Early short film of a person background On March 13, 1996, Krzysztof Kieslowski died suddenly at the age of 54.When the news came, people who knew him and his films were extremely shocked and hurt, and accompanied by a very Kieslowski-like doubt.Despite repeated attempts by friends to persuade him to go abroad for heart bypass surgery, he turned down invitations from Paris, New York and two Polish institutions specializing in heart surgery.He insisted that he was just an ordinary Pole who had full confidence in his doctor.That day, he walked to the Warsaw hospital by himself, checked himself in, and underwent surgery; he never woke up.According to his friend, the hospital should admit responsibility because their doctors were not familiar enough with imported medical equipment. [1]

Many New Yorkers learned of his death at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, where a play of Kieslowski's "The Ten Commandments" was being performed at the Walter Reade Theater; It wasn't long before viewers were told the sad news.Surprised and heartbroken, we tried to rationalize the news: "At least, we didn't miss out on some of the movies he should have done, because Kieslowski had done it long after "Red." Announcing the retirement.” Then we started to speculate about the actual sequence of events — the same thing we do when we watch his films.At the beginning, when he decided to bid farewell to the film industry, was it because he knew that he would die soon, or did he feel that all he had to say had been said, so he felt weary of the world?Was it coincidence or fate that he ended up dying in a Polish hospital?Or was the role of free will in his drama of life decisive?After all, he was the one who rejected the invitation from a high-quality medical institution.For someone who made the documentary "Hospital" twenty years ago - the Polish hospital in that film lacked electricity, equipment, and doctors were severely deprived of sleep - Warsaw would not be Ideal location for surgical procedures. [2]

Watching his works again, we can't help but be deeply moved by the meaning of death revealed in them. From "Song of Opportunity" and "Endless" all the way to "Ten Commandments" and "Three Colors" trilogy, we can always See that allusion to death.Polish-born writer Eva Hoffman had met Kieslowski a month before his death.She recalled: "He wanted to live. He said the heart attack was a warning to him, just like the Polish heroine in "The Double Life of Veronica." [3] In the TV interview, we He listened more carefully to his seemingly inadvertent words.In Krsysztof Wierzbicki's 1995 documentary "I'm So? Juan So" for Danish television, Kieslowski Ski admits to being a pessimist, terrified of the future, seeing it as a black hole.He refers to himself as a "retired film director," but admits he continues to write scripts. "Someday, maybe, there will be another film based on my script. I hope this is a set I set for myself - in some unusual way, so that I can stay in it forever .” The old director who never left his mouth said this while coughing. In 1994, he was interviewed by a French TV station. When asked whether a 53-year-old man could have nothing to do in the next twenty or thirty years, he replied: "The next thirty years? I don't want I have to live that long."

This darkly humorous attitude is very consistent with Kieslowski's consistent personality, and immortality has never been a tradition in his family: his father died of tuberculosis at 47, and his mother died in a car accident at 67.There is a side of his personality that tries to avoid sentimentality and pride. He would rather choose to stand on the sidelines when it comes to the stupidity of human nature.As an artist, he is humble and believes that even if he stops making new films, the earth will still turn. "I'm afraid of repeating myself," he told Wizbicki. I first met Kieslowski at the New York Film Festival in 1980, where Cinephile was screened.Before, I used to work as an interpreter for French directors, but this was the first time I worked for a Polish director.But everything went well, and for the next decade or so I worked as his translator at various film festivals, from Cannes to the Telluride Independent Film Festival.He is wise and unassuming, and he never raises his voice when he is happy or angry.However, after getting acquainted with him, a surprising enthusiasm and generosity emerged from his shy, self-proclaimed pessimistic personality.That was before the end of the 1980s, and he kept letting me call him "Wujek" ("uncle" in Polish), while he warmly called me "Mala" (" "little guy").We became friends, and he even managed to convince my mother to return to Poland, her first visit since World War II. "This is what you owe your daughter," he said to my mother at the New York Film Festival in 1988. "I'll pick you up at Warsaw International Airport and drive you to Krakow, so you can show her Your own homeland.” One night seven months later, Kieslowski, who kept his word, actually drove us five hours from Warsaw Airport to Krakow.There, the Holocaust cost my mother her family, her possessions and her identity; she would not have been able to join me on this remarkable journey home if it had not been for his persistence.

It was also this trip to Poland that gave me the opportunity to meet many people who played an important role in Kieslowski's life, especially his wife Marisia and daughter Marta.I also got to know his regular composer, the chubby Zbigniew Prysner, whose rough personality contrasted sharply with his delicate melodies.I was also fortunate enough to observe photographer Slawomir Idziak at work while he was filming Krzysztof Zanussi's Napoleon ( Napoleon).During this trip, Kieslowski also took my mother and me to a small screening room, where we were lucky enough to be among the first to see A Short Film About Love.

I wrote a film book about François Truffaut and then translated for him.Perhaps because of this experience, I always felt that there was such a similarity between Truffaut and Kieslowski, especially when I learned that Kieslowski had seen "Citizen Cay" a hundred times. After Citizen Kane - which broke Truffaut's record.Both of their experiences of watching movies as children were not ordinary: Truffaut skipped school to watch movies all day long, and Kieslowski could only climb on the roof of the theater because he was too poor to afford tickets, and secretly watched half-hearted movies through the vents. block screen.Both of them are shy self-taught people who love to read books. They have both written and directed the kind of literary films that need to be watched repeatedly to understand the connotation.They make serious work about human frailty for thoughtful audiences, and often speak in interviews about their confidence in their audience's understanding.Both were anti-authority and had stories about military service (Kieslowski cheated himself out of it).Truffaut is famous for his love of writing letters, and a large number of letters were released to the world after his death; Kieslowski also said that when encountering important things in life, he would write letters to communicate with his daughter Marie. tower communication.Both are devoted to their daughters, and both have made films about women in which men tend to grovel awkwardly at the knees of their female characters.

