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ON THE SILVER GLOBE
IS BOTH: A FILM AND A STORY ABOUT THIS FILM
THE STORY OF A CERTAIN LIFE AND A CERTAIN COUNTRY
Attention!
Silence!
Yes. Camera!
Scene 62, shot six, take three.
Go!
Stronger!
Cut!
It lacks conviction.
It lacks conviction. Stronger!
Again.
Yes! Get angry! Get mad!
That's it!
Attention!
Silence!
Camera!
Scene 62, shot six, take four.
Action!
Again!
Cut!
FILM DIRECTOR, ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI'S SON
Is this therapy or what?
I don't remember.
My first memory with my father?
I remember my mother and I went to his movie set.
It was the day when they blew the beach up.
And I think I saw the monster walking past.
That thorny creature.
I have these flashbacks. Strong and strange.
The story of his unfinished film...
It is a nightmare for filmmakers.
Such an experience is a terrible trauma.
Something's unfinished, ongoing, still shouting.
It was an acutely painful experience for him.
If that film had been shot and finished,
it would have been released before Star Wars.
It would have been the first European sci-fi movie.
A huge movie.
And my father's life might have been completely different.
DEDICATED TO THE CREW OF ON THE SILVER GLOBE
At the end of the '60s...
FILM DIRECTOR
...I worked as an assistant to the director
on Janusz Morgenstern's TV war series.
We were shooting episodes on the Warsaw Uprising.
Dirt and dust were everywhere.
Suddenly... A mirage?
I saw an incredible phenomenon.
The most beautiful couple of communist Poland.
Andrzej Żuławski and Małgosia Braunek.
Ethereal, in fancy clothes, colourful, young.
He was exceptionally handsome, she was dazzlingly beautiful.
Surrounded by all the dust and sweat, we grew silent.
HUNTING FLIES (1969) DIRECTED BY ANDRZEJ WAJDA
They got in, glanced around, made a strong impression, and left.
My mother had a madly colourful coat.
It was a quilted, Tibetan or Mongolian-style coat,
with flowers.
When she was walking, everyone stopped and stared.
They made comments or recognized her.
She was simply glowing, her hair and all.
This is my first memory. A beautiful woman. My mum.
They met in Paris
when Andrzej Wajda and Małgosia were going to Cannes
with Hunting Flies.
Andrzej Żuławski met her...
COMPOSER
...and probably fell in love with her at once.
When Andrzej earned his first big money in France...
ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI'S BROTHER
...he decided to buy a Porsche 911.
He got into his Porsche, went to Warsaw,
met Małgosia, and that's how it started.
It was the most beautiful couple.
If glossy magazines and gossip shows had existed back then,
they would have been their favourite couple.
I remember there was a man...
FILM DIRECTOR
...who graduated from a Paris university, which was attractive.
He was a famous writer's son, which was also interesting.
And he was handsome like a movie star.
So we wondered why he wanted to make films.
His appearance was enough to make a career.
I think people in Poland must have perceived him
not as an enemy,
but as an astonishing creature, something like E.T.
Something came from another planet,
looked different, had different clothes,
spoke a different language, expressed different opinions.
It was an extraordinary phenomenon.
He was ignored by Polish filmmakers. "He's not one of us."
He was considered a French-speaking snob.
I saw him drink two shots of vodka in a row,
making a show of it,
to prove he was one of them
and didn't need to drink champagne for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I studied in IDHEC, a film school in Paris,
because my father...
My father, a Polish writer, worked for UNESCO.
As a teenager, I lived in Paris, where I passed my finals.
ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI'S STUDENT FILM
He attended the Paris Film School for two and a half years.
So, when he graduated, he was barely nineteen years old.
In a Paris cinema,
he saw a film that gave him an idea who he wanted to become.
It was Canal by Andrzej Wajda.
CANAL (1956) DIRECTED BY ANDRZEJ WAJDA
It was his most admired film by Wajda.
Since he was affected by this type of films,
namely films shot in Polish,
he'd been dreaming of one thing:
making films in Poland and becoming Wajda's assistant.
My brother went to an audition for a film by Wajda.
The audition was held by Żuławski, whom my brother mistook for Wajda.
He copied his mentor, he even wore the same leather jacket.
My brother didn't know Wajda, so he mistook Żuławski for the director.
After my graduation, I went to Poland
to become Andrzej Wajda's assistant.
Or Washda, as you call him.
- Am I pronouncing it wrong? - It's the French pronunciation.
To me, he was a god. And I wanted to work with him.
Owing to Wajda's help, he made two thirty-minute films.
These films paved the way for his feature debut.
Andrzej Wajda was his creative mentor on The Third Part of the Night.
THE GENERATION (1954) ANDRZEJ WAJDA'S FILM DEBUT
THE THIRD PART OF THE NIGHT (1971) ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI'S FILM DEBUT
My father, a young poet, spent five years
feeding typhus-infected lice with his blood.
