POLISH FILM ACADEMY

50 Years of Polish Film School, Warsaw 2008

Ashes and Diamonds

Marek Hendrykowski

Despite 50 years have passed since its making, Andrzej Wajda's "Ashes and Diamonds" still enjoys the status of an outstanding film production; furthermore, with its release, the film became a ship-flag of the Polish Film School at its apogee in 1958. This was also the year of film premieres for Munk's "Eroica", Konwicki's "The Last Day of Summer", and Has' "Farewell".

The main character of "Ashes and Diamonds", Maciek Chełmicki, became a model hero for the Polish cinematography by being proclaimed a half-mythical figure who comprises both the collective memory of the pro-independence tradition of the Romanticism literature and the bitter truth about the fate of Poles and the drama of their contemporary history.

In 1948, the writer, Jerzy Andrzejewski first published his novel which was soon listed in the canon of the Polish literature and a must-read for generations of those aspiring to take the matriculation exams. The idea of filming the novel came first to the mind of Antoni Bohdziewicz at the end of 40s. However, following the world-wide success of his "Kanal", Andrzej Wajda managed quite easily to convince the writer to co-operate on writing the screenplay. In the context of the October transformations, Andrzejewski departed from the original concept of his book and practically retold the entire story anew. The new version of "Ashes and Diamonds" had basically changed the early construction and the elocution of the novel by eliminating a significant number of characters and plots, and first of all, by making Maciek Chełmicki the main hero.

The director of the "Kadr" Film Studio managed to have the screenplay approved for production, but the problem of selecting an actor for the main role remained still unsolved. Initially Wajda was absolutely in favour of Taduesz Janczar who had proved his great acting potential in Wajda's "Generation" as Jaś Krone and in "Kanal" as "Korab". However, yielding to the persuasions of his second director, Wajda decided to hire Zbigniew Cybulski, which turned out to be one of the most successful casting decisions ever made in the history of the Polish film making. For a 31 years old, hardly known actor, the role of Maciek Chełmicki became his role of a lifetime, giving him overnight popularity and the idol status of the whole generation.

And this was not just all about the dark glasses, the mug, the knapsack, the battle dress, the pair of jeans and the trekking shoes. He became a close friend to the young generation by being presented on the screen as he was; a risky trick of making him a contemporary character had an outstanding impact on "Ashes and Diamonds". But Zbigniew Cybulski contributed much more to Wajda's film: he devoted simply himself to the extend which had been unprecedented in the Polish film making before. He played the role of Maciek Chełmicki so evocatively by granting to this character, in front of the camera, his features, gestures and characteristic patterns of behaviour, but also the unusual charm of his own personality.

Wajda realized quite soon that it paid back to trust the intuition of the selected actor, who impersonated unreservedly the character and worked on the role adopting some unconventional means, but at the same time remaining extremely creative. Cybulski himself came with an idea of the scene showing vodka glasses filled with pure spirit and set on fire. The brilliant album of the film stills shot by Wiesław Zdorto at the "Ashes and Diamonds" site presents the actor extremely concentrated and in the state of artistic grace which is granted to very few. Thanks to this one brilliant role, "Zbyszek" (the name reserved now only to Cybulski) won the hearts of the Polish audience becoming a person who is instantly recognizable, who is known and loved by everybody.

From the very first shot, this creative energy presented by Cybulski and Wajda infected the entire film crew who worked on the production showing extreme devotion and determination. Therefore, it shall be emphasized that "Ashes and Diamonds" was not created by a single man, but it was a result of a collective artistic effort in which every single component mattered. The audience would definitely remember the characters of Andrzej Kossecki (Adam Pawlikowski), Krystyna (Ewa Krzyżewska), Drewnowski (Bogumił Kobiela), the editor  Pieniążek (Stanisław Milski), the old receptionist (Jan Ciecierski), as well as a number of extraordinary episode roles such as Jurgieluszka (Irena Orzecka) and Stefka (Barbara Krafftówna). But the actors were only part of this success.

Besides brilliant acting, the audience would also remember some extraordinary scenes and shots: Maciek and Krystyna taking a night walk, an extremely subtle scene presenting Maciek and Krystyna in a hotel room, another encounter of Chełmicki and Szczuka, a phenomenal scene of the assassination filmed with fireworks in the background, the final procession with the music of "Farewell to the homeland", and last but not least, the scene showing Maciek in agony lying of the garbage dump. All credit should also be given to other "Ashes and Diamonds" crew members, namely to Jerzy Wójcik, an outstanding camera operator, and Roman Mann, an excellent film set designer. The overall effect achieved thanks to their work may be regarded as one of the most precious testimonies to the high workmanship and artistic quality presented by the Polish cinematography in the 50s.

