Meetings with Kieślowski: On His Documentary Portraits

Mikołaj Jazdon

Abstract

Jazdon’s analyses films in which Kieślowski is portrayed; from Piotr Studziński’s Faces with the face of Kieślowski as a film school student to films made after his death. Surprisingly, there were so many films portraying him. Kieślowski as a film hero is an extremely interesting personality, and what he says is seen as important commentary to his work. Kieślowski was always fascinated with the human face, both in documentaries (Talking Heads) and in feature films where close-ups played a crucial role. Jazdon writes that the landscape of Kieślowski’s face marks out the most interesting field of observation. That is also the case in other films on Kieślowski, e.g. in A Meeting with Krzysztof Kieślowski by Andreas Voigt and Lothar Kompatzki, in Grażyna Banaszkiewicz’s From Reality and in Krzysztof Wierzbicki’s I’m so-so… Emotions recorded in the films, the way Kieślowski is lost in thoughts, his typical hand movements, his hand-supported head, the way he holds a cigarette or rubs forehead complement the profile of the director, and are proof of the effort he made to speak about himself and his films. Kieślowski in a way coauthored films about himself, cared for details and form in which his statements were made. The recurring themes in his films include stories on student times, life in communist Poland, the decision to give up making docu­mentaries, the importance of blind chance in man’s life and on meetings with people who exerted a great influence on the artistic road he took. Moreover, Kieślowski is present in all his movies in a less or more hidden way.