Country: Kazakhstan
Year: 1964
Duration: 76'
At the school I had the right to have a certain amount of film every year. I had the idea of using every meter of film that was available to me, not to satisfy my whims of the moment nor to make any kind of stupidity carelessly, but in the way that I could find myself with a feature film already finished at the end of my studies. I used three hours and twenty minutes of film to get the one hour and twenty minutes of Rysopis. For Walkower I had ten hours of film. Rysopis was under the artistic guidance of Andrzej Munk, who was a very good friend of mine. I made Rysopis with my own hands, with a cameraman who was working on a film for the first time. I was forced to look things up in the technical manuals for camera people to verify that everything was going all right. With this film we really learned how to make cinema. I found my leading man in the mirror. For the rest, at the beginning, it was more a practical necessity than anything else. I did not have enough money to pay an actor to be available for me day and night for three years - wearing the same suit, always attentive to what he was eating so that he would not get fat, and always wearing the same kind of short hair." (Jerzy Skolimowski, "Cahiers du Cinéma", n. 177, April 1966)
"Skolimowski's films are endless goings about, crazy and breathless chases, where his character catches a train on the run, jumps off a speeding train, climbs on a motorcycle, climbs fences or goes down stairs - this between some boxing matches. Rysopis and Walkower are autobiographical only in an imperfect way because the existence of Adrzej Leszczyc points to that of the director only in certain places. The border between the fictitious and the true, between the 'I' and 'he' is imprecise, and the great innovation of Skolimowski is to abolish the distinction between subjective and objective. Without a doubt there has never been a film that has pushed so far towards the identification with the principal character." (Michel Ciment, "Positif", n. 77-78, July 1996)
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
Regia, sceneggiatura e scenografia: Jerzy Skolimowski.
Director of photography: Witold Mickiewicz.
Editor: Halina Gronek, Jerzy Skolimowski.
Music: Krzysztof Sadowski.
Sound: Jan Czerwiiiski, Jerzy Rybicki, Tadeus Palczyfiski.
Cast and characters: Jerzy Skolimowski (Andrzej Leszczy0, Elzbieta Czyzewska (Teresa, Barbara, Janczewska), Tadeusz Minc (Mundzek Kruszyfiskì), Andrzej Zarnecki (Raymond), Jacek Szczek.
Director of Production: Zbigniew Brejtkopf.
Production company: PWSTiF (Scuola Superiore di Cinema di Lodz)
Director of photography: Witold Mickiewicz.
Editor: Halina Gronek, Jerzy Skolimowski.
Music: Krzysztof Sadowski.
Sound: Jan Czerwiiiski, Jerzy Rybicki, Tadeus Palczyfiski.
Cast and characters: Jerzy Skolimowski (Andrzej Leszczy0, Elzbieta Czyzewska (Teresa, Barbara, Janczewska), Tadeusz Minc (Mundzek Kruszyfiskì), Andrzej Zarnecki (Raymond), Jacek Szczek.
Director of Production: Zbigniew Brejtkopf.
Production company: PWSTiF (Scuola Superiore di Cinema di Lodz)
