SARA REVELL 94033920@94.humber.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF LINCOLNSHIRE AND HUMBERSIDE DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA MEDIA REPORT 1998 AN ANALYSIS OF HOW THE METAPHYSICAL IS CREATED THROUGH THE CINEMATOGRAPHY IN KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI’S THREE COLOURS TRILOGY SARA REVELL BA (Hons) European Audio-Visual Production LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE ONE Photographs by Krzysztof Kieslowski Ed. D Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.47 FIGURE TWO Julie behind a hospital door Three Colours : Blue. 1993 FIGURE THREE Anna behind the rear windscreen Three Colours : Blue. 1993 FIGURE FOUR The car crash Three Colours : Blue. 1993 FIGURE FIVE Julie in the hospital room Three Colours : Blue. 1993 FIGURE SIX Julie behind the blue chandelier Three Colours : Blue. 1993 FIGURE SEVEN Karol’s credit card is destroyed Three Colours : White. 1993 FIGURE EIGHT Karol sees the white porcelain bust Three Colours : White. 1993 FIGURE NINE Auguste sees the poster of Valentine Three Colours : Red. 1994 FIGURE TEN The final image of Valentine Three Colours : Red. 1994 INTRODUCTION European cinema has undergone tremendous change during the 1990’s due to the fact that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe allowed a greater number of film directors to work more freely in Western Europe. Amongst this emergence of talent came Krzysztof Kieslowski, a Polish documentary and feature film director. Kieslowski moved to France to film his final work, the Three Colours trilogy. Ironically, the end of Communism forced him into Western Europe because it was the only way he could get sufficient funding for his films, but the European aspect enriched his perspective of film making, enabling him to collaborate with some of France’s most talented actors. The Three Colours: Blue, White and Red take place in France, Poland and Switzerland respectively but it was not the political or geographical plane that interested Kieslowski. It was the human one. Kieslowski’s untimely death in March, 1996 is still recent enough for people to make the analogy between his life and his films. The idea of human life being governed by fate and external forces is one Kieslowski played with in many of his feature films. The credibility of the metaphysical within his films could be treated with scepticism but Kieslowski seldom deals with extraordinary characters. His work as a documentary film maker taught him that real people are often a lot more intriguing and that interest can be manifested from the seemingly ordinary. In the following chapters I intend to look at how Kieslowski created this other world within his films and how with the cinematographers who worked alongside him, he introduced his audience to the emotions of the protagonists. The first chapter will serve as a background to Kieslowski’s life and career, discussing some of the events in his childhood and adolescence that had a particularly significant effect on him. His rather modest upbringing was later reflected in his films as he strove to portray truth, something that contravened the socialist realism doctrines spawned by Stalin. He disliked the glamour associated with the film industry and resented the publicity brought on by the success of his later films. The second chapter leads on to Kieslowski’s time at film school in Lodz, where he began his career as a documentary filmmaker. Despite working through the politically turbulent post-war Poland, Kieslowski was able to direct some important films. His early documentaries were also an important link to the characters created for his feature films. In particular, No End and Decalogue can be noted for the cinematography styles which attempt to create a metaphysical plane. Finally, chapter three discusses how the cinematography generates the notion of a metaphysical aspect within Three Colours: Blue, White and Red. It clarifies how Kieslowski and his cinematographers drew on their wealth of experience and knowledge to create three visually stimulating films. I hope to reveal how Kieslowski created this other plane whilst analysing how he was able to present the three major themes of liberty, equality and fraternity through the use of colour, lighting and framing. The importance of this being that he simultaneously entertained the notion that in todays society, all three are unobtainable. Kieslowski’s films have a place in contemporary society because of this contradiction. We may speak of liberation and equality but can we ever really attain it and more importantly, would we ever want to? By looking at Kieslowski’s films, I will attempt to uncover the reality behind the appearances. CHAPTER ONE Krzysztof Kieslowski was born in June, 1941 in Warsaw. Although there are no records of where his family were during the Second World War they left Poland returning a few years later to live in the Regained Territories 1 which is where his sister was born in 1944. For the next twelve years, Kieslowski and his family travelled around Poland between sanatorium towns where his father was treated for tuberculosis. But Kieslowski regretted the brevity of his relationship with his parents, especially his father. “My father eventually died of TB.... He had been ill for twenty years and I suspect he didn’t want to live any longer.” 2 His father was forty-seven when he died. Kieslowski reflected upon how he probably died an unfulfilled man, both professionally and emotionally because he was never able to properly support his family. Having to spend so much time away from his own wife and daughter, Kieslowski was able to relate to his father’s frustration on a personal level as well as an artistic one. The premature loss of a relation is explored quite explicitly in No End and Blue although the tragedy of death also surfaces in Decalogue 1 and The Double Life of Veronique. It is interesting to see how Kieslowski only really confronted this theme in his later feature films. It may have been an indication of how deeply his father’s death affected him that he felt unable to approach it earlier on, but Blue is a good indication in itself of how death can affect the individual. For Julie, the protagonist in Blue, the hardest part was allowing herself to mourn the loss of her family. For those who have never experienced this, Blue is an interesting example of how long it can take before you even start to grieve. It is people and relationships that Kieslowski believes his films deal with, not the politics which have so often overrun the lives of Polish people. During World War Two and the six years of occupation, Polish people stopped going to the cinema to avoid the disturbances provoked by special groups who released gases into the auditoriums. The Propaganda Department of the Polish Underground persuaded people to boycott the cinemas in order to prevent the Germans from making any money or indoctrinating Poles with their own propaganda. 3 Subsequently, Polish cinema boomed after the war and people crowded to see films. Kieslowski was seven years old when he was taken to see his first film Fanfan la Tulipe, although he admits not being able to remember anything whatsoever about the film. At this time, Kieslowski lived in Sokotowsko in Lower Silesia, a sanatorium of about one thousand inhabitants. The travelling cinema played at a hall in the town about once a week and not being able to afford the cinema ticket, Kieslowski and his friends would climb upon the roof to try and see the screen through the ventilators. “These vents were great to spit through, down at the audience. We were jealous that they could go to the cinema and we couldn’t.” 4 The post war era produced many films that went out to people’s hearts because the subject matter usually concerned its audience and their own experiences. Andrzej Wadja’s Kanal for example, was important to the Varsovians. They could directly relate to it because they too had endured the Warsaw Uprising and people really had travelled through the sewer system and knew of its dangers. Cinema became more and more a part of people’s lives so it is not surprising that Kieslowski wanted to partake in it too. At fifteen, Kieslowski had left school and had no intention of ever returning. His father suggested he go to a fireman’s training college. “My father knew perfectly well that when I got back from that fireman’s training college I’d want to study.” 5 Kieslowski lasted three months at the training college before he returned home, desperate to return to school. A distant uncle who happened to be the director of the College for Theatre Technicians in Warsaw enabled Kieslowski to carry on his education. Kieslowski described it as “The best school I’ve ever been to..... They showed us that culture exists.” 6 At the theatre college he was allowed to indulge his passions of reading and visiting theatres and cinemas without having to worry about the politics and commerciality that later overshadowed his enjoyment of film making. During his studies Kieslowski decided that he wanted to become a theatre director. He was enchanted by this golden age of Polish theatre which produced many talented directors, writers, actors and designers. But to become a great director, Kieslowski had to first complete some form of higher studies so he decided to apply to the Film School in Lodz. “Why not study at film school to become a film director, as a way to becoming a theatre director?”7 But the tough entry requirements meant that it took Kieslowski three years before he was successfully admitted into the school. By the time Kieslowski started at Lodz, he was disillusioned with the theatre, which by 1962 had come to the end of its beautiful period. At Lodz, Kieslowski was able to make at least one film a year and made both feature films and documentaries. He also discovered other great directors, this time in cinema, and admired the intelligence and imagination of Ken Loach, Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky. It is possible to see how Julie’s character in Blue is partly summed up by Eugenia’s line in Tarkovsky’s Nostalgia: “You’re not free. You all seem to want freedom but when you get it you don’t know what to do with it or what it is.”8 It may be purely coincidental that Kieslowski thought in the same vein as Tarkovsky, but this alliance in their work may have been brought on by the fact that they had both lived and worked under communist regimes. People were encouraged to follow certain governmental rules and regulations but all the while dreamt of democracy. Kieslowski stated that Blue was about personal, not political freedom, but the fact that he lived through many different political climates must have aroused an interest in him to investigate the possibility of total freedom. This difficulty to define freedom and the impossibility to attain it makes it an enigma, thus making Julie’s story in Blue all the more tragic. We know that eventually she will have to recognise her predicament and admit that she too has feelings towards other people and can therefore never be totally independent. Kieslowski finished at Lodz in 1968. Whereas he had enjoyed relatively few constraints, his successors had less and less artistic freedom as the Communists set about throwing out Jewish teachers and introducing new forms of censorship. They supported certain movements in order to destroy those movements dedicated to the cause of presenting the real world. Stalin’s socialist realism doctrine was again put into practice during the 1970’s so that only choice films such as literary adaptations could be made safely. 9 As the idea of any independent Polish path to socialism was rejected by the Communist government, so Kieslowski and his colleagues found themselves becoming more involved with politics in order to defend their profession. Kieslowski’s only voluntary involvement was when he worked as Wadja’s vice-president, effectively working as acting President of the Polish Film-makers Association from 1977 until 1980. He disliked having to make compromises in the name of other people and felt it both immoral and embarrassing. He realised then that he did not want to be responsible for others and that in the future he would only compromise his own films and not other people’s work. Kieslowski’s aversion to political involvement became an important facet to critics of his work. “While he claimed to despise politics, his films are about the relationship between how people live, who they are and the world they inhabit, which to me is the essence of politics.” 10 It seems that the politics of Kieslowski’s films are incidental. In the time he was making films in Poland it was practically impossible to avoid criticism or censorship from the government, the opposition or the church. The Stalinist regime had forced film makers to work through metaphor in a way that they could still be understood by the audiences. “Politics were just a backdrop - he was interested in human voice and moral complications, the drama of duty and weakness, the fight for human dignity.” 11 Kieslowski’s early documentary work brought him into contact with people who did not lead extraordinary lives but were interesting nonetheless and it is this emotional and psychological layer within human beings which is most often brought out in the characters of Kieslowski’s feature films. Julie in Blue suffers the internal battle of duty and weakness as she fights to erase the memory of her dead husband and daughter whilst trying to remain strong and independent throughout. The fight for human dignity is explored in White with Karol trying to restore his own after being spurned and shamed by his wife, Dominique. Moral complications arise in most films but they are investigated in greater depth in The Decalogue and also in Red, as we hear the various dilemmas going on in the lives of Joseph Kern’s neighbours. It is not surprising that Kieslowski was so interested in these issues. Roman Polanski also tended towards philosophy and human psychology in his work and was noted by colleagues for his “concern with visual realisation of theme, emotion and idea.” 12 However, Polanski was more preoccupied with evil in the forms of rape, personal pleasure and victimisation in the world. Although Kieslowski’s films are less gruesome, these common themes could be related directly to the political and social structures of Poland in the twentieth century. From the struggles and difficulties that the Polish people encountered in World War Two, it seems that the film makers emerging from the post war generations developed a particular style of their own. As children, both Polanski and Kieslowski escaped to the cinema to avoid the pain of everyday life. Consequently, their films are very sensitive to the fact that human beings are highly emotional entities. I suspect that like Polanski’s films, many of the underlying tragedies in Kieslowski’s work are real and relate to personal experiences of life in Eastern Europe. This shared history sets them apart from other film directors and in a sense, has probably created a unique genre of cinema. The Poles have spent much of this century struggling to maintain political independence and it seems that the social situation in turn has spawned a generation of film makers who were responsible for the conception of a Polish cinema. The great Polish directors who preceded Kieslowski also fought to extricate themselves from the socialist realism restrictions in order to portray Poland and the heroism of ordinary people. Aleksander Ford was criticised for his portrayal of five youths on probation for theft who become