1. New Yorker Films Video, released in VHS format in North America
April 2000.
2.
In this article each of the "Decalogue" series films will be
designated as "D" and the Roman numeral of the corresponding
Commandment (e.g., "D-I"). This method corresponds to the way Kieślowski himself entitled the individual films.
Kieślowski simply titles the films as, e.g., "Decalogue I,"
without naming the Commandment. According to Tadeusz Sobolewski (Gazeta
Wyborcza, issue 122 of October 26, 1989, p. 8) when the films
appeared in Western Europe, some theaters found it necessary to
provide little cards with the text of the Ten Commandments printed
on them to help viewers remember the subject of the particular
precept.
3. Kieślowski explained that "D-V" was the film that he really wanted
to do, but economic considerations in mid-1980s Poland made
television movie serials more viable. While Telewizja Polska
bought the ten one-hour "Decalogue" films, he also got additional
funds from the Polish Ministry of Culture, which was interested in
funding films for movie theaters. They wanted two films. Kieślowski
insisted that one be "D-V" ("A Short Film about Killing") and left
the choice about the other to them. They chose "D-V," which
became "A Short Film about Love." See Danuta Stok, ed.,
Krzyszstof Kieślowski o sobie [Krzysztof Kieślowski
on Himself] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1997), pp. 119-21.
4.
Kieślowski was born June 27, 1941. He studied
film in Łódź from 1957-68 and became associated with the TOR film
company in Poland. He has been recognized for his artistic
achievement at such festivals as Kraków, Mannheim, Venice, Moscow,
and Cannes, and has been an Oscar nominee.
5.
Serafino Murri, Krzysztof Kieślowski,
Milan: Il Castro, 1986, pp. 75-77.
6.
"W kraju panował chaos i bałagan—w każdej
dziedzinie, w każdej sprawie i w prawie każdym życiu . . .
Nie myśłę nawet o polityce, ale o zwykłym, codziennym życiu . . .
. Miałem dojmujące wrażenie, że coraz częściej ogladam
ludzi, którzy nie bardzo wiedzą, po co żyją." [Chaos and disorder
ruled in the country: in every branch of life, in every issue, and
in practically every life.. . I do not have politics in mind,
but ordinary, everyday life. . . . I had the keen impression
that I was ever more frequently looking at people who did not
really know why they were living]. Stok, p. 111.
All foreign language translations appearing in these notes, except
where indicated, are the author's.
7.
Directed by Agnieszka Holland and released by Columbia
Pictures/France 3 Cinéma in 1988, starring Christopher Lambert.
8.
There was supposedly a documentary featuring Kieślowski
and Piesiewicz produced in 1994 by Dominique Rabourdin, "Dialogue
autour de Décalogue," but this author has not seen it. It is
mentioned in an article discussing documentaries about Kieślowski's
life and work: see Mikołaj Jazdon, "Spotkania z Kieślowskim.
O dokumentalnych potretach reżysera" [Encounters with Kieślowski:
On Documentary Potraits of the Director], Kwartalnik Filmowy,
(Spring 2001), pp. 162-71.
9. " . . . sui dieci precetti morali dell'Antico Testamento sul cui
sfondo si basa anche gran parte della giurisprudenza . . . .
" Murri, p. 77.
10.
Kieślowski says that he picked a recently constructed
apartment complex because, while it looked bad, it only suggested
how much worse others might be. ("Wygląda dość
okropnie. Można sobie wyobrazić, jakie są te inne").
Stok, p. 114. In mid-1980s Warsaw, with
only grey socialist apartment blocs to choose from, Kieślowski's
observations might have applied to the general Polish reality.
The boom in luxury housing for the better-heeled in districts like
Ursynów or Konstanciń today might elicit other social justice
critiques from socially conscious film directors.
11.
