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The founding fathers recognized as their seminal mouthpiece of ideology the corpus of the writings of Thomas Paine who epoused deism which can be described by the comments made below which I find accurate and an indicator of the beliefs of the founding fathers though not necesarily the common people of the period.
http://archive.org/details/age_reason_0910_librivox
He challenged the inerrancy of the bible, at a far distance of the true accounts of scripture as the life of Christ and his divinity7 as described in the NT are denied as "fabulous" and the fathers accepted for the most part this rendition. They are in no wise the "christians" they are claimed to be by the acsribed "fundamentalists of this present age and the evangelicals.
Note this is a thorough compilation of the soundbooks of The Age of Reason
The Age of Reason
The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, a deistic treatise written by eighteenth-century British radical and American revolutionary Thomas Paine, critiques institutionalized religion and challenges the inerrancy of the Bible. Published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807, it was a bestseller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, however, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French revolution, received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights the corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely-inspired text. Yet, The Age of Reason is not atheistic: it promotes natural religion and argues for a creator-God. (Summary by Wikipedia)
Friday, July 5, 2013
Chapter-V-On-the-Staircase From the writings of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2974/jewish/Chapter-V-On-the-Staircase.htm
From the writings of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch
Tractate Geihinom, Third Section
We proceeded along the right side of the gate to a dim corridor lit by small candles. I began, not merely to ask but to entreat, in the profoundest sense of the word, my guard to permit me to put on my tefillin. I also told him that it was difficult for me to walk quickly. His answer was a curt "no," and he warned me that if I persisted, he would place me in solitary confinement.
I persisted in my request, asking for five minutes, or at least three minutes. I explained to him that I was a religious Jew and that donning the tefillin would entail only a very brief interval. The guard was smoking a cigarette; he answered that he knew full well what tefillin were. He had lived in a small city not far from a synagogue, and he was familiar with Jewish worship, but he would not grant my wish.
We proceeded, he in front and I behind him. Realizing that he would not relent, I decided to put on my tefillin as I walked. I placed the tefillin on my hand, and barely managed to place them on my head, when the guard saw what I had done. He struck me and pushed me toward the left to the ladder leading downward, and I fell down all the ladder steps. It is only with G-d's aid that I did not break a hand or leg. With great effort I managed to climb a few rungs; my pain was great.
I realized that the metal buckle of my belt had broken and that it had apparently cut a gash against my stomach. My heart contracted with pain; I felt that in another instant I would faint.
My guard screamed at me, "You will soon see the fine treatment which will be granted to you by the head of the sixth division: then you will forget all about your requests and your prayer. When you lie three or four days in the darkness with the mice in slime and mud, you will understand that you cannot transform Spalerno into a Jewish prayer house."
We came now to a broad corridor, with three ladders remaining before the third platform, where the office of the head of the sixth division was located. There he would judge me for my infraction of prison regulations.
I felt compelled to sit on one of the rungs to rest, for I felt an intense pain and I sensed blood flowing from my wound. I found movement very difficult, and I tried to repress my pain.
I gripped the iron rail of the ladder and climbed with great difficulty from rung to rung. My guard had already reached the third ladder, and I crawled forward like a broken old man.
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The head of the sixth division stood on the landing to welcome his "distinguished guest." It appeared that he had already received word from the central administration. It was impossible for me to tell if he had been told to be lenient or strict, for his face was expressionless, like stone.
"Prisoner 26818," called out the soldier, extending his documents to the head of the sixth division.
"Good, good," barked the official, "hand over the merchandise. It is tedious sitting here with folded hands." He looked down and saw that I had still to climb up the third flight. "Hurry up, old man, why the slowness?-time is precious!" I reached the landing with the tefillin in my hand.
"Proceed for the search," shouted the officer, taking his leave joyously, whistling a melody. As he walked a few steps, he called out a command: "Petia, take the merchandise yarlik 26818 and get to work," meaning that he should receive me from the accompanying guard and bring me to his room, the administrative room of the sixth division.
The man, or beast, called Petia emerged from one of the cubicles or holes at the top of the landing, and approached me. When he finally reached me, he scrutinized me closely and murmured to himself, "Astounding, the rags that they have begun to bring here. Words are useless. A real parasite, a Jew with a long beard. Proceed, old man, to the search! Don't worry; we will clean you out as you deserve. We'll pull you apart bone by bone."
This specimen, Petia, was in charge of storing the belongings of the yarliks brought to Spalerno.
Petia was not armed, nor did he carry any kind of weapon, but nevertheless he resembled a destructive demon. He was of average height, but his face was livid and his voice like a lion's. He was cross-eyed, and he was unable to look directly forward like a normal person.
Petia proceeded before me to show me the way, leading me to the office of the head of the sixth division
"Why do you limp?" Petia called out to me. "Has the Spalerno air affected you? Isn't the air good here? Like a scent, like fragrant scents. For parasites such as you we have such pleasant odors that prisoners on their very first day here collapse to the ground as though gripped by illness. They lie for two or three days in such a state, until the doctor comes. Sometimes he arrives late and all he needs to do is write the death certificate."
The wound made it difficult for me to walk. I needed to rest after every step. I felt the blood oozing, I was in intense pain, and my heart contracted within me.
"Why is your face so white," Petia asked, "Are you ill? After the search you can die. Things here are quiet. No one will disturb you, and no one in your family will know. The doctor will write a certificate for the office, the official will sign, an entry will be made in the office ledger. They will erase your file and throw your body into one of the dungeons below the building."
I cannot claim that his words did not affect me, yet I also considered what spiritual lesson could be derived from them.
All are fully aware of the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov that every utterance and breath, everything one hears and sees, contains guidance in the service of G-d.
Even one not endowed with superior intellect can easily understand how such words as Petia's can awaken a feeling of repentance, a feeling of fear of Heaven, a feeling of Divine Providence, a feeling of faith and trust. But even in such a situation the Evil Inclination can be found. There, too, Satan dances and tries to mislead with his guile and deception. Even in such circumstances, evil intervenes and tries to prevent an individual from being what he should be.
The pain overwhelmed me, and it was impossible for me to take another step. I rested for a moment.
