Original subtitles

Krzysztof Kieslowski, recently nominated for an Oscar for 'Red', the final part of his 'Three Colors' trilogy, was virtually unknown in western Europe and America only six years ago.

It was then, back in 1989, that the Polish director conquered the Western Hemisphere with his modern interpretation of the Biblical Ten Commandments.

This interview, made in January 1995, is an attempt to examine the universal messages offered by 'Dekalog', as well as its idiosyncrasies.

A Short Film About 'Dekalog'

An interview with Krzysztof Kieslowski

It's related to Martial Law. People either disengaged or got involved.

I didn't see any reason or possibility to get involved, so I didn't.

This isolation of the protagonists...

from politics was related to Martial Law.

You must see it that way. We totally eliminated politics as a subject.

We considered it as something of no importance.

We knew it was important, but could do nothing about it...

so we decided it wasn't important at all.

What is important in 'Dekalog'?

I had the impression the protagonists...

conducted a lonely struggle with everyday problems...

Of course, yes. Everything is important except politics.

Loneliness is important. So is love, and the lack of it.

Hopelessness, everything.

Politics is not, because it isn't there. It only emerges...

in absurd and insignificant situations.

That's hardy politics, but rather the consequence of political ineptitude.

There's no water, elevators don't work.

The basic things of life become problems.

Life is organized in a bad and stupid way.

No, people try out different things.

Many of my films walk the line between fiction and documentary.

That interested me for a long time.

I don't think the 'Dekalog' films have anything to do with documentaries.

When I think of documentaries, I think of...

the documentary films...

that were being made in Poland during the 70's, 60's, and 50's.

They were also significant in England before the war.

Although the films are not similar...

a documentary is a relationship of a filmmaker with actual events.

Even if they've been dramatized. -You mean the facts?

No, the events.

If someone is in love with somebody, you can hardy call that a fact.

It just happens, doesn't it?

I wouldn't call that a fact, but it is something that actually took place.

A documentary that doesn't merely register events...

because that would be boring...

it's always the maker's search for his relationship to the actual events.

That's a documentary.

So 'Dekalog' has no elements of the documentary.

Nothing really happened, it was invented.

So it has nothing in common with a documentary.

On the other hand, in Poland these films...

were criticized for not having anything to do with reality.

They're not documentaries at all.

Not only this, but people thought they had nothing to do with reality.

Events in the films could never have really happened.

There are two steps: One, if something really happened, it's a documentary.

Two is credibility: could it have happened?

Events in 'Dekalog' could really have happened.

In every episode, even the smallest elements could be true.

But many people in Poland felt they couldn't be.

It was impossible, all the things were made up.

Or if you want to use a more pejorative word...

let's say...

unbelievable, an invention, and therefore not credible.

That's a pejorative connotation.

But you can also look at it from a different perspective. You could say...

it is a documentary registration.

In spite of the fact that the story is fiction...

and the protagonists are played by the actors...

and the tears are glycerin-induced...

it is a kind of record of the times, of the temperature of the times.

Of how people lived in those days.

In Poland in the 80's? -Right. From that point of view...

you could say that 'Dekalog' is a record of a certain period of time.

A moment in time in Poland.

Of course, it deals with more universal issues...

and day-to-day occurrences...

people have to deal with to survive in their daily life.

It's the reality of a particular time, place and political system.

It's a record of society's daily routine.

The type of record that Ken Loach is famous for in England.

In a way 'Dekalog' accomplishes the same effect.

It's a record of a certain human life at a particular point in time. Right.

In that sense it's more of a documentary than 'Three Colors'...

that are further removed from everyday life.

At least the first and the third. The second is more like 'Dekalog'.

It's a more realistic film that describes a particular moment...

in a particular time and place, and particular people.

In the 'Dekalog' series you used different cameramen for some episodes.

Was it deliberate or did you want to give new talent a chance?

Or did using different cameramen influence the visual style?

Of course it was deliberate, most of what you do in film is.

Sometimes things happen spontaneously and you use them.

But few things happen by accident.

And it wasn't a series, it was a film cycle.

There's a difference. A cycle is a different concept then a series.

That difference is much more complicated.

It's hard to define the rules of a cycle...

if they even exist. But I think they do.

You could probably define them.

I didn't set out to give new talented cameramen a chance.

Most were either cameramen I worked with before...

or that have been working for quite some time.

In fact only two of the cameramen were very young.

Did it influence the films?

It was my intention, and I think it was one of my best ideas in 'Dekalog'...

to use different cameramen.