Thanks to that, he had the immunity from arrest.
He was a high-ranking resistance member
in a city condemned to extermination.
Until I was fifteen, I had to sleep with the light on.
My younger sister froze to death during the war.
All my relatives died except for my parents.
My parents left for work, I stayed alone at home.
There was nobody to help them.
I was about three years old.
I used to go out on the balcony.
At the end of our street, there was a grass embankment.
Behind it, there were a cemetery and a park.
The Germans decided to shoot the Poles over there.
So I stayed on the balcony,
watching them dig holes in the ground
and have their mouths plastered.
This is my earliest memory ever.
Andrzej was interested...
SCREENWRITER
...in an extremely pessimistic vision of the world:
Gnostics, Frankists, Cathars...
He studied those philosophies from his earliest years.
This is the essence of his beliefs,
that the material world is completely evil.
And...
The creator of this world, the biblical God,
is an evil demiurge,
who keeps our godly sparks captive
in this prison, in this horrible evil matter.
The rest of his life unfolded as it did,
because that's how he was programmed.
That was the demiurge pattern
that went on to infect everything else in his life.
Camera! Roll!
DEVIL TONE VIDEO
A new Polish film titled The Devil is shot near Wałbrzych.
It's directed by Andrzej Żuławski.
To make it stronger, you must take a step back.
Just a step back, otherwise it won't work.
Right? Again, please.
What's your film about?
One of the journalists reporting from the set is right to claim
The Devil is about the infectiousness of evil.
I want this film to be truly disturbing and scary.
THE DEVIL (1972) DIRECTED BY ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI
Andrzej started making this film when we were expecting a baby.
ACTRESS, ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI'S WIFE
And it was the film... I was waiting for a baby I really wanted,
preparing myself for becoming a mother,
while Andrzej was shooting the most brutal film he'd ever made.
Deep inside, I was somehow against that.
And yet, I was in that movie.
I must say it was the moment,
when my perception of being an actress, of what art was,
began to change a little.
In a way, I stopped believing, that art was absolutely everything
and one had to give up everything for art.
The Devil caused quite a scandal.
Communist Party officials jumped up from their seats,
yelling it was outrageous.
"Who gave him the money?!"
Insults were flying.
They said the film was disgusting.
Of course, the movie was shelved.
It ended with a short conversation
with a young man in a café.
He said he was Lieutenant Roman.
He passed me a passport under the table.
The Poles didn't have passports back then.
He said I was strongly advised
to leave Poland within 24 hours.
And I did.
I left my wife and child behind.
He said if things went well
my wife would be permitted to join me.
I never imagined I'd have to leave Poland.
As far as my family, traditions, and my personality are concerned,
I'm deeply rooted in Poland.
So it was sad, because I didn't want to leave.
I didn't quite love it out there.
Andrzej Żuławski, the director of The Third Part of the Night,
came to France to make That Most Important Thing: Love.
Romy Schneider is currently
the most in-demand actress in France.
I've faced problems
typical of people older than me.
I'm thirty-three.
What is a couple? How to be together?
What rights do we have as a couple and lovers?
Where's the line we can cross?
Once again!
-Again! - I love you.
- I love... I can't... - Of course you can!
No, I can't do it! It's too...
- You signed a contract! - But...
What do we pay you for?! Go!
- But... - No "buts". Do it!
Get into it... Feel it.
Good!
Put more life into it, you love him.
Again. Again!
Good!
Again! Attention! Go!
- I love you. - Again.
Again... Go!
The film took the viewers by storm. It was screened everywhere.
All European newspapers wrote about it.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO LOVE THIS FILM
THAT MOST IMPORTANT THING: LOVE
After The Third Part of the Night,
he made That Most Important Thing: Love.
Here, he transferred the atmosphere
of violence, terror, and panic
to the world of Paris actors and photographers.
Żuławski shakes up French cinema,
which I think is very healthy.
You must see this film, because Żuławski is a great director.
CELEBRATING CINEMA
We're celebrating the 30th anniversary of Polish cinema.
In the 1970s, we became not only a significant film industry...
HEAD OF THE FILM INDUSTRY 1973-77
...but also a dynamic production industry.
Foreigners were surprised to see Poland makes such epic films.
It was possible, because that's what the authorities needed.
That's what they wanted.
Generally, Edward Gierek had an understanding attitude to culture.
He knew that cultural politics,
promoting arts and culture of a given country,
would win international support, which he tried to seek.
When I was responsible for the film industry,
there were such films as The Deluge...
The Promised Land,
and Nights and Days.
All these films were nominated for Oscars.
Everyone envied us.
Not only people in communist countries,
but also in Western Europe.
They had no idea how it all happened.
So they started to woo
Andrzej Żuławski and Jerzy Skolimowski,
namely the directors who were highly successful abroad.
They were asked to do something for Poland.
The Polish Embassy got in touch with me at once.