Produced in spring 1958 in Wrocław, "Ashes and Diamonds" became one of the Polish cult movies just shortly after its premiere; it had become the subject of endless discussions and debates, brutal attacks, and heated disputes, not allowing anybody to remain indifferent. The film also achieved a great success on almost every continent and consequently opened the door of a world-wide career to Cybulski – the "Polish James Dean", and Andrzej Wajda, the best known Polish film maker ever since.

The film production of "Ashes and Diamonds" forms a self-contained entity. Its rich and full original power of expression makes the audience feel bewitched by the screen vision without the need to regard the novel as a "literary archetype". Wajda based the construction of his film on a clever trick of making the time and space dense and saturated. The plot was constructed in a way allowing the sequence of events to be enclosed within the film space-time circle. Everything what is important for that novel has to take place within a time-span of a few crucial hours. As a result of all these efforts, the resulting film was much closer in its form to a drama than a novel.

All the characters appearing in the film, starting from the main hero, to the supporting or episode roles, became drama persons. Enclosed in five acts, the sophisticated construction of "Ashes and Diamonds" resembles a classical tragedy. Each place of the action creates a polyphonic and universal space; this space is shared by everyone (a town located "somewhere in Poland", the main square, the hotel bearing a suggestive name of "Monopol", the hotel lobby, hotel rooms, the hotel restaurant, the bar and the ball room). Although the space is shared, every single character marks it with his or her own individual meaning.

The time also creates here a unified entity and its passing is marked without any assistances of clocks, but rather by a dramatic sequence of events. The fate of the cruel war befalls on human lives like stones; but in fact, only "here and now" matters – this breakthrough day filled with fear and anxiety about the shape of the unfolding tomorrow. Being emerged in the contemporary world, the main characters stay in touch with the recent, as well as distant past (the church, the old graveyard, the quotation from Norwid carved in a tombstone and in Maciek's memory). All of them recall and dwell on the past, but at the same time dream about and plan the future. However, the invisible webs of history cover each and everyone without any exception; the history drama drags in everybody.

From the beginning till the very end, Wajda's screen vision is based on contradictions; hence the landscape presented in the opening scene represents the soil cultivated meticulously by a ploughman, the leisure ground (Maciek lying lazily on the meadow), and the place of cult visited by a small girl holding a bunch of wild flowers. This landscape also represents the suburb through which a group of workers commute each day to the cement plant, as well as the path of the expected arrival of Szczuka; and finally, it is also the place of a clandestine assassination, the dead end trap for the victim who struggles to save his life, and the place of murder which was just committed and from which Drewnowski tries to run away petrified by a deadly panic.

Being one great heap of rubble (e.g. the statue of Christ hanging head-down within the church ruins), the world showed on the screen, although shaken to its foundations, represents a universal unity in "Ashes and Diamonds". However, this universe is marked with an internal conflict, the co-existence of contradictions, coincidentia oppositorum, co-existence and permeation of the elements which were in diametrical opposition to one another, but at the same time their cohabitation became the source of unrelenting tensions.

It is also worth mentioning the sophisticated method by which the battle of antinomy between day and nigh was won in Wajda's film, namely with the use of struggle between light and shadow. The first and final scenes, i.e. the first and fifth sequence take place at daylight, in full sun, and hence they disconnect sharply from the three middle parts which take place at night. The entire framework, extended between the exposition and the epilogue, creates the impression that we deal here with a one night drama; the night which is being perceived in diametrically opposing terms and with the use of ever-present subtle expression of prearranged contradictions: the dusk and the dawn, light and shadow, darkness and illumination etc.

A very similar symbolic method is used in "Ashes and Diamonds" to present the season of the year. In this film, Spring was assigned the function of an independent "drama entity": the season of hope, the time of sawing and planting, the time of coming to life and dying. This was the season of bitter experience encountered by the people who proceed against the stormy course of history and struggle with the ruthless power of historic transformations. Hence, the film presents the scenes filled with carefree leisure moments enveloped in the spring sunshine, but contrasted with the hardships endured by the ploughman; heavy dark clouds hanging oppressively over the horizon and freshly ploughed ridges of soil; rustic chirping of birds and a bunch of wild flowers carried idyllically by the child to the chapel; a heavy spring downpour and the smell of great love; a bunch of violets and the fresh memory of the bloody spring of 1944 depicted in the lyrics of "The red poppies of Monte Casino". All these signs representing the Spring motive blend together and take up a symbolic value.

By telling anew the story of Maciek Chełmicki, Wajda brought to it a concrete, but at the same time, mythical dimension. The film personification of the human drama, which during the Stalin era was regarded as a taboo topic, was achieved here in an outstanding artistic format. The director did not need to enter the mythical sphere in order to achieve pathetic overtones, but apparently to return at last the tragic dimension to thousands of human biographies, of people similar to Maciek, who were until then deprived of this right.

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