All the films were made as one production.

One after the other, sometimes even overlapping.

Sometimes we were shooting three different films in one day.

By doing that we were able to keep from getting too bored.

Because, at least for me, the actual job of directing is very boring.

Working with new cameramen changes all that.

A new cameraman has a fresh new approach to the whole process.

And not just me, but also the whole crew...

needed something interesting after working on the project for months.

New actors obviously added an interesting element...

because every episode was made with different actors.

But also the new cameraman.

He'll change everything, from the lighting to the camera movements.

So everything else changes. Soundmen have to rethink the sound recording.

If first the set was lit without shadows, now it's with shadows.

For the soundman it means he faces a new challenge.

And if there's a challenge, the work gets interesting.

Otherwise, you get the effect of what they say...

that if you know a cameraman too well...

you can predict exactly where the holes in the carpeting will be...

because he'll always put the camera in the same spot, hence the holes.

Since we used different cameramen, we had no holes in the carpet.

Every cameraman came with another style and approach.

Another productive aspect of that was a slight competitive element.

They all wanted to be better than the last one.

Did one stand out? -No.

It was more a feeling they had amongst themselves.

You know what was really funny?

The cameramen had different temperaments, and work experiences...

and, in general, a different way of telling a story in film.

Everybody tells a story in their own way.

But in the end, all the films were shot in a similar way.

I didn't interfere in their work, I didn't even tell them which lens to use.

Not to mention the lighting, that was their business.

Generally, I don't look through the finder.

But I know what a shot will look like if the camera is in a certain position...

and is fitted with, say, a 50-mm lens.

I might be off by half a centimeter.

I can do the same with a 35-mm lens and be wrong by this much, not more.

I know all this, but I don't look through the finder.

So they have a lot of freedom of movement to tell the story their way.

I wait for the moment they start telling it their way.

It's always interesting. Well, it can be, but not always.

You've said that different episodes of 'Dekalog' resemble each other.

That they're told in a similar way.

A script indicates the camera positions, but they're not written down.

It indicates the lighting...

the storytelling, but in my scripts I hardy ever use the word 'camera'.

I never write down where the camera is or what it does.

I don't think it's necessary. I never write what's called a storyline.

Or what Americans call storyboard.

I never do it, I haven't done it in years.

You won't find 'camera' in my scripts.

But the narrative apparently dictates the way you tell the story in film.

The cameramen picked up on this intuitively...

though it's not written down. Formally, the word 'camera' doesn't exist.

In none of the scripts for 'Dekalog' will you find the word 'camera':

'camera shoots this or that, or tells the story this or that way.'

'camera moves into the room.' Nothing of the sort.

Still, the directions for filming must be present somewhere...

because the way the story is told in the episodes is very similar.

Yet the cameramen had different temperaments, experiences and tastes.

And I gave them the freedom to shoot the film their own way.

As you mentioned, the different episodes resemble each other visually.

Another factor contributing to that is that the protagonists...

also appear in other episodes of 'Dekalog'.

It gives the narrative a sense of continuity.

I just mentioned that.

We tried to transfer some of the rules of a series onto the cycle...

or to formulate new rules for the cycle using the experience of a series.

But isn't it so that because of that...

Doesn't it give the impression...

that 'Dekalog' could take place...

at any time...

and any place, like that neighborhood? -Of course.

An English spectator does not get the impression it's Poland...

that it has a Polish mentality or was made in Ursynow in Warsaw...

Actually, it wasn't Ursynow. It was made in Dzika.

I was convinced... -No, it wasn't.

It was chosen for very definite photographic reasons.

Ursynow, maybe you know it, is a very spread-out area.

It seems too disperse. It's big, with a lot of open spaces.

You can never capture it in a closed shot. It's simply not possible.

That's why we moved to Dzika.

That was our base, though it wasn't all shot there, but that doesn't matter.

The atmosphere was important.

The Dzika area was built more in the style used before the war.

The houses seal off the horizon.

If you know the area...

the buildings are positioned in such a way...

that wherever you place the camera you can get a closed shot.

The closed shot gives the impression that there's no way out.

If there's space, you can always find a way out.

Americans shoot those huge open spaces in road movies...

or Westerns and other types of films. There's always this sense of freedom.

You can always get out, because it's so big.

But that huge space also means that you can die of thirst in that desert.

Or freeze to death.

But you can get out.

A closed shot creates a sense of the inevitability of being there.

You get that feeling subconsciously, of course.

It's why we looked for neighborhoods like that. Dzika, no Dzielna, is like that.

