Jerzy Skolimowski (born May 5, 1938) is a
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
film directorA film director, or filmmaker is a person who directs the making or production of a film. Some also consider a film producer to be a filmmaker....
,
screenwriterScreenwriters or scenarists or scriptwriters are people in a film crew who write/create the screenplays from which films and television programs are made....
,
dramatistA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
and
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. A graduate of the prestigious
Polish Film SchoolPolish Film School refers to an informal group of Polish film directors and screenplay writers active between 1955 and approximately 1963....
in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début
Oko wykol (The Menacing Eye). He now lives in Los Angeles where he paints in a figurative, expressionist mode and acts occasionally in films.
Skolimowski was born in Łódź,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, the son of Maria (
néeA married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage, and in speaking of the many cultures where the practice is traditional for women, the maiden name is the family name that the married name replaces....
Postnikoff) and Stanisław Skolimowski, an
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
.
Jerzy Skolimowski (born May 5, 1938) is a
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
film directorA film director, or filmmaker is a person who directs the making or production of a film. Some also consider a film producer to be a filmmaker....
,
screenwriterScreenwriters or scenarists or scriptwriters are people in a film crew who write/create the screenplays from which films and television programs are made....
,
dramatistA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
and
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. A graduate of the prestigious
Polish Film SchoolPolish Film School refers to an informal group of Polish film directors and screenplay writers active between 1955 and approximately 1963....
in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début
Oko wykol (The Menacing Eye). He now lives in Los Angeles where he paints in a figurative, expressionist mode and acts occasionally in films.
Early life
Skolimowski was born in Łódź,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, the son of Maria (
néeA married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage, and in speaking of the many cultures where the practice is traditional for women, the maiden name is the family name that the married name replaces....
Postnikoff) and Stanisław Skolimowski, an
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
. He often recognized indications in his work to a childhood ineradicably scarred by the War. As a small child he witnessed the brutalities of war, even rescued from the rubble of a bombed-out house in Warsaw. His father, a member of the Polish Resistance, was executed by the Nazis. His mother hid a Jewish family in the house and Skolimowski recalls being required to take candy from the Nazis to maintain appearances.
Skolimowski was considered as a trouble maker at school as he was the origin of many harmless jokes which angered the authorities. At college he studied ethnography, history and literature and took up boxing, which was also the subject of a feature-length documentary, his first significant film. Skolimowski's interest in jazz and association with composer
Krzysztof KomedaKrzysztof Komeda was a Polish film music composer and jazz pianist. Perhaps best-known for his work in film scores, Komeda wrote the scores for Roman Polański’s films Rosemary’s Baby, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Knife in the Water and Cul-de-sac...
brought him into contact with actor
Zbigniew CybulskiZbigniew Cybulski was a Polish actor, one of the best-known and most popular personalities of Polish cinema after World War II...
and directors
Andrzej MunkAndrzej Munk was a Polish film director, screenplay writer and camera operator and was one of the most influential artists of the Polish Film School....
and
Roman PolańskiRoman Raymond Polanski is a Polish-French film director, producer, writer, and actor. Polanski began his career in Poland, and later became a critically-acclaimed director of both art house and commercial films....
.
Writer and actor
In his early twenties Skolimowski was already a writer, having published several books of poems, short stories and a play. Soon he met
Andrzej WajdaAndrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is perhaps the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
, the leading director of the then dominant 'Polish school' and twelve years Skolimowski's senior, who has showed him a script for a film about youth written by
Jerzy AndrzejewskiJerzy Andrzejewski was a prolific Polish author. Having joined the communist party in 1950, he left the party after 1956 events. In 1976 he was one of the founding members of the intellectual opposition group KOR...
, the author of the novel
Ashes and DiamondsAshes and Diamonds is a 1948 novel by the Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. In 1958 it was adapted into a film of the same name by the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda.-Plot introduction:...
. Skolimowski was not impressed and dismissed the script. However in response to a challenge by Wajda, he produced his own version which became a basis for the finished film,
The Innocent Sorcerers (1960), directed by Wajda with Skolimowski playing a boxer.
Skolimowski enrolled in the Lódz Film School with the intention of avoiding the long apprenticeship required before graduating to feature film direction. He used the film stock available to him for student exercises, and with initial advice from Andrzej Munk, he filmed over several years in such a way that the sequences cut together into a feature. While scoring poorly in course work Skolimowski had a finished feature by the end of the course.
Into the movie arena
Skolimowsi then collaborated with Polański, writing the dialogue for the script of
Knife in the WaterKnife in the Water is a 1962 film directed by Roman Polański. It features only three characters and deals with rivalry and sexual tension.-Plot:...
