MAN ON THE TRACKS [1956]
year:
- 1956
release date:
- 17 I 1957
runtime:
- 80 min
directed by:
- Andrzej Munk
written by:
- Jerzy Stefan Stawiński, Andrzej Munk based on a short story by Jerzy Stefan Stawiński
director of photography:
- Romuald Kropat
cast:
- Kazimierz Opaliński [Władysław Orzechowski], Zygmunt Maciejewski [stationmaster Tuszka], Zygmunt Zintel [Witold Sałata], Zygmunt Listkiewicz [Stanisław Zapora], Roman Kłosowski [Marek Nowak], Kazimierz Fabisiak [Konarski], Ludosław Kozłowski [comrade Karaś], Janusz Bylczyński [Warda, a Committee member], Stanisław Marzec-Marecki [a party secretary in the engine-house], Józef Para [a railwayman]
edited by:
- Jadwiga Zajiček
production design:
- Roman Mann
produced by:
- Zespół Filmowy „Kadr”
executive producer:
- Wilhelm Hollender
awards:
-
• IFF Karlovy Vary (Czechoslovakia) 1957: Crystal Globe for Best Director
• Warsaw Mermaid in 1958 for Andrzej Munk
About the film
The baseline of 'Man on the Tracks' is not much different from the crime thriller schemes popular in the production film and novel, but the juxtaposition of words and images used by the director helped him create − not unlike in Orson Welles’ 'Citizen Kane' − an ambiguous portrait of the dead protagonist.
In the prologue, a night train driver sees a man on the tracks. He immediately stops the train; the man − as it later turns out, retired engine driver Orzechowski − dies saving the train from crashing.
In a cramped little room at the station, Orzechowski is described by: stationmaster Tuszka, former assistant of Orzechowski, Staszek Zapora, and lineman Sałata. In these stories, also informed by personal prejudices, an image of a man of different era emerges, difficult to live with but nevertheless extraordinary, an employee who was reliable, but had difficulty adapting to the new, socialist conditions on the railway.
Jan Słodowski, Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych, Warszawa 1996
