The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski: Variations on Destiny and Chance

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Columbia University Press, 2004 M06 9 - 224 pages

Since his death in 1996, Krzysztof Kieslowski has remained the best-known contemporary Polish filmmaker and one of the most popular and respected European directors, internationally renowned for his ambitious Decalogue and Three Colors trilogy.

In this new addition to the Directors'Cuts series, Marek Haltof provides a comprehensive study of Kieslowski's cinema, discussing industrial practices in Poland and stressing that the director did not fit the traditional image of a "great" East-Central European auteur. He draws a fascinating portrait of the stridently independent director's work, noting that Kieslowski was not afraid to express unpopular views in film or in life. Haltof also shows how the director's work remains unique in the context of Polish documentary and narrative cinema.

 

Contents

1 Documenting the Unrepresented World
1
Kieślowski and Polish Cinema in the 1970s and During the Solidarity Period
24
A Short Film About Marriage
29
Managers and Their Dilemmas
34
Life as It Is
38
Meditations on Filmmaking
42
Mechanisms of Power
49
3 Choices Chances and Politics
53
4 Entomological Observations and Metaphysics in Decalogue
75
European Art Film and the Polish Context
108
Doppelgängers and Puppeteers
114
The Long Films About Love
122
AFTERWORD
149
NOTES
153
FILMOGRAPHY
166
BIBLIOGRAPHY
179

Variations on Fate
55
Requiem for Solidarity
64

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About the author (2004)

Marek Haltof is assistant professor of English at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. He is the author of several books in English and in Polish, including Peter Weir: When Cultures Collide and Polish National Cinema.

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