(1962).
Between 1964 and 1984 he completed six semi-autobiographical features:
Rysopis,
Walkover,
Barrier (1966),
Hands Up! (completed 1967, released 1981),
Moonlighting (GB 1982) and
Success is the Best Revenge, a segment in
Dialóg and two other features
Le Départ (1967) and
Deep End based on his original screenplays.
While living and working in many countries, he also completed another six relatively big budget productions, including four international co-productions, between 1970 and 1992 (
The Adventures of Gerard,
King, Queen, Knave,
The Shout,
The Lightship,
Torrents of Spring and
Ferdydurke), all distinctly bearing Skolimowski’s signature.
Skolimowski has said that he makes films to please himself.
Film as life
After
Barrier he left Poland to make
Le Départ in Belgium in French. According to him
Le Départ was a light film rather than a comedy, "
does not have the serious layers that I like in my work." Skolimowski returned to Poland to make
Hands Up!, the third film of the Andrzej trilogy and the fourth of his Polish sextet.
Between
Hands Up! and his next feature,
Arthur Conan DoyleSir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle,
DL was a British physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
’s
The Adventures of Gerard (1970), Skolimowski contributed a story to a Czech-produced portmanteau film,
Dialóg 20-40-60 (1968), in which three different directors (with
Zbynek BrynychZbyněk Brynych was a Czech film director and screenwriter. He directed 30 films between 1951 and 1985.-Selected filmography:* The Fifth Horseman is Fear * Suburban Romance -External links:...
and Peter Solan) each devised their own story using identical dialogue even though the central characters in each section are separated in age by twenty years. Skolimowski's segment, "The Twenty Year Olds", would seem to be an extension of
Le Départ with
Jean-Pierre Léaud-Early years:Born in Paris, Léaud made his debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in The 400 Blows.-Acting career:...
playing opposite Skolimowski's wife Joanna Szcerbic.
Deep EndDeep End is a 1971 movie directed by Jerzy Skolimowski featuring Jane Asher and John Moulder Brown. The film is set in the suburbs of London.-Plot:...
(1970) was Skolimowski's second non-Polish feature to be based on his own original screenplay. The movie with a coming of age storyline bears distinctive thematic similarities to
Le Départ.
Deep End was a promising film yet it was poorly handled by the studio. His films
The Shout (1978) and
Moonlighting (1982) became critical successes, with
Moonlighting, made in the UK, the fifth of his Polish sextet, critically and commercially his most successful film.
In America
The Lightship, Skolimowski’s first US production, was adapted from a novella by the German writer
Siegfried LenzSiegfried Lenz is a German writer, who has written novels and produced several collections of short stories, essays, and plays for radio and the theatre. He was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt-am-Main on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth...
. Set on a US coastguard ship it was filmed in the North Sea. It is suspended between psychological duel with a doppelgänger theme and a pure performance piece within the stage-like confines of the lightship. However, even though receiving the best film award at the Venice Film Festival,
The Lightship had only a very limited release.
Torrents of Spring (1989), adapted from a semi-autobiographical novella by the Russian
Ivan TurgenevIvan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist and playwright. His novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction.-Life:...
, was a big budget European co-production starring
Timothy HuttonTimothy T. Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People .-Early life:...
,
Nastassja KinskiNastassja Kinski is a German actress, who has appeared in more than 60 international movies...
and
Valeria GolinoValeria Golino is an Italian-Greek film and television actress. She is perhaps best known to U.S. audiences for the 1988 Academy Award-winning film Rain Man and the 1988 comedy Big Top Pee-wee, and has won the David di Donatello, Silver Ribbon, and Coppa Volpi awards.-Early life:Golino was born in...
. It could be considered as Skolimowski’s most impersonal 'generic' film, the only real departure from his expressed interest in making films only to please himself.
Skolimowski is also an actor, having appeared as Colonel Chaikov, a ruthless yet composed KGB colonel, in
White NightsWhite Nights is a 1985 film starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Jerzy Skolimowski, Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini. It also contains early-career performances from Marc Sinden and French girlfriend Maryam d'Abo...
(1985) and Uncle Stepan, a Russian expatriate in
Eastern Promises (2007), among other roles.
Quotations
- As a poet my mind is trained along the path of poetic associations — I'm not afraid to wander away from direct narrative - I feel safe with a story that tempts you to believe or disbelieve.
