Andrzej Wajda’s Peers Direct Praise to Poland’s Preeminent Filmmaker

At the Academy Awards on Sunday, Poland’s Andrzej Wajda will join such luminaries as Michelangelo Antononioni, Fred Astaire, Charles Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Kirk Douglas, Buster Keaton, Akira Kurosawa and Orson Welles when he receives an honorary Oscar. Wajda has long been regarded not only as Poland’s premier director but as one of the world’s great filmmakers.

Now 74 and still at the peak of his creative powers, Wajda has born witness to the tumultuous events of his lifetime and of his country’s turbulent past in an ongoing series of films. He’s acclaimed for his superb skill at storytelling and for making films that are at once intimate and epic, simultaneously committed yet equally entertaining. The consistent high level of Wajda’s accomplishments is as astonishing as its range.

Always one to look ahead, not backward, Wajda is reluctant to sum up his career and his accomplishments. “A real director is worth only as much as his latest film, and every latest film may be his last,” he said in an interview this week, only to admit the next moment: “I’m so happy with my life and with all the opportunities given me. If you were to ask me what I am most proud of, I would say it is because I am here to receive this honor.

“I live in a distant land and create in an unknown language, and here I am, talking to you, getting recognition and getting an Oscar. There is no greater satisfaction than being honored by so many famous American filmmakers. Perhaps there is a universal language in film after all.”

Wajda joined the Resistance in World War II at the age of 16, after his father, a cavalry officer, was killed. He studied art in the postwar years but enrolled in Lodz’s famous film school in 1950. He came into international prominence with his World War II trilogy, “A Generation” (1954), “Kanal” (1957) and, most notably, “Ashes and Diamonds” (1958), all of which explored the plight of the individual in the midst of chaos and questioned conventional notions of heroism.

“Land of Promise” (1975), a saga of three young industrialists--a Pole, a German and a Jew--who build a textile factory at the turn of the century, brought Wajda the first of three best foreign film nominations. Arguably his finest achievement is “Man of Marble” (1972), a portrait of Poland’s Stalinist era that was so controversial it took a decade to get made and four years to win release. Its 1977 sequel, “Man of Iron,” recorded the flowering of the Solidarity movement as it was happening and drew another Oscar nomination.

In temporary exile in France, Wajda made the stirring “Danton” (1982), and then back in Poland in 1990 directed the wonderful “Korczak,” the true story of a renowned pediatrician and educator who became a popular early radio star with a program on child rearing. He was a Jew who, because of his celebrity, could have fled to safety but chose to stay in the Warsaw ghetto to prepare its children for death.

Now after a decade that has seen him serving in Poland’s Senate and observing a film industry in the throes of transition from communism to capitalism, Wajda, who has also directed much theater, has returned to the screen in triumph with “Pan Tadeusz,” a glorious mock epic, based on Adam Mickiewicz’s 1834 poem, known to every Polish school child. Set on the eve of Napoleon’s march on Russia in 1812, it centers on an ancient rivalry between two noblemen who subsequently join forces in the face of the common Russian oppressor.

“Pan Tadeusz,” which provides juicy roles for a bevy of Poland’s greatest stars, was shown out of competition this year at Berlin, where Wajda served on the jury; it just opened in Paris on Saturday. Wajda’s honorary Oscar could not come at a more propitious time.

“Six million people have seen ‘Pan Tadeusz’ in Poland,” said Wajda in amazed delight Thursday through his interpreter, Roman Czarny, of Poland’s consulate general. Wajda, a trim, vigorous silver-haired man of much graciousness and a little English, was sitting in a Santa Monica restaurant atop a Santa Monica hotel, taking in the view and enjoying his trip to California.

“This is phenomenal,” he said of “Pan Tadeusz’s” success. “Not only did it draw the young people but also families and older people who usually sit at home and watch TV. Since Poland became an independent sovereign state in 1989 it has been a difficult time for our filmmakers. Our movie theaters, which had been run by local municipalities, simply started shutting down, for attendance was at its lowest ebb. Once there were 3,500 movie theaters, and that number slipped to 700--in a country of 40 million people.

“And then American films started coming, attracting a new kind of audience, and there was no space for Polish films. Basically, the Polish film industry retreated to TV, which does not have the same impact, of course. Than some young Polish directors started to try to copy American films but came up with nothing that was novel, fresh or different.

“But this last year has brought a new phenomenon, with ‘Pan Tadeusz’ and ‘With Fire and Sword’ [also a sweeping historical epic]. These were large productions and won over 60% of the audience. Quite astounding, but we Poles have always been difficult and unaccountable. We’re unpredictable always!”

Steven Spielberg’s filming of “Schindler’s List” in Poland gave the film industry a terrific boost, noted Wajda, who enjoyed observing Spielberg at work. “For the first time our people could work with the best organized, best equipped film production unit in the world. Our people worked well with the Americans. And I was amazed, fascinated by Spielberg, who exudes so much energy that, if he were wired to an electric plug, could light up a small town.

“So I do have some hope that Polish filmmakers will again find a way to appeal to Polish audiences,” said Wajda, who nevertheless is skeptical about young filmmakers being both willing and able to connect with wide audiences.

Yet Wajda is not a man to look back. “I’m more interested in looking toward the future than looking backward to the past,” he said. “My experience is the experience of a world that does not exist anymore--the system in which I worked 45 years doesn’t exist. So my working experiences from the past are not going to help anyone. Perhaps the only good thing we were able to do was to educate people through the Polish cinema, so I hope this continues.

“Now that we have the freedom we wanted for so long, perhaps we are going to need a new kind of hero--someone who wants to take matters into his own hands. There’s been a tradition in Poland to depict the weak, the oppressed and the unsuccessful because they had no voice of their own, and only artists could present their issues to the larger public.

“There’s a huge flea market in Warsaw. There are all these Russians selling things out of suitcases; invariably the buyers are Poles. However, I saw a young Polish woman, about 18, with lots of suitcases filled with stationery. A Russian asked her how many packets could she be able to sell to him, telling her he needed about 10,000. ‘Well, come back tomorrow morning,’ she said.

“To hear this dialogue in the Polish language was almost unbelievable! Under the communist system nobody could have given such an answer, made such a decision. So maybe this girl is the new heroine, but I am skeptical about young directors seeing that in this new phenomenon.”

In the meantime, Wajda has several projects for himself in mind, most notably about Nobel Prize-winning novelist Henryk Sinkiewicz coming to Southern California in the 1880s to seek a location for the utopian community that renowned Polish actress Helena Modjeska was to attempt in Anaheim. (Her saga was the inspiration for Susan Sontag’s new novel, “In America.”) The community didn’t pan out--”Nobody knew how to plant seeds and cultivate the soil for orange groves or wanted to know,” said Wajda--but Modjeska was able to resurrect her career and go on to greater glory on U.S. stages.

What struck Wajda was Sinkiewicz’s appreciation of the possibilities life in America offered.

“Ah, but the most difficult thing is finding a good scriptwriter,” Wajda said with a sigh. “We are a small country, and there aren’t many professional screenwriters.”