Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER…

ABOUT KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI, MUCH HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID…

I GIVE THE FLOOR – ABOUT KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI: MICHAŁ OLEK, GRZEGORZ ŻMUDA, BARTOSZ ZAGÓL, KAMIL PIEKARA

INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURAL TEXTS

ON POSSIBLE READINGS OF KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI’S FILM “LIFE AS A FATAL SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE” – THE ART OF ANALYSIS: RAFAŁ SZOŁDROWSKI

ZANUSSI – A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD

“AS LONG AS I CAN BE CREATIVE, I WILL BE” – KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI

KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI’S KRAKOW JUBILEES… AND BEYOND

KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI AT THE STARY TEATR IN KRAKOW

CONVERSATIONS WITH KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI: MOUNTAINS IN THE CENTENNIAL OF CINEMA

KRAKOW – A REAL CITY

WE LIVE IN TIMES OF CONFUSION

HEART ON THE PALM

KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI – ON HIS 85TH BIRTHDAY

KRZYSZTOF PIUS ZANUSSI. WELL-DESERVED

QUESTIONS ABOUT KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI’S FILMS

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI’S FILMS

PHOTO CHRONICLE

Krzysztof Zanussi

© Dariusz Domański

© Publishing House Studio ACORD Bogdan Sylwestrowicz, Kraków 2025

STUDIO ACORD® ul. Korabnicka 34/L7, 32-050 Skawina

Project Coordinator: Arkadiusz Pietrukowicz

Graphic Design and Layout: Jacek Orzechowski

Cover Design: Jacek Orzechowski

Photos and archival materials from the collections of:

Krzysztof Zanussi, Dariusz Domański, the National Library, Roman Anusiewicz, Bogdan Gancarz, Tomasz Karaś, Anna Jaskółka, School Complex No. 1 named after St. Rafał Kalinowski in Kraków, Limanowa Cultural Center, Wiesław Majka, the Office of the President of the City of Kraków (p. 72), VIP Magazine, the Old Town Municipality

Scanning and photo editing: Jacek Orzechowski

© All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution of this publication, in whole or in part, in any form without the author’s consent is prohibited. Copying by photocopying, photography, or any other method, as well as copying the book onto film, magnetic, or other media, constitutes a violation of the copyright of our publication. All trademarks appearing in the text are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Book from the series „Portraits of Friends” by Dariusz Domański

Already available: Franciszek Pieczka, Piotr Fronczewski, Maria Malicka, Jan Nowicki

In preparation: Małgorzata Kożuchowska, Adam Woronowicz, Barbara Krafftówna, Aleksandra Śląska, Anna Seniuk, Jerzy Trela…

First Edition

ISBN 978-83-68489-04-0

Dariusz Domański

Krzysztof Zanussi

Portrait of a Friend

“…to read wisdom

and humility…”

“When I think of You – and I have the honor and pleasure of knowing You since time immemorial – I return to the years when I watched Your first films: ‘The Structure of Crystals’, pre-premiere in a small screening room at WFD, ‘Illumination’, already in the cinema, and ‘The Death of a Provincial’, I don’t remember under what circumstances… You opened a NEW WORLD to me then. Through Your characters, their attitudes, dilemmas, and fates. And although You made subsequent films often AGAINST the mainstream understanding of the world and art – that pioneering trio has remained in me permanently, NOT ONLY as a noble archival gem. Thank You.”

Dr. STANISŁAW JANICKI

film critic, film historian

I dedicate this book to:
Elżbiecie Grocholskiej-Zanussi, Barbarze Gruszce-Zych, Mai Komorowskiej, Wojciechowi Plewińskiemu, Józefowi Opalskiemu, Jerzemu Jakubowiczowi, Piotrowi Chłoście, Przemysławowi Dudkowi, Zbigniewowi Daraszowi, Elżbiecie Plucie, Maciejowi Nowakowi, Łukaszowi Maciejewskiemu, Annie Kondratowicz-Nowickiej, Marii Klaman, Antoniemu Fryczkowi, Aleksandrowi Miszalskiemu, Stanisławowi Kracikowi, Barbarze Skrabacz-Matusik, Tomaszowi Karasiowi, Wojciechowi Krawczukowi, Wojciechowi Kurtyce, Izabeli Trojanowskiej, Ewie Kasprzyk, Małgorzacie Kożuchowskiej, Piotrowi Fronczewskiemu, Marianowi Dziędzielowi, Henrykowi Talarowi, Jerzemu Fedorowiczowi, Olgierdowi Łukaszewiczowi, Grzegorzowi Mielczarkowi, Radosławowi Piwowarskiemu, Józefowi Musiołowi, Marianowi Hudkowi, Marcinowi Chmielewskiemu, Mariuszowi Gryżewskiemu, Dariuszowi Domajewskiemu

Introduction

Laski, a small town in the municipality of Izabelin near Warsaw, is primarily associated with the Educational and Rehabilitation Center for Blind Children, the figure of Blessed Mother Róża Czacka, the patroness, and Blessed Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. There is a forest cemetery where Jan Lechoń, Marian Brandys, Halina Mikołajska, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and others rest…

However, this town has attracted many people from around the world for many years due to the presence of Elżbieta and Krzysztof Zanussi. They arrived here many years ago and became part of the beautiful landscape of this extraordinary land, where peace and harmony always prevail… The proximity of the forest adds a certain mystery to this place. It is an extraordinary home, and its hosts know how to invite everyone who cares about goodness and peace to their table. Welcomed by the Franciscans, you enter here as an expected guest. For me personally, Elżbieta and Krzysztof Zanussi are people open to others, to relationships, and to full dialogue.