"Why are you so slow?" he cried out, "Shall we bear you on a stretcher to the official for the search? Jew-face, cease your arrogance!"
"Petia!" the head of the sixth division called out, "where have you gotten lost? Where is prisoner 26818? Bring him immediately. I am waiting!"
"I am coming right away," Petia replied, and turning to me he said, "See, his patience has worn thin. The demon! A dog's carcass."
With G-d's help we reached the official's office, a small room approximately nine feet square, without a window, lit by candles, and with an iron door.
"Here he is," Petia said to the official, "This rag belongs to you; this is also merchandise? In a short while he will expire."
The official, hearing Petia's eloquence, smiled and with obvious delight responded, "What can be done, brother? If nothing else is available, this, too, will suffice. We cannot be without work."
"Very well, then," he said turning to me, "let us proceed with the search. What is it you have in your pocket?" He searched me briefly, finding nothing. He then looked through my bag and found the Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, the tefillin of Shimusha Rabbah, my gartel, and the books; he took them all. I was still holding my Rashi tefillin in my hand. He turned to Petia: "Return to your place. When I am through with the search, I will call for you."
Only one broken chair stood in that room, and I sat on it. The official continued with his search of my bag. I turned to him with a plea that he permit me to pray. "No," he answered, with intense rage. Since I was sitting behind him and held my Rashi tefillin in my hand, I did not wait a moment and placed them on my head and hand, recited the Shema, and commenced the silent prayer of Shemonah Esrei. At that very moment he concluded the task of searching and examining my belongings and turned to find me wrapped in tefillin. For a moment he stood astounded, gazing at me wide-eyed with eyes of bewilderment and panic; and at that moment he was transformed into a wild beast. The blood rushed to his face-with his two hands he grasped at my head tefillin, screaming, "Jew-face, I will place you in solitary confinement. I will pulverize your face, you demon!" As I concluded the blessing "And reign over us, You, G-d alone, with kindness and mercy," I was compelled to remove my tefillin for fear that he would tear the straps. "Petia!" called the official, roaring like a lion, and then he said, "I pity you, old man. Even if I do nothing, you will die quickly. Your white face and black lips tell us clearly that we will not be busy with you for long here. What is your disease? Tell me." I did not answer. I understood clearly that the single purpose of the officers and orderlies was to frighten and confuse the prisoners. They attempted to manipulate the prisoners the way a small child would play with cards. "So, what do you wish?" asked Petia angrily, his eyes to the floor. "Why do you ask? Don't you know what you need to do!" answered the official. "What? To remove the refuse? Has he been registered already?" "Not yet, I will shortly enter him into the large registry of the newly-arrived prisoners. Give him a number, then attach his file. Everything will be done according to rules and regulations". Petia said, "Why are you so preoccupied with this refuse? Hand him over to be taken out. It doesn't really matter. He won't last for long anyway. A day or two and then he will die." "No, things are not done in that way. Everything must be done strictly according to regulation. The file must be prepared properly and numbered in proper sequence. If he is ill, we will enter it in the necessary registry and send a certificate for the doctor. What is today, Wednesday? If I can manage to send it off today, then approximately by Saturday or at the latest, Monday, there will be a medical examination. Who knows? Perhaps before then he will be completely released from all his illnesses." "One puff of smoke from a gun barrel and it is done," commented Petia radiantly. The officer replied, "That is a decision reserved for the upper levels. If I receive an order to dispose of the merchandise, I will do just that. Petia, you are thoroughly aware of the procedure. You have a good deal of experience." Petia responded: "I know, I know full well. I love watching the prisoners quivering in their agony for two or three hours. There are, however, some who are so frail that when you lead them in, they walk like the dead. You just begin to remove their clothing and they die from fright; that's not satisfying. But when blood flows, its a pleasure to watch. We sometimes need to wait five or six hours till it's all over. Then, only then is it gladdening. It's delightful for me to see them then-it's sheer pleasure!" The officer commented: "I have already finished. Everything is prepared, file 26818. He should be taken to room 160, number four." Turning to me the official said, "Now, old man, your name is number 160/4. Go! Petia, receive number 160/4. Sign that you received 160/4, and that's it." Petia wrote and signed. The officer stood nearby, looking on with a proud air and beaming face, and concluded, "Good, everything is in order." Petia said to me, "Now you're all mine. Come, now you can rest. Take your belongings." I extended my hand to take the tefillin resting on the table because they were all tangled. Thank G-d, that the officer had not opened the boxes. I picked them up and arranged them properly. I hoped that perhaps I could have them with me in my cell. I pleaded with the officer that the tefillin be given to me because I had been promised them. The officer laughed and said, "Old man, forget everything. You must realize that you are a prisoner. Forget your nonsense. You will get nothing except what has already been given to you: your underwear, handkerchiefs, and nothing more." "If it really means so much to you," continued the officer, "then you can write to the higher officials: if the order will be forthcoming, I will give you everything you want." "Here," I said to the officer, "you are my officer. I have no need for superior officers in the higher echelons. I plead only with you to do this one act of mercy for me. Give me the tefillin and the religious books. My underwear, handkerchiefs and food are unnecessary." How remarkable is the effect of a humbled self and soft words, so great to soften even a heart of stone. For a brief instant it seemed that the officer had been transformed from a tyrant into a human being. He stood reflectively scratching his head. "Forbidden," Petia said, "it's forbidden. Stand and proceed! "Forbidden," repeated the official, "I cannot grant your request without authorization. If you wish, make a written request. Here is some paper; you may write." Sitting in the office, I had noticed a bulletin board with a page of printed prison regulations. It stated that every prisoner who had money entrusted to the prison administration could submit his request or communication by telegram. It was only necessary for him to state in writing that the expense for dispatching the telegram should be deducted from his money, which was in the custody of the prison authority. Invoking this privilege, I requested that I be allowed to communicate my plea by telegram. Petia petulantly protested that I could write it in my cell, for in a very short while he had to wake the prisoners. Nevertheless, the official granted my wish I wrote three telegrams, all with the identical text: I herewith request to immediately order the head of the sixth section to give me my tefillin. Religious Rabbi, Y. Schneersohn, Sixth Section, cell 160 I sent the telegrams to: 1) the chief prosecutor; 2) the chief administrator of Spalerno; 3) the investigator, Nachmanson. The prison official nodded his head after reading the telegrams and commented: "He has great aspirations-look how he writes to the chief prosecutor, the chief administrator and the investigator!" Then he burst out in loud, echoing laughter. I understood that I needed to ask for a receipt verifying his acceptance of the three telegrams, with the assurance that they would be immediately transmitted. Petia asked, "Are you finished? Have you calmed down already? Let us proceed." I, however, turned to the official and asked, "And where is the receipt for the telegrams?" "What receipt?" he replied. "The law states that an official must give written confirmation permitting, and then verifying, the transmission of a telegram," I answered calmly. My citing legal obligations compelled him to yield, and he immediately took a sheet of paper and wrote a receipt. He placed his seal upon it, then affixed his seal to each individual telegram and placed them in a large envelope, apparently used for collecting all documents and papers that were to be transmitted to the administrative office. Prior to my leaving the small room of the chief official of the sixth section, I asked him the time, and in his kind graciousness he permitted me to look at the watch on his left hand, which showed five minutes to six. Thus I had concluded Tractate Geihinom, Third Section. I walked beside Petia, who was cursing me and all humanity, trying to terrify me with mortal fear. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did not take Petia's harsh words to heart but looked around at the huge structure of the Spalerno Prison. I marveled at the unusual skill of the architect of this remarkable edifice; it was built to provide for all prison matters. Moreover, there were special areas in which to oppress, persecute, torment, and torture human beings. Spalerno was a building within a building. An outer wall enclosed the entire area on all four sides, with dimensions of approximately 300 feet by 300 feet. The inner wall was like a square box, and within the wall there were cells with iron doors. Between the inner and outer walls extended a corridor some 18 feet wide, and there were large windows in the outer wall approximately 24 feet high. There were three levels within these 24 feet; a lower platform, above it a second, and above it a third platform. From the sides of the inner wall there extended a walkway somewhat more than four feet wide. Iron ladders led up to it, providing access to the rooms and cells. The space between the outer and inner walls on ground level was like an alley from which one could go up to the first walkway which provided access to the second floor and also to a ladder leading to the second walkway, which is the third floor of the prison. I proceeded on the walkway from the office of the head official to room 160. I did not know its exact location but followed Petia, who spoke continually, trying to frighten me with his many recollections, describing his great pleasure at witnessing the execution of rich people and clergymen. Once he waited for one of the executed to expire because it was his task to cast the cadavers of seven slain victims into one of the pits under the second dungeon in the subterranean section of the building. He had already disposed of them all, except for one who continued to shudder and "refused to die." He continued: "He was like you, pale and large in build. Though he was the fifth victim executed, he outlived them all. He kept twitching his hands and feet the whole time. "My comrade went to receive his payment. He was well rewarded for his labor, receiving 420 rubles (the payment for each execution was 60 rubles) and three bottles of vodka. My job was to bring them from the cell, prepare and separate them, and when it was all over, it was my responsibility to remove the corpses and clean the blood from the floor and walls of the room. "That prisoner had still not died and I decided to drink some tea. When I returned he was still quivering. It was so pleasurable for me to gaze upon this scene that I drank the tea without sugar! My patience finally ran out. I kicked him twice with my foot and he lay there lifeless. Blood began to flow from his throat and his color immediately changed to the black of a beetle." Although his words didn't frighten me, they nevertheless made a strong impression. I shuddered at his long, detailed story. "Actually, you should have been placed in a cell all by yourself," said Petia," for you are among those scheduled for execution. For those prisoners there is a special room for solitary confinement. But apparently all the rooms are full, so you were assigned cell 160. "Here is your room." He took a large key and unlocked the latch of one of the iron doors. Then he took another key which opened the lock within the door itself. When the door was ajar he told me to go in and lie down on the floor. Before I could enter, he grabbed me sadistically with both hands, threw me into the room, and flung my bag after me. This greatly intensified the suffering and pain from my earlier wound. He hastened to close the door, saying, "Sleep on the floor till the order comes to give you a bed, a container, a bowl, and spoon." I was disoriented and did not understand his references to the eating utensils. Petia closed the door and left. The room was 2½ archin wide, five archin long and 2½ archin high. The walls were of stone and one archin in thickness. The door was of iron. High on the wall close to the ceiling and facing the courtyard was an opening for a window. This opening was one archin in length by half an archin in width, covered by vertical iron bars and one horizontal iron bar, forming an intersecting barrier. The window was imbedded in an iron frame; the glass itself was only a handbreadth by a handbreadth. Three thick iron chains, one on each side and the third in the middle extending from above, made it possible to open the window by suspending it on these iron chains. On the outside, an extended iron railing blocked the prisoners' view of the outside and prevented them from communicating with prisoners in the cells across the courtyard. The room contained an iron bed fastened to the wall and an iron table, approximately three feet square, also fastened to the wall, and a water faucet. In a corner of the room there was a hollow vessel for the hygiene needs of the prisoner, an electric light, and a hot water pipe passing through the cell to provide warmth. This cell was normally for one prisoner, but with the increased number of prisoners, two, three, and even four prisoners were placed in such rooms. The thickness of the cell door was approximately the size of a handbreadth, but I could not discern if the door was totally made of iron or merely iron-plated on both sides. The door was approximately six feet high and and three feet wide. There was a small opening the size of an egg in the middle of the door with an iron cover, to enable the guard to scrutinize and supervise the actions of the prisoners in the cell at any time. Approximately ten inches below this opening, there was a small square window through which the prisoners received food and drink. This window in the iron door was shut, locked with a latch. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Korczak
This film examines the life of renowned pediatrician, writer and teacher Henryk Goldzmit, who wrote under the name Janusz Korczak. As the Nazis invade Poland, Korczak does everything in his power to protect children from a dire fate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korczak_(film)
Reception[edit]
The epic was bitterly attacked during its Festival screening by some political commentators in France, notably, by virulently anti-Polish Claude Lanzmann, who would prefer to see the Poles being portrayed as the villains. Yet, among its strongest defendants was Marek Edelman, the Polish Jew who survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Wajda himself, saw the idea of showing the children being led into the Treblinka gas chambers as repulsing.[2][3]
Monument in Warsaw Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Early life[edit]Wajda was born in Suwałki, Poland, the son of Aniela (née Biaxowas), a school teacher, and Jakub Wajda, an army officer.[3] Wajda' father was murdered by the Soviets in 1940 in what came to be known as the Katyn massacre. In 1942 he joined the Polish resistance and served in the Armia Krajowa. After the war, he studied to be a painter at Kraków's Academy of Fine Arts before entering the Łódź Film School.
