14° FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE CINEMA GIOVANI
Tribute to a Jerzy Skolimowski

TORRENTS OF SPRING

TORRENTS OF SPRING
by Jerzy Skolimowski
Country: Italy, France
Year: 1989
Duration: 101'


"I'm not terribly fond of costume films. They're always kind of stiff, they kill spontaneity because the accidents which you can benefit from in a contemporary picture are out of period in a costume picture and can't be used. I didn't like The Adventures of Gerard, and I did everything possible to make Torrents different, to bring more life, more casual behaviour, into it. What I remember from my very firstreading of Torrents was a passage on about the second page, when Sanin is looking down at the sea bed, where he can just make out an enormous fish, monsters. So I devised the character of Victor Victorovich, who is all the time drunk but at the same time a witness, and who narrates those important words at the end. And bear in mind that Victor is the balloon owner, the one who provides the means of communication, which could also be the director. I think it all makes sense at a kind of philosophical level." (Jerzy Skolimowski, "Monthly Film Bulletin", June 1990)

"Behind the failure of the sentimental story, like a jewel in a casket, is the best part of the film: a philosophic miniature magnificently composed by the director. In Torrents fo Spring, Skolimowski exalts the moral, a lesson on the avin passions of a life in which individuals are mere toys in the game without there being any winners. This make-believe structure culminates in the magnificent final scene, where the hero walks through an interminable series of empty rooms inhabited by the wrecks of apssion in their mysterious silhouettes." (Frédéric Strauss, "Cahiers du Cinéma", September 1989)

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: Jerzy Skolimowski, Arcangelo Bonaccorso, liberamente tratta dalla novella di Ivan Turgenev.
Dialoghi aggiunti:b> Michael Scheuer Sarne, Evelyn Wendel.
Consulenza alla sceneggiatura: James Carrington.
Director of photography: Dante Spinotti, Witold Sobocinski (Technicolor).
Art director: Francesco Bronzi.
Editor: Cesare d'Amico, Andrzej Kostenko.
Music: Stanley Myers, diretta da Carlo Savina.
Sound: André Hervée, Robert Rietti.
Cast and characters: Tymothy Hutton (Sanin), Nastassia Kinski (Maria), Valeria Golino (Gemma), William Forsythe (Polozov), Urbano Barberini (Von Donhov), Francesca De Sapio (signora Rossellì), Jacques Herlin (Pantaleone), Antonio Cantafora (Richter), Christopher Janczar (Kluber), Jerzy Skolimowski (Victor Victorovich).
Production company: Angelo Rizzoli per Erre Produzioni (Roma), ReteItalia (Roma) Les Films Ariane (Parigi).
Produttore associato: Curzon Film Distributors (Londra).
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