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Andrzej Wajda - 'Ashes' (86/222)

635 views · Published 26 October 2017 · 3:34 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Entertainment

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Polish film director Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016), whose début films portrayed the horror of the German occupation of Poland, won awards at Cannes which established his reputation as storyteller and commentator on Polish history. He also served on the national Senate from 1989-91. [Listener: Jacek Petrycki]

TRANSCRIPT: At critical moments like these, I'll be returning to this towards the end of my life when I reach 'Pan Tadeusz', something like this faced me, the possibility of making a big, historical film. By then, Polish cinematography was firmly established as far as production and potential were concerned. Kawalerowicz had made the film 'Pharaoh' which was a totally crazy idea. Other big spectacular films had been made, too. Wojciech Has was making 'The Saragossa Manuscript' - a huge project set in Spain. I began making 'Ashes'. 'Ashes' is a beautiful story which considers our past with profound dignity because in our history a great legend surrounds Napoleon. Napoleon is a character who has been set down in Polish history as our ideal. Unfortunately, reality was somewhat different. Napoleon used the Poles to his own ends rather than the Poles benefitting from Napoleon's politics. However, our hopes were revived, awakened and perhaps that's what mattered the most at that time. It's true that later, the collapse of these hopes was profoundly depressing and heralded a second downfall, but I believed that moment of hope seemed worth showing on the screen. I made a big mistake at the beginning in forgetting Andrzej Munk's lesson on using colour film. I made the black & white film which perhaps looked grand, but from the start made the film look dated. I think this was the film's weakness, even though Jurek Lipman's shots were beautiful and we were all involved in the film and had means that I had managed to accumulate for this purpose. The film is about young heroes so I had to find new actors. I was lucky with all of them, but Daniel Olbrychski made his appearance after which he was, so to speak, my actor for a number of years appearing in many more of my films playing a variety of characters that I called up on screen at that time. As an actor, Olbrychski was full of temperament, very authentic and fiery, and I think that his role in this film stayed in people's memories the most, and in this film brought him close to his audience. Apart from that, such a huge spectacle was anticipated by Polish audiences as usual, but this wasn't the most important thing. What mattered was the actual making of the film which went quite well. I had the experience I'd gained making 'Lotna' so I knew what to expect with the equestrian scenes and how to make them for them to be sufficiently impressive.

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