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Central and Eastern Europe, 1965. Although still
hemmed in by Communist censorship,
artists can at least enjoy a relative creative liberty as the last vestiges
of Socialist Realism disappear
from view in the culture of Poland. Filmmakers, too, are now more free
in their choice of subjects for movies. In a spectacular early effort,
director Wojciech Has, aided by some of Poland's best movie artists, embarks
on a project that will change the course of cinema in that part of the
world: an adaptation of Jan Potocki's late Enlightenment/ pre-Romantic
novel Gothic novel, The Saragossa Manuscript.
Mieczyslaw Jahoda's black-and-white pictures recreate the climate of this
arcane collection of interrelated themes and allusions masterfully translated
into the script by Tadeusz Kwiatkowski. The actors
in the movie correspond only to two categories: the then stars of Polish
cinema who consider The Saragossa Manuscript the apogee of their
career, and the aspiring actors who owe most of their later successes to
the experience and the reputation acquired while working with Has on the
movie. |
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