They said it was some misunderstanding with The Devil.
"Why don't you go back to Poland?
We can find an amicable solution..."
I was told, "Mr. Andrzej, bring us a subject.
Shoot a film, that will make everyone happy,
and The Devil will be released. This is our condition."
So I returned at once.
There was no chance it would work.
Fire and water.
Their lives went seperate ways...
Mum chose Buddhism, Dad - art.
My father was all excited by various events and emotions...
While my mother was...
"This is evil."
"This is good."
"Here's light, there's darkness."
And with my father, these things kept mixing all the time.
Their separation was so stormy,
that they decided I should stay at my grandparents'
and not witness the divorce process.
I stayed there for about two years.
I went to an African kindergarten, it was fun.
None of my father's relationships really worked out.
Because he was...
He was simply preoccupied with himself.
It gnawed at him until the end of his life.
I think he was unable to...
Or perhaps he didn't want to accept the fact,
that someone might have left him.
It was his hurt pride.
It wasn't that he lost the love of his life,
but his pride was hurt.
She left him for another man,
who could do what Andrzej could not.
And that man made her stay until the end.
They never broke up while his relationships always failed.
He was so desperate and depressed,
that I thought he might even hurt himself.
It was a good base to start this film.
His despair.
This trilogy has been part of my family
since the beginning of the 20th century.
These books were written around the turn of the century.
BASE ON THE MOON
I read them when I was a teenager.
They are disturbing and perhaps the saddest books I've read.
Back then, I returned to Poland to take my wife and son to France,
but it turned out I had no family,
because it had disintegrated while I was gone.
I looked after my son and was really lonely.
The sadness and despair of these books...
They probably echoed within me.
I felt closer to them.
And this is how I got into The Silver Globe.
Film slate!
JUNE 1976 1ST MONTH OF SHOOTING
We're shooting the film at the seaside.
We'll be also shooting in the Wieliczka Salt Mine,
in the Gobi desert in Mongolia,
in the Caucasus Mountains.
In Georgia,
we've found an amazing, strange city
carved in stone in the 11th century.
On the Silver Globe is...
ACTOR, "MAREK, THE CONQUEROR"
...a paraphrase of the Old and the New Testaments.
A group of astronauts leaves the Earth
to build a new world that would be better
than the one they escape from.
They fail.
When people on Earth send another expedition,
it consists of one man, whom the locals take for a god.
It's really cool.
As for my character called Marek,
what I find beautiful about this character
is the fact that his individual suffering
caused by a woman who betrayed him,
the suffering that made Marek escape the world he lived in,
changes into the collective suffering of the society he lives in now.
Marek becomes a liberator.
The leader, the guide.
Working on The Promised Land, I didn't feel it was an exceptional film.
Yet, right from the start,
from my first meeting with Andrzej Żuławski,
I knew we were making something extraordinary and fresh.
VISIONS OUT OF THIS WORLD, BEGINING OF THE SPACE EPIC
It was innovative in every aspect...
SET DESIGNER
...art direction, mise en scène, cinematography.
No one made such films back then.
Andrzej was making On the Silver Globe
in the same year as Lucas shot Star Wars.
Andrzej knew he'd never make it in Western Europe.
No one would finance it.
Set!
Ready! Camera!
ON THE SET OF MAN OF MARBLE, JULY 1976
Wajda advised Żuławski against making On the Silver Globe.
Wajda thought this film was too big for the Polish film industry.
We began shooting this film...
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
...when Poland was living in poverty.
Shops were empty. But in the budget, there were millions.
We were going to make a sci-fi, high-tech movie.
We decided the Silver Globe high tech
would be the post-Soviet high tech.
Namely, high technology
but with hammers, nails, and pieces of string
that tie everything together.
And it works.
I greatly admire the depiction of that reality.
That world was invented and created.
In the times of rags and patches, it was incredible success.
It can't have gone well. And yet, it did.
So Żuławski's vision, conviction, and pressure
made the crew ram into that reality and change it.
Andrzej wasn't...
ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER
...easy on himself.
He was absolutely determined to make this film.
He was always attentive, present, and the first one to arrive.
He examined and had to accept every single detail.
He often corrected the things we made, too little, too much, and so on.
He was a guru in a way.
People believed in what he said.
They didn't argue,
ready to go through fire and water for him,
that is, do what he wanted.
The assistants were scared of him.
They were afraid to ask
if he wanted to do anything else that day.
They always sent a victim who risked their life.
I think that if you face a person who respects you,
who chose you,
who is deeply convinced
that his ideas are absolutely right,
then you follow him, no doubt.
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR
Żuławski made each of us better than we really were.
I'd never had so many ideas or been so creative and brilliant.
I couldn't keep up with taking notes,
I had so many ideas while talking to him.
It was a real revelation to me.
During the shoot, we felt as if high.
We were full of intense emotions and creative euphoria.
I think this is Andrzej's only movie,
in which the crew was a sort of family.