I have had the privilege of being a guest in this home on several occasions. The garden and its trees, shrubs, and statues, not only of saints, reflect the atmosphere. The meticulously maintained garden is the work of Mrs. Elżbieta. At the same time, it is a Polish home with traditions, a beautiful history, and even objects that have become the protagonists of the book by Barbara Gruszka-Zych and Grzegorz Lityński.

The hosts’ attitude towards animals is particularly noteworthy. A group of Labradors greets everyone at the doorstep, having their own, as Mrs. Elżbieta says – kingdom.

In the morning, you can hear the birds singing outside the windows. This place is like a theater of nature, a nature reserve, illuminated by the charm of the hosts. And on one day a year, it gathers Krzysztof Zanussi’s friends. I also have the opportunity to share good words in this fairy-tale place on that June day, where the joy of the hosts is always evident. From this place, Krzysztof Zanussi sets out into his cinematic and not only artistic world, to return happily to the home where Mrs. Elżbieta awaits. This story is my recollection of a man and artist who taught me and my generation how to understand art and how to interpret it, always with wisdom, humility, and reflection.

Dariusz Domański

PS Krzysztof Zanussi perceives the world around him as a sum of experiments, creative experiences, but he is also a traditionalist. He has his habits. From every place on the globe where he stays, he sends postcards to friends and even close acquaintances. In today’s world of electronic media and messengers, this is a rarity. In this way, Krzysztof Zanussi preserves the dying art of letter writing. Perhaps hundreds of years from now, researchers of our era will learn that, just as people once wrote on stone, paper, or canvas, in the 21st century, only a few still reached for this form of communication. Thus, this is the trace left behind…

As long as I can remember…

As long as I can remember, as a young boy, a teenager, I loved cinema. I was a true cinephile. I went to all the films that were in the repertoire of Polish cinemas, even those for adults, although it wasn’t easy. But I admit honestly. That’s how it was. I have forgotten many films, but many remain in my youthful memory and imagination. These were the 1970s and 1980s. How it sounds now, in 2025! – it was so recent, wasn’t it?

Through the films of Polish directors, I got to know literature, even school readings, which I didn’t always willingly read – but films were something else, something worth seeing. They helped later in understanding and studying literature.

With Krzysztof Zanussi – Katowice, 2024 r.

Two kinds of cinema, two different creators, appealed to my cinematic taste. One was the cinema of Andrzej Wajda, based on excellent literary texts, such as “The Wedding” by S. Wyspiański or “The Promised Land” by W. Reymont. On the other end was the cinema of Krzysztof Zanussi, his television, not cinematic, “Passing Grade” and “The Structure of Crystals.” This was Zanussi’s world, not entirely understandable to me at the time, but the layers of psychology, philosophy, and metaphysics in cinema I came to know through this creator. And I began to understand them later. Because it was easier to understand the history contained in Wyspiański’s drama than to touch the essence of human existence described in Zanussi’s works. One had to grow up more to appreciate Zanussi, to mature. He himself gave lessons to great artists, inspired them, even Professor Aleksander Bardini, who in 1974 spoke with respect about working with Zanussi.

Both Wajda and Zanussi shaped my deep love for the tenth muse, which, however, did not survive, despite so many excellent films by both artists that I watched later. I turned my steps more towards theater, which seemed more real, authentic to me. Because I could observe live the reactions of actors, audiences, and how the director “manipulated” them. However, that time in cinema was my first entry into the world of acting and directing, into the world of values that then constituted a paradigm of high culture for me.

Dariusz Domański

Krzysztof Zanussi – Kraków City Hall, 2019

ABOUT KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI
MUCH HAS BEEN SAID…

Much has been said and written about Krzysztof Zanussi. The director himself is also the author of several books in which he shared his biography and worldview. Many people have analyzed his cinematic achievements, both critics and film scholars from Poland and abroad. In recent years, the person who has dedicated the most attention to Zanussi is Barbara Gruszka-Zych, a journalist and poet. Basia, who conducted a beautiful interview with Krzysztof Zanussi and his wife Elżbieta Grocholska-Zanussi, presenting their extraordinary life. Recently, an album co-authored by her and Grzegorz Lityński (with comments from the protagonist) was released, discussing the objects surrounding the director, not only in his home in Laski. Therefore, one might ask, why this new book, or rather a sketch about the director, and whether it will bring any new perspective on the artist? I think it will, these are my personal observations and notes, as well as voices of young people whom Zanussi, as a director of current topics in our lives, started to interest at the threshold of their adult life.