Andrzej Wajda (Polish: [ˈandʐɛj ˈvajda]; born 6 March 1926) is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School" (active c. 1955 to 1963). He is known especially for a trilogy of war films: A Generation (1954), Kanał (1956) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958).
Four of his films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land (1975),[1] The Maids of Wilko (1979),[2] Man of Iron (1981), and Katyń (2007).
Career[edit]After Wajda's apprenticeship to director Aleksander Ford, Wajda was given the opportunity to direct his own film. With A Generation (1955), the first-time director poured out his disillusionment over jingoism, using as his alter ego a young, James Dean-style antihero played by Zbigniew Cybulski, 22-year-old Roman Polanski also featured. At the same time Andrzej Wajda began his work as a director in theatre, including such as Michael V. Gazzo's A Hatful of Rain (1959), Hamlet (1960), and Two for the Seesaw (1963) by William Gibson. Wajda made two more increasingly accomplished films, which developed further the anti-war theme of A Generation: Kanał (1956) [Silver Palm at Cannes Festival in 1957, ex equo with Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Ashes and Diamonds (1958), again with Cybulski.
While capable of turning out mainstream commercial fare (often dismissed as "trivial" by his critics), Wajda was more interested in works of allegory and symbolism, and certain symbols (such as setting fire to a glass of liquor, representing the flame of youthful idealism that was extinguished by the war) recur often in his films, the very characteristic of Wajda's symbolism is film Lotna (1959), full of surrealistic and symbolic scenes and shots but he managed to explore some other field of existence making new wave style Innocent Sorcerers (1960) with music by Krzysztof Komeda, starring Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski (who was also a co-script writer) in the episodes. Then Wajda directed Samson (1961), a moving story about Jacob, a Jewish boy, who wants to survive during the Nazi occupation of Poland. In the mid-1960s Wajda showed the world an epic film The Ashes (1965) based on the novel by Polish writer Stefan Żeromski and directed some films abroad: Love at Twenty (1962), Siberian Lady Macbeth (1962) or Gates To Paradise (1968).
In 1967, Cybulski was killed in a train accident, whereupon the director articulated his grief with what is considered one of his most personal films, which turned out to be a touching story (using technique "film in film") about film maker's life and work on movie Everything for Sale (1968) which is now established and regarded as one of the few films on that subject along with Federico Fellini's "8½". The following year he directed an ironic satire Hunting Flies with the script written by Janusz Głowacki and a television film based upon Stanisław Lem's short story "Roly Poly".
The 1970s were the most lucrative artistic period for Wajda, who made over ten films, some of which were among his finest works: Landscape After the Battle (1970), Pilate And Others (1971), The Wedding (1972) - the film version of Polish most famous poetic drama by Stanisław Wyspiański, The Promised Land (1974), Man of Marble (1976) - the film takes place in two time periods, the first film showing the episodes of Stalinism in Poland, The Shadow Line (1976), Rough Treatment (the other title: Without Anesthesia) (1978), The Orchestra Conductor (1980), starring John Gielgud; or two, very touching, psychological and existential films based upon novels by Polish famous writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz - The Birch Wood (1970) and The Maids of Wilko (1979). The Birch Wood was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival where Wajda won the Golden Prize for Direction.[4]
Wajda continued to work in theatre where he has made his best spectacles, including Play Strindberg, Dostoyevsky's The Possessed and Nastasja Filippovna - the Wajda's version of The Idiot, November Night by Wyspiański, The Immigrants by Sławomir Mrożek, The Danton Affair or The Dreams of Reason.
Wajda's later commitment to Poland's burgeoning Solidarity movement was manifested in Man of Iron (1981), a thematic sequel to The Man of Marble, with Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa appearing as himself in the latter film. The film sequence is loosely based on the life of Anna Walentynowicz, a hero of socialist labor [Stahanovite] turned dissident and alludes to events from real life, such as the recreation in Man of Iron of the firing of Anna Walentynowicz from the shipyard and the underground wedding of Bogdan Borusewicz to Alina Pienkowska.[5] The director's involvement in this movement would prompt the Polish government to force Wajda's production company out of business. For the film, Wajda won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1983 he directed Danton, starring Gérard Depardieu in the title role, a film set in 1794 (Year Two) dealing with the Post-Revolutionary Terror. Wajda showed how easy revolution can change into terror and starts to "eat its own children". But the film should also be seen in its historical context against the backdrop of the martial law in Poland, which can be referred to as its "Polish ambience."[6] For this film Wajda was honoured by receiving the very prestigious Louis Delluc Award, he also gained a couple of Cesar Awards. In the 1980s he also made some important films like A Love in Germany (1983) featuring Hanna Schygulla, The Chronicle of Amorous Incidents (1986) an adaptation of Tadeusz Konwicki's novel and The Possessed (1988) based on Dostoyevsky's novel, in which it is shown how terrorism begins. In theatre he prepared a very famous interpretation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (1984) and other unique spectacles such as Antygone, his sequential Hamlet versions or an old Jewish play The Dybbuk.
Since 1989
[edit]In 1990 Andrzej Wajda was honoured as the third director, after Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman by Felix[disambiguation needed] - European Film Award for his lifetime achievement. In the early 1990s, he was elected a senator and also appointed artistic director of Warsaw's Teatr Powszechny. He continued to make films set during World War II, including Korczak (1990), a story about a Jewish-Polish doctor who takes care of orphan children, in The Crowned-Eagle Ring (1993) and Holy Week (1995) specifically on Jewish-Polish relations. In 1994 Wajda presented his own film version of Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot in the movie Nastasja,starring Japanese actor Tamasoburo Bando in double role of Prince Mishkin and Nasstasya, the film was beautifully photographed by Pawel Edelman, who became one of Wajda's great co-workers since that time. In 1996 the director went in a different direction with Miss Nobody, a coming-of-age drama that explored the darker and more spiritual aspects of a relationship between three high-school girls. In 1999 Wajda presented a great epic film Pan Tadeusz, based on the art of the Polish 19th-century romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz.
