Rozewicz searched for the truth of the common man. In his quiet, coldly poetic films, he showed soldiers as ordinary men willing to perform their duties simply because it is their job, while at the same time stressing how unprepared they were for the atrocities and depravation war brought.
The Masterpieces of Polish Cinema
Stanislaw Rózewicz
Studio: Tim Film Studio
Number of disks: 3
Condition: Brand New, Sealed, Mint
Total time: 283 minutes
Language version: Polish
Subtitles: English
Picture Format: 4 x 3
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
Region: 2 (PAL). European or multi-system DVD player is required to see this DVD.
Content:
DVD 1
Drzwi w murze (1974)
A playwright goes to Gdansk to have a look at the rehearsals of a work he has written. Unable to find a room in a hotel, he ends up in a private house inhabited by a mother and a pretty daughter. The playwright becomes briefly involved in their lives and their problems and has a fleeting romance with the daughter before preemptorily slipping out as fast as he entered.
Cast: Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Wanda Neumann and Ryszarda Hanin
DVD 2
Kobieta w kapeluszu (1985)
A psychological portrait of a young Polish theatre actress, searching for her own way in life. She plays a mechanical dancer in a play "Dance of the Marionette", a complete opposite of her real personality. She lives on her own, occasionally visiting a famous old actress to talk about the theater and taking care of a poor neighbor. She fights her sophisticated mother and rejecting the truth about her beloved father, who died an alcoholic.
Cast: Hanna Mikuc, Maria Czubasiewicz and Barbara Dziekan
DVD 3
Aniol w szafie (1987)
"Angel in the closet" is a film about responsibility, the duty to yourself and to the others. In the crazy world we live in, it's hard to pretend he did not see the dangerous phenomena - in the attitudes of people in relationships. So this is a film about conscience. About the memory, without which we are nothing. The fears and anxieties in us and around us. (Stanislaw Rozewicz)
Cast: Jerzy Trela, Grazyna Barszczewska and Maria Czubasiewicz
About the director:
Stanislaw Rozewicz was a film director, producer and mentor to a generation of Polish filmmakers. He was a younger brother of Polish poet and playwright Tadeusz Rozewicz. He made his film debut in 1946, co-directing (with Wojciech Jerzy Has) the short doc "Brzozowa Street," presenting life on a Warsaw street ruined by WW I I. A war survivor, he made the war one of his major topics. While other Polish filmmakers of the 1950s and 1960s approached war with either romantic undertones, showing Polish soldiers as tragic young dreamers doomed by fate and death wish (Andrzej Wajda's "Canal" and "Lotna") or satirizing the romantic approach by showing the absurdities of war heroism (Andrzej Munk's "Heroism" and "Bad Luck"), Rozewicz searched for the truth of the common man. In his quiet, coldly poetic films, he showed soldiers as ordinary men willing to perform their duties simply because it is their job, while at the same time stressing how unprepared they were for the atrocities and depravation war brought. This fit into the larger topic of his films -- the observation of how men behave when facing evil and the question of how film can present the reality of moral choices without resorting to artificial over dramatization.
His honest approach to the everyday truth of war made him an easy target for communist censors, who were unhappy with Rozewicz's refusal to take a political stand. "Brzozowa Street" was withheld by the authorities for two years during which the authorities demanded Rozewicz and Has add a voiceover softening the harsh tone of the images.
His short TV "To the Den" (1965) was witheld for 12 years. It shows an alleged war traitor and soldiers performing an execution on him as similarly depraved by war. His best-known film is "Certificate of Birth" (1961), which won several awards for its three unsentimental stories depicting children during the war.
In 1967 Rozewicz established TOR Film Co-operative, where he produced the films of a new generation of Polish filmmakers. He nurtured the feature debuts of Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Zanussi, Filip Bajon and Wojciech Marczewski, among others. He was famous for his absolute concentration on the artistic rather than the commercial side of filmmaking (when Kieslowski had problems shooting "Personnel," his first feature, Rozewicz allowed him to pause the production until he was ready to continue).
Inactive as a film director since 1990, Rozewicz continued to work in theater. Stanislaw Rozewicz died November 9, 2008 in Warsaw. He was 84.
(Bio courtesy of Michal Chacinski and Varity)
Manufacturer: TiM Film Studio
SKU: MOPC_SR
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