Katarzyna Taras
Alchemy. About the Art of Cinematography
Andrzej Wajda and his Cinematographers
Half a year before I forswore that I would have to grow up to Andrzej Wajda's cinema. It all began from “The Promised Land" (1975), in which I became infatuated with the cinematography. What Witold Sobociński, Edward Kłosiński and Wacław Dybowski have done, moulded my perception of Łódź, which fascinates me like no other city, although I was neither born there, nor lived or experienced anything particularly important there.

Andrzej Wajda often reminds us that a film is the result of a teamwork. In his book “Double Vision" he even confessed that “a director does nothing on his/her own; his/her thoughts and feelings are implemented not only by actors but also by a whole group of cinematographers." Thus, it is worth offering at least “a glance" at Wajda's co-workers. Especially as he advanced a rather fickle opinion about them during the meeting with the students of National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź: “Cinematographer - he/she is not supposed to exist! He/she is supposed to do his job, to do everything right, but he/she should not exist! [...] But still! If it weren't for my excellent cinematographers: Jerzy Wójcik, Witold Sobociński, Zygmunt Samosiuk and Edward Kłosiński, my films would not be even half that good. [...] They were great artists when we were all together thinking a film over - its style, its overall conception, in order to implement the ideas quietly and modestly. Because somebody who knows his/her own worth, does not have to remind constantly about it." (quotation after A. Jackiewicz, “The Birth of the Film Work (V). The Art of Operating" in “KINO" 9/1978). It is certainly impossible to even only signal the issue of “Andrzej Wajda and his Cinematographers" in one essay (and I absolutely do not aspire to achieving it), the extent of the material could suffice for a few scientific dissertations, but because the topic is so alluring ... For the fact that I do not write a note to a lexicon but instead I share my personal reception of the creative activity with which I agree more and more and which fascinates me more and more, I will again make use of extremely private criteria.


Andrzej Wajda, photo by Piotr Bujnowicz, Fabryka Obrazu
So why exactly “The Promised Land"? Because I have been captivated by this organized element, this compatibility of all the components of such an extensive mosaic. Andrzej Wajda, Witold Sobociński, Edward Kłosiński and Wacław Dybowski have made a gangster film about money (which determines the characters' conduct and desires) and about the birth of capitalism, preserving Reymont's fascination with the city (with which Wajda was not fascinated according to what he confessed in “Filmówka"). They could also convincingly narrate, and not only show, a story about this moment when one ethos (gentry) ends but another one has not fully flourished yet, about the chaos of creating a new discourse - already the capitalistic one - and the fall of the romantic order. Wajda and his Cinematographers made a film - quite so - about money and people, exactly in this order, but above all about the city. The City-Moloch, the monster, yet fascinating, the organism which seduces and maltreats; and that is why this film, nominated to Oscar in 1975, can be treated as exemplary modernistic (although the cinematographer whom I consider a specialist at modernistic filming, that is Zygmunt Samosiuk, did not work on this project). For it is modernism, with all its fondness of artificiality, that surrounded a city with such affection like no other trend (a befriended literatus describes it as follows: “Then, at last, Polish literature has lost its rustic character"). What deserves appreciation in particular is the fact that although the film was shot by three cinematographers, it is visually homogeneous, all sequences are equally dynamic, pulsating, picturesque, vivid. “The Promised Land" constitutes an accurately composed collage: with regard to the types of lighting (what type is in Bucholtz Palace, what in Kurów, what in a theatre, what in unused Mueller Palace); with regard to manipulating colours or dramaturgy of shots; and with regard to painting inspirations - after all, we have got here Moreau, Degas and Lautrec. It is true that there is a contrast, but an unaggressive one, which can be treated as one of the means and not the principle arranging the depicted world. And, above all, there is Łódź - vivacious, fleshy, proud, the city which - as the director put it - the production designer Tadeusz Kosarewicz with the help of Maciej Putowski had to do render “possible to be photographed [...] by only completing the missing fragments." (see the album “Oscar 2000. Wajda. Films.")

Before I enumerate, extremely subjectively, guided only by a viewer's experience, the authors of the pictures to Andrzej Wajda's movies, I would like to confess which films, apart from the adaptation of Reymont's novel, have strengthened my enchantment with this cinema. The second one was “Everything for Sale" (1969) in which Witold Sobociński succeeded in what seemed to be impossible (and how can one write about cinematographers without using the word “alchemy"?) - in capturing red-handed the time of mourning, longing and then accepting the fact that nobody is irreplaceable. All of this in a feature film. These fuzzy foregrounds, directing viewer's attention to what is further, deeper, somewhere at the edge of the frame. I have the impression that “Everything for Sale" becomes more and more up-to-date with every year, and for sure it becomes more and more intimate for me. The third film - “Without Anesthesia" (1978), in which the presence of Edward Kłosiński is absolutely invisible, in which a viewer feels like being in the centre of a family tragedy. Let's take the example of the dinner during which Michałowski (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz) wants to repair his relationship - we do not feel like intruders but like allies of the character. In this film there was no place for cinematographic show-offs, manifestations of the technique; somebody had to discipline this space, ensure calmness so that a viewer, who indentified oneself with the character whose world had collapsed, could survive. And, in addition, this death in a red bra ... In the character played by Krystyna Janda it is difficult not to notice the harbinger of women from the next Wajda and Kłosiński's films, heroines stamped with death and reconciled to the passing of time from Oscar-nominated movie “Young Girls of Wilko" (1980).


