Pieczka, Franciszek

(1928-)

   One of the best Polish actors, known for a variety of roles in several classic Polish films. Pieczka, whose career spans more than fifty years, appeared in approximately 130 Polish films and twenty-four television plays. After graduating from acting school in Warsaw (PWST) in 1954, Pieczka appeared in episodic roles in several Polish films beginning with Andrzej Wajda's A Generation (1955, not credited) and playing regular soldiers and plebeian characters in films such as Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) and Wojciech Has's The Saragossa Manuscript (1965). In the second part of the 1960s, Pieczka became one of the best-known Polish actors thanks to his role as Gustlik in the enormously popular television war series Four Tankmen and a Dog (1966-1967), directed by Konrad Nałęcki. He also received critical acclaim for his role in Henryk Kluba's stylized film The Sun Rises Once a Day (1967). In Witold Leszczynski's celebrated classic, The Life of Matthew (1968), he starred as an oversensitive protagonist who develops an unusual closeness to nature. Pieczka played strong supporting roles in several canonical Polish films of the 1970s, such as Kazimierz Kutz's The Pearl in the Crown (1972), Wajda's The Wedding (1973) and The Promised Land (1975), and Jerzy Hoffman's The Deluge (1974). In 1976 Pieczka also played the lead role as a well-meaning manager of a huge industrial plant in Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Scar (Blizna, 1976), for which he received the Best Actor award at the Festival of Polish Films.

   Arguably Pieczka's best performance in the 1980s was his role as a Jewish innkeeper in Kawalerowicz's Austeria (1983). Also in the 1980s, he appeared in strong supporting roles in films directed by, among others, Leszczyński (Konopielka, 1981, and Axiliad, 1985) and Janusz Zaorski (The Mother of Kings, 1982/1987). Pieczka also belongs to the small group of Jan Jakub Kolski's favorite actors; Pieczka appeared in the majority of Kolski's films in supporting and leading roles. For example, he played the lead character in The Burial of a Potato (1991) and Johnnie the Aquarius (1993)—for the latter he received the Best Actor award at the Festival of Polish Films. In recent years, Pieczka has continued his collaboration with Kolski, appeared in Kawalerowicz's epic adaptation of Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis (2001), and starred in Leszczynski's Requiem (2001), which was made in the spirit of The Life of Matthew.

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof