The Color Trilogy by Krzysztof Kieślowski E-Book

Simone Malacrida

• Herausgeber: Simone Malacrida
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The Color Trilogy, composed of films inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French flag (Blue, White and Red), is by far Krzysztof Kieślowski's most renowned and appreciated work, as well as his last artistic testimony.
Beyond the first appearance, it conceals hidden meanings and obvious correspondences with what has already been staged in previous films and which will be an inspiration and comparison for the public and for those involved in the cinematographic environment.
In this book we will analyze in detail the links and meanings, the meaning and style of each of the three films and will draw a common overall vision in relation to the entire production of the Polish director.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

The Color Trilogy by Krzysztof Kieślowski

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - FILMS' TECHNICAL SHEETS

CHAPTER 2 – THE IDEA AND THE STRUCTURE

CHAPTER 3 – THEMES AND MEANINGS

CHAPTER 4 – CORRESPONDENCES

CHAPTER 5 – FINDINGS AND SUBSEQUENT EVOLUTIONS

SIMONE MALACRIDA

“ The Color Trilogy by Krzysztof Kieślowski ”

Simone Malacrida (1977)

Engineer and writer, he has dealt with research, finance, energy policies and industrial plants.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - FILMS' TECHNICAL SHEETS

CHAPTER 2 – THE IDEA AND THE STRUCTURE

CHAPTER 3 – THEMES AND MEANINGS

CHAPTER 4 – CORRESPONDENCES

CHAPTER 5 – FINDINGS AND SUBSEQUENT EVOLUTIONS

CONCLUSIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

The opinions and reflections present in this book represent the author's personal ideas and are the result of multiple viewings of all the films of the Color Trilogy (and the other works of director Krzysztof Kieślowski).

All this has been integrated with what is present in the "Bibliography" section, drawing valid ideas from past interviews and analyses.

The Color Trilogy, composed of films inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French flag (Blue, White and Red), is by far Krzysztof Kieślowski's most renowned and appreciated work, as well as his last artistic testimony.

Beyond the first appearance, it conceals hidden meanings and obvious correspondences with what has already been staged in previous films and which will be an inspiration and comparison for the public and for those involved in the cinematographic environment.

In this book we will analyze in detail the links and meanings, the meaning and style of each of the three films and will draw a common overall vision in relation to the entire production of the Polish director.

“ Why not try to see what meaning the words freedom, equality and brotherhood have today on a very human, intimate and personal level and not on a philosophical, much less political or social level? “

Interview by Krzysztof Kieślowski given to Danusia Stok and present in the book “Kieślowski tells Kieślowski”

I NTRODUCTION

Among the filmography of Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, his most famous and prominent work is certainly what is known as "The Color Trilogy", that is, three films (trilogy) dedicated to the colors of the French flag (blue, white and red) and , in return, to the concepts underlying the French Revolution and the Enlightenment (freedom, equality and brotherhood).

These are the most awarded and most internationally distributed films, as well as the latest produced by the director.

There have been interesting studies and insights around them, but just as many attempts at simplification.

This book was born from the need to make a point, not to leave out anything from these works, going well beyond the pure film review which, in itself, should be as concise as a newspaper article.

However, a biography of the director will not be exposed, following his artistic evolution and the path that led him to conceive and create the Trilogy.

There will also be space for this, as one of the fundamental pieces, but the aim of the book is to focus on all aspects of the Trilogy, from the meanings to the plot, from public feedback to the countless connections.

As such, the target audience will be both those who already know, at least briefly, Kieślowski's production and those who are unfamiliar with it and want to approach watching the films in a non-superficial way.

Let's say right away that each of Kieślowski's works can be viewed, read and interpreted at various levels and it depends on the will and sensitivity of the viewer to understand how far one wants to probe meanings and symbols.

A first level is the pure and simple viewing of a film or several films.

Seeing and witnessing the fictional staging of a story.

A second level is the understanding of the single work, scratching the surface and the apparent image.

This level requires greater reflection and a first leap into the intricate tangle of the Polish director, who, far from wanting to be considered commercial and mass-produced, peppers each of his creations with infinite references.

The third level concerns the pigeonholing of each film of the Trilogy in the context of the cycle.

In fact, although each film is complete and complete in itself, if viewed from the perspective of the cycle there is a further leap forward and we delve even further into the abyss that opens up in front of us.

