"Stanislaw Rozewicz" "in" "Walking, meeting...." "INVINCIBLE CITY dir." "Jerzy Zarzycki" "How did I get in the film studio, for the first time?" "Well, I was brought here by Jurek Zarzycki, with whom I corresponded regularly." "He said that I should pass my matriculation exams quickly, and come, so that he could offer me a job as an assistant director." "Buczkowski, a prewar director was shooting "Forbidden songs" at that time." "What did I notice first?" "Lights." "Floodlights." "I saw them in the pictures in newspapers before." "I saw a crane that was brought from UFA Studios, from Berlin, and on that crane, up there, there were sitting the director of photography, Adek Forbert," "FORBIDDEN SONGS and KaroI Chodura, the cameraman." "FORBIDDEN SONGS They were shooting some scene that was set in an exterior location in Warsaw, but it was all built up in the studio." "The pavement was made of papier-mache, the houses were looking like they were real," "I was standing with my mouth agape, looking at it and feeling that I liked it so much..." "And that's how I entered this Polish Hollywood." "DIRECTOR The studio and the atelier became my second home." "When I was going there I used to say:" ""I'm going to the factory. " That was my office, my factory, but I always preferred an open air scenes." "Exterior locations always brought a surprise, the space, real elements:" "clouds, sky, trees, rain, wind." "The sequences that were shot outside made the whole picture more real, more true." "The first feature film that I made, it was the story taking place in a countryside." "It was based on the screenplay" "A DIFFICULT LOVE by the acclaimed author Roman Bratny," "A DIFFICULT LOVE it was filmed in natural locations, but so what, the whole thing was unrealistic and fake, artificial." "The fundamental mistake that I made was that I wanted to do my screen debut at any price," "I was absolutely determined to do it." "Unfortunately I wasn't attentive enough reading the script, and at that time it was more important to me to make a film at all, than to put the message in it, and what the message should be." "I was really destroyed by the film critics... punished for all those socialist realist films..." "Though my film was released when the socialist realism was drawing to a close." "After that experience I had a 2-3 year pause, but I did not regret having been given this trashing, because I understood that one should never make films at any price, just in order to remain in film business." "Fortunately, ever since I've been doing what I really wanted to, and what I actually believed in, no more films-assignments." "THE THREE WOMEN" "THE FREE CITY" "We first met in 1961 I guess, and it was his film ... The voice from another world"." "A very good film, by the way." "Pray for me!" "I'm dirty, covered with mud and blood..." "THE VOICE FROM ANOTHER WORLD my name's Herman..." "Goering." "It's Goering speaking." "My so-far experience in filmmaking and acting was that before the take, the atmosphere was always very tense:" "the horns, shouting: quiet!" ", the wooden clapperboard clapping right in front of your nose." "The take numbers were written on it in chalk, so after the clap the air was always full of pouring chalk and it was a sign to start acting immediately." "It all happened in a way that would make one nervous and tense." "And what I discovered?" "That nothing like that existed on Stanislaw Rozewicz's sets." "No horns, no shouting, just quiet and peace." "Stasio used to show us storyboards, he always had everything sketched, he explained what he wanted, he rehearsed the scene, and all of a sudden, without even noticing it we were in the middle of a take." "Kazio Rudzki used to say:" ""We're not making a film." "We're in a sanatorium. "" "Once in a while every actor wants to show they're sound in body, show the height of their creative powers." "Stanislaw just hated this kind of acting." "He hated overexpression:" "crying, laughing, despairing and being funny at a time." "He hated it and he would always soothe and calm the actor." "There was a moment when I felt like rebelling against his attitude," "I thought he was stopping me, I thought I could do better." "Of course we discussed it, he never discouraged anyone, he even liked to discuss issues on set, but he did not try to persuade me to act the way I didn't want it, he just said:" ""play it as you like. " Just play it as you like and then play it the way I asked you, ok?" "Of course, when I saw the results on screen he didn't have to explain