Andrzej Wajda’s most celebrated film in the West is a serious thriller about doubt and corruption in a Poland ‘liberated’ by the Soviet Union. It has a cerebral script and a hero with a hipster attitude befitting a window of relative freedom briefly given to Polish filmmakers. Touted as the James Dean of the Eastern Bloc, the dashing Zbigniew Cybulski cuts an image as clean as J.F.K.. But his character, an assassin working for the reactionaries, undergoes a crisis of conscience. The miracle is that the Party censors allowed any doubt as to what our hero’s path should be. Given a stylized, almost expressionist B&w look, Wajda’s masterpiece is an intelligent thinkpiece that lays off the direct propagandizing.
Ashes and Diamonds
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 285
1958 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 103 min. / Popiól I Diament / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 24, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska,...
Ashes and Diamonds
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 285
1958 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 103 min. / Popiól I Diament / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 24, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska,...
- 8/14/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Alfonso Cuarón will present a restored version of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Peter Fonda will present a restored Easy Rider as part of this year’s Cannes Classics lineup.
Kubrick’s horror classic was has been remastered by Warner Bros in 4K using a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. After being presented 50 years ago on the Croisette, Dennis Hopper’s 1969 classic Easy Rider has been restored in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna. It was restored from the 35mm original picture negative.
The sidebar (see the full lineup below) will screen three Luis Buñuel films and Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle In Milan. There will also be a tribute to Lina Wertmüller, the first female filmmaker ever nominated as a director at the Academy Awards in 1977 for Pasqualino Settebellezze. Wertmüller will introduce the film with lead actor Giancarlo Giannini in attendance.
Kubrick’s horror classic was has been remastered by Warner Bros in 4K using a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. After being presented 50 years ago on the Croisette, Dennis Hopper’s 1969 classic Easy Rider has been restored in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna. It was restored from the 35mm original picture negative.
The sidebar (see the full lineup below) will screen three Luis Buñuel films and Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle In Milan. There will also be a tribute to Lina Wertmüller, the first female filmmaker ever nominated as a director at the Academy Awards in 1977 for Pasqualino Settebellezze. Wertmüller will introduce the film with lead actor Giancarlo Giannini in attendance.
- 4/26/2019
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Despite the fact it’s based on a book from the ’40s, and set on the last day of the Second World War, the hero of Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds is, like the movie, a product of the 1950s. He’s an anti-hero, in actuality: cynical, jaded and nihilistic. He smiles quite a lot, but it’s a smile that says ‘Isn’t it funny how meaningless it all is?’ He is played by Zbigniew Cybulski, one of Poland’s most famous actors and about the closest thing the country had to James Dean. The similarity is not accidental: Wajda and Cybulski were influenced by Dean and Brando and the sneering youth of ‘50s American cinema.
Cybulski plays Maciek, an assassin for the Polish Resistance. He seldom takes off his sunglasses. He killed Nazis before the war ended and seamlessly makes the transition to killing Communists. One tyranny is replaced by another,...
Cybulski plays Maciek, an assassin for the Polish Resistance. He seldom takes off his sunglasses. He killed Nazis before the war ended and seamlessly makes the transition to killing Communists. One tyranny is replaced by another,...
- 10/25/2011
- by Adam Whyte
- Obsessed with Film
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