Director
- Erotique (Erotyk) (1960)
- Little Hamlet (Hamles) (1960)
- The Menacing Eye (Oko wykol) (1960)
- Boxing (Boks) (1961)
- Your Money or Your Life (Pieniadze albo zycie) (1961)
- The Nude (1962)
- Identification Marks: None (Rysopis) (1964)
- Walkover (Walkower) (1965)
- Barrier (Bariera) (1966)
- Le départ
Le départ is a 1967 Belgian film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It stars Jean-Pierre Léaud as a car-obsessed young man trying to get possession of a Porsche for a race.- External links :...
(1967)
- Rece do góry
Ręce do góry is a Polish drama film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It is the fourth of a series of semi-autobiographical films in whch Skolimowski himself plays his alter ego, Andrzej Leszczyc.The film was originally made in 1967 in monochrome...
(subitiled English version entitled Hands Up!, completed 1967, released 1981)
- Deep End
Deep End is a 1971 movie directed by Jerzy Skolimowski featuring Jane Asher and John Moulder Brown. The film is set in the suburbs of London.-Plot:...
(1970)
- The Adventures of Gerard (1970)
- King, Queen, Knave
King, Queen, Knave is a 1972 German comedy film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, based on the novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov. It was entered into the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Gina Lollobrigida - Martha Dreyer...
(1972)
- The Shout
The Shout is a 1978 film by Jerzy Skolimowski based on a short story by Robert Graves.- Plot :It stars Alan Bates as a mysterious traveling musician who invades the lives of a young couple, played by Susannah York and John Hurt...
(1978)
- Moonlighting
Moonlighting is a film written and directed by Jerzy Skolimowski in 1982. It is set in the early 1980s at the time of the Solidarity protests in Poland.It stars Jeremy Irons as "Nowak", a Polish builder leading a team working illegally in London.-Cast:...
(1982)
- Dialóg 20-40-60 (1968) (segment "The Twenty-Year-Olds")
- Success Is the Best Revenge
Success Is the Best Revenge is a 1984 French-British drama film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It was entered into the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Michael York - Alex Rodak* Joanna Szczerbic - Alicia Rodak* Michael Lyndon - Adam Rodak...
(1984)
- The Lightship (1985)
- Torrents of Spring
Torrents of Spring is a 1990 film based on the novel of the same title, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and starring Timothy Hutton and Nastassja Kinski...
(1989)
- Ferdydurke
Ferdydurke is a novel by the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, published in 1937.Considered a masterpiece of European modernism, Ferdydurke was published at an inopportune moment...
(30 Door Key) (1991)
- Four Nights with Anna (Cztery noce z Anna) (2008)
- America (2008)
Actor
- Niewinni czarodzieje (1960)
- Boks (1961)
- Rysopis (1964) as Andrzej Leszczyc
- Walkower (1965) as Andrzej Leszczyc
- Sposob bycia (1966) as Leopold
- Deep End
Deep End is a 1971 movie directed by Jerzy Skolimowski featuring Jane Asher and John Moulder Brown. The film is set in the suburbs of London.-Plot:...
(1970) as a man with newspaper
- Rece do góry
Ręce do góry is a Polish drama film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It is the fourth of a series of semi-autobiographical films in whch Skolimowski himself plays his alter ego, Andrzej Leszczyc.The film was originally made in 1967 in monochrome...
(1981) as Andrzej Leszczyc
- Die Fälschung (1981) as Hoffmann
- White Nights
White Nights is a 1985 film starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Jerzy Skolimowski, Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini. It also contains early-career performances from Marc Sinden and French girlfriend Maryam d'Abo...
(1985) as KGB Colonel Chaiko
- Big Shots (1987) as Doc
- Torrents of Spring
Torrents of Spring is a 1990 film based on the novel of the same title, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and starring Timothy Hutton and Nastassja Kinski...
(1989) as Victor Victorovich
- Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks! is a 1996 comic science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and based on the cult trading card series of the same name. The film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour and political satire, and is also a parody of multiple science fiction B movies...
(1996)
- L.A. Without a Map
L.A. Without a Map is a 1998 film directed by Mika Kaurismäki and written by Mika Kaurismäki and Richard Rayner, based on his novel. It is a French, British and Finnish production....
(1998)
- Before Night Falls
Before Night Falls is the 1992 autobiography of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, describing his life in Cuba, his time in prison, and his ultimate escape to the United States. It was on the New York Times list of the ten best books of the year 1993.-Film adaptation:In 2000, director Julian Schnabel...
(2000)
- Eastern Promises (2007) as Stepan
External links