"The Promised Land
Andrzej Wajda's Cinematographers...

The first one was Jerzy Lipman, one of the most charismatic individuals of the Polish cinema (if you do not believe, focus on the story told in “Everything for Sale" about roses brought for a girl during the occupation from Berlin to Warsaw, or read carefully Roman Polański's memories concerning the making of “Knife in the Water"); they both debuted with “A Generation" (1955), later there was also “Canal" (1957), unappreciated but so beautiful and so visually present, at least in “Venice" by Kolski, “Lotna" (1959) and finally “The Ashes" (1965). Jerzy Lipman, also a co-worker of Andrzej Munk and Jerzy Hoffman, can mark his pictures like no-one else with a suggestion that the story will not end happily. Wajda has commented on Lipman's duet with Jerzy Wójcik, the cameraman in “Canal", as follows: “Nothing was too difficult for them." (see the album “Oscar 2000. Wajda. Films.")

Jerzy Wójcik - it is enough to mention “Ashes and Diamonds" (1958) and remind that he was complimented for his pictures to this film by Andriej Tarkowski.

Witold Sobociński - only he could rise to first Wyspiański's (“The Wedding", 1972) and then Schulz's imagination (together with Has he made “The Hour-Glass Sanatorium", 1973); create a credible vision of the world from the turn of the century, and all this without copying the paintings, only the colour-range of Wyspiański the painter - as he told Irena Stanisławska. And make the appearance of the phantoms, whom he interpreted as faint reflections, “smears", credible (see “Sobociński. I Film as One Plays Jazz", in: “KINO" 9/1994).

Zygmunt Samosiuk - the co-author of “The Lesson of a Dead Language" by Janusz Majewski, “Austeria" by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, “The Story of Sin" by Walerian Borowczyk, “Dulscy" by Jan Rybkowski, “Dagna" by Haakon Sandoya. Somebody who determined the canon of how to tell about modernism, how to show it in order to make it credible and interesting for a contemporary viewer. Together with Wajda they have shot “Landscape After Battle" (1970) and “The Birch Wood" (1970) (and also “Hunting Flies, 1969). Nobody could depict as sensually as Zbigniew Samosiuk the worlds infected with death and characters who will not be saved by love yet still wade into it.

Edward Kosiński, one of the creators of the poetics of the cinema of moral concern (with Wajda he has made “Man of Marble" - 1976, “Man of Iron" - 1981, “Chronicle of Amorous Accidents" - 1986); an artist to whom I owe my biggest cinematographic surprise - “Young Girls of Wilko". The cinema of moral concern is a visually poor, not to write ascetic, trend, and surprisingly its co-author (he worked, among others projects, on “Camouflage" and “Wodzirej") is responsible for the pictures to visually the most interesting (up to this day) Polish film about women, that is “Young Girls of Wilko". Edward Kosiński has established a certain standard of how to narrate stories about women, the standard which Polish cinema still cannot fully rise to.

Finally, Paweł Edelman - it all began with a perverse adaptation of “The Idiot", “Nastasya" (1994), the last one, so far, was Hopperian (as far as the composition of a frame is concerned) “Tatarak". And those Hopperian sequences seem to appeal the most.


"Young Girls of Wilko"
Andrzej Wajda has also worked with Krzysztof Winiewicz (“Innocent Sorcerers", 1960), Mieczysław Jahoda (“Gates of Paradise", 1968), Wiesław Zdort (“Layer Cake", 1968), Igor Luthar (“Pilate and Others" - 1972, “Danton" - 1983, “A Love in Germany" - 1983), Sławomir Idziak (“The Conductor", 1980), Robby Mueller (“Korczak", 1990), Dariusz Kuc (“The Ring with a Crowned Eagle", 1992), Wit Dąbal (“The Holy Week", 1995), Krzysztof Ptak (“Miss Nobody", 1996).

The cinematography for “The Possessed" (1988) was about to be shot by Nestor Almedros, the legend of the world of cinematography, yet we owe the visual side of this Dostoyevsky's adaptation to Witold Adamek, which I do not regret. It worked out beautifully.