Everyone was deeply involved in this film
and fascinated by what happened on the set every day.
Andrzej wasn't just making this film.
He and the crew were living in this film.
THE POLISH PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC IS A SOCIALIST STATE
In the 1970s, in communist Poland,
everyday life was extremely hard.
There was shortage of everything.
Long queues in shops with empty shelves.
At times, there was nothing to buy but vinegar, tea or mustard.
People were sort of stuck, busy with everyday trivial activities.
Plus, never-ending lies on TV:
"Life in Poland is oh so wonderful, we're developing so fast."
I couldn't stand it.
Leaving all that
and entering the set where such a film was being made,
was an escape from reality.
I can't describe it with words.
I have to dance it.
Andrzej dragged us,
let us,
and invited us into his profound,
complex, fascinating,
both deeply emotional and intellectual world.
We felt honoured
we could touch that world.
Back then, director's cinema flourished.
SECOND PRODUCTION MANAGER
So the crew thought
that the director was a great god,
so he would cope with everything and take all the key decisions,
necessary to make the movie happen.
So, in fact, the scale of the film depended solely on the director.
Andrzej kept writing all the time.
He added lines, handed them to us, and told us to play our parts.
When I think about it now,
I believe some of the lines he added to the script,
must have been...
quotations from his diary.
The hours of lead...
The nights of lead... The heart of lead...
The heartache has turned into lead.
Thoughts of lead about nothing, about lead.
Lead cancer devouring the body, liquid like an amoeba.
The amoeba of my selfishness.
I'm a lonely prince in an ice-cold room
in the ice-cold space.
I carry my own space within me
in an absurd country in an absurd time.
In my opinion, Andrzej's life and art
were meant to be closely intertwined.
I prefer to attach myself to something I've experienced
and turn it into fiction, create something else.
I think such an attitude towards life and cinema is noble.
Where's the truth? What is true?
My father confused things on purpose.
She was beautiful and famous.
Yes.
You never loved her.
I think this film...
We can't really say it's a biopic, obviously, but...
In my character, we find a lot of traits of Andrzej Żuławski,
details from his personal life.
Some call it "an alter ego".
POLISH TELEVISION
PRESENTS
THE EVENING NEWS
POLISH TELEVISION NEWS
Here's the news about the trade volume between Poland and the USSR.
In the next five years, it will continue to rapidly increase
to reach 28 billion rubles.
Kieślowski of the State Film Company TOR.
FILMMAKERS MEET TV REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 1977
Television shows what reality should look like
and not what things really are.
There are many social issues in Poland that are never mentioned on TV.
I'm talking about the sort of issues
people talk and think about in real life,
not in official meetings.
DEPUTY HEAD OF POLISH TV 1976-77
I remember Janusz Wilhelmi very well.
Worst of all, he was a very intelligent person.
He supported the opposition.
FILM CRITIC, HEAD OF FILM PRODUCTION, POLISH TV 1972-81
At some point, he realized which way the wind was blowing
and it wasn't going to change its direction.
He thought he might make a career with the Party and the government.
Power is extremely appealing. It makes ideas real.
It's a common trap for intellectuals.
And Wilhelmi fell into that trap.
He was an excellent player.
First, he was the editor-in-chief of Kultura, a literary weekly.
The Party authorities thought he did a great job.
That's why he was promoted to the Deputy Head of Television.
Wilhelmi despised cinema.
Yet, he treated cinema as a tool to gain political influence.
One day, he decided
to turn from a Party intellectual into a politician.
We'd like to ask the filmmakers...
to understand our unique situation
and to collaborate.
We must rely on these young filmmakers,
because they are the future of cinema and art in general.
Therefore, we'd like to ask them
to collaborate with us a bit more closely.
We'll try as long as we succeed.
ON THE SILVER GLOBE
Old drifts in the Wieliczka Salt Mine
are now used as a shooting location.
JANUARY 1977 8TH MONTH OF SHOOTING
Marek, an earthling, is played by Andrzej Seweryn.
The novel On the Silver Globe was written by Jerzy Żuławski
at the time when space travel was still a fantasy.
He created inhabitants of the dark side of the Moon,
the terrifying Deathlings.
Andrzej Żuławski, the director,
tries to retain the book's gloomy atmosphere.
Deathlings!
I don't believe you have only your fathers' traits!
You must have a human trait taken from your mothers!
I'm appealing to the human element within you!
Deathlings!
Your lives will be spared if you join us,
if you follow us!
The Wieliczka scenes were the hardest sequence to shoot.
At least one miner had to go down to the mine with us.
There were some places where we had to get down,
actually lower ourselves down the steep wall.
Some people were too scared, so we used ropes to help them.
Still, they went into hysterics.
Then we'd march down disused drifts to a given location.
About three kilometres underground.
We'd shoot a few scenes,
using non-sparking equipment because of methane.
There were special ventilators and a safe, non-sparking generator.