successful and useful members of society in Five Boys from Barska Street. The authorities disapproved of the idea of criminals becoming heroes. The same idea is explored in Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Killing where one is forced to think about whether or not the state should have the right to execute a murderer. It is a controversial film that confronts people’s sympathies with the criminal. Directors like Ford, working in post-war Poland, faced periods of great changes influenced by the political climate but Polanski noted how: “They did their best to campaign for artistic originality and freedom, standing up to party hacks and ministry bureaucrats at considerable personal risk.” 13 Their struggle should have made work easier for the directors of Kieslowski’s generation but even they were faced with partial and total censorship of their work if it dared oppose the government, or at the start of the 1980’s, the ideals of martial law. Throughout his career, Kieslowski was no stranger to censorship of his work, documentaries and features alike. Even when he moved away from Poland to make Three Colours he faced commercial censorship. Piotr Jaxa- Kwiatkowski who worked as cinematographer on some of Kieslowski’s early documentaries expressed his preference of the censorship in a communist Poland as opposed to the present day commercial censorship. In their days at Lodz, financial support for their work was never an issue. In 1956, when Wladyslaw Gomulka was brought to power as Party Secretary, the film industry underwent the reorganisation which resulted in the creation of the production studios. The vetting stages of the screenplay and the final film was a process that film makers acquiesced to so that their own conceptions would not be abandoned. “In Poland, like in other socialist countries, the cinemas are an important instrument in the dissemination of culture, serving the realisation of the indices for the cultural policy of the state.” 14 Despite the stringency of the communist government, the availability of financial backing enabled directors to produce some important films. They were important to the Polish people who found the socialist realism themes to be unrealistically schematic and offensive. It was then that new fiction and documentary cinema styles emerged, addressing historical, philosophical and psychological themes. But the films produced by these Polish directors were also exceptional in that Communist censorship forced them to work through metaphor. In essence, the overall social and political attitudes helped shape contemporary Polish film making because the personal experiences of directors such as Kieslowski, Polanski and Wadja allowed them a more subjective viewpoint. For example, Karol Karol in White is oppressed and downtrodden by his French wife Dominique, but he is determined to better himself. Karol could be seen as a metaphor for Poland itself, having been violated by neighbouring countries and only now really able to start rebuilding itself. In Kieslowski’s later feature films it is fascinating to see how many of these themes and ideas evolved from his own upbringing and experiences in Poland. CHAPTER TWO Kieslowski’s documentary period began at the film school in Lodz. It was not until 1981, some twelve years later that he decided to stop making them altogether. Kieslowski’s graduating film was entitled From the City of Lodz and was literally a portrait of the city and its people. Even before this film, Kieslowski was photographing the people he saw in Lodz. “Old people, contorted people staring out into the distance, dreaming or thinking of how it could have been, yet reconciled to how things were.” 15 [FIGURE 1] This idea manifests itself in Blue. Although Julie is trying to escape her past, you cannot help thinking that she still dreams of how her life could have been. Near the start of the film we see Julie hide behind a hospital door, her face framed by a pane of reinforced glass. [FIGURE 2] Kieslowski’s early photographs, framing people and faces through windows adds a touch of vulnerability to its subjects. They are all peering out into the world, not quite sure whether it is safe to come out. Lodz had only been slightly damaged by the Second World War and as no renovations had been carried out, the city was in a very poor condition. The state of Lodz must have had some sort of effect on its inhabitants; even in these photographs, the people look lost. “All my films, from the first to the most recent ones are about individuals who can’t quite find their bearings, who don’t quite know how to live, who don’t know what’s right or wrong and are desperately looking.” 16 Although Kieslowski moved to France to make the Three Colours trilogy, he never gave up his home in Poland. This description of his characters could have been applied to the Polish people themselves. It is impossible to imagine what the Polish nation had to endure in World War Two through six years of brutal destruction by German and Russian occupants. “In nearly every family there is as least one person who died in battle, was executed, or perished in a concentration camp.” 17 It would be no wonder that the Polish people felt unsure of how to live, not knowing what was right or wrong, having been wronged themselves for many years by other countries. In 1970, Kieslowski made a documentary in Warsaw that dealt with former soldiers who had lost their sight during World War Two. Kieslowski appealed to the emotional side by asking them to talk to the camera about their dreams. Dreams and visions are an important facet in Kieslowski’s work and often add the metaphysical layers to his feature films that I shall be discussing when looking at the Three Colours trilogy. It was not until 1978, in his documentary From A Night Porter’s Point of View, did Kieslowski try to manipulate his films for artistic purposes. He used an East German film stock called Orwo film to exaggerate the colours, thus creating the desired effect of a visual distortion of the world. The protagonist was meant to be a distortion of a human being and Kieslowski wanted the colour to “accentuate the grotesqueness of the world around him.” 18 Although this was a documentary film, it displayed Kieslowski’s early fascination to experiment with colour in order to exaggerate certain characters and themes. The cinematography in his later feature films also demonstrated how effectively colour and lighting can be manipulated, but in this earlier film it is interesting to see how Kieslowski was intent on painting such a sullied picture of Poland. It appears to have been an effort to heighten the reality of the degenerated environment in which he was living and working at the time. This is something repeated in Decalogue and White. When Karol fights his way out of a telephone booth or buys a corpse on the black market, they are symbolic of the dysfunctional state of Poland. Due to the ongoing political problems, Kieslowski was aware that his country was falling further into chaos and disrepair and chose to show this in his films simply because the normality of the situation was unavoidable. Kieslowski’s first long film was Personnel (1975), which dealt with the life of a young man who comes to work as a tailor at the opera. The story bears a strong resemblance to Kieslowski’s own experience of working in the theatre and having his dreams of glamour and beauty shattered. “Theatre and opera are always a metaphor for life. It’s obvious that the film was about how we can’t really find a place for ourselves in Poland. That our dreams and ideas about some ideal reality always clash somewhere along the line with something that’s incomparably shallower and more wretched.” 