"First published in 1999 by Talk Miramax Books."

Since his death in 1996, Krzysztof Kieslowski has remained the best-known contemporary Polish filmmaker and one of the most popular and respected European directors, internationally renowned for his ambitious Decalogue and Three Colors trilogy. In this new addition to the Directors'Cuts series, Marek Haltof provides a comprehensive study of Kieslowski's cinema, discussing industrial practices in Poland and stressing that the director did not fit the traditional image of a "great" East-Central European auteur. He draws a fascinating portrait of the stridently independent director's work, noting that Kieslowski was not afraid to express unpopular views in film or in life. Haltof also shows how the director's work remains unique in the context of Polish documentary and narrative cinema.

Since his death in 1996, Krzysztof Kieslowski has remained the best-known contemporary Polish filmmaker and one of the most popular and respected European directors, internationally renowned for his ambitious Decalogue and Three Colors trilogy. In this new addition to the Directors'Cuts series, Marek Haltof provides a comprehensive study of Kieslowski's cinema, discussing industrial practices in Poland and stressing that the director did not fit the traditional image of a "great" East-Central European auteur. He draws a fascinating portrait of the stridently independent director's work, noting that Kieslowski was not afraid to express unpopular views in film or in life. Haltof also shows how the director's work remains unique in the context of Polish documentary and narrative cinema.

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s untimely death came at the height of his career, after his Three Colors trilogy of films garnered international acclaim (and an Oscar nomination), and he had been proclaimed Europe’s most important filmmaker by many critics. Born in 1941, he was only fifty-four years old when he died. Kieslowski himself tried to tell the story of his life and career in the 1993 book Kieslowski on Kieslowski. This collection, by contrast, reveals the shifting voice of a filmmaker who was initially optimistic about his social and cultural role, then felt himself buffeted by the turbulent politics and events of the People’s Republic of Poland. As described in the chronology in this book, he found himself subject to the “economic censorship” of post-Communist filmmaking. How Kieslowski responded at each moment of his life, what he tried to achieve with each of his films, is finely detailed in thirty-five selections. These pieces bring together his thesis from the famous Lodz film school, a manifesto written just before the dark days of martial law in Poland, diary entries from the first time he was working outside Poland, and numerous rare interviews from Polish-, French-, and English-language sources.

The screenplays of Kieslowski's trilogy of films based on the French tricolor and its motto, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, which he made at a time when his homeland, Poland, was shaking off the chains of Soviet domination.

This appreciative account of the 'Three Colours' trilogy communicates the power and imagery of the films, and demonstrates how Kieslowski's art is brought to bear in their moving renditions of the lives of its characters. An interview with Kieslowsi shortly before his death concludes this tribute.