Żuławski, Andrzej

(1940-)

   Director, scriptwriter of almost all his films, poet, fiction writer, and film reviewer. The multitalented Żuławski started his career as Andrzej Wajda's assistant on Samson (1961) and second director on Ashes (1965). His directorial debut came in 1967 with two short television films, and he received critical acclaim for his first theatrical film, The Third Part of the Night (Trzecia część nocy, 1972), based on the novel written by his father, Mirosław Żuławski. The film, often considered as a polemic of the Polish School's main thematic concerns, is set during World War II in occupied Poland and concerns people used by the Germans during their experiments on typhoid. The film is replete with shocking images, symbolism, stylized dialogues, and expressionistic acting. The mannerisms, violent imagery, exhilarating camera movement, and nonconformity of the early films of Żuławski surprised and shocked both viewers and film authorities. Due to its accumulation of shocking imagery, Żuławski's next film, Devil (Diabeł, 1972), was not released until 1988. The two-year-long production of On the Silver Globe (Na srebrnym globie), Żuławski's lavish science fiction film, was stopped by the authorities in 1977 for going over budget (a reconstructed version of this film was premiered by the director in 1989). As a consequence, Żuławski decided to move permanently to France where he directed, among others, Possession (1981), The Public Woman (La femme publique, 1984), Mad Love (L'Amour braque, 1985), Boris Godunov (1990), Blue Note (La note bleue, 1991), and Fidelity (La fidelite, 2000). In 1996 Żuławski returned briefly to Poland to direct She-Shaman (Szamanka), which was nicknamed by Polish critics the "Last Tango in Warsaw."

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof