Jerzy Skolimowski

For the rower, see Jerzy Skolimowski (rower).

Jerzy Skolimowski
Born	May 5, 1938 (1938-05-05) (age 73) Łódź, Poland

Jerzy Skolimowski (born May 5, 1938) is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. A graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début Oko wykol (The Menacing Eye). He lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years where he painted in a figurative, expressionist mode and acted occasionally in films. More recently, he returned to Poland, and to film making as a writer and director after a 17 year hiatus with Cztery noce z Anną (Four Nights With Anna) in 2008.

Early life

Skolimowski was born in Łódź, Poland, the son of Maria (née Postnikoff) and Stanisław Skolimowski, an architect.^[1] He often recognized indications in his work to a childhood ineradicably scarred by the War. As a small child he witnessed the brutalities of war, even having been rescued from the rubble of a bombed-out house in Warsaw. His father, a member of the Polish Resistance, was executed by the Nazis. His mother hid a Jewish family in the house and Skolimowski recalls being required to take candy from the Nazis to maintain appearances.

After the war, his mother became the cultural attaché of the Polish embassy in Prague. His fellow pupils at school in Poděbrady, a spa town near Prague, included future film-makers Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer, as well as Václav Havel.^[2]

Skolimowski was considered as a trouble maker at school as he was the origin of many pranks which angered the authorities. At college he studied ethnography, history and literature and took up boxing, which was also the subject of a feature-length documentary, his first significant film. Skolimowski's interest in jazz and association with composer Krzysztof Komeda brought him into contact with actor Zbigniew Cybulski and directors Andrzej Munk and Roman Polanski.

Writer and actor

In his early twenties Skolimowski was already a writer, having published several books of poems, short stories and a play. Soon Skolimowski met Andrzej Wajda, the leading director of the then dominant 'Polish school' and twelve years his senior, who showed him a script for a film about youth written by Jerzy Andrzejewski, the author of the novel Ashes and Diamonds. Skolimowski was not impressed and dismissed the script. However in response to a challenge by Wajda, he produced his own version which became a basis for the finished film, Innocent Sorcerers (1960), directed by Wajda with Skolimowski playing a boxer.

Skolimowski enrolled in the Łódź Film School with the intention of avoiding the long apprenticeship required before graduating to feature film direction. He used the film stock available to him for student exercises, and with initial advice from Andrzej Munk, he filmed over several years in such a way that the sequences where later cut together. While scoring poorly in course work Skolimowski had a finished feature film by the end of the course.

Into the movie arena

Skolimowski then collaborated with Polański, writing the dialogue for the script of Knife in the Water (1962).

Between 1964 and 1984 he completed six semi-autobiographical feature films: Rysopis, Walkover, Barrier (1966), Hands Up! (completed 1967, released 1981), Moonlighting (GB 1982) and Success Is the Best Revenge, a segment in Dialóg and two other features Le Départ (1967) and Deep End based on his original screenplays. Barrier won Grand Prix at Bergamo International Film Festival. Le Départ won the Golden Bear at the 17th Berlin International Film Festival.^[3]

While living and working in many countries, he also completed another six relatively big budget productions, including four international co-productions, between 1970 and 1992 (The Adventures of Gerard, King, Queen, Knave, The Shout, The Lightship, Torrents of Spring and Ferdydurke), all distinctly bearing Skolimowski’s signature.

Skolimowski has said that he makes films to please himself.

Film as life

After Barrier he left Poland to make Le Départ in Belgium in French. According to him Le Départ was a light film rather than a comedy, "does not have the serious layers that I like in my work." Skolimowski returned to Poland to make Ręce do góry (Hands Up!), the third film of the Andrzej trilogy and the fourth of his Polish sextet. The anti-Stalinist themes of Hands Up! resulted in that film being banned and him being effectively expelled from then communist Poland.^[4] He then resettled in London, notably having Jimi Hendrix as a neighbor in the same building.^[5]

Between Hands Up! and his next feature, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Gerard (1970), Skolimowski contributed a story to a Czech-produced portmanteau film, Dialóg 20-40-60 (1968), in which three different directors (with Zbynek Brynych and Peter Solan) each devised their own story using identical dialogue even though the central characters in each section are separated in age by twenty years. Skolimowski's segment, "The Twenty Year Olds", would seem to be an extension of Le départ with Jean-Pierre Léaud playing opposite Skolimowski's wife Joanna Szcerbic.

Deep End (1970) was Skolimowski's second non-Polish feature to be based on his own original screenplay. The movie with a coming of age storyline bears distinctive thematic similarities to Le Départ. Deep End was a promising film yet it was poorly handled by the studio. His films The Shout (1978) and Moonlighting (1982) became critical successes, with Moonlighting, made in the UK and starring Jeremy Irons, the fifth of his Polish sextet, critically and commercially his most successful film.

In America

The Lightship, Skolimowski’s first US production, was adapted from a novella by the German writer Siegfried Lenz. Set on a US coastguard ship it was filmed in the North Sea. It is suspended between psychological duel with a doppelgänger theme and a pure performance piece within the stage-like confines of the lightship. However, even though receiving the best film award at the Venice Film Festival, The Lightship had only a very limited release. Torrents of Spring (1989), adapted from a semi-autobiographical novella by the Russian Ivan Turgenev, was a big budget European co-production starring Timothy Hutton, Nastassja Kinski and Valeria Golino. It could be considered as Skolimowski’s most impersonal 'generic' film, the only real departure from his expressed interest in making films only to please himself.