why what he had proposed was better;" "it was always a lot better." "LONELINESS FOR TWO" "Every glance is important to him, every smile, the silence between partners." "It's all much more important to him than saying 10 words." "In any manner." "What are you doing here?" "My husband played pastor Hubina, it's a character, a very unhappy and lonely man, loving his cruel wife, whom I was playing." "Most of that character's spiritual and emotional states," "Rozewicz decided to represent showing pastor walking in the forest, in extremely beautiful scenery." "Then, till the end of my husband's life, they used to send one another postcards from all over the world, postcards with beautiful views, all entitled ... Hubina's passages"." "Our first meeting was on the set of his film..." "The wicket gate"." "He offered me a part of an author, who comes to the seaside, to Gdansk, to take part in the rehearsals for his play..." "Good morning." "THE WICKET GATE What a lovely day." "Did you sleep well?" "But what on earth?" "Are you tied up?" "Chris did it." "Who's Chris?" "My daughter." "But..." "how come you're tied up?" "Please, help me sir, it hurts terribly." "Ok, ok." "Well, I walked a lot in ... The wicket gate", around the whole town, waiting for this opening night of mine," "I was sightseeing," "I was watching the Memling's triptych, there was a lot of such passage work..." "And this extraordinary rhythm, so unusual nowadays, in contemporary cinema, as we do everything quickly, violently;" "this slow rhythm of his was reflected in his films, and I think they were all told in a fantastically calm way." "When I think about that there's always this sentence by Arthur Rubinstein that comes on my mind." "He was once asked, at the end of his carreer, why he played the polonaise so slowly, and his answer was:" "I play slowly because I can." "PASSION Kyrie eleison," "PASSION Christ eleison," "Father of heaven, God, have mercy on us." "Son, our Lord and Redeemer," "Have mercy on us." "Holy Ghost, Saint God," "Have mercy on us." "Holy Trinity, God," "Have mercy on us." "Saint Mary," "Pray for us." "It's one of the films that gave me some hard knocks." "We decided to shoot it in the winter, in snow and frost, and suddenly the winter was gone." "There was nothing else to say, but:" "let's take a picture together." "On that picture it's the supernumeraries, me, and Jerzy Wojcik, my favourite director of photography." "One of the films that were extremely important and meaningful to me, was "Lynx"." "THE LYNX" "Standing behind the camera," "I feel profound satisfaction working with someone who treats his characters with the same attention, caring and love as he gives to his co-workers, friends or love-ones." "What do you want, my child?" "Confession." "At this hour?" "I've come from far, from Skarzyskie woods." "And it's not sins I'm bringing." " What did you come here for then?" " For a piece of advice." "I was sent here by the Resistance." "I am supposed to perform a death sentence." "Usually on the set there's a lot of talking, fighting influences, different worldviews, but our collaboration was based on that everybody was just doing their job." "We didn't talk about work, we talked with the results of our work." "And the real dialogue was lead through and in silence." "It was enough that we both looked at certain direction and we both knew that our attention was devoted to something or someone." "It's simply great that it's not necessary to wrap everything in words, sentences, that we can express it through the image too." "MRS. LATTER'S BOARDING SCHOOL" "These are the girls who played in my film ...Mrs Latter's boarding school"." "Someone made some wicked suggestions that I made that film because I wanted to be closer to young girls." "But it's not that why I made it." "Not only that." "Though I would like to stay with them forever." "By the way, this is how I, at least partly, imagine paradise." "He can be stubborn and cruel too." "In "Mrs Latter's boarding school", as we all know, the main character drowns at the end of the film." "I had to drown in a classical, velvety costume, wig, shoes, all my acting staffage." "The temperature was such, that the whole crew on the lakeshore were wearing sheepskin jackets, and I was drowning." "And Staszek did not let go." "I don't remember exactly, but I think we made at least three takes before he was fully satisfied with this drowning of mine." "I've always attached a lot of weight to the truth of shown realities, historical accuracy." "While shooting