Dzika or Dzielna? Which is it?

A friend of mine lives there, so I'll tell you exactly what it's called.

It's Dzika.

You've said you feel very Polish.

That Poland has left a definite mark on your work.

Is 'Dekalog' really a reflection of your nationality?

I really don't think it's that important. I don't see that as an issue.

I see no reason to think about...

whether or not I'm Polish. Of course I'm Polish.

I can't be and will never be anything else, no matter how hard I try.

I am a Pole, I was born and bred here.

I was raised on books in Polish.

I've lived through bad times in my country.

I carry that inside, I'll never lose it. -So 'Dekalog' is the work of a Pole?

That's totally irrelevant.

A Pole is a Pole. In the negative sense of the word...

he thinks he's the center of the universe.

Unfortunately, many Poles think that.

Aside from the positive elements, like pride and a longing for freedom...

this also has a number of negative elements.

Narrow-mindedness, provincialism, little attention to the people around us.

We want things to be good, but in fact we love to be unhappy.

We don't want to accept that it can be worse somewhere else, or better.

That's very provincial, but I think I shed that quite a long time ago.

Long ago I understood that...

regardless of race, belief and other matters...

like being rich or not, we actually struggle with one real problem.

And if you understand that, it doesn't matter where you place the camera.

It doesn't matter.

Polish or not, is not the issue. If the money is Polish, it's Polish...

if you must discuss it in those terms.

But if you want to talk about it on a higher level, you must consider...

that the conflict of the woman in film 2, could happen to a woman in New York:

Whether to keep a baby that's not your husband's.

The woman in New York and the one in Warsaw face the same dilemma.

The same goes for a woman in Tokyo. It doesn't really matter.

I read in one of your interviews that during the making of 'Dekalog'...

you and Mr. Piesiewicz asked yourselves many existential questions.

What is happiness? What is love? -That's right.

Do you think there's one universal morality...

or are there different moralities depending on the people and the times?

I believe people know what's good and what's evil, if you call that morality.

Actually, I don't like the word morality, as I'm sure you've read.

I think that if I were to use that word, it would make me...

a moralist, someone who knows what it is. But I'm not someone who knows.

Not exactly, so I'd rather ask questions than provide answers.

I know what questions to ask, more or less.

So I concern myself with ethics rather than morality. It's broader.

And avoid moralizing, as it's called.

That's what it's called in Polish. In English as well.

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By moralizing I mean preaching, lecturing, and teaching...

what's right and wrong. But I believe everyone has a barometer inside...

to tell the difference between the truth and a lie, between good and evil.

And people follow this barometer, if they can.

Very often they're not able to, but given the chance, they will.

Did you find the answers? -No, because they don't exist.

That's why the questions are interesting.

I don't know the meaning of 'freedom'. 'Dekalog' doesn't deal with it much.

It doesn't deal with political freedom...

or existential freedom, or even basic human freedom.

To some extent, every film deals with it, just like every film is about love.

You try to find a film anywhere that is not about love.

Except maybe the films of Andy Warhol, but that's a totally different genre.

So films like that don't exist, and that applies to 'Dekalog' as well.

In 'Dekalog' none of the individuals long for freedom.

I can't think of one protagonist who longs for freedom.

The protagonist in episode 1 wishes for his agonizing son to die...

after he's fallen through the ice.

In 2, the woman must decide if she'll have her baby...

and if you can love two men at once. And if so, how do you deal with it?

Does she want too much? That's her problem. She doesn't long for freedom.

On the contrary, she depends on both her men.

She stays with one, but bears the child of the other.

Freedom is not the issue for her. The problem for the man in 3...

is to go home and not get involved in something that once made him happy.

He wants peace and prefers staying home...

over going out with women, even if one of the women...

is special and much more interesting than his own wife.

That is his problem, not freedom. He wants to stay with his wife...

without hurting the other woman. That's his problem.

The protagonist in 4 doesn't know if her father really is her father.

Is the man she loves her father? And if so, can she break the taboo?

Can you break a taboo and still be happy, or not?

Will your happiness be clouded by that taboo, and make you bitter...

and hopeless? That's her problem. Nobody cares about freedom.

Even the protagonist in episode 5, who killed a man...

is more concerned with understanding why he did it, than with freedom.

Of course he doesn't want to be hanged, nobody wants that.

Everybody wants to live.

Or most people do. But it's not like he's longing for freedom.

He wants to understand what he's done and why.

He doesn't want to be hanged, but it's not the same as longing for freedom.

