Passages

[antnield]

Wolfgang Suschitzky.

[MichaelB]

Wolfgang Suschitzky.

Not a huge surprise, given his inordinately impressive age, but sad nonetheless. I met him several times when working on the BFI's postwar documentary project, and he was absolutely delightful - and invariably fascinating - company.

[bearcuborg]

Rod Templeton

I'll be honest I didn't even know who this guy was till I read this article - but damn, I grew up loving these songs, hearing them on the radio, and I still do.

[Cash Flagg]

Bill Warren, author of the mammoth guide to 1950's sci-fi films, Keep Watching the Skies!.

[The Narrator Returns]

Andrzej Wajda

[Rayon Vert]

Andrzej Wajda

Wow, that's a pity. One of the all-time greats.

[colinr0380]

That's very sad news, and he was yet another veteran director who was working until the very end with this year's Afterimage.

[knives]

I suppose it isn't too shocking though after him committing to retirement.

[lubitsch]

There's probably no other director in cinema's history who so closely reflected a country's myths, history and stories like Wajda did. And especially over such an incredibly long period ranging at least 50 years from Kanal to Katyn.

[MichaelB]

There's probably no other director in cinema's history who so closely reflected a country's myths, history and stories like Wajda did. And especially over such an incredibly long period ranging at least 50 years from Kanal to Katyn.

His feature career spanned 62 years, if you count them from the shooting of A Generation in 1954 to the world premiere of Afterimage in 2016.

And I agree with you: I've been doing the rounds of various radio shows today as an alleged Wajda expert, and the best comparison I can come up with isn't another filmmaker but Giuseppe Verdi, who, like Wajda, had an exceptionally long and distinguished career that was simultaneously seen as being the embodiment of his country's conscience - and they also had brief stints in their countries' Parliaments shortly after revolutionary upheavals that their work was seen as symbolising.

I'm not sure where Knives thinks that he was "committing to retirement" - unless he was mistranslated, his speech at the Polish premiere of Afterimage (which I attended) seemed to suggest that he had every intention of making another film, and I'm honestly surprised that he didn't ultimately die on the set, megaphone in hand. But Afterimage is a good one to go out on - it's not front-rank Wajda, falling victim to the "decent film by someone who's made too many great ones for that to be quite enough" syndrome that bedevilled a lot of his recent work, but it neatly brings his extraordinary career full circle, seeing as it's set at the very start of Wajda's career and deals with a subject that directly affected his early work: the encroachment of officially-enforced Socialist Realism in the creative arts.

[thirtyframesasecond]

The Promised Land too is one of the great films about 'capitalism'.

[knives]

There's probably no other director in cinema's history who so closely reflected a country's myths, history and stories like Wajda did. And especially over such an incredibly long period ranging at least 50 years from Kanal to Katyn.

His feature career spanned 62 years, if you count them from the shooting of A Generation in 1954 to the world premiere of Afterimage in 2016.

And I agree with you: I've been doing the rounds of various radio shows today as an alleged Wajda expert, and the best comparison I can come up with isn't another filmmaker but Giuseppe Verdi, who, like Wajda, had an exceptionally long and distinguished career that was simultaneously seen as being the embodiment of his country's conscience - and they also had brief stints in their countries' Parliaments shortly after revolutionary upheavals that their work was seen as symbolising.

I'm not sure where Knives thinks that he was "committing to retirement" - unless he was mistranslated, his speech at the Polish premiere of Afterimage (which I attended) seemed to suggest that he had every intention of making another film, and I'm honestly surprised that he didn't ultimately die on the set, megaphone in hand. But Afterimage is a good one to go out on - it's not front-rank Wajda, falling victim to the "decent film by someone who's made too many great ones for that to be quite enough" syndrome that bedevilled a lot of his recent work, but it neatly brings his extraordinary career full circle, seeing as it's set at the very start of Wajda's career and deals with a subject that directly affected his early work: the encroachment of officially-enforced Socialist Realism in the creative arts.

I wasn't aware of Afterimage. I remember talk of retirement during that previous film about the prime minister. My bad that I didn't know he didn't commit.

[MichaelB]

I think you might have got him mixed up with Krzysztof Kieślowski, who famously did announce his retirement after Three Colours: Red. But Wajda kept on going, to the extent that everyone had long since given up claiming that his most recent film was "surely his last". Loads of people said that at the time of Katyń, since he was already into his eighties when it premiered, but he went on to make three more cinema features and a TV movie.

[knives]

No definitely not. My mistake is only in understanding the reporting of the last Man of film.

[djproject]

Donald Arthur, German voice actor.

I only found this out in passing whilst watching The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter, where he did uncredited voice work for Falkor. And since people like to reference The Simpsons here now and then, he was the German Kent Brockman.

[AidanKing]

the best comparison I can come up with isn't another filmmaker but Giuseppe Verdi, who, like Wajda, had an exceptionally long and distinguished career that was simultaneously seen as being the embodiment of his country's conscience - and they also had brief stints in their countries' Parliaments shortly after revolutionary upheavals that their work was seen as symbolising.

I think that's a fascinating comparison and insight. Michael B has also written an obituary for Sight and Sound, which in addition contains some great photos of Wajda.

I'm surprised, given Wajda's historical, social and political importance on top of his artistic achievement, along with Britain's links to Poland, that there hasn't been more coverage of his death in the U.K. On the other hand, given the prevailing tenor of the coverage Bergman's death received, particularly in broadcast media, perhaps that's a blessing.

[MichaelB]

I'm surprised, given Wajda's historical, social and political importance on top of his artistic achievement, along with Britain's links to Poland, that there hasn't been more coverage of his death in the U.K.

To be fair, the Guardian ran it as news, an appreciation, an obituary and, the most pleasant surprise, a leading article.

But, tellingly, there haven't been that many comments and many of the ones that were posted were off-topic wrangling about the number of people killed at Katyń or whether Polanski was better than Wajda. (I suspect Polanski would be appalled by this - he's never made any secret of his colossal debt to Wajda, without whose early support he might never have dared to enrol at the Łódź Film School in the first place). And when I was interviewed by the BBC World Service yesterday they told me upfront to "assume our listeners know nothing about him", which was probably sensible.

[AidanKing]

The obituary, news item and appreciation were expected, as that's what The Guardian normally does, but the leading article, which is also in the print edition, is a really nice touch and a credit to the paper's editors.

[Gregory]

Studio Ghibli animator and color designer Michiyo Yasuda – read more here and here.

[domino harvey]

Tommy Ford from Martin

[rohmerin]

Nobel Prize Dario Fo.

[Polybius]

Tommy Ford from Martin

Really sorry to see this. He was a fabulous set up man for Martin. In a show that had an array of running jokes, no one having any idea where he worked and what he did was one of my favorites.

[antnield]

Pierre Étaix.

[MaxCastle]

I'm surprised, given Wajda's historical, social and political importance on top of his artistic achievement, along with Britain's links to Poland, that there hasn't been more coverage of his death in the U.K. On the other hand, given the prevailing tenor of the coverage Bergman's death received, particularly in broadcast media, perhaps that's a blessing.

I was a little surprised that Wajda wasn't featured on BBC Radio 4's obituary programme The Last Word this afternoon. (Perhaps that surprise was misplaced, though; as far as I can tell, the last non-Anglophone film director to make the cut was Alain Resnais in early 2014.)

[MichaelB]

To be fair, the BBC did cover his passing on the actual day.

And I suspect the reason why he's not this week's choice of Economist obituary subject is that they ran a piece on the premiere of Afterimage only a month ago. Which was rather more of a surprise, as their film coverage is usually minimal!