"Od czasu Wajdy oraz młodego Skolimowskiego, a
więc od lat sześćdziesiątych, żaden polski reżyser (poza
Polańskim) nie cieszył się takim uznamiem w świecie. Jednak
kariera "szkoły polskiej" polegała na czymś innym: na bohaterów
‘Kanału' czy ‘Popiołu i diamentu' świat patrzył jak na
tragicznych, ale egzotycznych samurajów. Natomiast bohaterowie
Kieślowskiego są ludźmi takimi, jak wszyscy pod każdą szerokością
geograficzną. [Kieślowski] [ p]ostawił polskiego filmu poza
kompleksem polskim wobec tajemnicy zła, tajemnicy losu, tajemnicy
Boga." Tadeusz Sobolewski, "Warto Zobacyzc—Dekalog" [Worth
Seeing—The Decalogue] , Gazeta Wyborcza, issue 122 of
October 26, 1989, p. 8, col. 4.
12.
"Intuiczjnie zaczęliśmy przypuszczać, że Dekalog
może stać się filmem uniwersalnym. Postanowiliśmy więc wyrzucić
politykę z filmów." Stok, p. 113. At the same time, one
cannot simply abstract from the concrete politico-cultural
conditions which inspired Kieślowski. While the
crisis of faith may be as great in the West as it was in Poland,
its depiction in "D-I" is also colored by the fact that Krzysztof
lived in a country whose rulers ideologically postulated atheism
as the governing social ideology.
13. Stok, p. 112.
14.
See Christopher Garbowski, Krzysztof Kieślowski's Decalogue
Series: The Problem of the Protagonists and Their
Self-Transcendence, in the "Eastern European Monographs"
series, no. 452 (Boulder, CO: Eastern European Monographs,
1996). Garbowski, from the Catholic University of Lublin,
provides a good Catholic theological context—the context within
which Kieślowski would have been speaking in
Poland—to these films.
15.
See Michał Klinger, "Strażnik wrót. Rzecz o
Dekalogu Krzysztofa Kieślowskiego" in Kino Krzysztofa
Kieślowskiego [The Cinema of Krzysztof
Kieślowski], (Kraków: Universitas, 1997), pp. 57. 58.
16.
Kieślowski related the story he heard from Witek
Zalewski about Mach's funeral anecdote. Mach had made a film that
included a funeral scene. Asked what he liked best about the
scene, a viewer said the man in the black suit on the left. Even
the producer had not noticed that particular extra's inclusion,
but the viewer did. That silent figure is needed. Kieślowski
says he added his figure, the young man, because "Some people
notice him as he looks around and observes. He has no influence
on what goes on, but he constitutes his own kind of sign or
warning to those whom he looks upon, if they notice him." ["Niektórzy
go widzą, jak patrzy, przygląda się. Nie ma wpływu na to, co się
dzieje, ale stanowi swego rodzaju znak czy ostrzeżenie dla tych,
którym się przygląda, jeżeli go dostrzegają"). Stok, p. 125,
translation the author's.
17.
Thus, in "D-I" we see an icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa,
much of the action in "D-III" takes place around the traditional
Polish Christmas Eve ("Wigilia") and Midnight Mass ("Pasterka")
celebrations, a young girl's First Communion picture is
prominent in "D-V," and Baptism becomes a key motive for the
action in "D-VIII."
18.
See Karol Wojtyła (Pope John Paul II), Sign of
Contradiction, Crossroad Books (New York: Seabury Press,
1979), pp. 59-61.
19. "I have the impression that the silence and ontological darkness
of God is His proper topos, that which remains after the
extinguishing of symbols by rationalism—great European
rationalism." [Mam wrażenie, że milczenie i
ciemność ontologiczna Boga, to jest swoisty topos,
to co pozostało po wzgaszonych przez racjonalizm--wielki
racjonalizm europejski—symbolach"]. Klinger, p. 54.
20.
Klinger, p. 54.
21.