It was an impressive demonstration of dexterity
on the part of the cinematographer, Andrzej Jaroszewicz.
A few hours later, we had to go back.
Every day for several shooting days.
inaudible
... from your mothers.
ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI DIRECTOR, 1976
inaudible
The rest of you, turn aroud!
Turn around!
Laugh!
The Wieliczka Salt Mine...
PROP MAKER
It's stuck in my mind, because I'm a heavy smoker.
We spent about 12 hours underground.
And it was hard to stand it.
People used to eat sweets.
I couldn't.
I went through hell,
which I survived
thanks to my involvement in what was going on.
I'd leave a cinema
as I couldn't stand two hours without a cigarette.
Over there, I could stand half a day.
inaudible
Everyone agreed to everything.
COSTUME DESIGNER
Actors agreed to wear extremely uncomfortable costumes.
Under any other circumstances, they'd have protested.
They'd have refused.
Henryk Talar was wearing a coat,
that two stuntmen threw on him when the camera started rolling.
It was too heavy for one person while he had to perform in it.
The man playing the Shern
had to wear a costume, which was real torture.
He walked into the sea with those wires. Various things happened.
BARBARA KOMOSIŃSKA ASSISTANT OF STAGE DESIGNER
But he could stand it bravely,
because he was truly wound up.
He felt he was that character, not himself.
He was someone that Żuławski created. And he believed that.
My Lord! I'm trying so hard!
Andrzej often expected us to be in a sort of trance.
To reach the limits of our strength and the end of our tether.
To go to extremes.
To be deeply engaged in emotional terms.
On the edge.
...inteligent, efficient...
The Earth, the planet whence you came. What is it?
Andrzej says, "Cut!"
and I stand up and ask, "How was it?"
I thought he was going to kill me.
According to his understanding of how actors should work,
I wasn't supposed to be strong enough to stand up.
But I really did my very best.
If Andrzej Seweryn let his eyelids be glued with Superglue...
He did that for the crucifixion scene
shot at the beginning of April.
He was hung on the cross several times.
Then, he was removed.
He was taken to a tent with a radiator, so that he'd warm up.
And he was back on the cross.
The last shoot by the sea started in March.
MARCH 1977 10TH MONTH OF SHOOTING
It was terribly cold.
Each of us was wearing two hats and a hood,
and still my hands were freezing in two pairs of gloves.
Considering the weather, it was hard.
Yet, the locations were beautiful.
Truly amazing.
You get to the point when you have to plead guilty,
surrender, and let your fillings out,
as if admitting that it's the only internal thing.
The sight of these fillings means renouncing the secret,
disposing of yourself.
As for impaling the stuntmen,
the first problem was getting old telegraph poles into the ground.
The stuntmen waited in the tents
for a signal to climb up the ladders to the top of the poles.
Close-up shots were taken.
Once the take was over, they ran down the ladders
and drank vodka to be ready for a retake.
One of the hardest shots to prepare,
an extreme shot, to be precise,
was a shot of the protagonist's hand being nailed to the cross.
Żuławski said we couldn't use a trick tool with a retractable blade.
It should be a different tool. "Come up with something!"
"You guys can handle anything."
Meanwhile, I ordered a fake hand to be made in Wrocław.
But what we got was terrible.
These were pink sausages falling apart.
It didn't look like a human hand at all.
Finally... I didn't participate in that.
The production manager talked to the prop manager,
who went to Elbląg
and returned with a mortuary specialist
and a hand.
After the principal photography, a small crew gathered one day.
That hand was nailed to the cross
and the shot was included in the film.
Yes, the hand was real. There was also a priest present.
We did that in a manner...
We didn't do anything dishonourable.
The hand had been used by the Medical Academy before.
We saw to it that it was done decently.
Who?
What?
Why?
In the script, Marek's last lines were different.
"I loved her so much. It hurts."
The film was shot in very difficult conditions.
Mr. Sobański witnessed that,
watching the production from up close.
Back then, Poland's economy was collapsing.
It was the end of the Gierek era, 1976.
And the beginning of the serious crisis.
Set elements were not made on time.
It took a long time and a lot of money to make this film,
because of downtime and waiting for things to be made.
We didn't foresee all the difficulties, that arose in the production process.
The set decoration? It'll arrive in three weeks.
Costumes? Not ready. Something else? Not done. And so on.
These were stressful experiences, because we kept thinking
we wouldn't be able to shoot certain scenes,
something would be missing.
I don't want to blame the production crew.
I think the general situation in Poland was to blame.
That everyday struggle depressed us constantly.
The shoot in the mine took place in January,
when days are very short.
When I got down, it was dark, when I came out, it was dark.
After one month, I felt terrible.
I couldn't sleep at night, I had nightmares,
chopped off heads jumping on my quilt
or lizzards hanging around my room.
I was thrown against the wall.
Now I realize I was suffering from severe depression.
