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Andrzej Wajda - Joseph Conrad's last encounter with the sea (127/222)

521 views · Published 26 October 2017 · 4:15 · Indexed 20 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: However, a film could be made about Conrad himself. Bolesław Sulik came up with a true event that happened during the First World War when Joseph Conrad decided to return to the fleet as an active naval officer. Since he was a writer, already elderly, in poor health and a little decrepit, it was very hard for him to get accepted onto the crew of a decoy ship. What was this about? During the First World War, the greatest havoc was wreaked by German submarines. They sent out torpedoes aimed at warships. A torpedo was a very expensive weapon and the submarines wreaked havoc on everything that sailed the seas. The British fleet was completely paralysed by these German submarines. A suicidal notion was hatched to take an insignificant cargo ship and to position a cannon on its decks so that it could disable a submarine on condition that the submarine would surface. The submarines would regularly surface because they had guns on their decks which were used to sink smaller ships. Because of this, smaller cargo ships, decoys, set sail to draw these submarines out from under the water to do battle with them. Joseph Conrad was taken on board one of these submarines [sic] that was sailing but it seemed that no submarine wanted to destroy it. Meanwhile, Joseph Conrad whose health had never been particularly robust, was beginning to suffer from some sort of illness. The sailors and crew on this decoy were very unhappy that they had on board a well known author for whom they were responsible. They didn't want, well, in short, at the first opportunity, they docked and got rid of the great writer who disembarked. However, as soon as he had done so, he was spotted by the coastal police who arrested him. As everyone well knows, Conrad spoke very poor English so the police immediately took him for a spy. A German spy who spoke bad English. He tried to explain but the more he explained, the more the police believed him to be a terrible spy, up to the moment that he managed to telephone his friends and by a stroke of luck, they were able to explain to the police who it was that they'd arrested. Joseph Conrad returned home and that was how his last adventure at sea ended. A beautiful story. Extremely. Fantastic. Now when I tell it, it seems to me that it would make a wonderful film especially as we could have used an elderly British actor. It was enthralling. But unfortunately, I tell it better than the screenplay was written. It lacked the sparkle it has when it's been told.

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