Man of Marble is a 1976 Polish film directed by Andrzej Wajda. It chronicles the fall from grace of a heroic Polish bricklayer, Mateusz Birkut (played by Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), who became the symbol of the worker in Nowa Huta, a new (real life) socialist city near Kraków. Agnieszka, played by Krystyna Janda in her first role, is a young filmmaker who is making her diploma film on Birkut, whose whereabouts seems to have been lost two decades later. The title refers to the propagandistic marble statues made in Birkut’s image. It is somewhat of a surprise that Wajda would have been able to make such a film, sub silentio attacking the Socialist Realism of Nowa Huta, and presaged the loosening grip of the Soviets that came with the Solidarity Movement. —Wikipedia
A major figure in the world of post-World War II Eastern European cinema, Polish director Andrzej Wajda has chronicled his country’s political and social evolution with sensitivity, fervor, and a refusal to make compromises in dealing with his difficult subjects. The son of a Polish cavalry officer who was killed early in World War II, Wajda fought in the Resistance movement against the Nazis when he was still a teenager. After the war, he studied to be a painter before entering the Lodz film school. On the heels of his apprenticeship to director Aleksander Ford, Wajda was given the opportunity to direct a film on his own. With A Generation (1955), the first-time director poured out all his bitterness and disillusionment regarding blind patriotism and wartime heroics, using as his alter ego a young, James Dean-style antihero played by Zbigniew Cybulski. The Wajda/Cybulski team went on to make two more films of escalating brilliance, which further developed the antiwar theme of A Generation… read more
Wajda’s epic take on the Soviet Stakhanovite movement; or rather, Wajda’s epic ode to Citizen Kane, with his film structurally identical in its film à clef examination via a journalist’s investigation, and with it being as much about the filmmaking and documentary-style technique as it is the historically-steeped premise. It’s a curious thing in the end - at times compelling watching its concept in play, while at others, its length is simply felt - but it’s an interesting specimen in the least, across its entire 2½ hours.
a complete and utter masterpiece. five stars. Wadja uses the symbol of cinema to present the oppression of communism on Poland. extremely cine-literate too with references to both Charlie Chaplin & Agnès Varda. outstanding.
Great presentation of the Polish version of the "Stakhanovite" movement...