A year later, at the 2000 Academy Awards, Wajda was presented with an honorary Oscar for his contribution to world cinema; he subsequently donated the award to Kraków's Jagiellonian University.
In 2002 Wajda directed the comedy Revenge, a film version of his 1980s theatre production, with Roman Polanski in one of the main roles. In February 2006, Wajda received an honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2007 Katyń was released, a well received film about the Katyn massacre, in which Wajda's father was murdered but the director also shows the dramatic situation of those who await for their relatives (mothers, wives and children). The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2008. Wajda followed it with Tatarak (Sweet Rush - 2009) with Krystyna Janda as a main character. It is partly based upon Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz short novel, there is also very important fragment taken from Janda's private life. Sweet Rush turns to be a sort of deep, calm and melancholic meditation about death and love. The film is dedicated to Edward Kłosiński, Janda's husband, a cinematographer and a long-time Andrzej Wajda's friend and co-worker who died of cancer the same year. For this film Andrzej Wajda was awarded by Alfred Bauer Prize at The Berlin Film Festival in 2009, recently he also got critics prize - Prix FIPRESCI during European Film Awards Ceremony. Currently Wajda is working on his latest film which would be the biography of Lech Wałęsa and the script has been written by Janusz Głowacki.
Andrzej Wajda has founded The Japanese Centre of Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow/Cracow (1994) and has also founded (2002) (along with great Polish film maker Wojciech Marczewski) and leads his own film school [1] in which students take part in different film courses led by famous European film makers.
Analysis[edit]A major figure of world and European cinema after World War II, Wajda made his reputation as a sensitive and uncompromising chronicler of his country's political and social evolution. Once dubbed a symbol for a besieged country, Wajda is known for drawing from Poland's history to suit his tragic sensibility—crafting an oeuvre of work that devastates even as it informs.
Andrzej Wajda's films have a strong visual side, he sometimes made his own versions of Polish and European paintings and he also thinks by the images. He tries to give the right mood and atmosphere of times in which he sets the action and he refers to the paintings of that time as well. He has worked with Polish cinematographers such as Jerzy Lipman, Jerzy Wójcik, Witold Sobociński, Edward Kłosiński, Zygmunt Samosiuk, Sławomir Idziak or Paweł Edelman, he also cooperated with Igor Luther or Robby Muller.
Filmography[edit]
The Bad Boy (Zły chłopiec, 1951)- short film
The Pottery at Ilza (Ceramika ilzecka, 1951) -short film
While you are sleeping (Kiedy ty śpisz, 1953) -short film
A Generation (Pokolenie, 1954)
Towards the Sun (Idę do słońca, documentary on Xawery Dunikowski, 1955)
Kanal (1956)
Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i diament 1958)
Lotna (1959)
Innocent Sorcerers (Niewinni czarodzieje, 1960)
Siberian Lady Macbeth (Powiatowa lady Makbet, 1961)
Samson (1961)
Love at Twenty (L'amour à vingt ans, 1962)
The Ashes (Popioly, 1965)
Everything for Sale (Wszystko na sprzedaż, 1968)
Roly Poly (Przekładaniec, 1968)
Gates to Paradise (Bramy Raju, 1968)
Hunting Flies (Polowanie na muchy, 1969)
The Birch Wood (Brzezina, 1970)
Landscape After the Battle (Krajobraz po bitwie, 1970)
Pilate and Others (Pilatus und andere, 1972)
The Wedding (Wesele, 1973)
The Promised Land (Ziemia obiecana, 1974)
The Shadow Line (Smuga cienia, 1976)
Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru, 1977)
Without Anesthesia aka Rough Treatment (Bez znieczulenia, 1978)
The Maids of Wilko (Panny z Wilka, 1979)
As years go by, as days go by ("Z biegiem lat, z biegiem dni", 1980 television serial.)
The Orchestra Conductor (Dyrygent, 1980)
Man of Iron (Człowiek z żelaza, 1981)
Danton (1983)
A Love in Germany (Eine Liebe in Deutschland, 1983)
A Chronicle of Amorous Accidents (Kronika wypadków miłosnych, 1985)
The French as seen by... (Proust contre la déchéance, 1988)
The Possessed (Les possédes, 1988)
Korczak (1990)
The Crowned-Eagle Ring (Pierścionek z orłem w koronie, 1992)
Nastasja (1994)
Holy Week (Wielki Tydzień, 1995)
Miss Nobody (Panna Nikt, 1996)
Pan Tadeusz (1999)
Bigda idzie (TV theatre "Bigda idzie!"; 1999)
The Condemnation of Franciszek Klos (Wyrok na Franciszka Kłosa, 2000)
June night ("Noc czerwcowa" -TV theatre, 2001)
Broken Silence (Przerwane milczenie, 2002)
The Revenge (Zemsta, 2002)
Man of Hope (Czlowiek z nadziei) (2005)
Katyń (2007)
Sweet Rush (Tatarak) (2009)
Wałęsa (2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/14/movies/film-wajda-s-korczak-sets-loose-the-furies.html
FILM; Wajda's 'Korczak' Sets Loose the Furies
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Published: April 14, 1991
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Single-Page
In the closing shot of Andrzej Wajda's new film, "Korczak," a cattle car crammed with Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto rumbles toward the Treblinka concentration camp. Suddenly the action shifts to slow motion, and the car uncouples from the train as if touched by an unseen hand. Its doors slide open, and the children spill happy and laughing into a verdant field.
The film, which opened Friday in New York, recounts the life and death of Janusz Korczak (pronounced YAN-oosh KOR-chak), a Jewish teacher, doctor and writer who struggled in vain to save 200 children living in his orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto.
