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Tim Cawkwell

~ currently publishing my poetry and verse. Blog entries on film and painting going back to 2014. My main website is www.timcawkwell.co.uk

Tim Cawkwell

Tag Archives: Poland

‘KIEŚLOWSKI BEFORE KIEŚLOWSKI: THE MAKING OF A METAPHYSICAL FILM-MAKER’

19 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by Tim Cawkwell in documentaries, Kieslowski reflection, metaphysical film

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Karabasz, Kieslowski, metaphysics, Poland, Solidarity

The Office 1 KK       The Office 3 KK

Just posted on my website a new essay under the above title, which can be downloaded as a pdf at http://bit.ly/KBKieslowski. I’ve been working on this all 2015, and posted bits of work-in-progress in this blog. Here’s a summary:

1              K’s high reputation – his influence – the label of ‘metaphysical’ – K’s God as outlined in 1993 interview – ‘metaphysical’ as getting behind physical appearances – ‘metaphysical’ because of presence of a God-like figure, e.g. in Three Colours: Red.

2              K’s work in documentaries prior to 1980 – particular circumstances illustrate a larger universe – ‘metaphysical’ as in The Metaphysical Poets of 17th-century England – TS Eliot – K’s interest in ill-health as metaphor – K’s documentaries about patients in hospitals, and Hospital about doctors.

3              K’s career as a documentarist (1967-80) – importance of Kazimierz Karabasz – contemporary Poland – K’s questioning of system – K’s humanism – The Office (1967) and Kafka.

4              K’s economy of narrative and of editing – his structuralism.

5              K and Camus’ ‘metaphysical rebellion’.

Also on the website is a KK timeline juxtaposing his career with events in Poland.

www.timcawkwell.co.uk

KIESLOWSKI REFLECTION: a timeline of his career

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by Tim Cawkwell in Kieslowski reflection, Polish history

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Kieslowski, Poland

While Kieslowski was not a politically committed film-maker, his life was intimately connected with the history of Poland, as is made clear in the Timeline of his life that I have prepared. What fascinates me is the way events in Poland and his own personal experiences making films under the particular conditions in the country at that time caused him to develop his ‘metaphysical’ (as it is popularly called) view of the world, as it were a drifting away from the ups and downs of Poland since the War, the good moments, the bad times, the grounds for hope and the reasons for despair, in order to find his own territory.

The Timeline is a pdf which can be uploaded here:       8 – Timeline.

Sources:

  • ‘Kieslowski on Kieslowski’ ed. Danusia Stok (London: Faber & Faber 1993)
  • ‘Poland: a history’ by Adam Zamoyski (London: Harper Collins 2009)
  • entries on Wikipedia

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Recent Posts

  • RICH MAN, POOR MAN, DEAD MAN – a Covid ode
  • VERSE EPISTLE TO Mr DOMINIC CUMMINGS . . .
  • EMPIRE – WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
  • yearning for the sixties
  • FILM PORTRAITURE 4: Bob Fleischner Dying

Recent Comments

Sarah Cawkwell on FILM PORTRAITS 2: TACITA …
Antonioni: more De C… on Antonioni’s Metaphysical…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Donato Totaro on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…

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Categories

  • Antonioni
  • artists' film
  • avant garde
  • Bible on film
  • biopics
  • Brakhage
  • Bresson
  • British cinema
  • cinema and culture
  • cinema of hyperbole
  • costume narratives
  • courtroom dramas
  • Creation
  • crucifixion films
  • crucifixion on film
  • diary films
  • disaster movies
  • documentaries
  • Doubt
  • film noir
  • film portraiture
  • gangster films
  • God
  • Hitchcock
  • humanism
  • Ireland
  • Italian gardens
  • Italy
  • John Ford
  • Kieslowski reflection
  • Kieslowski reflections
  • literature and film
  • metaphysical film
  • monastery films
  • Nativity
  • nuns on film
  • opera and film
  • painting and photography
  • Pascalian cinema
  • Pasolini
  • poetry & verse
  • Polish history
  • predestination
  • redemption
  • resurrection
  • revivalism
  • Rohmer
  • Russian cinema
  • self-publishing
  • sewer films
  • silent cinema
  • spiritual cinema
  • surrealism
  • talkies
  • Tim's poems 2020
  • time puzzles
  • Topaz
  • travel
  • Uncategorized
  • underground film
  • War
  • White Ribbon
  • Zweite Heimat

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