a battle scene, there was this guy," "lying on the ground - a victim of an explosion." "So what they did?" "They laid him down, and sprinkled him with sand and lumps of soil." "Bullshit!" "They should have laid him down, performed an explosion 2-3 metres from him, then he'd have been covered with soil and dust naturally." "It's the same with costumes, the patina... it's pieces of characters' clothing, not costumes." "Normally, when I expect a hole made by the bullet in a blouse, or jacket, they just make it with a nail." "I used to do it differently, simply by putting a real gun to it, and firing it." "And such hole in the uniform looks completely different than the artificial one made by the costume designer's assistant." "They said I used to be crazy about it... the truth of the details." "It was an extraordinary feeling, entering the studio." "Feeling the smell of paint and wood, and glue," "I knew I was about to start a new film." "I loved it, the smell of that old factory." "But we won't discuss it anymore." "It's a hell of a lot of memories." "It was Andrzej Ancuta who persuaded me to start working in the FilmschooI." "He was a director of photography, with whom I made friends, while shooting ... The Warsaw Robinson"" "by Jerzy Zarzycki." "He and Antoni Bohdziewicz - they both dragged me into school." "PROFESSOR I became the artistic supervisor of the second year of directing department." "My students were:" "Romek Polanski," "Janek Rutkiewicz," "Romek Zaluski," "Jurek Orawiec, a great guy, who after he's graduated, became a member of The Mountain Rescue Service." "Bohdziewicz was one of the people I liked the most in school." "Bohdziewicz, Stas WohI," "Jurek Mierzejewski," "Mrs. Krystyna Zwolinska..." "Not all professors were friends, or at least in appropriate relations, but you have to remember that those people were strong individuals, they differed a lot in their attitudes to film." "One of the things I appreciated the most was the possibility to give my students real work to do, real film practice to experience." "They got film, they got freedom to create stories they wanted, and they really did what they wanted." "Of course they had to have the approval of their artistic supervisor, and the consulting director of photography, but they were really in the luxurious situation of being absolutely free to create what they wanted." "Those relations with my students, my younger colleagues, bore fruit later." "When I was founding my Film Unit and I was hiring the crew," "I invited some of my former students to become my co-workers." "And I gave them the opportunity to make their screen debuts in my Film Unit." "Today I've given up this job, it's Krzysiek Zanussi who replaced me, but some of them still come to me with their screenplays, for a piece of advice, to talk..." "Recently one of my ex pupils called me and said he was going to retire." "Where should I be then?" " I thought." "THE BOSS Our acquaintance has started long ago," "I first knew his elder bother Tadeusz." "We met shortly after the war around the weekly magasine of Home Army survivors." "The weekly was called "The generation"" "and it's there where our friendship started." "Then I kind of transferred my friendship from Tadeusz to Stanislaw." "And it was Tadeusz who suggested to Stanislaw when he was opening his Film Unit Tor in 1967, that I could be a literary director." "Stanislaw began to assemble his team, he really surprised me when one day, he made me an offer, that was actually my life chance, and he did it in this characteristic whining way of his..." "He said that he was inviting me and that" "I could join his team and be one of his first employees." ""If you want you may join me" - he said." ""Tor" was a strange island in People's Republic of Poland, the Unit was considered to be" "a very exclusive and closed circle, a kind of Masonic Lodge, almost impossible to join, and it's bizarre that Rozewicz," "who is a very calm, delicate man, commanded huge respect, sometimes even terror." "I remember when Krzysztof Kieslowski wanted to make his feature film debut in Tor, he was a well known and acclaimed documentarian at that time, he came up to me and said:" "could you help me enter Tor?" "What do you mean by "help you enter"" "I asked - you're a well known filmmaker," "Rozewicz knows you." "And he replied:" "but I prefer to come with you." "I'm afraid of him." "He causes distance." "And overcoming it, getting closer seems to be practically impossible." "What I remembered was what he did when I was already