19 Throughout his career, Kieslowski defended himself against the use of metaphor within his films saying that it was the spectator who created the metaphors, but in Personnel it was natural that he should want to juxtapose theatre and life. Seeing behind the scenes in a theatre is like a stage in growing up and realising how things really function and that everything is not as magical as we may have believed. The tailor in Personnel could therefore be regarded as an early incarnation of the protagonists within Three Colours. They all have their own ideal realities shattered because they are exposed to the pain that human relationships can bring. This detail could be seen as characteristic of Kieslowski’s feature films because losing his father early on in his life and being deprived of this relationship affected him until his own death. Witold Stok, the cinematographer on Personnel remarked on how Kieslowski still wanted to retain a documentary style for Personnel: “Although it was supposedly his first feature.... Krzysztof had this idea of a documentary look, he wanted hand-held camera, even in quite static situations.” 20 The fact that Kieslowski was still primarily a documentary film maker must have influenced the cinematography style in his early feature films. It is interesting how he exercised more control over the look of his films at this time. Later on he relied a lot more on his lighting cameramen and gave them greater artistic freedom. The result of this, especially in Three Colours, are three films loaded with signs and symbols which direct the viewer towards the possibilities of coincidence and fate. In Personnel, Kieslowski had to use the theatre to show how Polish people were disillusioned with their lives. Censorship prevented him from directly criticising the political situation, which was increasingly responsible for the general depression and dissatisfaction. His later films still fell foul of the censors but because of his familiarity and the necessity of working through metaphor, the creation of metaphysical layers became inherent in many of Kieslowski’s subsequent films. In 1981, just before the introduction of martial law, Kieslowski was in the final stages of editing Blind Chance and Short Working Day. Blind Chance was remarkable because it addressed the idea of fate, a theme that fascinated Kieslowski. It certainly had an impact on Polish audiences who realised the great significance of accidents and the fact that many things are beyond human control.21 The story line dealt with three possible endings, three different outcomes. Kieslowski called it a description of the inner world. The conception of looking within his characters and into the powers which meddle with fate is one that he considered later on in Red.22 We are bombarded with an intricate system of events and array of symbols which makes Valentine’s life seem pre destined from the outset. The feeling is that Kieslowski has manipulated scenes more than he would want us to believe. Valentine only has one ending to her story but any alternative that could have been suggested would have been unsatisfactory. The camera movements, the framing, the props, everything points to a future that has already been decided. But Blind Chance is an experiment of this idea. Kieslowski liked the idea that we are all governed by fate and every day we make decisions that could dramatically change our lives. The opportunity to make choices was something that became rather difficult for Polish people with the imposition of martial law on December 12, 1981. In reaction to the waves of strikes in October of the same year, troops began the dissolution of occupations and strikes. Solidarity was banned, civil liberties were suspended and union leaders were arrested.23 According to Krzysztof Zanussi, martial law was most significant to Kieslowski not as a political experience, but as aesthetic and moral because people showed their true colours. The measures solved nothing as it became clear that nobody in Poland was prepared to sacrifice themselves or even fight for the cause in which they believed. The state of martial law was lifted in 1983 and during this time, Kieslowski had been working on his film No End. After giving up on a project to make a film about the law courts, he struck on an idea to make a film that would capture the atmosphere of the courtrooms but would also address the loss of hope and energy that that people had felt during the period of martial law. No End was an important project because it marked the beginning of the collaboration between Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, a young defence lawyer during the early 1980s. Piesiewicz went on to co-write the screenplays for the rest of Kieslowski’s feature films but for their first film together, his knowledge meant that he was able to contribute more in creating the atmosphere and goings on in the law courts. The other significant thread within this film is that Kieslowski addresses the metaphysical. The story deals with Antek (a dead lawyer) and his widow. “Then there’s the most metaphysical part... the signs which emanate from the man who’s not there anymore, towards all that he’s left behind.” 24 No End begins just after the young man’s death and during the film it is suggested that he has been reincarnated as a black Labrador. We see the dog waiting for Antek’s son outside the school, like a dutiful parent. Later on, an old judge is introduced to us as Antek’s tutor. His name is Labrador. Just the name Labrador tells us that perhaps there is a form of wisdom to be found within a dog, in particular the black Labrador who, if he is a reincarnation of Antek, could be seen as a shadow of the old judge. There is an interesting passage in No End where Labrador is speaking of Antek: “Evidence was beneath him. So were politics. He’d appeal to people’s consciences, even their emotions.” 25 This would be an appropriate description of Kieslowski’s approach to documentary film making, but it is intriguing to look at the leading characters within his feature films and remark upon how this could also be said of them. Despite the importance of the metaphysical concept, Kieslowski did not feel that it worked within No End. However, these ideas were again precursory to Kieslowski’s final films, especially Blue, where the narrative also deals with a woman trying to come to terms with the loss of her husband. The ideas within these earlier films obviously inspired Kieslowski and Piesiewicz in writing possibly their finest films together. The problems of having too many subplots in No End were tidied up so that for each episode within Decalogue, there was one clear driving force, meaning that more attention could be given to the cinematography. Decalogue is a series of ten, one hour television films, loosely based upon the Ten Commandments. It concentrates on the inhabitants of a large housing estate in Warsaw and was an examination of what was going on inside the characters. Part five (which was made into the feature length A Short Film About Killing) was the director’s third collaboration with Slawomir Idziak. Idziak put green filters on the camera so that the world of the killer became crueller, duller and emptier. In contrast to this, when Idziak worked on The Double Life of Veronique, he used a golden yellow filter to make the world appear more beautiful than it really is. Kieslowski commented that the warmth portrayed emanated from the actress (Irene Jacob) rather than the hues but I would be inclined to disagree. The moment where we see Veronique stop to feel the sunlight on her face is like the moment in Blue when Julie is sat on a park bench, bathing her face in the warm glow of the suns rays. [FIGURE 3] Both women momentarily shut out the rest of the world and the halo of golden yellow light on their faces gives the impression that they are mentally in a more beautiful place. Kieslowski used a different