Tonight at CSUN we saw "Everything For Sale" (original Polish title "Wszystko na sprzedaz") by director Andrzej Wajda and released in 1969. "Everything" is a film-about-making-a-film in the style of Fellini's "8 1/2" or Truffaut's "Day For Night". In this case, Wajda made the film as a tribute to his star actor Zbignew Cybulski, who had died tragically in January 1967 when he was run over by a train in a freak accident. If you recall a couple of recent reviews I wrote about previous Wajda films at CSUN, I mentioned Cybulski as "The Polish James Dean", and the comparison is fairly apt. Though Cybulski is virtually unknown to American filmgoers (and was to me until a few years ago), he was revered in Poland. Like James Dean, whose look and style he deliberately copied, Cybulski had a lot of natural talent and onscreen charisma. He was one of those actors who, when he is in a scene, you can't take your eyes off him. Also like James Dean, he died young (though at 39, a bit older than Dean), and he died in a reckless way, by trying to run to catch up with a departing train. As he ran, and the train accelerated, he tried to grab the handle to the steps below an entry door. But he lost his grip and fell down onto the tracks, and........was gone.
His sudden death affected Andrzej Wajda very much. Cybulski has been his favorite actor, his star. So he decided to make a movie about him, by making a movie about a film crew, and the film's director and actors. They are all working on a movie, but their star is missing. They keep shooting, with the director character subbing as a stunt double for the missing star. They even shoot a "train scene" in which the star (subbed by the director as stunt double) falls under a train. The actual movie, the one we are watching onscreen, is edited and scripted in a stream-of-consciousness flow, so it is not until later that we discover that they only added the "train scene" after finally discovering the whereabouts of their missing star. The news reaches the crew that he has died in just such a way, and the "train scene", which is shown to the movie audience at the film's beginning, is actually being added at the end of the "movie in the story".
The other main focus is on the individual actors in the cast of the Interior Movie. They are all superficial, in love with each other and even more in love with themselves. It seems to be Wajda's comment on what we can call the Cinematic Family that develops on any shoot, because of the closeness in proximity of director, actors and crew, and time spent together in intense, emotional artistic creation. But in the case of actors, Wadja suggests that in real life, no emotion can ever be trusted to be entirely real, because they are trained to "act out" emotions, and so what is real? Are they acting or being genuine?
Only the mythical Star (Cybulski) was genuine. He had a jacket, found by another actor in the Interior Movie, that had a button pinned to it that said "I Am A Genius", which was Wajda's way of paying his late friend an ultimate compliment.
Zbigniew Cybulski did have all the makings of a "rock n' roll" big time charisma movie star ala James Dean, from the era of the late 50s through the 60s.
He was worth such a tribute movie. The main problem for me was, quite simply, the dialogue. Everything else was great : the superficial, neurotic relationships between the actors on set (typical movie shoot), the search for the missing star, etc. The story itself was very good, and the cinematography at times reached heights of true originality. Near the end of the film, there is a lengthy shot of a burning orange setting Sun, as seen out of a moving car window, that to me is one of the greatest camera shots I've ever seen.
But the dialogue was a problem for me. The actors talk in bits and pieces of disjointed sentences, all the way through the movie. At times, it seems as if they are spouting non-sequiturs. This is all supposed to be artful in the tradition of free form European art cinema of the 1960s, and I suppose if I saw the film again, it might be less difficult to deal with. But on first viewing, the dialogue was so rapid (Polish language is spoken ultra-fast) and the subtitles went by so quickly, and the snippets of sentences did not tie together in any coherent way, that it caused a disconnect for me.
I would call this a very good film nonetheless, but it was not an easy film to watch.
Great as a work of Art Cinema, but trying as a story, due to the stream-of-consciousness dialogue.
Let's give it a single Thumbs Up then, and a recommendation to see it, but with the aforementioned caveats. See it in memory of Cybulski! ///
Elizabeth, I saw a post this morning, via Steve, about looking for jobs. He is looking for sound mixing jobs, but I am guessing that you may have meant it in reference to yourself, if you read last night's blog and were responding to my message to you. I mentioned before that I can't tell if you read or not since you moved, because when you still lived at home, I always saw the "Macintosh" show up in my Blogger stats most days. I have no idea how stats work, and I know zip about computers, but I think that if a person were reading the blog from an iPhone or something that wasn't "plugged in", that maybe no stat would show up. Like last night - I wrote to you, the SB, and it seems like you responded, but there was no "Macintosh" in my stats today, so maybe you are reading on another medium.
At any rate, if you are reading, I know you are going to find plenty of jobs, and not just jobs but fulfilling artistic work. Just remember that patience is part of the process, and keep your focus and let nothing derail you. Keep in mind what you have already accomplished. I've seen the recent additions to your professional websites, and both sites look great.
I love The Red Dress section of course! And I see several Dress pictures that I haven't seen before, and all are fantastic. :)
In closing, for tonight anyway, I just want to say one thing, and I say it because I was born before you and therefore have previous experience in these things :
If you focus 100% on what you want to do with your life, and I mean 100%, allowing no outside influences, nobody trying to change your mind or shut you down, and most importantly not allowing yourself to shut yourself down, you will do exactly what you want to do in life.
Your mindset and your focus is the key. We talked long ago on the "money factor", and the bills an artist must pay.
But take it from me - and I live in Los Angeles, a city with ultra high expenses - if you just focus all your Intent on what you want to do, then that is exactly what will happen.
Hold your Intent inside you, and pay close attention to the many nuances of how your Intent connects with the world. Use the Universe as your channel, and bounce things off of the sky. Bounce your thoughts and intentions out into the sky, and let them rebound back to you, because it's no joke.
This is how things work. This is the energy of The Individual. This is how you get what you desire.
It takes patience, but it's the only way to go. And it is guaranteed.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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