And I can go on. I think you'll find that none of the films...

deal with that longing for freedom. Not political freedom...

or the existential personal freedom.

The films are not about freedom. It's either wrongly translated or misquoted.

You mentioned Ken Loach. The English press has often compared you to him.

Has he influenced you at all visually and thematically?

I don't know him personally. I like the film he made in the 60's...

called 'Kes'. Or maybe that was in the early 70's.

I liked that film very much, because there was something about the film...

that I was very much interested in at the time.

It had the look of a documentary, but it was a fictional film.

I don't know if you know it, but it's about a boy who finds a kestrel.

And this boy, no matter what you would've done to him...

even if he ended up in a fictional world because of this film...

this boy would still be the same. He was that boy.

Not an actor. He was good, because it was him, the emotions were his.

He didn't have a real kestrel at home. A mouse maybe, it doesn't matter.

What matters is that need to have something of your own...

in a world where you have nothing.

He has nothing that belongs to him.

Nothing he could say he has an absolute right to.

His kestrel is killed by his brother, if I remember correctly.

As revenge for not doing something he asked. To bet on a horse, or something.

So it doesn't matter what the boy really had, but in the film it was the kestrel.

His emotions were real.

Or Ken Loach made it look as if they were his own emotions.

His personal feelings were used in the film. I thought that was very good.

Have your ever used that idea?

It's hard to say. I've never made a film about a boy and a kestrel.

Have you ever worked with non-actors?

Yes, of course, plenty of times. You bet.

In the first episode of 'Dekalog' there's a young man...

who's not an actor,

he runs a theater.

Does he play the father? -Yes.

He's not an actor. He's a man who plays the father.

I would like now to hear more about the concept of chance.

The world in 'Dekalog' is a world of chance.

I would like to focus on 'Dekalog' episode 5...

where this idea is brought forward beautifully, in my opinion.

Many of the situations in the film force the protagonists to choose.

To do this, instead of that. Do something else, go somewhere else.

The taxi driver could've picked up the young couple in the neighborhood...

or the drunk in the street.

Isn't it more like fate than chance?

I think it's all of that. It is both...

destiny, or fate if you like, and it's also...

chance. And, to a great extent, our own free will.

The taxi driver had a choice, but he decides to pick up the couple...

and not the drunk. He wouldn't have been killed, another driver would have.

Whatever Jacek is doing, he is doing it very consciously.

He knows what he wants. But why does he do it?

But whatever he does, it's of his own free will.

Why he did it is another matter.

I believe the three things are connected: chance, fate, and free will.

They influence our lives to different degrees, of course.

It depends on every person's life and on the moment.

Sometimes it's this, others that. Sometimes it's chance...

others it's free will. Or destiny. We are pushed in different directions.

We don't know where to, but we know something is.

I don't know why I'm considered such an expert on chance.

Because I've made a film by that title? But take any other film...

it doesn't matter which. Take one we both know.

You'll see there is a lot of chance involved in all of them.

My films also have it, but I'm seen as the chance specialist...

while in my other films, chance is not the main issue.

There is a character in 'Dekalog' who is, it appears, part of a different narrative from the rest of the films' characters. He seems to come from a different world. He knows everything, but does not want to take part in anything, as if he were only a messenger. Who is he?

You could say, he's in there. And analyze where he appears.

But, in effect, he always appears at the crucial moments in the films.

In the film as a whole, or in a scene. Each film has at least two turning points.

In that case the film is divided into three parts.

In turn, each part has two turning points, down to each scene and each shot.

He appears at these moments.

When something must be decided, or someone has to make a decision.

That's when he shows up.

I don't know who he is exactly. Artur couldn't answer that either.

All I know is that he observes us.

And he doesn't like what we do, but he can't do anything about it.

He has no influence on our lives. Maybe he gave us this life...

and he expects us to cope somehow, but we can't.

We make mistakes, do filthy things and he looks with sorrow...

at his imperfect creations. -God?

I don't know. It's up to you. I don't use those terms.

I can tell you when he appears and what his purpose is.

You have to find out who he is, because he is there only for you.

To someone else, he's someone else.

I felt that when you wrote the script for 'Dekalog', you wanted...

to create a universal work, easily understood by a Western audience.

No, absolutely not. That's a misunderstanding. We didn't want....

Of course you want to be understood by as many people as possible.

But we didn't sit down to work with that in mind.

So, again, it's chance? -No, it's not chance.

Not at all. But you suggest it was a calculated move on my part.

That I was calculating that if I did this, I'd get this reaction.