Physical and mental exhaustion may lead to such disturbances.
The work was so gruelling for every department on the set,
that people couldn't stand it.
The director's assistant and a volunteer,
the one who played the Shern,
went into psychiatric treatment.
Some crew members simply ran away.
At one point, the set manager ran away
and had to be replaced at once.
On the Silver Globe...
The film itself, everything it shows,
and everything that happened during the production...
on a few levels, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So many departed, but only few have returned.
The war, diseases...
I've been told you did everything humanly possible.
Humanly... And nothing more.
Things began to feel weird on the set.
No one knew what would happen next.
Everyone was sort of numb, hanging around.
We were tired, the costumes were partly ruined.
We knew that if it went on like that, we wouldn't make it.
It was extremely hard.
All the initial excitement and enthusiasm disappeared.
Everyone felt nothing, but utter exhaustion.
Such issues accumulate, piling up.
And at some point, there's a crash.
Everyone starts to look for someone to blame.
Who's to blame? Always the leader.
ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI'S DIARY. 23 MAY 1977. 12TH MONTH OF SHOOTING
"This adventure is over. They can even halt this film,
which is superfluous, extravagant, and so unobvious.
I have already learnt what I was supposed to learn.
I've done a somersault and made a turn. I'm banished."
ANDRZEJ WAJDA FILM
MAN OF MARBLE
Man of Marble incited hatred.
It was like a slap in the face for the Party.
They wanted to show super-productive workers,
what happened after the war,
the construction of the Nowa Huta district.
The film was supposed to praise it all.
But, in fact, Man of Marble exposed the facade of that era.
It shows the rebellion of a working-class man,
who was meant to be a pillar of the communist system.
Yet, he throws a brick.
There were comments, that the film was politically improper.
But it was important to release the film in cinemas.
The film made news.
International news.
The wind of change is blowing over Poland,
a country on its path to liberalization.
This crowd has gathered outside the cinema
that shows Andrzej Wajda's latest film.
Man of Marble criticizes socialism...
Reacting to this, serious European newspapers claimed
that Gierek continued to open up
politically and socially to democracy.
The film had to be released,
so that this good reputation wouldn't be ruined.
This film wouldn't have been shown in Warsaw a few years ago.
People, afraid it would be banned,
are queuing for hours to watch it.
I'm talking to Gilles Jacob,
the new director of the Cannes Film Festival.
At that time,
I was trying to show banned Polish films.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 1977-2001
I smuggled Wajda's films into the Festival twice.
One was obviously Man of Marble,
which was screened as a "surprise" film,
because I knew
the representatives of Polish authorities in Cannes
would try to stop the screening.
The reception of the film was so great,
that the journalists reproached me
for not including it in the main competition.
The New York Times review of the film
appeared not in the cinema section,
but on a page devoted to politics.
Wajda had a political talent.
No matter what regime came to power,
he was able to take his films as far as it was allowed.
This is an incredible gift,
you're standing on the edge of a precipice,
but you know how far you can go.
He was always awarded
and appreciated for that.
He was able to grasp the reality of the moment.
I don't have this gift.
I always took too many steps and fell into holes.
The cultural politics of the communist government fluctuated.
Tightening the screws was intermingled
with a relatively liberal approach.
Man of Marble was shot during such a liberal period.
In 1976, the authorities tightened the screws hard.
And then, Janusz Wilhelmi turned out to be useful.
Will you be a servant?
Against whom, my Lord?
I was summoned to the Central Committee of the Party
by Jerzy Łukaszewicz,
who was a Politburo and Central Committee member.
And he told me
there were certain reasons
why the Politburo no longer trusted me.
The main reason was the film industry.
Not only, however. Still, the main reason was films.
And I was dismissed
from the post of the Deputy Head of the Film Industry.
And that's how it ended.
Wilhelmi spotted his chance.
He wanted to come across as a person capable
of disciplining the entire film industry.
He said, "I know them inside out.
I know exactly where to hit them, with what tool,
and how to make them eat out of my hand."
He wanted to turn the Polish film industry
into a department of the Polish Television.
We wouldn't have survived if he had done it.
- I've watched your footage. - And?
Frankly, you've crossed all possible limits.
We do support young filmmakers, but we're not a charity.
I haven't received your film yet.
From now on, you have no access to the camera or tape.
You're out of your mind.
So how am I to finish my film?
This is Production Report No. 248, 1st June 1977.
"The production of On the Silver Globe has been halted
by the Deputy Minister of Culture, Janusz Wilhelmi.
The Head of the State Film Companies sent us this message at 5 p.m.
The final parameters stated in this report,
working days in total 473, days off 106,
calendar days in total 579.
Camera negative used for screen tests, 5155 metres.
For the shoot, 21,694 metres.
Film stock meters in total, 3626,
which accounts for 72.5% of the film.
Number of stills, 2150."
I found out like everyone else.
We were told that was it, the film had been halted.
What? Why?