Both of them can be said to have died young, Truffaut was 52 years old, and Kieslowski was 54 years old; the last films were both played by Jean-Louis Trintignant starring, the two characters can also be seen as their respective stand-ins.In "Confidentially Yours," he plays an introverted murder suspect who falls in love with the character of Fanny Ardant, Truffaut's real life companion .Elsewhere, Triantignan plays a disillusioned and stubborn retired judge in "Red," obsessed with spying on his neighbors until a girl played by Irene Jacobs brings him a human touch.At that time, the French magazine "Television" prepared a special issue "The Passion of Kieslowski" for the release of "Three Colors". In an interview with them, Trantignan reminded readers to pay special attention to the rhythm of the director: "He Keep telling me to go faster and faster...just like Truffaut likes to make actors say their lines faster."[4]

The last few of their films have been shot very quickly, at least one a year, which makes one wonder whether they both speeded up the process because they sensed that they would soon die; Intensive work rhythm led to their early death? When I met Kieslowski in Paris in 1993, he looked gaunt.We sat in the Dome, and he ordered his favorite steak tartare, and told me he was editing “Blue” while filming “White” and revising the script for “Red.”"You're killing yourself," my mother warned him. A weary shrug and a flick of a cigar were all he answered. Kieslowski was born in Warsaw on June 27, 1941, and lived a wandering life since he was a child.His father, a civil engineer, suffered from tuberculosis and traveled around Poland for treatment, so the whole family—including Kieslowski's sister and his mother, a clerk—had to travel with him.He once told reporter Joan Dupont: "Our whole family was sick. I had pneumonia when I was a child. My father had tuberculosis. We sought medical treatment for him. When I was 14 years old, I had moved forty times. Traveling around by truck or train is very helpful to arouse children's curiosity." [5] (Perhaps because of the bumps in those years, in his later years, Kieslowski said that he only wanted to Quiet, smoking and reading at his country house in Kocek, Mossorien Lakes.) He had attended a school for firefighters, but his rebellious nature only kept him in the I stayed there for three months, which was fortunate, otherwise the film industry would probably have lost a great director.Because his family was poor, he had to find a school that provided both scholarship and board. "By chance, one of my relatives manages a technical school for theater technicians in Warsaw." When participating in the New York Film Festival in 1994, Kieslowski talked about this period at the press conference of "Red". Experience; also mentioned in an interview with French TV Seven. "If this distant uncle was in charge of a bank, I might be a banker now." He joked again.

In this way, he joined the National Academy of Theater Technicians (Panstwowe Lyceum Techniki Teatralnej) with the ambition to become a theater director.However, if he wanted to be a drama director, he had to receive higher education, so he decided to apply for the film school, using being a film director as a means of transition.Unfortunately, he failed the entrance exam and had to work as a costumer at the Modern Theater (Teatr Wspolczesny) for a year. (During the year, he worked on designs for actors such as Aleksander Bardini, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, and Tadeusz Lomnicki. costumes, and 20 years later they both appeared in his film "The Ten Commandments"!) A year later, he was once again admitted to the Lodz Film Academy, which has trained film giants such as Wajda and Polanski. Rejected, Kieslowski was only a year in the civil service.After that, he attacked Luoz for the third time. According to his own statement, the reason why he wanted to go in so much was purely because he was rejected twice.Whether it is fate or determination, this time he passed the exam.

While Kieslowski took much inspiration from the films of Fellini and Bergman, for him Ken Loach's The Child and the Eagle ( Kes) was the first movie that really influenced him in his mind. (Years later, he and Roach would meet at multiple European film awards, becoming respected rivals.) From Fellini, he learned the poetry of surrealism; Serious; also learned sympathy and simplicity in Roach's films; however, he was perhaps more influenced by Zanussi, and his work was often full of moral force.During Kieslowski's first year at the Lodz Film Academy, where Zanussi was a teacher—years later, he had a small role in Kieslowski's The Cinephile— —At that time, he had completed the award-winning short film "Death of a Provincial" (Death of a Provincial, 1965). Like many of Kieslowski's later works, Zanussi's short film also focused on faith, themes of death. (By the way, Kieslowski married Marisia during Lords' final year.)

The Lodz Film Academy, founded in 1948, is of great significance to Polish film. Without it, the rise of Polish film after the war would be impossible to talk about.For a country that has been bullied for hundreds of years, art has become one of the few means of continuing to maintain its status.In Europe in the 20th century, as Lenin said, film became "the most important art form".Lodz, once famous for its textile industry, has attracted the best film talents in Poland with this newly established film academy.The photographer Slawomir Iziak, who was enrolled at the same time as Kieslowski, once said to me (November 1998): The film school in Lodz is absolutely unique, an island of free spirits during the communist era... Here you can see banned films that you can't find anywhere else in Poland.All foreign artists visiting Poland are invited to come here.And, most importantly, we were taught by the best directors and photographers in Poland.Poland was still a closed country at the time, but at the Lodz Film Academy we could speak freely and openly discuss topics that were not popular outside.