Clinton St. Theatre Pullout When Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda), an incredibly brash student in Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble, embarks on a thesis film exploring Poland in the 1950s, the whole regime quakes with fear. She’s Pandora with a movie camera, and the boxes of classified footage she pries open and projects show Poland’s post-World War II socialist promise betrayed. Agnieszka’s documentary-in-the- making focuses on a once-honored Polish bricklayer, Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), who fell out of government favor. It’s a tale of intense meaning for all Poles who demand more from their country than a fossilized Stalinoid state. When Man of Marble was first released, in 1977, it was a cause for national celebration—a spectacular signal that Poland’s most famous and prestigious filmmaker, Andrzej (Kanai, Ashes and Diamonds) Wajda had thrown in completely with the dissident workers. Afterward, Wajda was chosen as the official chronicler of the escalating Polish revolt, and one of the protestor demands last year was that Wajda’s recent documentary of striking workers be broadcast on national television. Man of Marble is a political thriller, a bit like Z or Medium Cool or The China Syndrome, though far more complex than any of these. More properly, it’s been called the Citisen Kane of Polish cinema, and this title is both a hyperbolic comment on its quality—It’s a very good film, not a great one—and a pragmatic description of its form. There’s no doubt that Wajda meant it as a Polish Kane, and it’s similarly structured as a media Investigation into the life of an enigmatic public figure who has fallen from power. Kane’s peripatetic reporter is replaced by Marble’s feisty film student and Orson Welle’s newspaper king, Charles Foster Kane, is supplanted by Marble’s people’s hero, Birkut. Citisen Kane is the story of an Idealist who turns sour and elitist and betrays his country. Man of Marble is about a country that turns sour and elitist and betrays its idealists. After World War II, nobody is more enthralled than Birkut with Man of Marble A Polish Kane Excerpt from the Boston Real Paper—Gerald Peary the new Communist Poland. He’s a young peasant who signs up to help build the model Socialist city of Nowa Huta. He sets speed records for bricklaying and he volunteers to star as the proletariat hero of a government film preaching the new society—Architects of Our Happiness. Birkut’s a model in work and also a model in love, engaged to a hearty and photogenic young gymnast. His enthusiasm knows no limits—he even travels to frontier towns to show people how to work faster,faster,faster. Jolt 1: What seems patriotism to Birkut smacks of old-fashioned speedup to others. Somebody anonymous hands him a hot brick and Birkut’s palms cook. Christ-like, he continues, swathed in bandages, suffering for others’ non-Sociallst sins. Jolt 2: Birkut’s beloved Poland becomes the nightmare Kafka prophesied. His friend Wltek walks past a secretary with four ominous phones and into a bureaucrat’s long office, where he literally disappears. Next, Wltek pops up on trial for sabotage and confesses his guilt. In fact, all those on trial say “Guilty.” Jolt 3: Birkut is Imprisoned himself. He Is treated as a Polish Trotsky. His film biography is banished to the vaults. The marble statue of Birkut, Revolutionary Worker, is knocked over and deposited In a museum backroom. A mammoth poster of his exemplary face is pulled down and a shiny new working-class hero is thrust in his place. Jolt 4: Birkut, rehabilitated and released from prison is still no hero. His fiancee has denounced him. His friend Wltek Is now a government gladhander. Birkut casts an unmarked ballot in a local election, refusing to be one of the happy 92 percent in the Eastern European Socialist countries who always vote pro-government. Birkut disappears.... Agnieszka wants desperately to find him. One quite wonderful thing about Man of Marble is its erotic content. It’s a love story between the filmmaker and her subject. The first time Agnieszka sees the marble statue of Birkut, she straddles it while photographing. She’s hooked. The second time she sees Birkut is in an old documentary—a closeup of his cute, wide-eyed face. All the way through, Agnieszka’s intensity is sexy and catching: she even makes cigarette smoking appealing again, for she inhales with such bravura and joy. It’s Andrzej Wajda’s most accessible, appealing film in two decades, entertaining without compromising its intellectual rigor and concern for form. Krystyna Janda, who plays Agnieszka, is a peach. Man of Marble is also essential viewing for the extraordinarily ingenious fllm- wlthin-a-film, Architects of Our Happiness, Wajda’s masterful parody of Socialist Realism. Hereafter, you won’t be able to look at a craggy peasant or a stadium festival of happy youth without chuckling away. Coming November 4-9 at the Clinton Street Theatre. For further Clinton St. Theatre program information, turn the page. EYEWITNESS Co-stars Sigourney Weaver (who made a remarkable screen debut In Alien) and William Hurt (Introduced in Altered States) create an intriguing thriller of oddly mismatched characters thrown together by perilous circumstances In ■yewitness. Daryll Deever (Hurt) is a Vietnam vet, an unassuming janitor who nourishes his fantasy desire for television reporter Tony Sokolow (Weaver) by replaying the videotapes he makes of her late night news reports. Her glamor and sophistication, the media charisma she projects into his home nightly, suddenly come his way in person when she is assigned to investigate a murder in the building where Daryll works the lonely night shift. To prolong his contact with the alluring Tony, Daryll claims to have knowledge about the murderer. His misleading but provocative statement leads to a love affair that places both of their lives in jeopardy. Their romance hovers on the edge of danger from that moment forward. One of the central themes Steve Teslch (Academy Award for his filmscript Breaking Away) explores in Byewitness is the emergence of television journalists as authentic celebrities whose professional and private lives often make bigger headlines than the news events they report. Prior to filming, Weaver researched her role by going out on assignments with the news team from a local New York TV station. The actress says of the experience: “I was tremendously impressed by the long hours and dedication of the reporters, but what really surprised me was the edge that women have over their male colleagues. In getting a story women can be terribly charming and exude the kind of personality that makes people want to open up and talk. Sigourney Weaver is a veteran of off-Broadway and the pick of many in the film industry for superstardom. Her pleasure in reaching the top so quickly is tempered with her desire for a wider range of parts than she’s being offered currently. “I feel I’ve already been typecast to some extent. I’m thought of as up-scale, intelligent, aggressive, capable, modern, and I suppose, attractive In the commercial sense. But I’m usually drawn to parts nothing like that. That’s the ‘actor’s dilemma’—it’s not unique to me.” When asked what goals she has as an actress...“To create characters that wouldn’t exist without my Initiative and to play Miss Marple when I’m 80.” Hurt chose his second role carefully, to avoid repeating the scientist-psychedelic traveler type he played In Altered States. “I want to be remembered for the varied performances I’ve given.” Hurt brought a great deal of personal experience to the role of Deever, including the solitary bent that he breaks from only as the plot thickens. “Sure he has his fantasies. He’s a real dreamer when it comes to watching television and wanting to meet her. But he’s not sitting around and letting that fantasy destroy him. He’s lucky enough to find pleasure and satisfaction in his life as it is. ” ■yewitness is one of the best of recent American releases, directed by Peter Yates, who teamed with Teslch In creating Breaking Away. Be sure to catch ■yewitness, October 21-29, at the Clinton Street Theatre. Clinton St. Quarterly 23
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