Its concluding 30 seconds of fantasy have become the focal point of a bitter assault on the movie by French critics, some of whom viewed it as an attempt by Poles to throw a rosy wash over their own complicity, or indifference, to the genocide of Jews. By contrast, Israeli critics praised the ending as a symbol of hope, and Mr. Wajda (pronounced VIE-da) said the country's Ministry of Education had added the film to the required school curriculum.
Numbered among its vigorous detractors are Claude Lanzmann, director of "Shoah," the epic 1985 documentary on the Holocaust; its defenders include Marek Edelman, the Polish Jew who is the only surviving leader of the 1944 Warsaw ghetto uprising.
Mr. Wajda, who earned his reputation as the best known of Poland's film makers with a series of movies that challenged the Communist regime, is a grandfatherly man with a shock of white hair. The 65-year-old Mr. Wajda said he had no intention of obscuring the historical fact, noted in the film's postscript, that Dr. Korczak and the children died in the gas chambers of Treblinka in 1942.
Mr. Wajda argued that movie makers have a duty to leave their audience with something more. He said he never considered ending the film with its penultimate shot, which shows the train speeding away from Warsaw toward the concentration camp.
"Such an ending would have said to me that all these endeavors of Dr. Korczak were sunk in a black hole; that pedagogy in the face of force has no sense; that no efforts of man can reverse the fact that he is dying so accidentally. This would be an awful, existentialist point of view.
"There would have been nothing easier than showing the death of the children in the gas chamber," Mr. Wajda. "It would have been a very moving scene. Everyone would have been crying. But do we have the right, does art have the right to show this? Is art for this?
"Isn't art for telling it in some different way? Art has to stop short of certain facts, has to look for other possibilities. It seems to me that it is beautiful that when we do not agree to the fact that the children were gassed, we create a legend that these children go somewhere, into some better world."
Mr. Wajda, who has previously benefited from largely sympathetic coverage by the world press, seems startled to be so much on the defensive. The movie was not a commercial success in Poland.
One of the most prominent intellectuals to support the Solidarity movement, he is widely regarded as the leading director working today in Polish cinema. For decades, he stretched the Communist-run film system to its limits, defying explicit censorship and implicit constraints of Government financing to produce movies that defined the nation's political consciousness.
Produced by Janusz Morgenstern
Daniel Toscan du Plantier
Regina Ziegler
Written by Agnieszka Holland
Starring Wojciech Pszoniak
Ewa Dalkowska
Music by Wojciech Kilar
Cinematography Robby Müller
Editing by Ewa Smal
Release date(s) 6 Mai 1990
Running time 113 minutes
Country Poland
Germany
Language Polish
This DVD was released in the US by Kino Lorber on 14 August 2012. Hailed by the likes of Steven Spielberg as one of the most important European films about the Holocaust it should have been available by this company on Day One. Unfortunately for us, this company is no longer interested in cinema. ...read more They care about streaming TV shows (they're easy and cheap) and no longer are the company they once were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korczak_(film)
The epic was bitterly attacked during its Festival screening by some political commentators in France, notably, by virulently anti-Polish Claude Lanzmann, who would prefer to see the Poles being portrayed as the villains. Yet, among its strongest defendants was Marek Edelman, the Polish Jew who survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Wajda himself, saw the idea of showing the children being led into the Treblinka gas chambers as repulsing.[2][3]
Monument in Warsaw Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Early life[edit]Wajda was born in Suwałki, Poland, the son of Aniela (née Biaxowas), a school teacher, and Jakub Wajda, an army officer.[3] Wajda' father was murdered by the Soviets in 1940 in what came to be known as the Katyn massacre. In 1942 he joined the Polish resistance and served in the Armia Krajowa. After the war, he studied to be a painter at Kraków's Academy of Fine Arts before entering the Łódź Film School.
Andrzej Wajda (Polish: [ˈandʐɛj ˈvajda]; born 6 March 1926) is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School" (active c. 1955 to 1963). He is known especially for a trilogy of war films: A Generation (1954), Kanał (1956) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958).
Four of his films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land (1975),[1] The Maids of Wilko (1979),[2] Man of Iron (1981), and Katyń (2007).
Career[edit]After Wajda's apprenticeship to director Aleksander Ford, Wajda was given the opportunity to direct his own film. With A Generation (1955), the first-time director poured out his disillusionment over jingoism, using as his alter ego a young, James Dean-style antihero played by Zbigniew Cybulski, 22-year-old Roman Polanski also featured. At the same time Andrzej Wajda began his work as a director in theatre, including such as Michael V. Gazzo's A Hatful of Rain (1959), Hamlet (1960), and Two for the Seesaw (1963) by William Gibson. Wajda made two more increasingly accomplished films, which developed further the anti-war theme of A Generation: Kanał (1956) [Silver Palm at Cannes Festival in 1957, ex equo with Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Ashes and Diamonds (1958), again with Cybulski.
While capable of turning out mainstream commercial fare (often dismissed as "trivial" by his critics), Wajda was more interested in works of allegory and symbolism, and certain symbols (such as setting fire to a glass of liquor, representing the flame of youthful idealism that was extinguished by the war) recur often in his films, the very characteristic of Wajda's symbolism is film Lotna (1959), full of surrealistic and symbolic scenes and shots but he managed to explore some other field of existence making new wave style Innocent Sorcerers (1960) with music by Krzysztof Komeda, starring Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski (who was also a co-script writer) in the episodes. Then Wajda directed Samson (1961), a moving story about Jacob, a Jewish boy, who wants to survive during the Nazi occupation of Poland. In the mid-1960s Wajda showed the world an epic film The Ashes (1965) based on the novel by Polish writer Stefan Żeromski and directed some films abroad: Love at Twenty (1962), Siberian Lady Macbeth (1962) or Gates To Paradise (1968).
In 1967, Cybulski was killed in a train accident, whereupon the director articulated his grief with what is considered one of his most personal films, which turned out to be a touching story (using technique "film in film") about film maker's life and work on movie Everything for Sale (1968) which is now established and regarded as one of the few films on that subject along with Federico Fellini's "8½". The following year he directed an ironic satire Hunting Flies with the script written by Janusz Głowacki and a television film based upon Stanisław Lem's short story "Roly Poly".
