Andrzej Wajda

[knives]

He takes out the references to Jews [/bad joke]

[MichaelB]

I'd forgotten that the other Wajda "director's cut" was a fair bit shorter!

But what baffles me is why this is happening just months after the world premiere - surely Wajda had final cut on the first version? It's hard to imagine anyone overruling him given that he's been the Grand Old Man of Polish cinema for decades now.

Annoyingly, it seems that neither the Polish DVD nor the BD have English subtitles (if anyone knows otherwise, I'd love to be wrong), and the British release has been delayed until June - I have seen the film, but several months ago, so I'm not sure I'd be able to spot any differences unless they're really glaring.

[Stephen]

Another titan falls. What a year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37603756

[Mr Sausage]

Another titan falls. What a year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37603756

Already being discussed here.

[L.A.]

Satyajit Ray interviews Andrzej Wajda at the 1965 Delhi Film Festival

[FrauBlucher]

TCM at 2AM est has the doc Wajda by Wajda scheduled followed by Ashes and Diamonds

[Calvin]

I've been making my way through the Polish Blu-Ray releases of Wajda's films and have just watched Chronicle of Amorous Accidents (Kronika wypadków milosnych), on which there is little English-language discussion to be found. The title is rather weighty for what is essentially a period romance between two high schoolers, set on the cusp of the breakout of war, that takes some Shakespearean turns but doesn't fully follow through with them. The film opens with a quote from Pan Tadeusz, which Wajda would later adapt in the 90s: "there is but one region in which there is a crumb of happiness for a Pole: the land of his childhood!" Writer Tadeusz Konwicki plays the protagonist's ghost of future past, searching for that crumb of happiness before war, before the iron curtain. His presence, though his screentime is minimal, makes the film far more interesting than it would otherwise be - it reminded me of two more recent films, Miyazaki's The Wind Rises and Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hanagatami. Both of which are very different beasts both in content and form, but have the same sense of retrospection and introspection around that late pre-war period.

The female lead, Paulina Mlynarska, was 14-years-old at the time and it seems that the shoot was particularly unethical - she's reported in recent years that she was plied with alcohol and sedative medication prior to shooting nude scenes (of which there is little detail on-screen) with co-star Piotr Wawrzynczak.

[kekid]

How does the Picture Quality of the Polish Blu Rays compare with the DVDs in the big Wajda box?