cinematographer for each episode of Decalogue (with the exception of Piotr Sobocinski who made parts three and nine) so that each story would be narrated in a slightly different style. “I gave my lighting cameramen a tremendous amount of freedom. Each one could decide how and where he put the camera, how to use it, how to operate it.” 26 This system also worked for Kieslowski’s last work, the Three Colours trilogy. The idea for Blue, White and Red came from Piesiewicz but in choosing three lighting cameramen, Kieslowski realised that he needed three people who knew how things worked in the west. The trilogy was filmed on location in France, Poland and Switzerland. This decision was heavily influenced by economic reasons but it was a contingency that worked in Kieslowski’s favour. In the end, Kieslowski worked with Slawomir Idziak, Edward Klosinski and Piotr Sobocinski on Blue, White and Red respectively. All three cinematographers had worked on Decalogue and their work on the trilogy helped create what was esteemed by many to be Kieslowski’s finest work. CHAPTER THREE The Three Colours trilogy was an exercise into understanding how the three words liberty, equality and fraternity function in today’s world. Having covered the Ten Commandments in Decalogue, Kieslowski and Piesiewicz were intrigued as to how these three concepts had been implemented in the western world. But Kieslowski was not concerned with looking at them from a political standpoint. Once again, the ideas were explored through people and relationships. The three films can be viewed together or separately, although they do follow an order of Blue, White then Red. Red ties up all three films, bringing together all the main characters in its closing scenes. In Blue, the protagonist is a young widow named Julie. The story takes us from the car crash that kills her husband and daughter up to the point where she seems to finally accept what has happened. For the rest of the film Julie fights to extricate herself from everything and everyone that reminds her of her former life. Finally, she realises that total freedom is unobtainable and in a way she releases herself from her self imposed isolation and learns to grieve. In White, the protagonist is Karol Karol, a polish hairdresser married to Dominique, a beautiful, enigmatic Parisian. In the opening scenes, the couple are in the law courts, with Dominique filing for divorce on the grounds that Karol has been unable to consummate their marriage. Left destitute by his wife, Karol makes his way back to Poland where, while staying with his brother, he builds himself back up into a successful and wealthy businessman. He wants to get even with Dominique and although he achieves this, we see by the end of the film that the couple are still in love. Red is set in Geneva and deals with the relationship between Valentine and Joseph Kern, a retired judge she meets after running over his dog. The film concentrates on both characters relationships, past and present. The way they disclose their lives to each other cements the relationship and had the judge been younger, one could believe that this would have been a romantic liaison. At the end of Red we see Julie, Olivier (Julie’s lover), Karol, Dominique, Valentine and Auguste (the young judge) altogether. It is a gratifying finale to three films which are so rich with symbolic and metaphysical layers that they can be watched time and time again so that each time you can discover something new. The term metaphysical is usually defined as something supernatural, abstract and visionary whilst metaphysics is the study of ultimate reality.27 We rely on our five senses to tell us what is real and what is not, but the way something looks can be deceptive. Metaphysics attempts to ascertain whether or not reality is just an appearance. In his studies, Peter Van Ingwagen concludes that: “The outcomes of our deliberations about what to do is undetermined and that we nevertheless have a choice about the outcome of these deliberations.” 28 Perhaps with the exception of Red, I believe that this is how Kieslowski would like us to feel about the protagonists in Three Colours. In Blue, Julie makes a conscious decision to release herself from all her past responsibilities. The fact that she faced this decision was brought on by the car crash that killed her husband and daughter. The opening of Blue concentrates on the journey Julie is making with her family. We see Anna’s (Julie’s daughter) face through the rear windscreen, the amber tunnel lights reflected in the glass play around the image of her face. [FIGURE 4] Throughout Blue, the dominant filter colour Idziak used was, not surprisingly, blue. But as a contrast, amber and gold were used almost as frequently. Kieslowski wanted a warm colour to make the blue more striking. The method of using contrasting hues and light intensity was also used by Vittorio Storaro on Apocalypse Now (1979). Storaro believed it to be the most emotional film he worked on because he used the light to express the mood, contrasting sharp with soft, natural with artificial and warm with cold. Later on, when Storaro worked on The Last Emperor (1987), he saw the possibilities of making an analogy between life and light. Orange, the colour of the family, warm and maternal, and green signifying knowledge and wisdom were just two devices Storaro used. 29 Idziak and Kieslowski used light and colour in this way in Blue. The opening scene to Blue is the only time we see Anna before she is killed and the warm colour of the lights around her infers a sense of security and well being. As the car stops by the road side, we see break fluid escaping from the underneath, so the initial appearance of Anna being protected within her family is deceptive. They travel on with no knowledge of the fate that awaits them. In Red fate is positive because it brings Valentine and Joseph together into a fortuitous relationship but in Blue fate is cruel and removes the two principal people in Julie’s life. Having lost both parents, Kieslowski regretted the fact that people often realise too late in life the importance of family. From the limited time he had with his parents, we can see how Kieslowski believes Julie’s world would be completely destroyed after the accident. The most poignant image of the opening sequence to Blue is that of the car crumpled against the tree. [FIGURE 5] It is a still, silent image. The gravity of the situation is brought home as Anna’s beach ball tumbles out of the car and out of the frame, just at the time that Anna fell out of Julie’s life forever. As Julie regains consciousness in hospital, she rejoins the world in a haze of warm, straw coloured lights. The colours suggest life which acts as a foil to the grey blue mist that hung above the car wreckage in the previous scene. We get our first glimpse of Julie, a green light with silhouetted trees is cast onto her pillows. [FIGURE 6] But we are also reminded of Idziak’s cinematography in A Short Film About Killing where his green filters were used to transport the audience into the world of the killer. If the world in A Short Film About Killing appeared bleak and cruel, the green backdrop in Julie’s hospital room is just as ominous, even if the anterior lighting is a softer yellow. Again it is the contrast of colour, cold and warm, that helps us understand that whilst Julie is lucky to have survived the crash, she will soon be wishing that she too had died. Soon afterwards she attempts suicide but unable to go through with it, decides to carry on living as if she has nothing. No contacts, no relationships and no responsibilities. It is fascinating how one cinematographer like Storaro can use green to signify wisdom when in another film, Idziak was able to use green as the colour of death. However, death in Blue points towards freedom for Julie whilst it held a more disconcerting countenance for Jacek, the murderer in A Short Film About Killing. It could be said that Jacek sealed his own fate when he committed the crime of murder, but Julie’s fate was not all her own making. Despite this, Kieslowski is able to explore the notion of liberty through the way Julie reacts to the circumstances surrounding her. He argued that attaining freedom is totally unfeasible, an idea shared by P. F. Strawson: “Due to mutual human involvement and interaction, we experience emotions towards other selves.” 