Country: UK
Year: 1978
Duration: 86'
"That attracted me in the story was the ambiguity, and the sense of the absurd. I think we are surrounded by ambiguity: double meanings can be seen in everything. Remember, I started as a poet, I published three books of poetry, my mind was trained along the path of poetic associations. So I'm not afraid to wander away from direct narrative, and I feel safe with a story that tempts you both to believe and disbelieve. As for absurdity, there again, it is all around us - I'm just exploring my own recognitions of whatever one can get in touch with. Working on that subject was like carving crystal, with its assembled to form a peculiar structure which cannot be logically grasped, but which strikes all the senses. I think this same effect was obtained with cutting." (Jerzy Skolimowski, interviews with "Sight and Sound", Summer 1978, and "Positif", January 1979)
"The sexual games in The Shout, between two men and one woman, also takes us back to Noz w wodzie, and generally have a malevolence that is more characteristic of Polanski than Skolimowski. What is entirely Skolimowski, however, are the channels of communication that zigzag through the plot, connections that are stranger but more concrete than the talk of magic and supernatural. The tinkling of glass, the flashing of mirrors, the very real impact of sounds - not just Crossley's shout, but Anthony 'creating' his music with a tray full of marbles, the cobbler hammering a pair of shoes - hint at a life going on absurdly at cross-purpose with the everyday one." (Richard Combs, Riti di passaggio, in Jerzy Skolimowski, Lindau, Torino 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
Director: Jerzy Skolimowski.
Screenplay: Michael Austin, Jerzy Skolimowski dal racconto di Robert Graves.
Director of photography: Mike Molloy.
Art director: Simon Holland.
Editor: Barrie Vince.
Music: Anthony Banks, Mike Rutheford.
Musica elettronica: Rupert Hine.
Montaggio suono: Alan Bell.
Cast and characters: Alan Bates (Charles CrossIey), Susannah York (Rachel Fielding), John Hurt (Anthony Fielding), Robert Stephens (capo medico), Tim Curry (Robert Graves), Julian Hough (parroco), Carol Drinkwater (moglie del calzolaio), John Rees (ispettore), Susan Wooldridge (Harriet), Nick Stringer (calzolaio).
Production company: Jeremy Thomas per Recorded Picture Company-National Film Finance CorporationRank Film Production.
Produttore associato: Michael Austin.
Screenplay: Michael Austin, Jerzy Skolimowski dal racconto di Robert Graves.
Director of photography: Mike Molloy.
Art director: Simon Holland.
Editor: Barrie Vince.
Music: Anthony Banks, Mike Rutheford.
Musica elettronica: Rupert Hine.
Montaggio suono: Alan Bell.
Cast and characters: Alan Bates (Charles CrossIey), Susannah York (Rachel Fielding), John Hurt (Anthony Fielding), Robert Stephens (capo medico), Tim Curry (Robert Graves), Julian Hough (parroco), Carol Drinkwater (moglie del calzolaio), John Rees (ispettore), Susan Wooldridge (Harriet), Nick Stringer (calzolaio).
Production company: Jeremy Thomas per Recorded Picture Company-National Film Finance CorporationRank Film Production.
Produttore associato: Michael Austin.