Skolimowski is also an actor, having appeared as Colonel Chaikov, a ruthless yet composed KGB colonel, in White Nights (1985) and Uncle Stepan, a Russian expatriate in Eastern Promises (2007), among other roles.

Quotations

• As a poet my mind is trained along the path of poetic associations — I'm not afraid to wander away from direct narrative - I feel safe with a story that tempts you to believe or disbelieve.

• To those who like me — I'm back. And to those who don't like me — I'm back. ~ to assembled critics at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival screening of Four Nights With Anna after his 17 year hiatus from directing.^[6]

• Don’t worry about what the American critics are writing on your cinema... you and I, we are the best directors in the world! ~ Jean-Luc Godard in a letter to Skolimowski in the late 1960s.^[7]

Filmography

Director

• Erotique (Erotyk) (1960)
• Little Hamlet (Hamles) (1960)
• The Menacing Eye (Oko wykol) (1960)
• Boxing (Boks) (1961)
• Your Money or Your Life (Pieniadze albo zycie) (1961)
• The Nude (1962)
• Identification Marks: None (Rysopis) (1964)
• Walkover (Walkower) (1965)
• Barrier (Bariera) (1966)
• Le départ (1967)
• Rece do góry (subitiled English version entitled Hands Up!, completed 1967, released 1981)
• Deep End (1970)
• The Adventures of Gerard (1970)
• King, Queen, Knave (1972)
• The Shout (1978)
• Moonlighting (1982)
• Dialóg 20-40-60 (1968) (segment "The Twenty-Year-Olds")
• Success Is the Best Revenge (1984)
• The Lightship (1985)
• Torrents of Spring (1989)
• Ferdydurke (30 Door Key) (1991)
• Four Nights with Anna (Cztery noce z Anną) (2008)
• America (2008)
• Essential Killing (2010)

Actor

• Niewinni czarodzieje (1960)
• Boks (1961)
• Rysopis (1964) as Andrzej Leszczyc
• Walkower (1965) as Andrzej Leszczyc
• Sposob bycia (1966) as Leopold
• Deep End (1970) as a man with newspaper
• Rece do góry (1981) as Andrzej Leszczyc
• Die Fälschung (1981) as Hoffmann
• White Nights (1985) as KGB Colonel Chaiko
• Big Shots (1987) as Doc
• Torrents of Spring (1989) as Victor Victorovich
• Mars Attacks! (1996)
• L.A. Without a Map (1998)
• Before Night Falls (2000)
• Eastern Promises (2007) as Stepan

Awards

Year	Award	Category
1964	PWSFTviT	Best Director (Identification Marks: None)
1965	Arnhem Film Festival	Grand Prix: Best Director (Identification Marks: None and Walkover)
1965	PWSFTviT	Andrzej Munk Award (Walkover)
1965	Bergamo Film Festival	Grand Prix (Barrier)
1967	Berlin Film Festival	Golden Bear (Le départ)
1967	Berlin Film Festival	Critics' Prize (UNICRIT Award) (Le départ)
1968	Valladolid International Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (Barrier)
1978	Cannes Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (The Shout)
1981	Polish Film Festival	Journalists Award (Hands Up!)
1982	Deutscher Filmpreis	Best Supporting Actor (Die Fälschung)
1982	Cannes Film Festival	Best Screenplay (Moonlighting)
1985	Venice Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (The Lightship)
2008	Tokyo Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (Four Nights with Anna)
2009	International Istanbul Film Festival	Lifetime Achievement Award
2009	Lato Filmów: Warsaw Film and Art Festival	Best screenplay in the history of Polish cinema (Knife in the Water)
2009	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Director (Four Nights with Anna)
2010	Venice Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (Essential Killing)
2010	Venice Film Festival	CinemAvvenire Award: Best Film In Competition (Essential Killing)
2010	Mar del Plata Film Festival	Golden Astor: Best Film (Essential Killing)
2010	Mar del Plata Film Festival	ACCA Award: Best Film in the International Competition (Essential Killing)
2010	Camerimage	Lifetime Achievement Award
2010	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Director (Essential Killing)
2010	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Film (Essential Killing)
2011	Polish Film Festival	Best Director (Essential Killing)
2011	Polish Film Festival	Golden Lions: Best Film (Essential Killing)
2011	Sopot Film Festival	Grand Prix (Essential Killing)

References

1. ^ Jerzy Skolimowski Biography (1938-)
2. ^ Geoffrey Macnab, The Guardian, 11 March 2009, 'I had a wild life'
3. ^ "Berlinale 1967: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1967/03_preistr_ger_1967/03_Preistraeger_1967.html. Retrieved 2010-02-27. 
4. ^ Movie City News interview with Jerzy Skolimowski
5. ^ Jak Skolimowski poznał Jimiego Hendrixa?
6. ^ Sleep Stalking: Jerzy Skolimowski's Four Nights with Anna - Bright Lights Film Journal
7. ^ http://leblogdezazie.blogspot.com/2011/07/jerzy-skolimowski-essential-filming.html%7Ctitle= Jerzy Skolimowski - Essential Filming]

External links

• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Jerzy Skolimowski at the Internet Movie Database
• 'Two Paths, Little Glory For This Polish Director', Anthony Paletta, The Wall Street Journal, 14 June 2011
• External Wandering, Michael Atkinson, movingimagesource.us
• Finding Zen in Poland: An Interview with Jerzy Skolimowski, Ben Sachs and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, MUBI
• Photographs and literature on Jerzy Skolimowski

Persondata
Name	Skolimowki, Jerzy
Alternative names
Short description	Film director
Date of birth	May 5, 1938
Place of birth	Łódź, Poland
Date of death
Place of death