RIP Ryszard Bugaski

June 7, 2019

Film and TV director, screenwriter, prose writer, translator. He was born in 1943 in Warsaw. He died on June 7, 2019 there.

He graduated in philosophy at the University of Warsaw and directing at the PWSFTviT in Łódź in 1973. He began his professional career in the 1970s as an assistant to the creator of animated films by Daniel Szczechura and the renowned director of the feature films Krzysztof Zanussi. From 1976 he belonged to the film team X managed by Andrzej Wajda, where he made films "Woman and Woman" and "Didactic Activities". In addition, at the Dramatic Theater in Wałbrzych in 1976 he staged Krzysztof Kieślowski's Biography. In 1981, Ryszard Bugajski made a full-length Interrogation film, whose pronunciation, incompatible with the political line of the Polish authorities after martial law, became the direct cause of the X band's dissolution. The official premiere of "Interrogation" took place only in December 1989, after political changes in Poland . Scanned by the authorities, in 1985 he decided to emigrate to Canada, where he directed episodes of popular TV series, and where he made his feature film "Clearcut". He returned to Poland in 1995. From 1997, for several years, he was the main director of "Wiadomości" on TVP. He directs feature films, documentaries, TV series and performances at the Television Theater. In addition to the repeatedly reissued publication of Interrogation, he published the novels "I confess my guilt" (1985) and "Salt and pepper" (2000), which continues the fate of the protagonists of the most famous film by Ryszard Bugajski.

Ryszard Bugajski is a laureate of prizes awarded at film festivals, including "Golden Circle" in Łagów, audience and special awards at the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia and the "Silver Hugo" awards at the International Film Festival in Chicago (all for the film "Interrogation"). In 1990, the film was recognized as the best Polish film of 1989 by the magazine "Film". "It has been established that I am a specialist in security services and secret services" - Ryszard Bugajski in his speech for the Rzeczpospolita daily (10.12.2004) quoted the opinion of Polish film critics about him.

The director of the famous "Interrogation" began his creative career in the late 1970s in a quite typical way for this period and his generation. The film "A Woman and a Woman" which, although interestingly portraying the characters' characters, did not differ from the general tendency developed by its predecessors and called the cinema of moral anxiety. It was similar with the television film "Didactic activities".

The real debut of the director, an independent, full-length cinema movie, was to be "Interrogation", a film thanks to which the director became a "specialist from the secret services and secret services". He began shooting in the short period of the Solidarność thaw and ended his work after the imposition of martial law by decree of 13 December 1981. The record of the bizarre fiction of "Interrogation" of April 23, 1982 remains to this day one of the documents that clearly characterize the political situation at the time. It is true that not unanimously, but with the majority of votes, a group of colaudants rejected Ryszard Bugajski's film, making it impossible to disseminate it. One of the fiercest opponents of "Interrogation", director Mieczysław Waśkowski asked:

"How did it happen that after the imposition of martial law in our country the film was finished? ... Who is responsible for completing this film?" (from the book edition: Ryszard Bugajski "Interrogation" 1990, quoted in: Małgorzata Hendrykowska "Chronicle of Polish cinematography 1895-1997").

The fate of "Interrogation" and the director himself are an example of the unprecedented impact of politics on art. Over the years, the film has had no chance of being distributed in cinemas and television broadcasts, which does not mean that it has not reached the public. "Interrogation" lost on cassettes and published in 1982 by the underground studio NOWA in a book version, reached a large number of recipients. In this way, the participation of this, sentenced by the decision makers to non-existence, became unprecedented success.

"Hearing", however, did not become an easy pass for the director on the western market. Bugajski was the author of the film difficult to understand by viewers from outside Eastern Europe. How impossible to understand, may be the opinion of critic Scott Murray in the Australian magazine "Cinema Papers" from August 1990 (quoted in "Cinema" 1/1991), which considered "Interrogation" as "an example of Polish cinema in its most hysterical form", for the film "absurdly exaggerated in direction and acting", undoubtedly not realizing in the slightest how much "exaggerated" it was in the years of Stalinism, which Bugajski's work concerns, the Polish reality.

"Interrogation" is not only a film about the oppression of Stalin's prison in Poland in the 1950s. It is a film about building humanity and in this matter it can be read in a universal way.

