Blog 4

Kieslowski as an Auteur

         Why we call a director an auteur? What are the qualities we examine while considering a director as an auteur or not? These questions are discussed for many years and a lot of thing written on this subject. Wollen says: “The auteur theory does not limit itself to acclaiming the director as the main author of a film. It implies an operation of decipherment; it reveals authors where none had been seen before.” then he continues: “For years, the model of an author in the cinema was that of the European director, with open artistic aspirations and full control over his films. This model still lingers on; it lies behind the existential distinction between art films and popular films.”(p.456) I want to write about a director whose situations are is fitting the  Wollen’s statements as  a European and an auteur director: Krzysztof Kieslowski.

If we talk about the auteur theory, we should look at the stylistic approaches of the directors. I want to look at the directors’ two different movies A Short Film About Love (1988) and Three Colours: Blue (1993) and analyze two movies comparatively for the purpose of finding the directors’ stylistic marks which are repeated in his movies. In both movies the director chooses to emphasize on emotions a lot. A short Film About Love tells us a story of lonely individuals and their effort to connect. The main characters are incompatible in life in different ways. Magda is a social woman when we are looking from outside. She has communication skills and lives in a social circle. On the other hand, she is too callow about expressing emotions. She is incompetent about emotional skills and she do not believe love.

        On the other hand, Although Tomek is a young man who has no social or communicational skills, he is sentimental, and he has ability to love someone, he has very powerful emotions inside him.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsle7inq3Q0 Wollen says: “In time, owing to the diffuseness of the original theory, two main schools of auteur critics grew up: those who insisted on revealing a core of meanings, of thematic motifs, and those who stressed style and mise en scène.” (p.456) I think the thematic motif of the Kieslowski’s movie is about human’s emotions and the way of how we handle these emotions. What we experience and what we did not affects our communication skills a lot. The clash between two characters is resolving at the end of the movie when Magda sees herself with the eyes of Tomek thanks to the telescope. She can see with Tomek’s eyes to the world now. She understands that how alone she is despite all people around her and power of Tomek’s love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5UvFeGEGhQ&t=115s

        In the Three Colours: Blue Kieslowski deals with issues in more universal perspective. However, he again focuses on emotions and dealing with powerful emotions like pain, loss, grief, and loneliness. “The great directors must be defined in terms of shifting relations, in their singularity as well as their uniformity.”  Wollen says. (p.465) We saw more buildings, apartments, and windows in A Short Film About Love. Although it deals with bigger issues, with respect to cinematography we are seeing a lot of details and more close-ups to objects in Three Colours: Blue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liBfcQBU5tc It really fits the narrative of the movie because Julie chooses a simple life after the loss of her family and may be first time in her life, she has no job to do. She starts to see other people and witness their life. She is interested in the flute player who lives in the streets and makes music in a simple way. Her life becomes more and more simpler so, she starts to see hidden small details and their beautifulness. Like the old lady who still tries to put her bottle in a recycling box, the movie gives its message through these scenes and says, “life should keep going and giving up in not a solution”.

The color of blue is of course too dominant in the movie. We saw this color too much in A Short Film About Love too: Tomek’s clothing or the props in Magda’s house. The choice of using red, blue, or white in props or clothing is stylistic in Kieslowski’s movies. And blue considered as a cold color and it can express emotionlessness, apathy, and stability of life. Julie’s life becomes more and more blue after the accident. When a man is escaping from some guys and rings her door for help, her silence is not because of the fear but because the fact that she has no idea what to do. She becomes so stranger to the outside world; she does not even take any action and forgets how to live.

And the last scene of the Three Colours: Blue the director tells us that this story is about a more general thing than someone’s life. There is something common in our lives and we all still have questions about our fate and existence. The movie is about the human journey in the universe. Kieslowski does something tricky in both his films. First, he seems like resolving the problems at the end of the movie, but I think he still left open his endings and let audience interpret. He directs the audience in some way, but he let them keep going alone in this way.     

Wollen says : “A valuable work, a powerful work at least, is one which challenges codes, overthrows established ways of reading or looking, not simply to establish new ones, but to compel an unending dialogue, not at random but productively....” (p.470) I think Kieslowski succeed to use all these elements in his movies and he is a great auteur director.

Bibliography

            Wollen, Peter. From Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen eds. Film Theory and Criticism 7th edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. (p.455-470)