the Methodists.

You could talk to me too.

Kisses." Signed, "Still alive, Krzysztof."

He would say, "Guys, just one more film and pack it up!"

Classes at the £6dz Film School, 1994

director, Krzysztof Kieslowski's student

I resent him because he said something he shouldn't have.

He said we need to believe

that we can change things by making a film.

He said he doesn't believe this any more, but we should.

I thought, "Why is he saying that, when he thinks it's right?"

‘Last meeting with Kieslowski' February 1996

It was good to be a part of something.

Marcel [Lozinski] spoke so highly of you, that I decided to come.

Though I'm not in the best of shape and I shouldn't travel.

We can talk about life, because life is interesting.

Maybe more interesting than film. What is interesting is

to walk the road. I think the road is more interesting than the goal.

Naturally you need a goal, but reaching it is not so fascinating.

Only the road to it is.

He came to say goodbye before he went into the hospital.

A day before.

To borrow a few books.

We left the house together. I wanted to go to the post office.

He insisted on giving me a ride, although I wanted to walk.

It was very close, but he wouldn't have it.

We got into his fancy car, another new one.

He hit the gas...

The car shot out like from a catapult! He was showing off.

I was pressed back into my seat and I screamed, "Stop, you idiot!"

He laughed because I had never said "idiot" before.

We were already there.

He had a great time. He was in an excellent mood.

When we parted, we knew it was a farewell.

It was very risky for him.

He was very clear about it.

He asked me if he'd keep functioning or not.

The uncertainty of his illness, his weak heart,

was too much for him to bear. He wanted an answer.

I think it was the most religious way to formulate this for him.

The answer implicated someone. It wasn't a question of mere fate.

He wanted to know what life had intended with him.

What the plan was.

In March 1996 I was on the U-bahn

reading the paper when I read about his death.

I got off and found a corner. I sat and wept for a while.

I realised how close I was,

still, even if I had gone off.

I felt

no headache after the first cigarette.

Nor did I feel the weight of the keys in my pocket.

I thought briefly that I could go back to my former self if I wanted to.

Get up, take Jacek to school...

'No End', 1984

But what was...

was much better.

Kieslowski's funeral, March 1996

When I remember him

I go back to the time...

After his death there was a service in Poland,

in Warsaw.

I walked there with one of his friends.

I asked Krzysztof for a sign that he was OK.

As we headed for the church, a car horn nearly burst my eardrums.

My ears hurt! I said, "Enough, I've got the message!"

Once I was angry and said

I'm going to complain to Kieslowski. Then someone said he's dead.

I said, "Dial his number. He'll answer."

These dreams are usually unpleasant.

It turns out that he's still alive

and I've only forgotten to visit him.

I feel guilty so I go to see him.

He's dying and I think, "God, must I go through this again?"

In my dreams I often think

that he's alive. Then I say to myself, "My God, he's not alive."

But then again, "But no, his death was a sham."

He's dying, but he's still alive.

I look at him so strangely in this dream,

as if he were there and not there.

But the most beautiful dreams I have are with Krzysztof.

About nothing, and he and Piesio are there. And he says,

"Enough of this silence. Let's make a film!"