In other words, if I write it this way they'll understand.

And targeted to a Western audience.

While in actual fact, we only took one single decision...

related to your question, and that was to leave out politics all together.

We've already discussed that.

We decided to exclude politics as a motive for the protagonists' actions.

We excluded that completely.

And what happens? If you exclude the political element...

it turns out that behind this so-called political element...

you find the Polish historical and cultural psyche.

I mean everything that has to do with the complexes...

and the pride of being Polish. We talked about that.

And all that is also reflected in today's politics. Today's and yesterday's.

Like in the politics of 10 years ago, when we were making 'Dekalog'.

Nine years ago. So, in short, if you exclude this...

If you exclude politics as a motive for any kind of activity...

and way of thinking, you also exclude everything from the film...

that, if you were to look at it from a stereotypical point of view...

an audience would associate with a typical Pole.

At least by a Western audience in general.

Eliminating politics, this stereotype of a Pole...

is instantly and absolutely eliminated.

So they are no longer Poles.

They live in Poland, they speak Polish, and have Polish passports.

But they are more than just Poles. They are also people who think...

and suffer and rejoice over matters that are understood by everyone.

Do you think that's why 'Dekalog' was so well received in the West?

Probably, I believe so. I believe Western audiences...

are fed up with the Polish stereotype.

The complaining Pole, the martyr drowning in politics.

The Pole tormented by fate, because of his country's bad location.

People in the West are getting tired of that image.

At the same time, people in the West look at things much like anyone...

looks at people who share their predicament.

Our protagonists are in a similar situation. They face choices...

They face problems that everybody faces regardless of where they are.

You started working on two huge projects. 'Dekalog':

Ten films, a modern interpretation of the Ten Commandments...

and the trilogy 'Three Colors':

a modern interpretation of the symbols fraternity, freedom, and equality.

Are you attracted by the challenge...

that these huge projects represent?

Or is your motive simply your stylistic interest, or available finances?

The question of funding was different in each case.

'Dekalog' was made for exactly 100,000 dollars.

All ten films, two had theatrical releases.

The whole operation cost the Polish equivalent of 100,000 dollars.

It was a huge commercial success. -That's right. 'Dekalog', which was...

financed by both the Ministry of Culture and television...

and made more than 3 million dollars, or 30 to 1. That's good business.

But we didn't expect it to happen. We thought it would be a provincial film...

for the Polish TV, and that we might sell it to a few other stations.

But we didn't calculate that it would be sold almost everywhere.

But it did. The cycle was sold everywhere.

Or almost everywhere. We didn't expect that.

But why such huge projects? -They don't happen very often.

I don't know if they were that big. But the challenge...

was to reinterpret such universal, known... known words, things, slogans...

or Commandments, in this case.

It's a challenge to look at it from a different perspective.

So much has been written about the Commandments.

Not just in Christian literature, but also in Judeo-Christian literature.

But there's more. There are different philosophical interpretations.

So much has been written about them, it wouldn't all fit on the shelves here.

We thought it would be interesting to approach it completely differently.

Because that huge amount of literature on the Commandments and the Bible...

in essence boils down to scientific interpretations.

But we came up with the idea...

to turn every Commandment into a challenge for a human being.

Can a human being meet that challenge?

Is he humanly capable of doing that?

Is it possible to adhere to these Commandments...

and to truly abide by them?

Is it possible? Isn't modern life so complicated...

that abiding by the Commandments is practically impossible?

We didn't go for relativism, because that wasn't the issue.

It's about the increasing complications of our lives, of our situation today.

It isn't just today's situation. It was probably the same yesterday...

and ages ago. But is a human being strong enough?

If a man knows what he should do, why does he do something else?

It sounds like relativism, but we hoped that we would succeed...

to avoid this ethical relativism.

My last question may be a little provocative.

I have the impression that you react indifferently to criticism...

concerning your films. -No, that's not true.

It isn't?

Are the opinions of critics as important to you...

as the opinion of the public? Or is your personal satisfaction enough?

Well, you know, of course I value the opinion of the public. Of course.

But do the critics count, too? -Sure, they are also part of the public.

And they also express, if they are good critics...

the feelings of part of the public. No doubt about it.

But I have no....

You said this was a provocative question. I don't see why.

You say you don't know why you're called...

one of the greatest European film directors, which in fact you are.

That's another matter. I don't understand it....

but I guess the people who write about it do. It doesn't matter that I don't.

I only say it the way I see it. -Then you must be a very modest man.

No, I am quite normal.