a member of the Film Unit, and I was preparing my film debut:" "The Nightmares." "I know that some of my colleagues would come and tell him:" "Don't do it." "It's a debut, he won't manage it." "It's too risky, let me do it, or let anybody else do it." "And I know his answer, the same in all those cases:" "But I promised him." "It was a bond based not only on the film issues, but... the attitude to life, to the values... we had great communication." "And I think it's only such basis that made an institution like Film Unit possibile." "There was no fighting there, no rivalry, no fear that someone would steal your idea or cheat on you, just... fair play rules," "the basic decency" " that was an unwritten contract that we all strictly obeyed as long as Rozewicz and Zalewski were there." "At the end of the 70s we felt changes were coming." "We felt the cinema was changing, as the political situation in our country." "We felt that the totalitarian system wouldn't last long in the form we were used to." "Of course we never dared to dream that it could change, but we were kind of suspended, tense, tired and that was the moment" "Stanislaw definitely refused to go on as the Managing Director of the Film Unit." "I took it over, still under his supervision." "I did not want to change or spoil anything, but the times have changed so much the Unit couldn't exist any more in the shape Stanislaw created it." "ROOTS" "In the light of smoking lamps, the world looked different." "the faces of the living, the dead, and the asleep reversed faces young heads bent towards each other" "In the light of smouldering lamps one was more settled in joy, deeper in concern," "the wobbly shadows went away, approached, grew bigger the words were warmer, more silent the house was rocking, drifting away with the coffin and the cradle" "In the light of smoking lamps the infinity was finished time was perceptible space captured between four walls it was enough to close one's eyes to enter the fourth dimension it was enough to open the door to be on the road to Emaus" "meet Jesus alive, still unrecognized, eating roast fish, bread and honey in the comb" "we live our lives walking, meeting..." "AII Rozewicz brothers were coming from so called deep Polish province." "Province, where people were closer to each other." "What's more, their youth was war." "That's where they became what they are." "There were three of them, brothers." "The eldest" " Janusz, about whom Stanislaw has made a beautiful iconographic documentary ... Our elder bother"." "He was the Home Army officer, and as the member of HA intelligence, he was caught and shot by the Germans." "Tadeusz's spent 1,5 year in the Resistance, near Radomsko." "Stanislaw, the youngest, was still a boy, but he was deeply marked with those experiences." "This is the market square in Radomsko, in the middle of which there was a huge agave." "I remember, in the corner of that square, two days before the war began I met my schoolmate and he asked me if there would be war." "I replied that it was unlikely, and even if there would be war we wouldn't have to go to school instead." "I imagined school would be suspended in such circumstances." "This is the picture of the very same place and same year, but after the series of German air raids." "There's another picture in a German book" ""The German eastern outskirts", almost identical, with the description made by those bastards, saying that this is the town destroyed by Polish soldiers." "Those two gentlemen on the bench are Tadeusz and Stanislaw." "This was taken in the first year of the occupation." "Tadeusz is wearing Janusz's jacket, and I was still in my gymnasium uniform." "We're sitting in the garden, the bench is partly broken, later they chopped it and used as firewood." "This is our Mom." "It was the second year of the occupation." "At that time I was working in this village Strzelce in a warehouse." "It was a sunny day in August, and I remember that one of my colleagues named Mietek called me." "I came, he was standing there, looking through the window," "I looked the same direction, and I saw a column of people lead by the military policemen, guarded from the left and the right." "They were Jews." "From time to time we heard single shots being fired, and some of the people were throwing photographs and documents, to the drainage ditch by the side of the road." "The pieces of torn paper looked like snowflakes, the ditch was slowly becoming white, and when they all passed" "I saw the body of a young Jewish woman in