30 So although Julie abandons her home and all the trappings of her past life, her idea of freedom is illusory because she still has conscious emotions. The short music interludes throughout the film remind us (because of the profound effect they have on Julie) of Patrice, Julie’s composer husband, and also of Olivier, Julie’s lover, who decides to finish Patrice’s concerto. It could be argued that the music is Julie’s main link to her former life but there is also the matter of the blue chandelier. It is the only object she takes with her when she leaves the family home. Before returning home from hospital, Julie leaves strict instructions with her housekeepers to clear out the blue room (as it is known). It is uncertain as to whether or not this room belonged to Anna although the way Julie reacts to the chandelier (the only item that remains in the room) is a fair indication that it did. Twice we see Julie walking around this object, her face stained by the reflections of the blue crystals that hang down like huge tears on her face. [FIGURE 7] This may signify the tears that Julie is unable to shed until the final moment of the film. But they also seem to signify the fragility of life and the blue blood that now lies in Anna’s veins. Julie’s first reaction to the mobile is to viciously rip out a handful of the glass beads, but subsequently it becomes a treasured souvenir that she takes with her to her new apartment. Like the dog in No End, the blue chandelier could be seen as a device Kieslowski uses to suggest that Anna’s spirit is still very much with Julie during most of Blue. Julie’s early act to destroy this object is out of anger because she is still bitter that Anna is dead and she herself is not. But later on, when her neighbour, Sandrine is admiring the chandelier, Julie is extremely anxious and uncomfortable that she should be touching it. Julie is trying to protect it in a way that she would have been protecting Anna had she survived. The fact that Julie is always so close to the chandelier when the two occupy the same frame and that we see this close up helps the viewer realise that Julie will never be free of her emotions. Therefore her life could be seen as a paradox. She attempts all the while to avoid human contact (especially with Olivier), to sell her family home and she never once goes to the cemetery but she clings to this one item that silently states to the audience how much she loved and still loves Anna. For the second film in Kieslowski’s trilogy, the colour importance initially seems less evident and the overall tone is slightly light-hearted, mainly because White deals with the theme of materialism. In order for Karol to equal Dominique, he has to recover his finances. The idea of equality, or indeed inequality, is explored through Edward Klosinski’s intelligent framing of the film’s protagonist. “Regardless of whether it is the camera or the subject that changes position within the shot, it is important that they move from one significant composition to another and that those compositions work together.” 31 White could be seen as a succession of significant compositions. At the start of the film, Karol’s status becomes evident as his credit card is cut up in front of him. [FIGURE 8] The credit card, although out of focus, is in the foreground, emphasising Karol’s decline as he helplessly looks on. His impotence becomes financial as well as physical. Although White is about the idea of human equality, it also about human love. It becomes clear in the film that Karol and Dominique rushed into their marriage, but that despite their impetuosity, Karol’s love for Dominique is much deeper and stronger than he first realises. Julie Delpy, the actress playing Dominique, is on screen for a relatively short amount of time but her character has an omnipotent presence throughout the film. Before he returns to Poland, Karol procures a white porcelain bust he sees in a shop window at a metro station. [FIGURE 9] The framing of this protagonist through a shop window is characteristic of Kieslowski. Like the faces in the photographs of Lodz, Kieslowski shows us a man who is disorientated and disillusioned. But as with the credit card, the object of Karol’s attention is in the foreground, silently alluding to its own importance. Like the chandelier in Blue, the bust reflects the colour of the film as well as being a metaphor for one of the characters. Later on in White, the bust looms once again in the foreground of the screen, overlooking Karol as he is tormented in his sleep by what we can only assume to be a dream about Dominique. But despite it’s cold, white demeanour, it is at one point distempered by an orange light source in Karol’s room. The warmth given to it infers a sense of tenderness. One could see this as a contrived clue as to how the absent Dominique may be feeling at that time. Throughout the film Dominique is indifferent to Karol’s attempts at a reconciliation but she too discovers how intensely she cares about him and the altered facade of the white statue appears to reflect Dominique’s own change of heart. By the end of the film we see Dominique pledge her love to Karol, telling him that if he helps her escape imprisonment, she will remarry him. Their story is concluded at the end of Red, when we see them together, on equal terms at last. This leaves the fraternity theme in Red to complete the trilogy. Of all the films, Red is arguably the most colourful, teeming with red objects in practically every scene. The lighting and framing within Red appears a lot more restrained than in Blue or White. Every shot has a significant link to a theme or character and it is the complex structure of the film that engages its audience. Whereas Blue used blue filters, Red uses red components, each signifying a different mood. A red car light signifies danger, the red cherries on a cafe fruit machine signifies trauma and a red jacket signifies the memory of a loved one. Cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski admitted to exercising a huge amount of control over the visual elements within the film so that every object and every lighting effect would be significant to the viewer. For the interior shots he allowed the natural light to dictate the placement of the actors. 32 “We are used to ignoring the illumination of our everyday surroundings, so film lighting is also easy to take for granted. Yet the look of a shot is centrally controlled by light quality, direction, source and color.” 33 The ability to manipulate these elements effectively evidently involves careful planning. Another example of this is cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, who whilst working on Do the Right Thing (1989) manufactured reality by regulating costume and set colour, using reds and oranges so that the audience would feel the summer heat within the film. 34 In Red, Sobocinski supervised the mixture of light and shadow in nearly every scene. The atmosphere created by the natural light was believable and the shadows it created helped further the film’s narrative. “In the scenes inside the house, the judge is placed so that you can only see part of his face; he is very closed off. Valentine is in the light from the windows, because she is more open as a person.” 