- On the Silver Globe (film)
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On the Silver Globe 
DVD cover of the Polart editionDirected by Andrzej Żuławski Written by Andrzej Żuławski
Jerzy ŻuławskiStarring Andrzej Seweryn
Jerzy Trela
Iwona Bielska
Grażyna DylągMusic by Andrzej Korzyński Cinematography Andrzej Jaroszewicz Release date(s) 
February 1989Running time 157 minutes Country Poland Language Polish On the Silver Globe (Polish: Na srebrnym globie) is a Polish film released in 1987, directed by Andrzej Żuławski and adapted from a novel by Jerzy Żuławski.
Contents
Plot
A group of astronauts leaves Earth to find freedom. Their spaceship crashes on the Earth-like unnamed planet. Astronauts, equipped with video-recording devices, reaching a seashore, where they build a village. After years, only one member of the crew, Jerzy, is still alive, watching growing of a new society, which religion is based on a mythical tales of an expedition from the Earth. First off-Earth generation is calling him "An Old Man", treating him as a semi-God. The Old Man leaves them and before death sends his video diary in a rocket back to Earth. A space researcher named Marek (Andrzej Seweryn) receives the video diary and travels to the planet. When he arrives, he is welcomed by the cast of priests as the messiah, who can release them of the captivity of the Szerns, indigenous occupants of the planet. Shorty after, Marek organizes an army and enters the city of Szerns. Meanwhile, the priests starts to believe, that Marek was rather an outcast off the Earth, than a messiah, that came to fulfill the religious prophecy.
Cast
- Andrzej Seweryn as Marek
- Jerzy Trela
- Grazyna Dylag
- Waldemar Kownacki
- Iwona Bielska
- Jerzy Gralek
- Elzbieta Karkoszka
- Krystyna Janda as The Actress
- Maciej Góraj
- Henryk Talar
- Leszek Dlugosz
- Andrzej Frycz
- Henryk Bista
- Wieslaw Komasa
- Jerzy Golinski
Production
The novel On the Silver Globe on which the film is based was written around 1900 as part of The Lunar Trilogy by Jerzy Żuławski, who was the granduncle of Andrzej Żuławski. Andrzej Żuławski had left his native Poland for France in 1972 to avoid censorship by the Polish government. Thanks to his critical success with the 1975 film L'important c'est d'aimer, the Polish authorities in charge of cultural affairs reevaluated their assessment of Żuławski. He was then invited to return to Poland and to realize a project of his own choice. Żuławski, who had always wanted to make a film of his grand uncle's novel, saw the offer as a unique opportunity to achieve this aim.
Between 1975 and 1977 Żuławski adapted the novel and wrote the screenplay. The film was shot at various locations, including the Baltic seashore at Lisi Jar near Rozewie, Lower Silesia, the Wieliczka Salt Mine, the Tatra Mountains, the Caucasus mountains in Georgia, the Crimea in the Ukraine and the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.[1] In fall 1977 the project came to a sudden halt with the appointment of Janusz Wilhelmi as the vice-minister of cultural affairs. He perceived the battle between the Selenites and the Szerns in the film as a thinly-veiled allegory of the Polish people's struggle with totalitarianism. Consequently Wilhelmi shut down the film project, which was eighty percent complete, and ordered all materials destroyed.
Żuławski went back to France, saying that he was in despair over the loss and waste of so much artistic effort.[cite this quote] The reels of the unfinished film were ultimately not destroyed, but preserved, along with costumes and props, by the film studio and by members of the cast and crew. Although Wilhelmi died a few months later in a plane crash the film was only released after the end of communist rule. In May 1988 a version of the film, consisting of the preserved footage plus a commentary to fill in the narrative gaps, premiered at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.[2]
References
- ^ Żuławski, Andrzej. "Na Srebrnym Globie (1987)". http://www.andrzej-zulawski.com/NaSrebrnymGlobie.html. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: On the Silver Globe". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/359/year/1988.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
External links
- Na srebrnym globie at the Internet Movie Database
- Na srebrnym globie on the Official Homepage of Andrzej Żuławski
- Comprehensive website on On the Silver Globe (Polish)
Films directed by Andrzej Żuławski The Third Part Of The Night · The Devil · That Most Important Thing: Love · Possession · The Public Woman · Mad Love · On the Silver Globe · My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days · Boris Godounov · The Blue Note · Szamanka · Fidelity
Cinema of PolandFilms A–Z • Chronology of films • Interwar • Pre 1930 • 1930s • 1940s • 1950s • 1960s • 1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s
Actors • Directors • Cinematographers • Composers • Editors • Producers • ScreenwritersCategories:- Polish films
- Polish-language films
- 1987 films
- Films directed by Andrzej Żuławski
- Polish science fiction films
- Films based on science fiction novels
- 1980s science fiction films
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