14° FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE CINEMA GIOVANI
Tribute to a Jerzy Skolimowski
MOONLIGHTING
by Jerzy Skolimowski
Country: UK
Year: 1982
Duration: 97'
"It was a spontaneous, sincere act of desperation. I started shooting four weeks after the 'State of war' had been declared, when not only the artists but also the politicians themselves didn't know what was happening. There was no intellectual speculation or calculation of any kind as to the consequences that it might have caused. The entire film is based on double ethics. The fact that the 'capomastro' does not disclose vital information such as the declaration of a state of war in Poland, because he is following orders from above, is ambiguous from an ethical point of view. The whole film is a sort of morality about the ambiguities of ethics. My first move was to call Jeremy Irons, who particularly impressed me in the last parts of Brideshead Revisited, where he acts in such a low key. There were long sequences where his face didn't move, and still one was watching him with a lot of tension. I didn't want this part to be socalled 'acted'. Everything had to be cooled down as much as possible, no tearing of the shirt." (Jerzy Skolimowski, interviews from "Film na swiecie", 1970; Malgorzata Furdal, 1996; "Monthly Film Bulletin", September 1982)
"Moonlighting is a film following the Chaplin vein, a peculiar mixture between the immigrant humour and the insular one. The deepest and darkest of humours. Moonlighting is both an atrocious and entertaining, a distressing film consisting only of gags. A series of microevents which are also sublime gags, narrates the crises of our times, those of the western economies in the London scene, those of the East in the Polish ferment, and their comparison in a very likely and wildly exciting story. Moonlighting is a masterpiece." (Pascal Bonitzer, "Cahiers du Cinéma", JulyAugust 1982)
Biography
film director
Jerzy Skolimowski
(Lodz, Poland, 1938), director, screenwriter, producer, and actor, after inconsistent studies and experience as a boxer and a poet, became involved in cinema thanks to Andrzej Wajda, who encouraged him to enroll in the film school in Lodz. With Polanski, he wrote the screenplay for Knife in the Water (1962) and he debuted as a director with Rysopis (1964), which, with his next film Walk over (1965), made him one of the major exponents of the international Nouvelle Vague of the 1960s. In 1967, his film The Departure won the Golden Bear in Berlin but that same year another movie of his, Hands Up!, was censored (it was released only in 1981) and he never made another movie in his home country. Skolimowski's international career is full of risky production adventures and great masterpieces and spans various countries (Czechoslovakia, Italy, Germany, England, the United States). After the failure of King, Queen, Knave, he spent a great deal of inactive time in England and Poland, followed by the great success of his English movies The Shout (1978) and Moonlighting (1982). In 1985, he directed his first all-American movie, Lightship and he moved to the US. After returning to his homeland, in 1991 he directed his first Polish movie after Hands Up!, 30 Door Key and over the years continued to work in cinema, writing and producing the film by his two sons Józef and Michal, The Hollow Men (1993). After a long hiatus from film, he returned to directing movies in 2008 with Four Nights with Anna, presented at the Quinzaine des réalisateurs in Cannes, followed by Essential Killing (2010), Special Jury Prize in Venice; 11 Minutes (2015); and EO (2022), the Jury Prize in Cannes.
FILMOGRAFIA
Rysopis (Rysopis - Segni particolari nessuno, 1964), Walkover (1965), Bariera (Barriera, 1966), Le Départ (Il vergine, 1967), The Adventures of Gerard (Le avventure di Gerard, 1970), Deep End (La ragazza del bagno pubblico, 1970), König, Dame, Bube (Un ospite gradito... per mia moglie, 1972), The Shout (L'australiano, 1978), Ręce do gory (Mani in alto, 1981), Moonlighting (Moonlighting - Cittadini di nessuno, 1982), Success Is the Best Revenge (Il successo ad ogni costo, 1984), The Lightship (Lightship - La nave faro, 1985), Torrents of Spring (Acque di primavera, 1989), Thirty Door Key/Ferdydurke (1991), Cztery noce z Anną (Quattro notti con Anna, 2008), Essential Killing (id. 2010), 11 minut (11 Minutes, 2015), EO (2022).
Cast
& Credits
Director and screenplay: Jerzy Skolimowski.
Collaboratori alla sceneggiatura: Barrie Vince, Boleslaw Sulik, Danuta Stock, Witold Stock.
Director of photography: Tony Pierce Roberts.
Editor: Barrie Vince.
Music: Stanley Myers.
Musica elettronica: Hans Zimmer.
Cast and characters: Jeremy Irons (Nowak), Eugene Lipifiski (Banaszak), Jiri Stanislaw (Wolski), Eugeniusz Haczkiewicz (Kudaj), Dorothy Zienciowska (la ragazza della Lot), Edward Arthur (funzionario dell'immigrazione), Denis Holmes (il vicino), Renu Setna (rigattiere), David Calder (direttore del supermercato), Judy Gridley (sorvegliante del supermercato), Jerzy Skolimowski (il capo di Nowak).
Produttori: Mark Shivas, Jerzy Skolimowski.
Production company: Michael Whyte, in associazione con Channel Four e l'assistenza del National Film Development Fund.
Collaboratori alla sceneggiatura: Barrie Vince, Boleslaw Sulik, Danuta Stock, Witold Stock.
Director of photography: Tony Pierce Roberts.
Editor: Barrie Vince.
Music: Stanley Myers.
Musica elettronica: Hans Zimmer.
Cast and characters: Jeremy Irons (Nowak), Eugene Lipifiski (Banaszak), Jiri Stanislaw (Wolski), Eugeniusz Haczkiewicz (Kudaj), Dorothy Zienciowska (la ragazza della Lot), Edward Arthur (funzionario dell'immigrazione), Denis Holmes (il vicino), Renu Setna (rigattiere), David Calder (direttore del supermercato), Judy Gridley (sorvegliante del supermercato), Jerzy Skolimowski (il capo di Nowak).
Produttori: Mark Shivas, Jerzy Skolimowski.
Production company: Michael Whyte, in associazione con Channel Four e l'assistenza del National Film Development Fund.