POLISH FILMS FOR FOREIGNERS: Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru)

Opis filmu

POLISH FILMS FOR FOREIGNERS: "Man of Marble" [Człowiek z marmuru] Next screening in our programme, MAN OF MARBLE (1977) by Andrzej Wajda will take place at Tuesday, March 24th, 8 P.M. The movie will be screened in Polish with English subtitles. ABOUT A FILM: Andrzej Wajda's Man of Marble / Człowiek z marmuru is now considered one of the foremost films from behind the Iron Curtain. The film, released at a time when the country's media was carefully screened by censors, criticises the system from within. Agnieszka, a film school student, wants to make a television film about an over-achieving worker in the 1950s, Mateusz Birkut. A bricklayer at Krakow's Nowa Huta district who beat records when he led a 5-man team to lay 30,000 bricks in eight hours. Through talks with people who knew Birkut and archives of old newsreels found in vaults, Agnieszka discovers the truth about the hero of the time, and the truth about the time in which she lives and last but not least - about herself. The film, shot in 1976, could not openly discuss the subject but the people watching during the time of protests at the Gdańsk shipyards knew - it was clear that Mateusz Birkut probably died on the coast during the riots in 1970, when the militia and the army were ordered to shoot workers protesting against the situation in their country. PRESS ON FILM: For Wajda, Man of Marble, seriously questioning the role of filmmaker in the field of political conviction, is a kind of questioning and self-criticism. The essence of Wajda's film is to create a myth, this goal is supported by the epic structure of the image, blatantly recalling the structure of 'Citizen Kane' (David Ansen, Newsweek 1981) In the 'Man of Marble' Stalinism becomes an era which is both bright and bleak, safe and dangerous. An excess of poetry and politics, the burden of inclusion in the unpredictable history of social coercion ever-present and nowhere at the same time, powerful and elusive. Wajda can expertly describe this with his camera movements, and richness of style. (Barthelemy Amengual, Positif, 1979) Andrzej Wajda had carefully balanced historical and moral arguments. At one end of the scale he put human fate, at the other - material progress, but he didn't say which side "weighed" more. He presented a certain story but left room for different evaluations. It was precisely this objective attitude that caused such a furious outcry. This witch-hunt directed against an artist revealed the fear of the hunters. They did not want a public debate about the origins of their power, because they were afraid of losing it. They were leading the country to disaster and three years later they lost their power in disgrace, thus indirectly proving Wajda had been right. (Krzysztof Klopotowski, "Literatura", 1980)