A loose adaptation of Jan Potocki’s colossal eighteenth-century tome, this rambling, flamboyant and incoherent ‘head movie’ should be approached with caution by anyone who hasn’t got any drugs in their system. The only opinion slightly exotic today is one uttered by Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, who ←14 | 15→commented that such projects are safe both for the authors and for “the fearful administrative film apparatus”, since “picking on Prus, Żeromski, or even Potocki (though a count, and cosmopolitan) would be purely absurd” 10.To spark up or not to spark up? That is the question posed by watching Polish director Wojciech Has’s literary epic which is re-released in all its three-hour, mind-melting glory. At that time, the fundamental charge was as follows: such productions walk away from the contemporary subject matter and plunge into “archaic and museum-oriented” 9 issues. It is surprising that in the attempt to discredit the meaning of superproductions, the reviewers of nineteen-sixties used similar arguments to those writing today. We are observing a similar situation at present as well. Numerous historical giants provoked a critical backlash of sharp opinions concerning the films. Jak być kochaną ) and reading his statements about film production, it is impossible not to notice that this desire was not the main motive inducing the author of Manuscript for the completion of this undertaking. When examining the earlier work of Has (particularly ones which were a success in the West, e.g. Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz justified the attendant coming into existence of many spectacular undertakings also with “the desire for reaching foreign markets” 8, all enthusiastic about works such as Cleopatra or Ben Hur. It is difficult, however, to agree with any who claim that the novel by count Potocki was an exceptionally imposing and obvious “supply”. (…) o it was necessary to turn to the supplies” 7. ![]() Has made the film in 1968), thus talked about Polish spectacular films: “fter the period in which they lightened their burdens by responsibility – analysing films – the cinematography and authors were in an empty place. Jan Rybkowski, who was making plans for the production of Lalka in 1964 (eventually W.J. Classroom literature, one might add, which is not a meaningless fact. The guarantee of pulling large crowds of recipients to the cinemas was supposed to be the fact that concomitant “giants”, similar as a matter of fact to today’s, were adaptations of Polish literature classics. It is often thought that the apogee of the historical film production in that period was a response to the growing significance of television. Let us however return to Polish superproductions. In January 1966, the first issue of monthly “Kino” appeared 6. Readers of “Film” magazine also awarded the film with the “Golden Duck”. ![]() Besides, this year the “Warsaw’s Mermaid”, the Polish Film Criticism Prize, was awarded for 1964 to the film Pierwszy dzień wolności by Aleksander Ford. On television, Wojna domowa series by Jerzy Gruza also opened in October. In 1965 – besides Has’s film – the following premiered: Późne popołudnie by Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski, Pingwin by Jerzy Stefan Stawiński, Rysopis and Walkower by Jerzy Skolimowski, Salto by Tadeusz Konwicki. Right afterwards, Faraon (1966) was made by Jerzy Kawalerowicz on the basis of Bolesław Prus’s work.įor a fuller total image it is worth to provide a few more pieces of information from Polish cinema history of the times. In the same year in which also Pętla ’s author opus came into being, Andrzej Wajda realised Popioły according to the novel of Stefan Żeromski. What followed was, less successful, Panienka z okienka (1964) on motifs of Deotyma’s novel, directed by Maria Kaniewska, with costumes designed by Jan Marcin Szancer. The success of this film exceeded the wildest expectations (ten million spectators). It was Aleksander Ford who began the procession of superproductions with Krzyżacy according to the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1960). ![]() This analogy is no longer in effect, however, when one compares the films’ artistic values. The times of great Polish superproductions of the nineteen-sixties resemble slightly the current fashion for adaptations of great works of Polish literature ( Ogniem i mieczem, Pan Tadeusz, Quo vadis, Przedwiośnie et cetera). The Saragossa Manuscript by Wojciech Has was made at the time when a whole sequence of other historical films was produced in Poland.
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