The director's apt intention was to make him the main character of the heroic AK, but not a wise girl, a person with rather dubious moral principles. Tonia from "Interrogation" is - as Jan Olszewski put it - "an antihero in a situation that forces heroism". ("Film" 7/1990)

    "Naivety paradoxically saved her humanity," said Ryszard Bugajski about the character he created. - "This simple girl begins to wonder who she really is, from which moment she begins to understand what she is fighting for - not for life, but for dignity." ("Screen" 3/1990)

The director's second happy move was the image of the interrogator he was kidding. This man was drawn by Bugajski as a tool of a wicked system, but he put his hero in a situation in which he tries to be a human being against all circumstances. Krystyna Janda and Adam Ferency created in this film two psychologically complicated, and yet reliable, characters.

The ethical inquisitiveness of Bugajski was appreciated by the majority of Polish viewers watching the film at illegal shows. Although he also met with quite different allegations than on the famous colauding.

    "After 'Interrogation', I received a letter from a Stalinist prisoner who believed that I had offended all prisoners of Communism by showing UB officers as characters with human reflexes. (...) And yet the world is not black and white, in addition to telling an interesting story , you must show evil in a humanized way. " ("Rzeczpospolita" 10.12.2004)

If any words were to be considered as the artistic creed of Ryszard Bugajski, then perhaps those in which he declares his interest in the zone of ethical gray, where evil is sometimes humanized, and good sometimes built on an uncertain or even false foundation. Blurred boundaries between good and evil is a topic that seems to fascinate Bugajski. The subject of the director's research is the man whom he perceives in the Conrad style. Someone who is able to fall down and to rise from it, but also someone who is seemingly noble and at the same time spoiled. This dichotomy is inscribed in the nature of a man who - to use the words of the author of the "Interrogation", which fell in the interview quoted earlier - "Staying what he is - at the same time magnificent and monstrous". ("Screen" 3/1990).

In one form or another, moral dilemmas return in later Bugajski's directorial works. For example, in Canada's film "Clearcut," he analyzed the pacifist traps, putting his protagonist in a situation where he must see the reasons in the way he acts, which he condemns. So, everything that seems to be absolutely good is the same, and vice versa: not everything that seems ruthlessly wrong is bad in fact, Ryszard Bugajski seems to say in his Canadian film.

After returning to Poland, in the film "Players", shot during the 1995 election, and regarding the previous elections in 1990, the director tried to find himself again in the Polish reality.

The first truly free presidential elections in independent Poland were in themselves a spectacle as fascinating as the Polish society, the same that had the right to feel proud of the freedom it had won, as willing to give power to an accidental swindler. The clash between Lech Wałęsa and Stanisław Tyminski, as well as how Poles behaved and thought, could certainly provide material for reflection about the splendor and smallness of human nature. Undoubtedly, reality deserved to look at it as a ready performance, made for the entire nation. Passionate and undemanding scenario prostheses of the political-fiction genre, which made critics generally rated the film as a Polish, worse version of "Jackal Day" or even unintentional - because the story is told seriously - a parody of the film (Andrzej Kołodyński, "Video Club "11/1995, Jerzy Niecikowski," Wiadomości Kulturalne "45/1995).

The unfortunate choice of the scenario made by the director probably can justify his dozen years of absence in the country and the fact that he was not an eyewitness to political events in 1990.

The innate gift of observation of Ryszard Bugajski and his ability to analyze the psychological form can be found in the approaching form of a low-budget film, realized after returning to the country of television art. In performances such as "Kolabo's Bear", "Thank you solicitors" or "Niuz", Bugajski presents this characteristic taste for presenting the world in a more inquisitive way than a black and white scheme, as well as a tendency to analyze the phenomenon of manipulation that people do towards their neighbors. The art of Serbian writer Dusan Kovacević prepared for the Television Theater by "Professional", as well as "Interrogation", speaks of a special relationship between the security service officer and his victim, and the transformation of both these characters (Małgorzata Piwowar, Rzeczpospolita, 10.12.2004).

Performances by the Television Theater in the output of Ryszard Bugajski have a special meaning, because in them, without a doubt, the director gives vent to his fascinations, while the other television productions in which he takes part, directed to the so-called mass spectator, they simply meet, as expected from this kind of production, the requirements of good craftsmanship. Today, this concerns, for example, the series "Yes or no" and "Na Wspólnej", years ago, during the stay of the director in exile, the thing was similar to the television productions there.

Feature film "Starry sky above me", about preparations for which Ryszard Bugajski has been talking for a long time, and which would address the issue of journalistic ethics and treat the unmasking role of this profession as a so-called fourth power, is still in the design phase.

