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PRESENTS A KUBA MIKURDA FILM

"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!

Camera!

Go!

Stronger!

Cut!

It lacks conviction.

It lacks conviction. Stronger!

Again.

Yes! Get angry! Get mad!

That's it!

Attention!

Camera!

Scene 62, shot six, take four.

Action!

Again!

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.

THIS FILM IS DEDICATED TO THE CREW OF "ON THE SILVER GLOBE"

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY

ESCAPE TO THE SILVER GLOBE

FILM DIRECTOR: - At the end of the 1960s,

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 was 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 recognised 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".

COMPOSER: - Andrzej Żuławski met her

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,

it would have been their favourite couple.

FILM DIRECTOR: - I remember there was a man

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 looks were 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.

A few times, 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 learnt and studied.

LA SORCIÈRE (1958) 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 "Kanal" by Andrzej Wajda.

KANAL (1956) DIRECTED BY ANDRZEJ WAJDA

It was his most admired film by Wajda.

Since he was affected

by this type of 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. To me, he was...

- Am I pronouncing it wrong? - It's the French pronunciation.

To me, he was a god. He was the best director in the world

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

For five years, my father - a young poet,

fed typhus-infected lice with his blood.

Thanks to that, he had documents that protected him

from being arrested.

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.

SCREENWRITER: - Andrzej was interested

in an extremely pessimistic vision of the world:

Gnostics, Frankists, Cathars...

He studied those philosophies from his earliest years.

This 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, 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!

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.

Again!

What's your film about?

One of the journalists reporting from the set was 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

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.

The movie was obviously 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.

Put more life into it, you love him.

Again!

- 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.

HEAD OF THE FILM INDUSTRY 1973-77

In the 1970s, we became not only a significant film industry,

but also

a dynamic production industry.

Foreigners were surprised to see Poland make such epic films.

It was possible because

the authorities needed and wanted that.

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 separate 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.

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 probably echoed within me.

I felt closer to them.

And this is how I got into "The Silver Globe".

JUNE 1976 FIRST 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.

ACTOR - MAREK THE CONQUEROR

"On the Silver Globe"... It is 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, Marek,

what I find beautiful about this character

is the fact that his individual suffering,

the 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 Land of Promise", 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.

"TAKE OUT OF THIS WORLD"

It was absolutely innovative

in terms of every aspect:

SET DESIGNER: art direction, mise en scène, cinematography.

No one made such films back then.

Andrzej was making "On the Silver Globe" the same year

Lucas shot "Star Wars".

Andrzej knew he'd never make it in Western Europe.

No one would finance it.

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.

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

We began shooting this film

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.

ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER

Andrzej wasn't 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.

Back then, 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

to 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

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 REPRESENTATIVES OF POLISH TELEVISION. JANUARY 1977

Television shows what reality should look like.

Television doesn't show 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 that

people talk and think about in real life,

not in official meetings.

DEPUTY HEAD OF POLISH TELEVISION 1976-1977

I remember Janusz Wilhelmi very well.

Worst of all, he was a very intelligent person.

FILM CRITIC, HEAD OF POLISH TELEVISION FILM PRODUCTION 1972-81

He used to support the opposition. But at some point,

he realised which way the wind was blowing

and it wasn't going to change its direction for some time.

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. His first job 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 EIGHTH 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.

ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI - DIRECTOR, 1976

Laugh!

PROP MAKER: - The Wieliczka Salt Mine...

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 only 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.

COSTUME DESIGNER

Everyone agreed to everything.

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.

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.

This 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 TENTH 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 lizards hanging around my room.

I was thrown against the wall.

Now I realise 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 actor, the director's assistant and a volunteer, 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 JOURNAL. 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."

AN 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 liberalisation.

This crowd has gathered outside the cinema

that shows Andrzej Wajda's latest film.

"Man of Marble" criticises 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 such a political talent

that 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 able to discipline the entire film industry.

He said: "I know them inside out."

"I know exactly where to hit them,"

"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 gone ahead with his plan.

- 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, 1 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 as of the day of 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 out of the blue.

We didn't see it coming.

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.

- He just didn't have any luck with Poland. - 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.

THE 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.

In my opinion, halting the production of "On the Silver Globe"

was just for show.

Wilhelmi 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, because it protects my home and me.

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 responsible for all that,

the Minister of Culture and Arts,

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 COUCH

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.

WARSAW, DECEMBER 1985 - Now, there's a plan to finish

"On the Silver Globe".

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 ago.

I'm trying to put myself in his place.

It must have been a hard time for him.

Especially when 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 supposed 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.

Why? I don't expect anything.

I don't believe in anything...

It's much better, sure.

My perfect freedom.

CANNES MAY 1988

Andrzej Żuławski showed me

some excerpts of his film.

And I thought

that it was a very important, telluric work.

in which you could see the birth of a distinguished director.

I call them "directors-demiurges".

Demiurges are people who mould the world in their own likeness.

THE COUCH

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, 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, 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.

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,

symbolises 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.

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.

Translation: Magdalena Cedro

This Earth, what is it?