The distinguished Polish cinematographer (and husband of Krystyna Janda) Edward Kłosiński died on Saturday at the age of 65.
As you can see from his IMDB filmography, he was the director of photography on a huge range of important Polish films, including Andrzej Wajda’s Land of Promise (Ziemia obiecana, 1975), Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru, 1976), Rough Treatment (Bez znieczulenia, 1978), The Young Ladies of Wilko (Panny z Wilka, 1979) and Man of Iron (Człowieka z żelaza, 1981), Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog Two (Dekalog, dwa, 1988) and Three Colours: White (Trzy kolory: Biały, 1994) and Krzysztof Zanussi’s Illumination (Illuminacja, 1973), Camouflage (Barwy ochronne, 1977), Life As a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease (Życie jako śmiertelna choroba przenoszona drogą płciową, 2000), Supplement (Suplement, 2002) and Persona Non Grata (2005), amongst many others.
Culture.pl has a good career overview in English.
Posted on 7th January 2008
Under: Poland, Obituaries | No Comments »
Polish director Jerzy Kawalerowicz, best known in Britain for Mother Joan of the Angels (Matka Joanna od aniołów, 1961) and the Oscar-nominated The Pharaoh (Faraon, 1965), died yesterday at the age of 85.
Posted on 28th December 2007
Under: Poland, Obituaries, Jerzy Kawalerowicz | No Comments »
I was very sorry to hear about the death of Hungarian director István Gaál (1933-2007), because I’d only just discovered his work via Roots (Gyökerek), a marvellous three-part television documentary about the composer Béla Bartók, made in 2002 - which has just jumped to the top of my “to review” list.
The Falcons (Magasiskola, 1970) is widely regarded as his best film, but I don’t honestly recall ever getting a chance to see it. But hopefully the links below will offer more comprehensive and reliable information than I can muster.
Links
- Obituary by John Nadler in Variety (2 October 2007)
- Personal tribute from a former student blogging as The Spaniard in the Works
- Biography by Václav Merhaut from Filmreference.com
- Online exhibition of Gaál’s photographs, courtesy of the (Origo) Galéria - which also supplies this biography.
- This entry for The Falcons on Port.hu is in Hungarian, but has a small colour stills gallery.
Posted on 7th October 2007
Under: Hungary, Obituaries, István Gaál | No Comments »
I was out of the country at the time, so I initially missed this Guardian obituary of the Hungarian actor Iván Darvas (1925-2007) when it was published on 5 September - and even that was nearly two months late, as he actually died on 3 June, before this blog was even launched.
I only knew Darvas from his lead roles in the two Károly Makk films that were released on DVD in Britain by Second Run - Love (Szerelem, 1970) and A Long Weekend in Pest and Buda (Egy hét Pesten és Budán, 2003), both very highly recommended (especially Love, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest Hungarian films). And now that I know rather more about his past as an active participant in the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the level of conviction he brought to both of those performances (where his characters have an unspecified political past) is all too explicable.
Rather less missed will be the late Russian composer Tikhon Khrennikov (1913-2007), the subject of a splendidly splenetic obituary by Russian music expert Gerald McBurney in today’s Guardian. Khrennikov’s contribution to Soviet cinema was relatively minimal (though Alexander Ptushko’s 1972 Ruslan and Ludmila/Руслан и Людмила is out on DVD), but his influence on Soviet music was vast and mostly malign, his behind-the-scenes support of individual composers notwithstanding.
Posted on 19th September 2007
Under: Hungary, Soviet Union, Obituaries | No Comments »