Ryszard Bugajski directed the historical film "General Nil", about general Augustus Emil Fieldorf, the legendary "Nile", which in the 1950s, the communist authorities condemned the death sentence after the manipulated trial. Organizer and commander of Kedyw of the Home Army, deputy commander of the Home Army, commander of the organization NOT established in 1943, and aiming for a fight against the Red Army. Apparently, it is a film akin to "Interrogation", both talk about the oppression of the Stalinist prison, but it is also very different. The portrayal of the antihero woman Tonia Dziwsz from "Interrogation" and the transformation that takes place in it was interesting for dramaturgical and psychological reasons. Fieldorf is steadfast and steadfast, because we are dealing with a film that is above all a historical reconstruction carried out with documentary pietism, and not a largely psychological film, such as 'Interrogation'. Fieldorf is thus presented as a steadfast man, noble and with unusually human impulses. It's a cinema you need, a solid historical cinema, which has been appreciated by most critics. Zdzisław Pietrasik wrote, for example:

    "Ryszard Bugajski, the creator of the loud" Interrogation "and the television spectacle" The Death of Captain Pilecki ", proves once again that nobody else can talk about the most tragic period in Polish PRL history. Respect is aroused by extremely careful implementation, attention to every stage detail, and finally excellent cast "(" Polityka ", 14/04/2009).

Ryszard Bugajski, however, by painting the character of the hero, had to leave this film from what gave a special artistic value to "Interrogation" and theatrical plays made by Ryszard Bugajski on television, from complicated Conradian reflections on the relations between good and evil. The film received a special jury award at the WorldFest Independent Film Festival in Houston, the Golden Reel Award at the Tiburon International Film Festival and a special award at the Polish Film Festival in America in Chicago, and was nominated for the Best Scenario and Scenery Eagles.

In 2013, he completed the "Closed Circuit", a story inspired by real events about entrepreneurs who fall victim to a corrupt justice system, embodied in, among others, by the prosecutor (Janusz Gajos) and the head of the tax chamber (Kazimierz Kaczor). Some critics accused the film of a certain schematic, although the vast majority appreciated its importance in showing the systems of interests that are digesting contemporary Poland.

    "The closed system allows us not only to look at contemporary Poland, but also helps to see the dramas of corrupt media and law enforcement bodies innocent people. The creators show different attitudes of Poles persecuted by the system. One of the wives, like a lioness, fights for her husband (Beata Ścibakówna) and with the help of a journalist, she gives up the war to "the deal". Another breaks down and hides in his own bed. How would we behave? I do not think anyone wants to check it "- wrote Łukasz Adamski (" In Polityka ", 4/04/2013)

    "It is not difficult to predict that the image of Ryszard Bugajski - like all important films of recent years - will be inscribed in our ongoing political dispute, so some will see the metaphor of the corrupt Poland in the" Agreement ", others only agitate against the current political system. We have been demanding a long-time sharp, committed film about contemporary Poland, we have it now "- added Zdzisław Pietrasik (" Polityka ", 2/04/2013).

The film was awarded with the Vector (the "Employers of the Republic of Poland") for "courage in seeking to present the truth about the problems that Polish entrepreneurs face on a daily basis against the ruthless clerical machinery, and for the extraordinary persistence that made the film's realization possible "and also noticed at festivals of the Polish film in Toronto and Chicago.

In 2016, his latest film - "Cataract", a story about Julia Brystigierowa, the famous "Bloody Luna" - known for the brutality of a high official of the UB, who approached the environment centered around the center for the blind in Laski and died as a zealous Catholic.

In addition, Ryszard Bugajski has worked as a director on the film "Hobby" (1968) and "Desant" (1987) by Daniel Szczechura and "Illumination" (1972) by Krzysztof Zanussi. He is the author of a story, the prototype of the literary episode Fri "Ticket to Frankfurt" in the series "07 zgłoś się" (1984).

In the television theater, he directed, among others in the 1970s "On the Other Side of the Candles" and "Trismus" by Stanisław Grochowiak and in 1981 the play "Don Carlos" by Fryderyk Schiller. In later years: "Pros and cons" (1996) by Ronald Harwood, "The Great Magician" (1997) by Andrzej Lenartowski, "Lost in Yonkers" (1998) and "Fragments of Sensitivity" (2000) by Neil Simon, "Soap Opera" (2000) ) György Spiro, "Kolabo Bear" (2001) by Piotr Kokociński, "Rozwizytorom dziękujemy" (2003) by Simon Block, Professional (2004) by Dušan Kovacević and his own authorship "Niuz" (2002) and "Death of Captain Pilecki" (2006) - for this last performance Ryszard Bugajski received in 2007 the award in Sopot at the Festival of Polish Radio and Television "Two Theaters" for the original Polish dramatic text and in Huston at the Worldfest Independent Film Festival Special Jury Award in the category "video: political / international affairs ".

Born: 4/27/1943, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Died: 6/7/2019, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Clearcut - 1991