We drank for two days. Andrzej went away.
I remember it was in the morning.
We were getting ready for the shoot.
But it turned out the shoot had been halted.
The news came like a bolt of lightning, out of the blue.
We didn't see it coming at all.
Żuławski might have expected such a decision.
There had been warning signs,
that the atmosphere around the film wasn't too good,
getting worse and worse.
Yet, he took it very badly.
He started to cry.
He said he was treated like dog shit.
He asked to be taken to Warsaw.
- You didn't have any luck with Poland. - But who did?
We tried to meet Wilhelmi.
We wrote a letter, trying to appeal to his common sense,
which was naive on our part, obviously.
Yet, we thought it was the only thing we could do.
He said he didn't care.
"Poland can't afford such productions.
Just like we can't afford to build the Concorde plane.
Other countries can, of course. But we can't."
He said we were experts on cinema, but he was an expert on finances.
And this was a decision he'd taken.
We were told to secure the material,
dismiss the film crew, and send everyone home.
We couldn't take everything
to the State Film Company in Wrocław.
We cleaned and packed the most representative objects,
like costumes of the leading actors
or the set design elements suitable for storing.
The production manager made a decision
and we buried the rest at a landfill.
HALTED PRODUCTION OF ON THE SILVER GLOBE
THE FILM THAT WON'T BE FINISHED
Wilhelmi didn't care about censorship.
The film wasn't halted on censorship grounds.
He didn't care about the overspent budget either. It wasn't important.
I think halting the production was just for show.
Wilhemi wanted to show,
he was in charge of the film industry now
and had the power to humiliate Andrzej Żuławski,
a filmmaker appreciated in Poland and abroad,
and adored in France.
Wilhelmi could also humiliate Ścibor-Rylski,
who managed the State Film Company, that made the movie,
and who also wrote the film hated by the Party,
Man of Marble.
He couldn't suddenly attack Andrzej Wajda.
The only person he could possibly harass
was Andrzej Żuławski with his unfinished film.
There was no one to back Żuławski up.
Back then, the Polish Filmmakers' Association
couldn't do anything about it.
Żuławski, being an independent filmmaker,
aroused extreme envy in his fellow colleagues.
It probably stopped them from showing any solidarity.
Some people believed Żuławski was a French film director.
Perhaps that's why they didn't want to fight for him.
He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We're talking about a film that turned into a legend.
Let's hope it will ever be the only example
of how an arbitrary, rude decision...
can forbid a filmmaker to finish his or her work.
This is the worst punishment for an artist.
Afterwards, he had no choice.
Two secret agents in black leather coats
came to see him
and handed him a passport.
They told him to leave Poland in 24 or 48 hours.
A one-way trip.
My father, a Polish ambassador in Africa,
was based in Dakar.
When I paid him a visit,
I met a caretaker at his house.
This man came from a remote area of the country.
He was an extraordinary person.
I asked him once if he could help me.
My life was quite difficult and limited.
My family got stuck in Poland, taken hostage by the government.
I needed an object that would protect me
from enormous evil forces I had to face alone,
without a passport.
He nodded and a few months later,
my mother brought me this...
This is a shaman's item
from a remote part of Mali.
It's a jacket.
I keep an eye on it, as it protects my home and me.
Here it is. I put it on only once.
What did they do to you?
My second film was halted, I was prohibited from working.
I had no idea how to provide for my child.
So I put on this jacket,
having drunk too much vodka.
I thought, "We'll see."
The next day, the man reponsible for all that,
the Minister of Culture, was killed in a plane crash.
Andrzej's story about the shaman... I didn't know that.
But there's another tragic anecdote.
I was coming back from the first screening.
We watched a very rough cut of On the Silver Globe.
After the screening, my wife told me
Mr. Wilhelmi had been killed in a plane crash.
We were speechless, it was...
If the screening hadn't taken place, would the plane have crashed?
You suddenly start asking stupid questions.
Yes, it was...
These things happen sometimes.
THE COUCH
HENRY CHAPIER'S COACH
Tonight, we present Andrzej Żuławski.
He's a famous Polish filmmaker,
for whom Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani, Valérie Kaprisky
and recently Sophie Marceau in Mad Love,
have played their best roles.
A resident of both France and Poland,
he gained film experience as Wajda's assistant.
He made a brilliant debut,
but came into conflict with Polish censors.
Now, there's a plan to finish On the Silver Globe.
WARSAW, DECEMBER 1985
KRZYSZTOF TOEPLITZ STUDIO COMPANY KADR
We still remember the dramatic story of this film,
which was halted in 1977, if I'm right.
There's more than three thousand metres of the footage,
which seems incredibly fresh and innovative.
Cinema would greatly benefit from the completion of this film.
The few years that have passed,
don't affect its topicality or artistic quality.
Andrzej Żuławski has come here to discuss this issue.
He agreed to reconsider finishing his film.
