Lech Majewski: Conjuring the Moving Image 
May 3–14, 2006

The Department of Film and Media presents the first American retrospective of Lech Majewski, a filmmaker in mid-career. Majewski, a Polish artist who works internationally, is known for the films and videos he writes, directs, and shoots, and for his original scores. A graduate of the Lodz Film School, Majewski is also a poet, painter, and stage director celebrated for opera and theatrical events. His stylized moving-image works eschew language in favor of music and fantastically expressive landscapes, both domestic and topographical. His imaginative features—whether based on legends, like The Knight and Angelus, or on such real-life figures as Jean-Michel Basquiat and the poet Rafal Wojaczek—are distinguished by a unique sensibility hovering not only between the absurd and the metaphysical, but also the beautiful and the profane. All films written and directed by Majewski, and in Polish with English subtitles, except where noted. Features will be preceded by a short video piece from Majewski’s DiVinities series.

Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film and Media, with the support of the Polish Cultural Insttiute, the Consulate General of Poland in New York, and the Cultural Institution Ars Cameralis Silesiae Superioris.

Blood of a Poet. 2006. Poland. With Patryk Czajka, Grzegorz Przybyl. “A young poet, whose violent father’s shadow looms over him, recalls traumatic episodes from his life” (Majewski). This new work comprises twenty-seven digital pieces that can be seen separately or as a narrative feature. 100 min. World premiere.
Wednesday, May 3, 6:15 (introduced by Majewski); Thursday, May 11, 8:00. T1

Gospel According to Harry. 1992. USA. With Viggo Mortensen, Jennifer Rubin, Rita Tushingham. Starring a then-unknown Mortensen, this maverick allegory takes place, according to Majewski, when “the Pacific has dried up and California has become a desert. A couple try to make the best of it but life is hard; even sex hurts. The only person who enjoys himself is Harry, the tax collector.” 88 min. In English. New York premiere.
Wednesday, May 3, 8:30; Sunday, May 7, 4:30; Saturday, May 13, 5:00. T1

The Roe’s Room. 1997. Poland. Art direction by Lech Majewski. Music by Majewski, Jozef Skrzek. With Rafal Olbrychski, Elzbieta Mazur. An autobiographical film opera about a young poet (a countertenor), his parents, and the apartment in which they live for over a year. A fantastical chronicle set in a house where nature fuses with—and eventually consumes—the lives of a family. Sung in Polish, English subtitles. 90 min.
Thursday, May 4, 6:00; Thursday, May 11, 6:00. T1

Rycerz (The Knight). 1980. Poland. With Piotr Skarga, Daniel Olbrychski. A haunting, austere ballad about a knight’s quest for a gold-stringed harp whose sound is said to bring peace and harmony. The film’s imagery is inspired by medieval icons. 81 min.
Friday, May 5, 6:15; Monday, May 8, 8:00. T1

Angelus. 2000. Poland. Cowritten by Bronislaw Maj, Ireneusz Siwinski. Music by Majewski, Jozef Skrzek. With Jan Siodlaczek, Pawel Steinert. A painterly eye and dark humor inform this Silesian tale of a young male virgin who must be sacrificed to save the world. Majewski portrays a community responding to World War II and Stalinism with primitive metaphysics. 103 min. New York premiere.
Friday, May 5, 8:00; Monday, May 8, 6:00; Saturday, May 13, 7:00. T1

Garden of Earthly Delights. 2004. Great Britain/Italy. Cinematography by Lech Majewski. Music by Majewski, Jozef Skrzek. With Claudine Spiteri, Chris Nightingale. In this intense tale of passion and mortality, a beautiful but dying London art historian, obsessed with Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, spends her last months in Venice with her lover. In English. 103 min. New York premiere.
Saturday, May 6, 4:30; Sunday, May 7, 2:00. T1

Basquiat. 1996. USA. Directed by Julian Schnabel. Screenplay by Schnabel, based on a story by Majewski, John F. Bowe. With Jeffrey Wright, Gary Oldman, David Bowie, Benicio del Toro, Parker Posey. A fictionalized biography of the titular artist as a self-destructive man, tracing his upward and downward trajectories from 1979 to 1988—his years of celebrity from ages nineteen to twenty-seven. 108 min. In English. 
Saturday, May 6, 7:00. T2; Wednesday, May 10, 8:00. T1

Wojaczek. 1999. Poland. The writer Krzysztof Siwczyk plays Rafal Wojaczek, a rebellious poet who dazzled (and offended) the Polish literary community, and who died in 1971 at age twenty-six. “He drank and fought and walked through windows creating a myth in the mythless reality of Communist Poland” (Majewski). 89 min.
Wednesday, May 10, 6:15; Friday, May 12, 6:00; Sunday, May 14, 2:00. T1

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