Country: China
Year: 1970
Duration: 91'
"An American film company put an English classic into the hands of a Polish director. The setting was in Spain and shooting was done in Italy. The American actor Eli Wallach played Napoleon, while the Italian actress Claudia Cardinale was the Spanish princess. All this was transformed into a grotesque magic and a satire on Hollywood, and I found myself in a 'Gombrowicz-type' situation. Things were not always calm and easy. Since I didn't have the 'last cut', I didn't have any control. My version of the film lasted twenty or twenty-five minutes more than the version released. While doing the film I was always on the defensive. Then I told myself that the only solution was to show I possessed humour. The only way to defend oneself is to joke. And that's what I did: I joked about everything around me. This game costs me a year of my life. I also came to understand what the fear of defeat signifies." (Jerzy Skolimowski, from interviews with "Filmcritica", February 1971, "Cinéma", January 1972, "Pôsitif", February 1972).
"If the film threatens at times to degenerate into a parade of conjuring tricks, it is redeemed partly by the air of baroque, Munchausen-like, fantasy that pervades Gerard's adventures, rich in such casually surrealist details as General Millefleur's accident-prone human dining-table; partly by the fact that Gerard is a genuine Skolimowski hero, quirky and single-minded in his pursuit of self-fulfilment, a Napoleonic counterpart of Marc in Le départ. For all its chaotic surface, Gerard carries a distinctive signature." (Nigel Andrews, "Sight and Sound", Winter 1970-71)
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: Jerzy Skolimowski.
Screenplay: Harry A. L. Craig, da quattro episodi di The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard e un episodio di The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard di Arthur Conan Doyle.
Collaboratori alla sceneggiatura: Henry Lester, Gene Gutowski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Charles Wood.
Director of photography: Witold Sobocinski (Panavision, Technicolor).
Operatore: Art director: Luciano Spadoni.
Architetto: Bill Hutchinson.
Editor: John S. Smith, Alistair McIntyre.
Music: Riz Ortolani.
Sound: Hugh Strain.
Cast and characters: Peter McEnery (Gerard, colonnello degli Ussari), Claudia Cardinale (Teresa, contessa di Morales), Eli Wallach (Napoleone Bonaparte), Jack Hawkins (Millefeurs), Mark Burns (Colonnello Russell), Norman Rossington (Sergente Papilette), John Neville (Duca di Wellington), Paolo Stoppa (Conte di Morales), Ivan Desny (Generale Lassalle), Leopoldo Trieste (maresciallo Massena), Aude Loring (amante di Massena), Carlo Delle Piane.
Production company: Sir Nigel Films.
Produttori: Henry Lester, Gene Gutowski.
Italian distribution: United Artist.
Screenplay: Harry A. L. Craig, da quattro episodi di The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard e un episodio di The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard di Arthur Conan Doyle.
Collaboratori alla sceneggiatura: Henry Lester, Gene Gutowski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Charles Wood.
Director of photography: Witold Sobocinski (Panavision, Technicolor).
Operatore: Art director: Luciano Spadoni.
Architetto: Bill Hutchinson.
Editor: John S. Smith, Alistair McIntyre.
Music: Riz Ortolani.
Sound: Hugh Strain.
Cast and characters: Peter McEnery (Gerard, colonnello degli Ussari), Claudia Cardinale (Teresa, contessa di Morales), Eli Wallach (Napoleone Bonaparte), Jack Hawkins (Millefeurs), Mark Burns (Colonnello Russell), Norman Rossington (Sergente Papilette), John Neville (Duca di Wellington), Paolo Stoppa (Conte di Morales), Ivan Desny (Generale Lassalle), Leopoldo Trieste (maresciallo Massena), Aude Loring (amante di Massena), Carlo Delle Piane.
Production company: Sir Nigel Films.
Produttori: Henry Lester, Gene Gutowski.
Italian distribution: United Artist.