Krzysztof Zanussi is an established, ‘unentertaining’ Polish filmmaker who visited Srishti for a brief talk on 3rd March, 2009. He is a maker of movies for ‘refined’ audiences, such as, The Illumination (1972) and Persona non Grata (2004). Having not seen any of his movies (I’m not the elite 6% he caters to), I won’t be able to comment on his skills as a filmmaker.

However, having met the man, I shall pass some good-natured judgement (as I’ve already done) on his beliefs as a filmmaker.

Before I begin: I’m sure Zanussi is one of the most entertaining filmmakers out there. He was certainly a very entertaining orator. However, he kept iterating that he didn’t make his movies for the unrefined, popular, normally distributed audiences that wanted mindless entertainment. He was catering to the elite 6% of people who lie far above the mean of Gauss curve – in the category of the ‘exceptional’. Personally, I have huge issues with statements like these. Thus, the jesting.

We missed most of the beginning of his talk and were fortunate enough to sit through the question-answer session that
followed, as well as the ‘so-that-i-remember-you-students-from-bangalore-university’ photo session (which will help us get a place to stay in his open house in Poland!)

One of the things Zanussi stressed upon was the importance of the narrative. This is in opposition to films having visual appeal and no narrative depth. Zanussi incorporates a lot from his life into his stories. To the extent that most of his talk was anecdotal. So his life pretty much gets transformed into his movies.

As a writer, a writer of fiction that too, I often have pangs of guilt when I incorporate things from real life into my
stories, whether its things I’ve experienced personally, anecdotally or even read in a newspaper. Somewhere, I believe, the line between reality and fiction is blurred. This discomforts me. I feel like im stealing from world to another.

Clearly, Zanussi doesn’t experience this problem. For him the story is derived from reality, all fiction is ‘transformational’ – meaning can be transferred from reality into fiction. Funnily, ‘transformation’ literally
translates into ‘across forms’, which is exactly what Zanussi is doing.

An interesting point he made was about cross-over cinema. It’s the in-thing today. The west, ie europe, isn’t all that open to it so far. They don’t have the exposure to the east to the extent that the east has exposure to the west. We know the Iliad, we know Shakespeare, and we know our Mahabharat, our sanskrit narrative traditions of the sutradhar. So to be open, is much easier for us – than for modern day Europeans to know the Vedas or ancient Chinese literature. As the world shrinks, the art world has to remove it’s formal boundaries, has to become one.  Jai ho, slumdog (who’s going to kill me for saying that!? :D )

One thing which I really enjoyed was hearing about zanussi’s experiences as a scriptwriter. When asked about how he copes with  a writers block, he answered (to the effect), I’m like a wild animal. The cross over, from the real world to the imaginary world isn’t hard. But to stay there is. The imaginary world is all consuming, it is your world, you know all the details, all the angles, all the strokes, the colour of the ring in the hand of the woman on the left edge of the frame. When you are called back into the ‘real’ world, it is disturbing. How can you let  go of your imagination, let go of that woman with the ruby ring, even for a moment, just to answer some silly question like where is the bottle of water.

I’ve experienced this sooo often. I get irritable, angry, become a wild animal, when im writing. To the extent the only solution is to be up all night when the world sleeps – or quit writing. Zanussi’s solution (not really a solution as a call for world understanding):

Leave us alone for 3-4 days, we’ll create a world in the clouds, be happy with it, and then only return to earth. Don’t force us. We’ll be back.

Zanussi doesn’t belong to here or now. He belongs to the time of my grandfather.  He belongs to the old school of art – which derides ‘entertainment’ and survives for the elite. He wouldn’t say elite, he’d refer to his audience as those with
‘refined taste’. In fact, he even mathemetically proved his point. The Gauss curve in statistics – saying the majority of
people, whether it comes to cinematic taste or even, when running a 100m race, fall into the median range – the
ordinary, middle class – which looks for the  ‘entertainment’ created by Hollywood or Bollywood. Then there are some
exceptions, those who fall far below the curve (exceptionally bad) and those who are far above the curve, those with
exceptionally refined taste. Zanussi caters only to them.

However, he does admit that on rare occassion, a movie meant for the ‘normally distributed’, does crossover into the exceptionally good. These are the gems.

So comes the question, who is this person with refined taste for whom Zanussi caters. In the olden days, says Zanussi,
it was simple. the middle class didn’t have money, so they weren’t catered to. The rich/ the elite/ the monarchs, the
maharajah’s – had money and fine taste.. or with moderate tastes which were refined by training. These people became the patrons of artists. So it was simple.

Zanussi didn’t really answer his question. But as a professor, as the owner of an open house for artists, I think the answer is implied. He is the patron that he no longer sees around him. It is people like him, believers, who will be the support of future artists, in whatever capability. Obviously, in today’s world of markets it’s not economically viable – not for the patron nor for the artist.

His last words of inspiration: We should look at what our fathers and grandfathers achieved. And then take it one step, or even two steps, forward. We should not be satisfied with the things that our fathers or grandfathers woudl be satisfied with. It is our job to take what we’ve inherited from them, and push the boundaries further. That is our duty.

He’s a great man. Even if I don’t agree with everything he says. He gave us his wisdom.

Image from here.