Andrzej Wajda - The ending of 'Man of Marble' (139/222)

To listen to more of Andrzej Wajda’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Andrzej Wajda (Film director)  

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: However, when I started to make 'Man of Marble' I began to think, because the ending that had been written by Ścibor was no good any more and we had to write a different ending. What kind of ending could there be about a worker-hero? What do the teachings on drama from antiquity tell us? There is no other, this one will always be essential, and Aristotles's 'Poetics' will always be the only set reading for those who write for the theatre or for the cinema. It teaches us that for the hero to measure up to his destiny, he must die. This is for the simple reason that then he won't be able to contradict all the things he had achieved. There is no continuation. When I was taking an interest in the events of 1970, someone showed me a small photo of a man lying on a door being carried by workers. I hid this photo somewhere in my house and to this day I haven't been able to find it... I didn't want any one else to find it. This photograph remained clearly in my memory and I thought, this is the ending of 'Man of Marble'. The 'Man of Marble' is walking at the head of the anti-government protest with all the other workers when a stray bullet hits him, and his comrades lie him down on the door, and that's the end. There is no better ending. However, after my talk of 1970, irrespective of the fact that several years had passed, I understood that this was no joke and that nothing could be done on this subject. I thought perhaps I could try a sort of insinuation. Namely, Agnieszka can't finish her film because she can't find her hero; many people died in the 1970s and their graves... all signs were wiped out, they were just buried without anything to mark where, who or how. Therefore, he's somewhere among these unknown graves. I was going to do a scene where she goes to the cemetary wanting to lay flowers on his grave but she can't find the grave. So she leaves and just hangs the flowers on the cemetary gates, and that's how the film ends, that she can't find the hero and she can't finish her film because he's disappeared. But after my conversation with Józef Tejchma, this was the first scene to go, and I knew that this scene wouldn't figure in my film. So then I thought we'll do it so that his son turns up. His son is the prediction that there will be a continuation and she wants to find out from the son what happened to his father and so everything ends with the TV again, which this time should agree to her completing her film. This is how 'Man of Marble' finishes, but I remembered and still remember that other scene, so that Birkut's death could only have come about the way I described it. I never imagined that I would ever in my life be able to film that scene, and that the time would come when I would film that scene, and that I would have the backing of a 10-million strong Solidarność trade union. I couldn't imagine that, but there were many things that I couldn't have imagined. I was just happy that this film had been made and had been released and that it could be shown at home.