The 1970s were the most lucrative artistic period for Wajda, who made over ten films, some of which were among his finest works: Landscape After the Battle (1970), Pilate And Others (1971), The Wedding (1972) - the film version of Polish most famous poetic drama by Stanisław Wyspiański, The Promised Land (1974), Man of Marble (1976) - the film takes place in two time periods, the first film showing the episodes of Stalinism in Poland, The Shadow Line (1976), Rough Treatment (the other title: Without Anesthesia) (1978), The Orchestra Conductor (1980), starring John Gielgud; or two, very touching, psychological and existential films based upon novels by Polish famous writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz - The Birch Wood (1970) and The Maids of Wilko (1979). The Birch Wood was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival where Wajda won the Golden Prize for Direction.[4]
Wajda continued to work in theatre where he has made his best spectacles, including Play Strindberg, Dostoyevsky's The Possessed and Nastasja Filippovna - the Wajda's version of The Idiot, November Night by Wyspiański, The Immigrants by Sławomir Mrożek, The Danton Affair or The Dreams of Reason.
Wajda's later commitment to Poland's burgeoning Solidarity movement was manifested in Man of Iron (1981), a thematic sequel to The Man of Marble, with Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa appearing as himself in the latter film. The film sequence is loosely based on the life of Anna Walentynowicz, a hero of socialist labor [Stahanovite] turned dissident and alludes to events from real life, such as the recreation in Man of Iron of the firing of Anna Walentynowicz from the shipyard and the underground wedding of Bogdan Borusewicz to Alina Pienkowska.[5] The director's involvement in this movement would prompt the Polish government to force Wajda's production company out of business. For the film, Wajda won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1983 he directed Danton, starring Gérard Depardieu in the title role, a film set in 1794 (Year Two) dealing with the Post-Revolutionary Terror. Wajda showed how easy revolution can change into terror and starts to "eat its own children". But the film should also be seen in its historical context against the backdrop of the martial law in Poland, which can be referred to as its "Polish ambience."[6] For this film Wajda was honoured by receiving the very prestigious Louis Delluc Award, he also gained a couple of Cesar Awards. In the 1980s he also made some important films like A Love in Germany (1983) featuring Hanna Schygulla, The Chronicle of Amorous Incidents (1986) an adaptation of Tadeusz Konwicki's novel and The Possessed (1988) based on Dostoyevsky's novel, in which it is shown how terrorism begins. In theatre he prepared a very famous interpretation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (1984) and other unique spectacles such as Antygone, his sequential Hamlet versions or an old Jewish play The Dybbuk.
Since 1989
[edit]In 1990 Andrzej Wajda was honoured as the third director, after Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman by Felix[disambiguation needed] - European Film Award for his lifetime achievement. In the early 1990s, he was elected a senator and also appointed artistic director of Warsaw's Teatr Powszechny. He continued to make films set during World War II, including Korczak (1990), a story about a Jewish-Polish doctor who takes care of orphan children, in The Crowned-Eagle Ring (1993) and Holy Week (1995) specifically on Jewish-Polish relations. In 1994 Wajda presented his own film version of Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot in the movie Nastasja,starring Japanese actor Tamasoburo Bando in double role of Prince Mishkin and Nasstasya, the film was beautifully photographed by Pawel Edelman, who became one of Wajda's great co-workers since that time. In 1996 the director went in a different direction with Miss Nobody, a coming-of-age drama that explored the darker and more spiritual aspects of a relationship between three high-school girls. In 1999 Wajda presented a great epic film Pan Tadeusz, based on the art of the Polish 19th-century romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz.
A year later, at the 2000 Academy Awards, Wajda was presented with an honorary Oscar for his contribution to world cinema; he subsequently donated the award to Kraków's Jagiellonian University.
In 2002 Wajda directed the comedy Revenge, a film version of his 1980s theatre production, with Roman Polanski in one of the main roles. In February 2006, Wajda received an honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2007 Katyń was released, a well received film about the Katyn massacre, in which Wajda's father was murdered but the director also shows the dramatic situation of those who await for their relatives (mothers, wives and children). The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2008. Wajda followed it with Tatarak (Sweet Rush - 2009) with Krystyna Janda as a main character. It is partly based upon Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz short novel, there is also very important fragment taken from Janda's private life. Sweet Rush turns to be a sort of deep, calm and melancholic meditation about death and love. The film is dedicated to Edward Kłosiński, Janda's husband, a cinematographer and a long-time Andrzej Wajda's friend and co-worker who died of cancer the same year. For this film Andrzej Wajda was awarded by Alfred Bauer Prize at The Berlin Film Festival in 2009, recently he also got critics prize - Prix FIPRESCI during European Film Awards Ceremony. Currently Wajda is working on his latest film which would be the biography of Lech Wałęsa and the script has been written by Janusz Głowacki.
Andrzej Wajda has founded The Japanese Centre of Art and Technology "Manggha" in Krakow/Cracow (1994) and has also founded (2002) (along with great Polish film maker Wojciech Marczewski) and leads his own film school [1] in which students take part in different film courses led by famous European film makers.
Analysis[edit]A major figure of world and European cinema after World War II, Wajda made his reputation as a sensitive and uncompromising chronicler of his country's political and social evolution. Once dubbed a symbol for a besieged country, Wajda is known for drawing from Poland's history to suit his tragic sensibility—crafting an oeuvre of work that devastates even as it informs.
Andrzej Wajda's films have a strong visual side, he sometimes made his own versions of Polish and European paintings and he also thinks by the images. He tries to give the right mood and atmosphere of times in which he sets the action and he refers to the paintings of that time as well. He has worked with Polish cinematographers such as Jerzy Lipman, Jerzy Wójcik, Witold Sobociński, Edward Kłosiński, Zygmunt Samosiuk, Sławomir Idziak or Paweł Edelman, he also cooperated with Igor Luther or Robby Muller.
