Andrzej Wajda - The reaction of the French public to 'Danton' (163/222)

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Polish film director Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016), whose début films portrayed the horror of the German occupation of Poland, won awards at Cannes which established his reputation as storyteller and commentator on Polish history. He also served on the national Senate from 1989-91. [Listener: Jacek Petrycki]

TRANSCRIPT: In as far as the making of this film was an inspiring moment in my life, there's one other thing that needs to be mentioned. Very many different places were open for us to film in, and I realised how much shabbier and how hopeless the film would have been had it been made in Poland. We worked in the actual surroundings, we were allowed to shoot in the hall where Parliament sat, we filmed in those places where great events had occurred. Had the film been made in Poland - God forbid - we wouldn't have had a shadow of this, and, like I've said, Allan Starski really spread his wings which gave the film a broad setting. We worked fast, energetically and we felt that an important film was being made. Meanwhile, President Mitterand presented me with the Legion of Honour and I felt that I could stay in France, I could work there, every avenue was open before me and that for the time being, I didn't need to go back to Poland. All the news I was getting from there said that the country together with martial law was collapsing into a terrible pit of hopelessness, nothing was happening, nothing was being done, everything was effectively paralysed by the military regime yet it was hard to sit on those bayonettes. The hardest part came next, namely, the film was finished and we were very satisfied. We felt that we'd made a film that was alive, but how would the French public react? I have to add something here in parenthesis to say that the history of France, especially the school textbooks in France, are edited, or were then, by the left wing which means by the French communists. So the French Revolution was only seen in the light that the French communists presented it in. It came across that Robespierre was the hero, Danton was the traitor and the whole period of terror was very neatly hidden. Robespierre, who was responsible for everything, was shown as a person who was striving for a quasi-Soviet revolution; it's interesting that Lenin referred to Robespierre in the context of the Soviet Revolution, and therefore what we see on screen, where Danton is a positive character and the violence and blindness of the terror introduced by Robespierre is unmasked, was something quite new. The French don't know this history of their revolution which they regarded, and continue to regard, as a revolution that ushered in a new era of rights for the individual, but before it won them, thousands of people had died on the guillotine in direct contrast to this freedom. Something of this spirit of protest found its way into our film. The French President, President Mitterand, who had seen the film, neatly side-stepped the situation when he was asked by our producer what he thought of what 'our' Polish film director had made of 'Danton'. He said, 'You know, these are Mr Wajda's own problems, we don't have problems like these.' He indicated, and I have to say he was right, that I'd used this French revolution as a problem to present other problems which I wouldn't have been able to present in any other way, and that the French Revolution had, whether it wanted to or not, been the mother of the Soviet Revolution. That revolution I'd had a real issue with since it's part of our post-war history. I think the film was well received by the cinema audiences who, though surprised by this point of view, saw a different image of the Revolution and not the saccharine-sweet one they usually saw. What's interesting is that for the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, which was celebrated a few years after I made 'Danton', my film was re-released even though in the meantime a film had been made that was supposed to contradict what we had done, showing the Revolution from a different side. Nevertheless, neither the film nor the serial fulfilled this role. 'Danton' returned as a film that spoke about the French Revolution with great artistic impact and greater sincerity.