35 [FIGURE 10] Even if you are not conscious that the light is being rendered in this fashion, the effects help the viewer discover the characters within the film. It is true that the judge, Joseph Kern, appears more shadowed. His obscurity immediately makes him all the more intriguing so it is understandable that Valentine is drawn towards him. In contrast, Valentine herself is more straightforward and her candour comes across earlier because we see more of her. The fraternal relationship that develops between Valentine and Joseph is real enough in itself, but it is significant because it alludes to another relationship which is metaphysical at the time Red takes place. Throughout the film Kieslowski again plays with the idea of fate. Across the road from Valentine’s apartment lives Auguste, a young judge. In fact, Auguste seems to be a reincarnation of Joseph Kern, as his life follows virtually the same pattern of events. We see Auguste and Valentine pass each other many times, unaware of the others existence. It is satisfying to see the two of them united at the end of the film and the viewer may assume that fate has brought them together. But the identical lives of Auguste and Joseph could suggest a twist to the tale because we cannot be sure that Auguste exists and that he is not just a variation of Joseph’s earlier life. The story of a relationship between a young judge and an old judge was one that Kieslowski looked at in No End. For Red, he decided that Auguste should be a human instead of a dog (although curiously enough both Joseph and Auguste have pet dogs) but there is still the suggestion of the younger man’s life shadowing that of the older man. There are two moments in the film where both Joseph and Auguste stop at the traffic lights and see the poster of Valentine for the bubble gum advertisement. Joseph pauses because he knows Valentine. Auguste is momentarily mesmerised by her because he does not know her but perhaps recognises her face. [FIGURE 11] If Auguste was to be a younger Joseph Kern, we could be led to believe that the way Auguste’s life is progressing is the path that Joseph would have chosen had he been given a second chance. This is similar to Labrador when he speaks of his admiration for Antek’s ethics, even when they were sometimes a little unconventional. The way in which Kieslowski and Sobocinski controlled such visual elements within Red suggests an overall sense of the inevitable. At the end of Red, Joseph is watching televised news footage of a ferry disaster. He knows that Valentine was on the ferry and wants to make sure that she survived. The news report freezes on an image of Valentine, identical to the one in the poster. [FIGURES 12 & 13] It is a reminder of how fate plays a part in the lives of these characters. Kieslowski may have decided their fate but the unions within Red are important. Valentine and Joseph benefit greatly from their relationship, they learn a lot about themselves as well as about each other. This is something that Kieslowski was very critical of in real life. He was concerned about how people these days are so wrapped up in their work that they no longer have time for friends and family. In this trilogy, he showed us how this can still be possible. CONCLUSION The three films fit neatly together, although stylistically they are very different from each other. The melancholy tone in Blue is filtered through blue gels onto Julie. White may concentrate more on the framing of the protagonist, Karol, although the object of his attentions is a pure, white statuette. And Red is simply a plethora of red objects which happen to surround the characters within the film. Kieslowski’s life in Poland and his work as a documentary film maker all played an intrinsic part in the scripting and direction of the Three Colours, but the freedom Kieslowski gave his lighting cameramen meant that the production was a collaborative process. For Blue, Slawomir Idziak’s role went further than that of cinematographer. He ensured that he and Kieslowski discussed their thoughts and feelings about the actors and the staging as well as the technical aspects. From this, Idziak was able to select the colours he felt suited the tone of Blue. 36 In a contrasting style, Piotr Sobocinski learnt from his father (Witold Sobocinski), also a cinematographer, to “interpret reality by selecting from the jumble of images one sees, just those things which are important.” 37 In Red the viewer is left to decide which images are most significant. White has been criticised for having a weaker ending and appears less striking at first. There may appear to be a lesser metaphysical element because the story does not deal with non existent or dead characters. However, the absence of people and the effect this can have is addressed and we can see that Dominique’s absence is very similar to Anna’s in Blue. Both Karol and Julie have to recover themselves, having been deserted by a loved one and although we never get to know Anna or Dominique, their presence and their influence is felt. When dealing with the three major themes in Three Colours, it appears that through Julie, Karol and Dominique, Kieslowski is trying to tell us that liberty and equality are impossible for humans to attain for any sort of enjoyment or pleasure, despite the attraction these ideals may hold. Fraternity, however is worth further consideration because Kieslowski shows in Red that even in this day and age, it is still a crucial part of human development. Within many of his feature films, Kieslowski experimented with the ideas of fate and chance governing human lives and was drawn towards a reasoning that the supernatural can exist. In the Three Colours he explored these ideas in greater depth through the manipulation of framing and lighting. Most films nowadays depend on action to drive a narrative whereas Kieslowski resisted this. Ironically he saw this as a flaw in his work but from the perspective of an exercise into creating a metaphysical layer through cinematography, these films could be seen as a notable and creditable example. Metaphysics talks of the incorporeal and the over subtle but Kieslowski manages to present this in a subtle fashion. The cinematography in his films does more than just show us the actors, it helps us empathise with the characters. It creates a mood and a tone and allows a refreshing insight into the psyche of the human being. BIBLIOGRAPHY The American Film Visions of Light : The Art of Cinematography Institute &NHK Japan 6 June 1994 Broadcasting Corporation Channel 4 (Producers) Anonymous Interview with Krzysztof Kieslowski Available from: http//www.petey.com/kk/intrview.txt [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Anonymous Cinema Papers (Krzysztof Kieslowski article) No.99, June 1994 Anonymous Sight and Sound (Three Colours:Blue article) Vol.4 No.5, April 1994 Anonymous Sight and Sound (Three Colours:Red article) Vol.5 No.5, May 1995 Berardinelli, J Blue: A Film Review White: A Film Review Red: A Film Review Decalogue: A Film Review No End: A Film Review Camera Buff: A Film Review Available from: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Bordwell, D Film Art. An Introduction & Thompson, K Mcgraw-Hill, Inc., USA, 1993 A Collective Work Contemporary Polish Cinematography Polonia Publishing House, Warsaw, 1962 Cook, P The Cinema Book British Film Institute, London, 1985 De Mello, A Awareness Fount Paperbacks, London, 1990 Eidsvik, C Kieslowski’s “Short Films” Available from: http://www.petey.com/kk/shorts1.txt [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Franklin, A Screen International (Krzyszstof Kieslowski article) No. 894, Feb 1993 Frazer, B Three Colours: Red Available from: http://www.panix.com/~bfrazer/flicker/ [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Glebocki, Z A