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It all started when Tadeusz [Kwiatkowski] said he’s thinking of adapting parts of the original novel into a film script. I don’t think Has had read The Saragossa Manuscript. So Kwiatkowski brought him his own copy. And Wojtek read it. And it just swept him away. Wojciech Has, director: Although it was in no way connected with the story itself, the fact that we were all connected to, or at least bred in, Krakow, somehow helped to identify with the magical aura of the story. It’s simply because Krakow is such a magical place. It so utterly surreal, even today. It almost doesn’t seem to be a real city, it’s so… And so was the book. And the movie. It’s places like that, and novels like that, that taught you what art was all about. And what surrealism was all about. And what realism was all about. And [laughter] what socialist realism was all about. Mieczyslaw Jahoda, director of photography: As The Manuscript’s director of photography, I must say I was sorely tempted to shoot it in color. Imagine the sun on the rocks around “Venta Quemada,” or even the dirt in the streets of “Madrid…” But you must realize that, in Poland in those times, Orwo-Chrome, the East-German brand, was the only available color film. And its colors were simple awful, and they would start fading almost immediately. So we finally decided on black and white; yet even then, whenever we were filming a particularly colorful scene, Skarzynski would come up to me and say: “Just look! Wouldn’t it be so much better in color?” Barbara Pec-Slesicka, producer: The production was a nightmare also because all our actors had their own jobs in drama theaters all over Poland, so we had to have it all planned to the last detail: who can play when and all that. But then Wojtek [Has] is a great guy to work with. He’s such a perfectionist. His script was simply a marvel – someone would ask him, “So do we use the camera trolley in scene 142?” and he would say: “Why don’t you look in the script,” and sure enough, there it was: “Scene 142, 1 trolley.” The Skarzynskis’ decorations were simply unbelievable. They brought in this crowd of art students first to put it all up and do the costumes and all, and then they all worked hard day and night to make them seem used, worn, threadbare… You could see all those intelligent people scraping away at those fantastic costumes with iron brushes and whatnot, just to make them look authentic. I’ve even kept an oil lamp from the set. No one missed it, I hope. Jerzy Skarzynski, designer: I knew from the very start that the design has to be just a tiny bit unreal, or, more than that, surreal. So we even did the trees, remember, because we couldn’t find real ones that would look weird enough to fit the atmosphere. This was such great fun… Me and my late wife truly had the time of our lives then… And the very idea to disguise the Krakow-Czestochowa Highland as the mountains of Spain… I think the idea was not to be too earnest about it, in the sense that we hoped that the audience, well, the Polish audience at least, would realize it’s all make-believe, because that’s exactly what the novel, and the film, are all about. Barbara Pec-Slesicka, producer: Now the biggest scandal concerned the main part, that of Alphonse van Worden. I just don’t know how it all happened, but they hired this French guy, at least he said he was French, I don’t even remember his name, and they even rented a villa with a maid just for him and him family – this was unthinkable in those times. I think they hired him because he looked a bit like Fanfan le Tulipe. Anyway, when it came to his acting it all proved to be a hoax, he simply was not an actor at all, and Has was at a loss what to do. And then someone said – “Why not Zbyszek Cybulski?” and I saw Has hesitate for just a little while, and then he said: “Yes. Let’s get Zbyszek. He’s the only one.” Of course it was a small revolution in the approach to the movie, because that… spurious Frenchie was supposed to be a sex symbol, and Cybulski, well, he was more of the gentle, awkward kind – quite different from his early heroic emplois in Ashes and Diamonds, for instance. Actually, Zbyszek had been hanging around the set even before all hell broke loose when that Frenchman was unmasked. It’s almost as if he knew that they’re going to ask him instead. Zbyszek
Cybulski had an original work ethic. As we knew very well his evil ways, they put me in
the hotel in a room adjacent to his. It was my duty to make sure he’d get up early in
the morning to make to the set on time. So I would bang at his door and yell, and he’d
mumble, “OK, OK, I’m not asleep,” and he wouldn’t even stir from bed. So I would
have to do it over and over again, and then I would hear the water tap being turned on. It
took me some time to realize that he would get up, turn the water on in his room and go
back to sleep. Iga Cembrzynska, “Emina:” That was my big break. I was still a student at the Theatre School and we all could see there’s something going on because there were all those assistant producers around the place snooping for talent. So someone must have mentioned me to Has, because there was no casting at all, at least not in my case. He just made me try on a costume, he looked at me and said, “Right, that’s my Emina.” And that was it. Actually, my scenes with Joasia [Jedryka] and Zbyszek were also a novelty. Imagine socialist Poland, early sixties, and there we are the three of us, Joasia also just a student, like myself, engaging in this lesbian, or should I say bisexual, dalliance, on that bed in that big cave Has had built for us in the studio… Joanna Jedryka, “Zibelda:” I’ve always thought that the costume people got it all wrong. I just cannot understand why they kept on giving the more diaphanous, you know, the completely see-through gown to me and not to Iga, you know, for reasons of… em… character, if you see what I mean. Still, I was so thrilled to be working with those people, all those famous stars, Zbyszek, Bogdan [Kobiela], that I was just meekly accepting anything they said. And God how I was afraid of Has. I don’t know why, he’s such a gentle person. But I just trembled whenever he looked at me. Beata Tyszkiewicz, “Rebecca:” Contrarily to everyone else, who all had their engagements in their various theaters, I was in the comfortable and rare situation of a movie actress. Yes; but as a result, they would schedule my scenes for, like, five p.m., when everyone was long gone, and I would be dialoguing with the table, or the corner of the set, or a wardrobe. It was so hard… But it was worth it. It really was. Gustaw Holoubek, “Don Pedro Velasquez:” We were driven like slaves in that movie. Has is a slavedriver, that’s what he is. They would wake us up at five, or even before five, they would drag us for makeup before six, and then they would keep us at the set till late afternoon, either because something went wrong or, more often than not, because Jahoda could never decide on the right light. Never in my whole career have I been so abused. The sweat, the blood, the tears… Has is a slavedriver, let me tell you that.
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Copyright © 2000 by Jan Rybicki.
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