Man of Marble: 2-Disc Special Editon [DVD]

excellent movie.

Have seen it before and am now pleased to have a copy

Perfect

I have just watched this film for a second time. My Polish teacher lent it to me. My grandfather left Poland just before WWII. I myself have only visited my Polish cousins there once, so I cannot claim to understand this film like my cousins would, having begun their lives under Communism. I am, I know, an interested outsider. As such, the film is puzzling to begin with because it feels like a propaganda film. Slowly, you realise that it is an anti-propaganda film. We are shown the propaganda and then the reality behind it. As Wajda made this film before the end of Communism in Poland, he leaves a lot uncommented, but you can work it all out for yourself from the story. The viewer is placed in Agnieszka's position as a film student doing a research project. We see all the material she finds, we meet all the people she meets and we must decide for ourselves what to make of it all.

For me, the film title works on various levels. A marble statue is a monument but a monument to what exactly? Does the statue actually reflect a real man or a fictitious figure? What is stronger, the man or the myth? Did the myth immortalise or destroy the man? Mateusz Birkut is betrayed by everyone close to him, but most of all he is betrayed by the system. An ex-secret service officer comments that Mateusz took things too "literally" - he believed in building houses for all and in the value of the worker. As the film progresses, this idealism begins to seem ridiculously naive in the face of a cold machine and petty individuals. The system betrays people like Mateusz, the people it is supposed to exist to serve. Mateusz remains brave and loyal throughout but he is like the tree in blossom we see knocked down by a bulldozer early in the film. There is perhaps more hope in the image of the truck getting stuck in the mud and managing finally to break free, but not much more. The real ray of hope is that the last image we see of Mateusz in the news reels we are shown is that of a man battered but not broken by his experiences.

The use of flashback and newsreel footage in Man of Marble and the investigation by a journalist/filmmaker about the life of a character revealing the tensions of the society that formed him makes this film similar instructure to Citizen Kane. Wajda explains in a 2013 interview(extra) how the film was conceived in the early 1960s, from a newspaper article about Nowa Huta,a socialist model city built in the 1950s. (The story about a bricklayer applying for a job but being turned away since the employment agency only had jobs for steelworkers. The bricklayer was not heard from again but was subsequently recognized as one of the socialist model workers who built Nowa Huta). What links Polish filmmaking and cinema verite is the erosion of the distinction between documentary and fiction. Telling the story foregrounds the constructed nature of documentary `reality'.

Andrzej Wajda was once a documentary filmmaker in post-war Poland who at 1st made films of Stalinist propaganda, indeed Man of Marble uses some of these earlier films of Socialist Realism in the earlier style.Man of Marble shows the creativity that flourished once orthodoxy collapsed during de-Stalinisation.There is an unexpected bloom from the late 50s on.The film is primarily set in the 50s showing the repressions that operated then and later(in the 60s and 70s) which took Wajda 14years to overcome to get to the big screen.Propaganda and censorship worked in tandem. Note the sharp contrast between the images captured by Burski's contrived documentary and the individual eyewitness accounts and recovered deleted footage (presumably rejected on "technical grounds")featured in Agnieszka's school documentary. The fictional narrative progresses through aggressive, cinema-verite styled filmmaking. The effect is an honest, compassionate, and unsystematic film that deconstructs a fabricated political icon, from the illusion of a national hero to the personal struggle of an idealistic, common man. The title refers to the propagandistic marble statues made in Birkut's image.Wadja reveals the use of propaganda and political corruption during the period of Stalinism,and presaged the loosening grip of the Soviets that came with the Solidarity Movement(though the hero's death due to this is seen as a step too far and has to wait until Man of Iron).

What drives the film is the character of Agnieszka(Krystyna Janda) who is fascinated by the story of Mateusz Birkut(Jerzy Radziwilowicz), an exemplary worker of the Stalinist period of socialist Poland,whose life is traced and recorded and decides to uncovers the truth behind the story of the celebrity Stakhanovite `shock-worker' who has now vanished. The Man of Marble shows the tragedy of the people who believed in the sense of communist changes and ended up being destroyed by the system. The actress is the other main character who works closely with the director to develop this unorthodox whirlwind of cigarette-smoking spirit,with her flared jeans,scarf and denim jacket. Agnieszka has trouble making the film from archival sources and museum collections and people who answer her questions vaguely,which takes her on her quixotic search for the hero and tracks down his son in the Gadansk shipyards.There are some brilliant tracking shots along corridors or in vans.The music that accompanies this is a strange kind of uptempo disco jazz.Birkut is driven by an honest spirit of idealism,decency and humility,not the cynicism and lies of the government.See the greater spontaneity of a camera freed from the classical norms.When fiction must bear the burden of truth then people must look to the artist for their reality. Open your mind.

Second Run's 2-Disc Special Edition presents a wonderful new restoration of Andrzej Wajda's important, iconic film MAN OF MARBLE.
Not just a great Polish film, but surely ranks as one of the best films of the 1970s. Part political thriller, part historical expose, part rumination on the notion of 'film as truth' this stunning film has (unfathomably) not been released on DVD previously in the UK. It has been worth the wait tho - this new edition, not only with a beautiful, crisp new director-approved transfer, also comes with a second disc of fascinating inteviews with the three of the films key players: director Wajda (obviously); lead actor - the brilliant Krystyna Janda, and 'uncredited' assistant director, the formidable Agnieszka Holland, now a renowned filmmaker in her own right. All three present fascinating stories, insights and perspectives on the film and the times.
An essential purchase for anyone interested in political and world cinema. A superb film given new life in this glorious special edition.

It made it to the States with no problem! Good movie for a perspective not seen in back here.