And after eight years, we might see On the Silver Globe
in cinemas in Poland and worldwide,
because this is a world-class film.
I'm happy to hear Krzysztof praise On the Silver Globe.
I haven't seen it for more than five years.
The world cinema has moved both downward and forward.
Back then, I was allowed to go to Wrocław and edit the film.
I did the editing in a rush,
so that people could see anything at all,
because everyone talked about a film that didn't exist.
Fragments of a working cut of On the Silver Globe .
I have a theory about cinema.
It's not carved in marble.
It's all fleeting.
If you watch a movie a few years too late,
it might turn out it's irrelevant, stale.
It has no message, no flavour, no point,
while it still had all these things eight years earlier.
I'm trying to put myself in his place.
It must have been... a hard time for him.
Especially if things changed in Poland
and they let him finish the film.
Now? What's done is done.
ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI - DIRECTOR, 1986
It turned out it was impossible to finish the film,
to shoot more scenes.
The actors were gone, the costumes were gone...
The enthusiasm was gone.
All you can do is run around town with a camera.
Add new scenes to the existing cut.
Andrzej chose an interesting approach.
He filmed the streets of Warsaw in different settings.
And he commented off-screen
what the missing scenes were to show.
...the POV of Marek's camera.
The camera has motion and heat detectors.
There was nothing else he could do.
I took Marta's and Piotr's cameras.
They were no longer interested in what happened to us.
I poured their memories into mine.
I delete insignificant fragments, leaving the gist.
This recording serves nobody but me.
I must be cautious.
It costs them a lot, while it costs me so little.
This's super.
Why? Nothing.
I don't expect anything.
- I don't believe in anything... - Yes, this is much better...
It's much better, sure.
... ours, mine perfect freedom.
CANNES MAY 1988
Andrzej Żuławski showed me some excerpts of his film.
And I thought it was a very important telluric movie,
in which you could see the birth of a distinguished director.
I call them "directors-demiurges".
Demiurges are people who mold the world in their own likeness.
THE COACH
You don't want to make a programme about cinema.
Excuse me, I am the cinema!
You can't separate these two.
They go hand in hand.
My life plan is not a set of intellectual ideas.
This is just a perfect harmony
of what I do and who I am.
It means anything he did,
had to be directed by him.
If he met his relatives
or invited his family to his place,
he was the director of the entire day.
"We'll do this, we'll do that..."
Every single detail.
"What car should I buy?"
Andrzej will tell you.
"What perfume should I buy?"
Andrzej will tell you.
All the elements of this world
had to match his vision.
In his world, he gave a name to each of us.
He cast us in particular roles.
And we played those roles until his death.
"The wife that abandoned him."
"The eldest son, as faithful as a dog."
One can stick to such labels forever.
It's his projection.
Who are you? Are you a loving father?
Not at all.
If we're to find negative qualities...
- No! - No, that's important.
I love kids, but I'm not capable of being a real father.
Whenever you caught up with him
or agreed to mount the same horse he was riding...
I don't know how to put it... You could stay there with him.
But whenever you came up with your own ideas for anything,
my father gave up on you.
Mind you, I keep saying "I..."
I say "I" and, perhaps, that's why I'm a film director.
Directing is one of the most egoistical activities.
Another, even more egoistical one, is holding power.
Being a politician.
Yet, politicians impose their will
on people who might not want it,
but are still obliged to accept it,
because of the rules of democracy.
Directing is complicated.
You impose a rule on people
and make them want to accept it.
It's more complicated and perverse.
My father had a hell of an ego.
His ego made him do what he did.
It somehow suited him, I would say.
We're here to inaugurate
the section called Un Certain Regard.
The message of this Festival is,
"Everything for cinema, nothing else,
anything that's necessary and good for cinema."
I think the gesture of Andrzej Żuławski,
whose film will open this section,
symbolizes what we want for this Festival.
I'm not going to say much, because I'm really moved.
The story of this film is dramatic.
We started shooting it in Poland ten years ago.
Then it was halted and seized by the authorities.
We could finish it only now.
You are the first real audience who will watch it.
I can't say my father taught me anything.
I can say he showed me something.
And what he showed me was...
uncompromising freedom to live your life as you wish.
Life as it was.
He hated all those... burdens
and that waltz, that dance that we start doing
to get what we want,
while he wanted to play his own game.
He surely suffered,
when he was rejected and misunderstood,
just because he had his own free language.
Free from everything.
My name is Andrzej Żuławski.
I'm the director of On the Silver Globe.
Cut!
AFTER ITS PREMIERE IN 1988, ON THE SILVER GLOBE HAD A VERY SHORT RUN
FOR MANY YEARS, ACCESS TO THE FILM WAS LIMITED
IN 2016 DANIEL BIRD INITIATED A DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FILM
THE WORK WAS SUPERVISED BY ANDRZEJ JAROSZEWICZ
The Earth, what is it?
Subtitle translation by: Magdalena Cedro