It must be said that, in this case, it would be better to view the films in the order of presentation and production, i.e. first "Three Colors: Blue", then "Three Colors: White" and finally "Three Colors: Red", otherwise they will get lost those bonds and connections that make this work one of a kind.

A final level, certainly more difficult to reach, is connected to Kieślowski's entire path, that is, placing the Trilogy as the final point of a path that started many years before.

In this sense, the minimum reading includes the "Decalogue", ten medium-length films produced for Polish television in 1988, and "The Double Life of Veronica", a film released in 1991.

Wanting to go even further back, we can include "Senza fine" from 1985 and "Destino blind" from 1981, first feature films that see Kieślowski's progressive detachment from his previous works as a documentary filmmaker.

Each level mentioned requires greater reflection and an in-depth study of the themes of the Trilogy.

From these few words, we understand how these final films (and not by the director's will, but due to his sudden death) are the result of a long journey and a profound introspective reflection that has led to the explosion of production in the last period by Kieślowski.

If I can add a personal note about the Trilogy, this book completes a further triptych, this time completely mine and not Kieślowski's.

The book, in fact, is the third of a trilogy that starts from the analysis of the "Decalogue" and continues with "The double life of Veronica".

Even in this case, understanding the book can take place on multiple levels.

Arriving at the end of this manuscript, you will have all the main information for the (almost) definitive understanding of the Trilogy, it is understood that everything has been filtered by the sensitivity of the author and that each one has its own mechanisms and different angles, but, following in the footsteps of Kieślowski, if you want to grasp everything on a higher level, you cannot isolate the Trilogy from the rest of the production.

In fact, a work of art does not exist in itself.

It exists in relation to an audience and, indeed, draws its own life from the audience, completely detaching itself from the wishes of the author himself.

And it was the public that determined the central role of the Trilogy, the same public that, after thirty years, when faced with the events narrated, has no difficulty in identifying although the way of scriptwriting has completely changed now, with much more pace and action, at the expense of reflection and introspection.

This is the real secret of Kieślowski.

The investigation is on man and it does so in a profound way, as only a former documentary maker has learned.

It leaves nothing out, it doesn't sugarcoat anything, it doesn't pose happy false endings or definitive solutions that are as cathartic as they are illusory.

He makes no concessions in human existence, showing all the defects, shortcomings and mistakes, but without ever judging.

He does not set himself up as the holder of Truth and Morality, rather he tries to undermine the certainties of every spectator.

It's a slow but steady way of proceeding.

A long march that marks distances and flows inexorably, like life itself does.

In such a context, the actors move through intense interpretations, with a role dedicated to women of primary importance, together with two enormous pillars of Kieślowski's cinema.

On the one hand the music, through the soundtracks of the trusted and brilliant Zbigniew Preisner, on the other hand the colors, recalled right from the titles.

From this inseparable experience of sounds and images, dialogues and silences, actions and thoughts, the plot unfolds on spatial and temporal planes that return to themselves, like an infinite spherical Cosmos, but with the fundamental evolution of the characters, called to transition from an initial thesis to a final synthesis, after an external journey mirroring the internal one.

This contains all the concepts dear to Kieślowski and already present in previous works, together with the intertwining of Chance and Necessity, Choice and Will.

The final message is complex and intricate, as is Life and as is man, the final point of the investigation, the same from which we started at the beginning.

CHAPTER 1 - FILMS' TECHNICAL SHEETS

THREE COLORS – BLUE

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Direction

Krzysztof Kieślowski

Film script

Krzysztof Kieślowski

Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Producer

Marin Karmitz

Production

MK2 Productions SA

CED Productions

France 3 Cinema

CAB Productions

Canal+

"TOR" Production

Assembly

Jacques Witta

Music /

soundtrack

Zbigniew Preisner

Photography

Sławomir Idziak

Scenography

Claude Lenoir

Costumes

Virginie Viard

Naima Lagrange

Country of Production

France

Poland

Swiss

Duration

97 minutes

Typology

Feature film

Type

Dramatic

Production year

1993

First presentation

Venice International Film Festival, September 1993

Derivative Works

——

Competitions and prizes

Venice International Film Festival 1993:

- Golden Lion ex aequo

- Volpi Cup for best female performance

César Award 1994

- Best leading actress

- Better editing

- Better sound

- Nomination for best film

- Nomination for best director

- Nomination for best female prospect

- Nomination for best screenplay

- Nomination for best photography

Golden Globes 1994:

- Nomination for best foreign film

- Nomination for best actress

- Nomination for best soundtrack

European Film Award 1993

- Nomination for best film

Goya Award 1994:

- Best European film

Chicago International Film Festival 1993:

- Special Jury Prize

Guldbagge Awards 1994:

- Nomination for best foreign film

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 1993

- Best foreign film

Characters and performers

Juliette Binoche: Julie Vignon

Benoît Régent: Olivier Benoît

Emmanuelle Riva: Julie's mother

Florence Pernel: Sandrine

Charlotte Véry: Lucille

Hélène Vincent: journalist

Philippe Volter: real estate agent

Claude Duneton: doctor

Hugues Questor: Patrice de Courcy

Original title

Trois couleurs: Bleu

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Plot

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The film opens with a shot of a car wheel, followed by images of the road, lights and other means of transport distorted and reflected from the rear window and which attract the attention of a little girl in the rear seat of the vehicle .

The car stops and a woman's voice is heard calling the little girl, named Anne, and a man driving the vehicle.

A detail makes it clear that the braking system fluid is leaking from a leak.

At the same time, a boy on the side of the road is intent on playing kendama (the game of Japanese origin which consists in having to put a ball on a wooden cone to which it is connected with a thread).

When the boy succeeds in the game, a squeal of wheels typical of a road accident is heard and in fact the car in question has crashed into a tree.

The image cuts to the foreground on the face of a woman hospitalized.

A doctor informs her that she is the only survivor of the accident and that her husband and daughter are dead.

The woman's first reaction is one of despair and, using a stone, she breaks a glass to distract the nurse in order to be able to go to a room where the medicines are contained, ingesting some pills to attempt suicide.

Discovered by the nurse, the woman admits that she is unable to perform this gesture.

Shortly after, a man comes to her, later revealed to be a colleague of her husband's named Olivier, and leaves her a portable mini-television from which the woman can watch the funeral.

During the ceremony, the identities of the protagonists are discovered.

Her husband, Patrice de Courcy, was a well-known composer who had been commissioned to perform a concert for "the feast of Europe" and which everyone eagerly awaited.

Julie, Patrice's wife, leaves the hospital and has a first meeting with a journalist who wants to interview her, insinuating that Patrice's music was, in reality, also written by his wife.

Julie flatly refuses and states that the music from the concert does not exist.

Immediately before, however, she had been flooded by the blue reflections of a mirror and had suffered her first memory of that music.

The viewer understands that, therefore, this music exists and is precisely the soundtrack of the film.

Olivier, while rummaging through Patrice's papers, discovers some photos portraying the composer in the company of his wife and another woman, his lover, and is determined to deliver everything to Julie, who went to Patrice's house. residence, a spacious country house.

The woman gave orders to empty the house, especially the blue room.

Upon entering the room, he notices the chandelier, made up of pieces of blue glass tied to various threads and pounces on it, tearing part of it off.

Searching among the remaining scores, pieces of music are reconstructed, while the housekeeper, in despair, begins to cry.

Julie is determined to make a break with her past, putting the house up for sale and ordering a lawyer to provide a fee for the maintenance of the housekeeper, the gardener and Julie's mother, who has long been admitted to a hospice, while the rest of the money will not be used by the woman.

While giving these instructions, to be kept secret, he has in his hand the pieces of blue glass torn from the chandelier.

Likewise, with a simple look, she freezes Olivier, from whom she does not accept the delivery of her deceased husband's papers.

Afterwards, Julie goes to the woman who had been assigned to keep the scores of the concert. Once he has collected the papers, he throws them into the jaws of a garbage disposal van, while the words of the concert choir sing in the background.

Rummaging in her bag, she finds a lollipop, the same as the one her daughter was eating before the accident and decides to eliminate every trace. He swallows it greedily and then burns it all on the fireplace, calling, at the same time, for Olivier.

Sensing the feelings the man had for her, she asks him an explicit question and summons him to her house, spending the night together.

The next day, Julie leaves, leaving Olivier to understand that she is a normal woman, like all the others.