Filmography[edit]
The Bad Boy (Zły chłopiec, 1951)- short film
The Pottery at Ilza (Ceramika ilzecka, 1951) -short film
While you are sleeping (Kiedy ty śpisz, 1953) -short film
A Generation (Pokolenie, 1954)
Towards the Sun (Idę do słońca, documentary on Xawery Dunikowski, 1955)
Kanal (1956)
Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i diament 1958)
Lotna (1959)
Innocent Sorcerers (Niewinni czarodzieje, 1960)
Siberian Lady Macbeth (Powiatowa lady Makbet, 1961)
Samson (1961)
Love at Twenty (L'amour à vingt ans, 1962)
The Ashes (Popioly, 1965)
Everything for Sale (Wszystko na sprzedaż, 1968)
Roly Poly (Przekładaniec, 1968)
Gates to Paradise (Bramy Raju, 1968)
Hunting Flies (Polowanie na muchy, 1969)
The Birch Wood (Brzezina, 1970)
Landscape After the Battle (Krajobraz po bitwie, 1970)
Pilate and Others (Pilatus und andere, 1972)
The Wedding (Wesele, 1973)
The Promised Land (Ziemia obiecana, 1974)
The Shadow Line (Smuga cienia, 1976)
Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru, 1977)
Without Anesthesia aka Rough Treatment (Bez znieczulenia, 1978)
The Maids of Wilko (Panny z Wilka, 1979)
As years go by, as days go by ("Z biegiem lat, z biegiem dni", 1980 television serial.)
The Orchestra Conductor (Dyrygent, 1980)
Man of Iron (Człowiek z żelaza, 1981)
Danton (1983)
A Love in Germany (Eine Liebe in Deutschland, 1983)
A Chronicle of Amorous Accidents (Kronika wypadków miłosnych, 1985)
The French as seen by... (Proust contre la déchéance, 1988)
The Possessed (Les possédes, 1988)
Korczak (1990)
The Crowned-Eagle Ring (Pierścionek z orłem w koronie, 1992)
Nastasja (1994)
Holy Week (Wielki Tydzień, 1995)
Miss Nobody (Panna Nikt, 1996)
Pan Tadeusz (1999)
Bigda idzie (TV theatre "Bigda idzie!"; 1999)
The Condemnation of Franciszek Klos (Wyrok na Franciszka Kłosa, 2000)
June night ("Noc czerwcowa" -TV theatre, 2001)
Broken Silence (Przerwane milczenie, 2002)
The Revenge (Zemsta, 2002)
Man of Hope (Czlowiek z nadziei) (2005)
Katyń (2007)
Sweet Rush (Tatarak) (2009)
Wałęsa (2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/14/movies/film-wajda-s-korczak-sets-loose-the-furies.html
FILM; Wajda's 'Korczak' Sets Loose the Furies
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Published: April 14, 1991
Sign In to E-Mail
Single-Page
In the closing shot of Andrzej Wajda's new film, "Korczak," a cattle car crammed with Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto rumbles toward the Treblinka concentration camp. Suddenly the action shifts to slow motion, and the car uncouples from the train as if touched by an unseen hand. Its doors slide open, and the children spill happy and laughing into a verdant field.
The film, which opened Friday in New York, recounts the life and death of Janusz Korczak (pronounced YAN-oosh KOR-chak), a Jewish teacher, doctor and writer who struggled in vain to save 200 children living in his orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto.
Its concluding 30 seconds of fantasy have become the focal point of a bitter assault on the movie by French critics, some of whom viewed it as an attempt by Poles to throw a rosy wash over their own complicity, or indifference, to the genocide of Jews. By contrast, Israeli critics praised the ending as a symbol of hope, and Mr. Wajda (pronounced VIE-da) said the country's Ministry of Education had added the film to the required school curriculum.
Numbered among its vigorous detractors are Claude Lanzmann, director of "Shoah," the epic 1985 documentary on the Holocaust; its defenders include Marek Edelman, the Polish Jew who is the only surviving leader of the 1944 Warsaw ghetto uprising.
Mr. Wajda, who earned his reputation as the best known of Poland's film makers with a series of movies that challenged the Communist regime, is a grandfatherly man with a shock of white hair. The 65-year-old Mr. Wajda said he had no intention of obscuring the historical fact, noted in the film's postscript, that Dr. Korczak and the children died in the gas chambers of Treblinka in 1942.
Mr. Wajda argued that movie makers have a duty to leave their audience with something more. He said he never considered ending the film with its penultimate shot, which shows the train speeding away from Warsaw toward the concentration camp.
"Such an ending would have said to me that all these endeavors of Dr. Korczak were sunk in a black hole; that pedagogy in the face of force has no sense; that no efforts of man can reverse the fact that he is dying so accidentally. This would be an awful, existentialist point of view.
"There would have been nothing easier than showing the death of the children in the gas chamber," Mr. Wajda. "It would have been a very moving scene. Everyone would have been crying. But do we have the right, does art have the right to show this? Is art for this?
"Isn't art for telling it in some different way? Art has to stop short of certain facts, has to look for other possibilities. It seems to me that it is beautiful that when we do not agree to the fact that the children were gassed, we create a legend that these children go somewhere, into some better world."
Mr. Wajda, who has previously benefited from largely sympathetic coverage by the world press, seems startled to be so much on the defensive. The movie was not a commercial success in Poland.
One of the most prominent intellectuals to support the Solidarity movement, he is widely regarded as the leading director working today in Polish cinema. For decades, he stretched the Communist-run film system to its limits, defying explicit censorship and implicit constraints of Government financing to produce movies that defined the nation's political consciousness.
Produced by Janusz Morgenstern
Daniel Toscan du Plantier
Regina Ziegler
Written by Agnieszka Holland
Starring Wojciech Pszoniak
Ewa Dalkowska
Music by Wojciech Kilar
Cinematography Robby Müller
Editing by Ewa Smal
Release date(s) 6 Mai 1990
Running time 113 minutes
Country Poland
Germany
Language Polish
This DVD was released in the US by Kino Lorber on 14 August 2012. Hailed by the likes of Steven Spielberg as one of the most important European films about the Holocaust it should have been available by this company on Day One. Unfortunately for us, this company is no longer interested in cinema. ...read more They care about streaming TV shows (they're easy and cheap) and no longer are the company they once were.
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