a black dress, and I saw the peasant who picked up her body, laid her on the wheelbarrow and took her to his farmyard." "The day after I was riding to Radomsko at the back of the truck." "Every several hundred meters there were places visible where the shot Jews were provisionally buried." "When the truck was approaching Radomsko we passed a Jewish cemetery on the left side and there were dozens of killed Jews lying there, all covered with blood..." "still not buried." "The result of this atmosphere and those experiences he gathered were his beautiful war films." ""Westerplatte", "The free city"," ""The leaves have fallen from trees", and the beautiful "Birth certificate"." "BIRTH CERTIFICATE This is a story of a soldier" "BIRTH CERTIFICATE from a split Polish military troop who backs out, trying to escape the Germans." "He rides his rack wagon through the Polish province and he meets and takes with him a lost boy, overwhelmed by the bitterness and the horror of this defeat." "When German tanks take them by surprise in the forest, the soldier decides to use his rifle and several last bullets, to save their lives." "What are you waiting for!" "Run!" "Being under the influence of the conversation he had with that boy, the soldier makes the child run, and shoots the attacking tanks." "This gesture has nothing to do with stupid pride though." "This is a gesture of a man who does not agree to be a slave." "He does not agree to wallow in contempt." "And it is a gesture taken from so called "simple man"." "That's why it's so true and so moving." "It was like someone knew my life." "It was incredible." "Suddenly I was watching my childhood filmed." "Of course the situations and the plot were a bit different, but the climate, the experiences... that was a complete world." "Very much like mine own." " And what were you doing?" " Collecting." "And what were you saying?" "That we were orphans, with no father." "And what else were you doing Jack?" " Salut!" " Standard - bearer's son?" " Begging by the church?" "!" " I'll tell mom!" "You sold your mother for candies, you motherless and fatherless orphan!" "You traitor!" "The first part of that film was taking place in September 1939, the second, was about the occupation in the little town, and the third one was the story of a little Jewish girl Mireczka, who was placed in an orphanage." "One day the Gestapo officers visit the orphanage, with the german doctor and state that this little Jewish girl represents the pure Aryan race." "All the children I worked with were good, but this girl playing Mireczka, young Beata Barszczewska was an extremely gifted child." "I admired her ability to "switch" mentally to the experiences she never had." "There was a scene when little Mireczka was supposed to cry." "It happened that she couldn't." "These things often happen even to the experienced actors who just can't focus..." "She couldn't cry," "I was nervous or in a bad mood, and I shouted at her." "She started crying, she cried very long, we couldn't calm her down, then she told me she cried because I shouted at her." "Good evening." "Well, that's a surprise!" " You haven't changed a bit!" " That's rubbish!" "Well, you have slightly different hair." " Prettier." " Yes." "And you're taller." "How many years haven't we seen each other?" "A couple." "Not many." "Right, we were together all the time." "I remember you couldn't cry..." "I could do anything!" "It was one of the first scenes, when I enter the house and walk through the rooms yeah, and you eat those potatoes..." "There was this flapping window, which was supposed to reinforce the mood of despair and solitude." "The whole room was built in the studio." "Behind the wall with a string attached to a window leaf in his hand, sat Mr Hachula, the props master." "I liked him a lot." "I knew he was hidden there, and just when I was in this most tragic moment" "I heard you whispering:" "Mr Hachula!" "The window!" "How can you expect a child to remain serious in such circumstances?" "How can you expect the child to cry?" "Well, that's how it was..." "MAGIC" "Someone was walking about," "I didn't know where exactly, but I saw moving shadows." "Or maybe we should... just put a regular lamp there" "and direct the light to the screen?" "But it's not that kind of magic, no, no..." "Slawek, turn off our lamp, will you." "You were doing something in front of the film projector." " Do that again!" " Move the newspaper!" "Do it again." "But not that sharp an effect..." "something like that..." "Oh, yes!" "It's good!"