Glance at 1000 Years of Polish History Available from: http://www.crl.com/~waldoted/history.html [Accessed 13 Dec 1997] Goulding, D Five Filmmakers Indiana University Press, USA, 1994 Guthmann, E Lost Souls Find Each Other in Red Available from: http://www.petey.com/kk/red.txt [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Idziak, S (sidziak@medianet.com.pl), daymonthyear. Three Colours: Blue. E-mail to S. Revell (94033920@94.humber.ac.uk) Internet Movie Belles de Jour: Julie Delpy Database Available from: http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/michael/ delpy.html Belles de Jour: Irene Jacob Available from: http:www.netlink.co.uk/users/michael/ jacob.html [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Jacobs, P (smile@petey.com), 5/9 Oct 1997. Kieslowski Fan List. E-mail to S.Revell (94033920@94.humber.ac.uk) Jacobs, P Cine Kieslowski Available from: http://www.petey.com/kk/ Cine Kieslowski: K Chat Available from: http://www.petey.com/kklist/pjkchat.htm [Accessed Oct - Dec 1997] Jaxa, P (jaxapiot@iprolink.ch), 22 Nov 1997. Answers. E-mail to S. Revell (94033920@94.humber.ac.uk) Piotr Jaxa Available from: http://digimage.org/Portfolio/Jaxa/CV.html [Accessed 22 Nov 1997] Kawin, B F How Movies Work University of California Press Ltd, London, 1992 Kehr, D To Save the World - Kieslowski’s Three Colours Trilogy Available from: http://web.syr.edu/~ecparkin/ Kiescomment.html [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Kieslowski, K No End Krzysztof Kieslowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz (Screenplay) Jacek Petrycki (Cinematography) Ryszard Chutkowski (Producer) Tor (Production Company) 1984 Kieslowski, K Decalogue Krzysztof Kieslowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz (Screenplay) Ryszard Chutkowski (Producer) Polish Television (Production Company) 1988 Kieslowski, K The Double Life of Veronique Krzysztof Kieslowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz (Screenplay) Slamomir Idziak (Cinematography) Leonardo de la Fuente (Producer) Sideral Productions/Tor Production/Le Studio Canal Plus (Production Companies) 1991 Kieslowski, K Three Colours : Blue, White, Red Krzysztof Kieslowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz (Screenplay) Marin Karmitz (Producer) Tor Production/MK2 Productions SA/CED Productions/France 3 Cinema/CAB Productions (Production Companies) Blue Slawomir Idziak (Cinematography) 1993 White Edward Klosinski (Cinematography) 1993 Red Piotr Sobocinski (Cinematography) 1994 Levich, P The Motion Picture Guide, 1995 Annual (Editor) Cinebooks, New York, 1994 Lozinski, P Polish Cinema Polish Television/Tor Film Studio/BFI (Producers) Telewizja Polska SA/Studio Filmowe Tor/BFI (Production Companies) 7 July 1997 Channel 4 Mcnab, G Sight and Sound & Darke, C (“Working with Kieslowski” interviews) Vol.6 No.5, May 1996 Monaco, J How to Read a Film Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981 Pallot, J The Motion Picture Guide, 1994 Annual (Editor) Cinebooks, New York, 1994 Pasek, Z J Krzysztof Kieslowski and his Films Available from: http://www- personal.engin.umich.edu:80/ ~zbigniew/Kieslowski/kieslowski.html [Accessed 29 Oct 1997] Perry, G The Sunday Times (Three Colours review) July 1996 Pizzello, S American Cinematographer (“Piotr Sobocinski : Red” article) Vol.76 No.6, June 1995 Pope, A Sight and Sound (“In Memory” article) Vol.6 No.8, Aug 1996 Rayns, T Sight and Sound (“Glowing in the Dark” article) Vol.4 No.6, June 1994 Rees, G Three Colours : Blue review Available from: http://www.petey.com/kk/blue.txt [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Salter, M Poland: The Rough Guide & McLachlan, G Rough Guides Ltd, London, 1993 Sampaio, G Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours Trilogy Dissertation Available from: http://www.petey.com/kk/kiesdiss.txt [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Seguin, D White Available from: http://www.petey.com/kk/white.txt [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Sobocinski, P CCS-Program (Oscar Nominees) Available from: http://www.ccspr.com/samples/ oscar16.htm [Accessed 24 Nov 1997] Spotty The Life and Films of Krzysztof Kieslowski Available from: http://wwwnetwiz.net/~rdef/ Kieslowski.htm [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Stok, D Kieslowski on Kieslowski (Editor) Faber and Faber, London, 1995 Strawson, P F Analysis and Metaphysics Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992 Tarkovsky, A Nostalgia Francesco Casati (Producer) Opera Film/RAI-2/Sovin Film (Production Companies) 1983 Van Ingwagen, P Metaphysics Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992 Whyte, A New Cinema in Eastern Europe Studio Vista Limited, London, 1971 Wilmington, M Filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski - Screen giant reportedly was ready to end retirement Available from: http://web.syr.edu/~ecparkin/Kieschi.html [Accessed 20 Jan 1997] Zanussi, K A Tribute to Krzysztof Kieslowski Available from: http:// cinemania.msn.com/Cinemania/ Features/FeatureskieslowskiFF.htm [Accessed 4 Oct 1997] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the help and support of my parents, Colin and Nahid, whose help with this dissertation was invaluable. I would also like to thank Peter Jacobs, for his brilliant work with the Krzysztof Kieslowski web site which has allowed me to speak to some incredible people. And finally I would like to thank Piotr Jaxa-Kwiatkowska for answering my questions but also for keeping Kieslowski’s remarkable work alive with his own brilliant photographic exhibition : Remembering Krzysztof. 1 The Regained Territories comprised some land to the west of Poland, formerly belonging to Germany but returned to Poland in compensation for the eastern lands lost to the Soviet Union. 2 ed. D. Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.13 3 dir. Pawel Lozinski, Polish Cinema. Channel Four. 1997 4 ed. D. Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.15 5 Ibid. P.18 6 Ibid. P.18 7 Ibid. P.23 8 dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Nostalgia. 1983 9 ed. D. Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.37 10 Ken Loach, Introduction to Three Colours - Blue. Channel Four. 1996 11 Krzysztof Zanussi, A Tribute to Krzysztof Kieslowski. 12 Daniel J. Goulding, Five Filmmakers. USA. 1994 P.93 13 Ibid. P.97 14 A collective work, Contemporary Polish Cinematography. Warsaw. 1962 P.92 15 ed. D.Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.45 16 Ibid. P.79 17 Zdzislaw Glebocki & Kirk Palmer, A Glance at 1000 years of Polish History. 18 ed. D. Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.79 19 Ibid. P.96 20 Geoffrey McNab, Sight & Sound. 1996. P.18 21 dir. Pawel Lozinski, Polish Cinema. Channel Four. 1997 22 ed . D. Stok, , Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.113 23 Mark Salter & Gordon McLachlan, Poland : The Rough Guide. London. 1993. P.530 24 ed. D. Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.131 25 dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski, No End. 1984 26 ed. D. Stok, Kieslowski on Kieslowski. London. 1995. P.156 27 Peter Van Ingwagen, Metaphysics. Oxford. 1993. P.1 28 Ibid. P.197 29 The American Film Institute & NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Visions of Light : The Art of Cinematography. Channel Four. 1994 30 P F Strawson, Analysis and Metaphysics. Oxford. 1992. P.138 31 B F Kawin, How Movies Work. London. 1992. P.177 32 S Pizello, American Cinematographer. 1995. P.70 33 D Bordwell & K Thompson, Film Art. 1993. P.157 34 The American Film Institute and NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Visions of Light : The Art of Cinematography. Channel Four. 1994 35 S Pizello, American Cinematographer. 1995. P.70 36 Cinema Papers. 1994. P.32 37 P Sobocinski, CCS-Program (Oscar Nominees). 31