On October 9, 2016, the world lost a cinematic giant, Andrzej Wajda. This moment serves as a poignant reminder to reflect on the legacy of a figure who shaped global cinema.
Equations with Known Variables
Wajda’s life was driven by two great loves—Cinema and Poland. Or perhaps Poland and Cinema. The order doesn’t matter; both are equally significant.
However, if we entertain this equation, we must set aside the celebrated director’s well-known affection for women. But that’s unlikely to happen. All four of his wives—talented and beautiful artists and actresses—fit seamlessly into Wajda’s sacred realms: Poland and Cinema. Or Cinema and Poland.
This unity of loves may be the key reason why, despite the gossip of detractors, the director never sought to emigrate. Even when he occasionally filmed abroad, it was merely an expansion of his creative geography. As Wajda himself stated, he remained a Warsaw native and a true Polish artist throughout his life.
“What a fool!” a young filmmaker might have scolded Wajda. After all, how many hyper-successes and windfalls did this Poland-obsessed intellectual deny himself? He could have thrived somewhere across the ocean, like his compatriot Roman Polanski or Czech Miloš Forman. Then he wouldn’t have had to resort to euphemisms or waste his life navigating the chaos of political system changes. Yet Wajda was, by nature, a complete system with its own boundaries of freedom. It’s no coincidence that among the directors he admired were the freedom-loving Buñuel, Fellini, and Bergman.
Andrzej Wajda (1963)
In 1957, the Xth Cannes Film Festival embraced the young director Wajda as one of its own. Perhaps it was largely due to the same spirit of freedom that permeated his work. In the competition program, he competed on equal footing with Ingmar Bergman. Both ultimately won the prestigious Jury Prize—the then-equivalent of the “Silver Palm.” Bergman took it for “The Seventh Seal,” while Wajda earned it for “Canal.” Later, as a leader of the “new Polish school,” he received the “Golden Palm” and many other significant international film awards, including an Honorary Oscar (2000), as well as the “Golden Lion” and “Golden Bear” for his contributions to cinema.
A still from the film “Canal”
A Stranger Among Strangers
Defenders of socialist realism struggled for a long time to classify Wajda. He seemed to belong to their camp, yet upon closer inspection, he appeared to be an outsider. One author of a circular from Polish advocates of ideologically correct art noted with dissatisfaction that Wajda had no use for Marxism. On one hand, the director portrayed heroic figures in his films. On the other, his characters were romanticized, refined, riding white horses through flower-filled fields. What kind of heroes were these? Moreover, the director did not shy away from exposing the flaws of his positive characters, allowing them to err and be helpless. In other words, he did not engage in screen iconography.
Take, for instance, “Canal.” In stark contrast to Cannes critics, Soviet “experts” deemed the film a highly decadent and ideologically dubious creation. When Wajda joined Solidarity in the early 1980s, Moscow ideologists completely removed the director from the cultural diet of the builders of communism. However, Wajda was neither hot nor cold about those assessments.
Andrzej Wajda (signing autographs) with Daniel Olbrychski (1970s)
A Diamond on Bitter Ashes
In filming family dramas and historical epics, the director infused them with tragedy and pain. These skills were honed during World War II, shaped by losses that forever etched themselves into his soul. Andrzej’s father, a career officer, fell victim to the Katyn massacre. Notably, in 2007, the director fulfilled his long-held dream by making a film about Katyn, which he dedicated to his father.
Andrzej was a child of war, a young courier for the underground headquarters of the Home Army. Even then, he learned what the salt of sorrow was, what it meant to be subjected to humiliating checks, and to navigate marginal situations. After all, what could be more marginal than war?
Wasn’t it naive of Wajda to assume that his personal story, which spanned several decades and consumed numerous film and theater budgets, would interest our apathetic world? Of course not. The wisdom of a director helped him masterfully transform his own narrative into one that resonated universally.
Andrzej Wajda on the set of “Katyn” (2007)
Is that why his “Ashes and Diamonds” (1958) made it into the top ten greatest films ever created in the long history of cinema? And is that why, until the end of his days, Wajda was envied, particularly by those who lacked the talent and determination to reach the heights he achieved? Thus, venomous remarks appeared in his native Polish press, suggesting that individuals like him hindered the national film process with their regal “overhanging” presence. Clearly, such words were born in the minds of envious individuals incapable of creating anything of value in their own lives.
All that bitterness has ultimately faded into the past. The vibrant encyclopedia of Polish history that Wajda created through his films is immortal. And that is his most precious gift to humanity.
Brief Biography
Andrzej Wajda directed over 40 films and staged more than 40 plays.
He was born on March 6, 1926, to an officer and a teacher. From 1946 to 1954, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and the National Film School in Łódź. Between 1954 and 1958, he made “Generation,” “Canal,” and “Ashes and Diamonds,” after which he gained recognition far beyond his homeland. In 1981, the film “Man of Iron” won the “Golden Palm,” marking the director’s first major award. From 1978, he led the Polish Filmmakers Association. In 1989, he was elected senator of the Polish Sejm. Since 2000, he ran his own film school in Warsaw. He passed away on October 9, 2016, at the age of 90.
Andrzej Wajda after receiving the Order of the White Eagle in 2011
Selected Filmography
“Everything for Sale” (1968), “Landscape After the Battle” (1970), “The Wedding” (1972), “The Promised Land” (1974), “Man of Marble” (1976), “The Young Ladies of Wilko” (1979), “Man of Iron” (1981), “Korczak” (1990), “Pan Tadeusz” (1999), “Katyn” (2007), “Walesa” (2012), “After Image” (2016).