Focus Features

Krzysztof Kieslowski

The Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski was one of the most prominent filmmakers who struggled to reflect the reality of life during the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.

He began by making documentaries, but eventually achieved recognition with The Decalogue, a series of 10 one-hour films set on a Warsaw housing estate, each one reflecting one of the Ten Commandments. One of them, A Short Film about Killing, established him as a world-class filmmaker. In both documentary and fiction he strove to depict reality as it was and not as the Communists claimed it to be.

After the success of The Decalogue, he made only The Double Life of Veronique and Three Colors: Red, White, Blue. His death at the age of 54 was an irreparable loss to cinema.

Here is Kieslowski reflecting on his life as a filmmaker:  

“Film-making doesn't mean audiences, festivals, reviews, interviews. It means getting up at six o'clock in the morning. It means the cold, the rain, the mud and having to carry heavy lights. It's a nerve-wracking business and, at a certain point, everything else has to come second, including your family, emotions and private life. Of course, engine drivers, businessmen or bankers would say the same thing about their jobs. No doubt they'd be right, but I do my job and I'm writing about mine.

Perhaps I shouldn't be doing this job any more. I'm coming to the end of something essential to a filmmaker – namely, patience. I've got no patience for actors, lighting cameramen, the weather, for waiting around, for the fact that nothing turns out how I'd like it to. At the same time, I mustn't let this show. It takes a lot out of me, hiding my lack of patience from the crew. I think that the more sensitive ones know I'm not happy with this aspect of my personality. 

Filmmaking is the same all over the world: I'm given a corner on a small studio stage; there's a stray sofa over there, a table, a chair. In this make-believe interior, my stern instructions sound grotesque: Silence! Camera! Action! Once again I'm tortured by the thought that I'm doing an insignificant job. A few years ago, the French newspaper Liberationasked various directors why they made films. I answered at the time: "Because I don't know how to do anything else." It was the shortest reply and maybe that's why it got noticed. Or maybe because all of us filmmakers with the faces we pull, with the money we spend on films and the amounts we earn, with our pretensions to high society, so often have the feeling of how absurd our work is. I can understand Fellini and most of the others who build streets, houses and even artificial seas in the studio: in this way not so many people get to see the shameful and insignificant job of directing.

As so often happens when filming, something occurs which – for a while at least – causes this feeling of idiocy to disappear. This time it's four young French actresses. In a chance place, in inappropriate clothes, pretending that they've got props and partners, they act so beautifully that everything becomes real. They speak some fragments of dialogue, they smile or worry, and at that moment I can understand what it's all for.” 

Extract taken from Kieslowski on Kieslowski edited by Danusia Stok (Faber & Faber 1994).

Essential Viewing: Camera Buff [Buy], Blind Chance [Buy], No End [Buy], The Decalogue [Buy], Three Colors: Blue, White, Red [Buy]

Krzysztof Kieslowski

The Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski was one of the most prominent filmmakers who struggled to reflect the reality of life during the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.

He began by making documentaries, but eventually achieved recognition with The Decalogue, a series of 10 one-hour films set on a Warsaw housing estate, each one reflecting one of the Ten Commandments. One of them, A Short Film about Killing, established him as a world-class filmmaker. In both documentary and fiction he strove to depict reality as it was and not as the Communists claimed it to be.

After the success of The Decalogue, he made only The Double Life of Veronique and Three Colors: Red, White, Blue. His death at the age of 54 was an irreparable loss to cinema.

Here is Kieslowski reflecting on his life as a filmmaker:  

“Film-making doesn't mean audiences, festivals, reviews, interviews. It means getting up at six o'clock in the morning. It means the cold, the rain, the mud and having to carry heavy lights. It's a nerve-wracking business and, at a certain point, everything else has to come second, including your family, emotions and private life. Of course, engine drivers, businessmen or bankers would say the same thing about their jobs. No doubt they'd be right, but I do my job and I'm writing about mine.

Perhaps I shouldn't be doing this job any more. I'm coming to the end of something essential to a filmmaker – namely, patience. I've got no patience for actors, lighting cameramen, the weather, for waiting around, for the fact that nothing turns out how I'd like it to. At the same time, I mustn't let this show. It takes a lot out of me, hiding my lack of patience from the crew. I think that the more sensitive ones know I'm not happy with this aspect of my personality. 

Filmmaking is the same all over the world: I'm given a corner on a small studio stage; there's a stray sofa over there, a table, a chair. In this make-believe interior, my stern instructions sound grotesque: Silence! Camera! Action! Once again I'm tortured by the thought that I'm doing an insignificant job. A few years ago, the French newspaper Liberationasked various directors why they made films. I answered at the time: "Because I don't know how to do anything else." It was the shortest reply and maybe that's why it got noticed. Or maybe because all of us filmmakers with the faces we pull, with the money we spend on films and the amounts we earn, with our pretensions to high society, so often have the feeling of how absurd our work is. I can understand Fellini and most of the others who build streets, houses and even artificial seas in the studio: in this way not so many people get to see the shameful and insignificant job of directing.

As so often happens when filming, something occurs which – for a while at least – causes this feeling of idiocy to disappear. This time it's four young French actresses. In a chance place, in inappropriate clothes, pretending that they've got props and partners, they act so beautifully that everything becomes real. They speak some fragments of dialogue, they smile or worry, and at that moment I can understand what it's all for.” 

Extract taken from Kieslowski on Kieslowski edited by Danusia Stok (Faber & Faber 1994).

Essential Viewing: Camera Buff [Buy], Blind Chance [Buy], No End [Buy], The Decalogue [Buy], Three Colors: Blue, White, Red [Buy]