"Jest rzeczą niewątpliwie zastanawiającą, że w
ogóle znalazł się ktoś, kto podjąl temat Dziesięciorga Przykazań,
a zwlaszcza już to, że okazał się niom deklarujęcy swój
agnostycyzm Kieślowski." Gina Lagorio, quoted in Kieślowski
znany i nieznany [Kieślowski: Known and
Unknown] (Warsaw/Siedlce: n.p., 1998), p. 41. Lagorio is author
of a 1991 Italian work on the Decalogue unknown to this author:
Il Decalogo di Kieślowski.
22. "Sztuka Kieślowskiego jest religijna. Naprawdę
uniwersalna, wznosi się ponad politycznymi i kulturowymi
podziałami współczesności. Jej dramat odnosi się nie tylko do
nas, poddanych—wówczas, gdy filmy te powstawały—kryzysowi
socjalizmu, lecz także do naszych braci na (zbyt) cywiliozowanym
Zachodzie, gdzie o Bogu mowić jest jakby wstyd . . . . " Klinger,
p. 51.
23. I John 4:20. See also James 2: 14-20.
24.
French scholar André Chouraqui argues that " . . .
si l'homme accomplissait ses
devoirs élémentaires, don't les principaux sont précisément contenus dans les Dix Commandements,
une déclaration concernant les droits ne serait pas nécessaire.
[If a man carries out his elementary duties, the
principle ones of which being contained precisely in the Ten
Commandments, a declaration about his rights would not be
necessary]. André Chouraqui, Les Dix Commandements
Aujourd'hui. Dix paroles pour réconcilier l'Homme avec le humain.
(Paris: Édition Robert Laffont, 2000), p. 21, emphasis
original. Chouraqui's subtitle encapsulates the position he (and
the present author and arguably Kieślowski ) take:
the Decalogue is "ten words to reconcile
man with the human."
25.
In addition to the literature already cited in the previous notes,
the following studies of Kieślowski's "Decalogue"
have also appeared: Veronique Campan, Dix brčves histoires
d'image. Le Décalogue de Krzysztof Kieślowski
(Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle, 1993); Monika
Erbstein, Untersuchungen zum Filmsprache im Werke von Krzysztof
Kieślowski (Alfeld:
Coppi-Verlag, 1997); Walter Lesch and Matthias Loretan, eds.,
Das Gewicht der Gebote und die Möglichkeiten der Kunst: Krzysztof
Kieślowskis ‘Dekalog'—Filme als ethische Modelle (Freiburg,
Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 1993); Stefania Rimini,
L'etica della sguardo. Introduzione al cinema di Krzystof
Kieślowski (Naples, Italy: Ligouri, 2000); Gabriella Ripa di
Meana, La morale dell'altro: scritti sull'inconscio dal
Decalogo di Kieślowski (Florence, Italy: Liberal Libri, 1998);
Yvette Biró, Krzysztof Kieślowski
(Paris: Lettres modernes, 1994);
Vincent Amiel, Kieślowski (Paris: Rivages, 1995); Gérard
Pangon and Vincent Amiel, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Cannes Film
Festival 1988 (Paris: Arte, 1997); Annette Insdorf, Double
Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski (New
York: Miramax, 1999); Paul Coates, ed., Lucid Dreams: The
Films of Krzysztof Kieślowski (Trowbridge, England: Flicks
Books, 1999); Slavoj Žižek, The Fright of Real Tears:
Krzysztof Kieślowski Between Theory and Post Theory (London:
BFI Books, 2001); Vito Attolini et al., Krzysztof
Kieślowski (Manduria: Barbieri, 1998); Małgorzata Furdel
and Roberto Turigliatto Kieślowski
(Turin: Museo Nazionale del Cinema,
1989); and Sylvain de Bleeckere, Levenswaarden en
levensverhalen. Een Studie van de Decaloog van Kieślowski
(Leuven, Belgium: Acco, 1994). Although not perhaps
directly relevant: Emma Wilson, Memory and Survival: The French
Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski (Oxford: Legenda, 2000).