Elżbieta Grocholska-Zanussi, Dariusz Domański, Barbara Gruszka-Zych, Krzysztof Zanussi – Zakopane, 2019

I met Krzysztof Zanussi in the 1980s. Over thirty years have passed since then, and much has happened not only in the life of the director. I won’t say that our relationship was as close as, for example, with Janek Nowicki, Franek Pieczka, Mańek Dziędziel, or Piotrek Fronczewski. But still, Mr. Krzysztof became one of my closest directors, with whom I was able to become friends. Now, such a director is also Radek Piwowarski, whose positive energy and sense of humor allow one to interpret his extraordinary artistic and human personality.

With Krzysztof Zanussi – Kraków Planty – Jagiellonian University, 1989

Krzysztof Zanussi is a very open, warm-hearted person. You can rely on him, on his kind words and heart. Zanussi is a person of impeccable manners, an erudite, a thinker in the Enlightenment sense, a bit of a Romantic and at the same time a Positivist, (he could fit in all these epochs). An artist, a citizen of the world, a man, as I once said – “with a dove’s heart”. In this miniature, I will touch upon the phenomenon of working with young people, “I will” undertake an analysis of his film work – but I will primarily reach back in memory to our many meetings in various places, although most often at his house in Laski near Warsaw, on the occasion of birthday celebrations among friends, where I will never forget the taste of the asparagus from the birthday table for the rest of my life.

With Dominika Zamara, Krzysztof Zanussi – Laski, 2019

The first meeting with Krzysztof Zanussi took place in Warsaw’s Żoliborz. I arrived from Krakow for a scheduled interview with the director. It was August – the year 1988. Żoliborz reminded me of the Church of St. Stanislaus Kostka and Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, who was murdered by the security services of the People’s Republic of Poland.

With Krzysztof Zanussi, Prof. Jerzy Jakubowicz – Laski, 2024

I wondered whether to talk to Mr. Krzysztof about Father Jerzy, maybe because he also made films featuring extraordinary priests such as St. John Paul II, St. Maximilian Kolbe, Brother Albert. When I arrived at the house on Kaniowska Street, Mr. Krzysztof’s mother opened the door. Mrs. Wanda Zanussi, an older elegant lady, emanated that pre-war charm. She asked me to come in, led me to Mr. Krzysztof’s room, his living room, and before she left, she offered me tea. After a few seconds, Mr. Krzysztof appeared, then nearly fifty years old, with a dark beard, wearing glasses, as befitted an intellectual. Of course, in a blazer and tie. I never saw him dressed otherwise, wherever he was – always in a suit or a jacket, shirt, and tie. Just like Janek Nowicki always wore a hat, Krzysztof Zanussi dressed formally. I wondered what question to ask first? This was meant to be an interview for the monthly magazine “Góry,” and it was to focus on the director’s interest in mountains. Few people know that Zanussi tried his hand at mountaineering, as the theme of mountains often appeared in his films. I’m thinking of “Constans,” “Spirala,” and “Góry o zmierzchu.” I also knew that Mr. Krzysztof was a jury member at mountain film festivals held in various European countries. That’s when I learned about his connections with mountaineers, including Wanda Rutkiewicz and the Surdel brothers.

What impressed me about Zanussi back then as a young man? It was his incredible knowledge on many topics, analytical thinking, curiosity, and the ability not only to speak but also to listen to another person. He had and still has this. It was rare because, later on, I met many outstanding filmmakers and theater creators, but no one, like Zanussi, could simultaneously be interested in the other person, listening to them without arguing with their knowledge. He was always very cautious, but his culture of being always charmed anyone who entered into a dialogue with him, which never turned into a monologue of the artist. I think, I am convinced that he would have been a good diplomat because he has that something, class, composure, and knowledge, which, alongside tolerance, is necessary and essential in diplomacy.

I remember one of the meetings in Krakow at the Jagiellonian University. Zanussi found time to participate in various conferences, panels, and discussions, not only at national but also at foreign universities. He had a particular respect for the Jagiellonian University because he once studied philosophy here with Prof. Roman Ingarden. Krakow was the place of his film and theatrical debut, and he did his diploma in Tyniec at the Monastery, previously working in the amateur film movement in Nowa Huta. Zanussi has tackled various topics and, despite his age, is still invited to universities worldwide, from the USA to Australia. His knowledge of foreign languages enables him to do so, as one of the few directors of Polish cinema. In one of the interviews, he said that foreign languages are very important, and that his mother taught him them. He speaks five foreign languages, and here’s a curiosity – he still has all his teeth. He admits that I listened to Zanussi, and I could again approach him before the University to chat for a while, and I have a photo from that meeting.

Prof. Roman Ingarden – drawing by Witkacy, 1937

Krzysztof Zanussi came to Krakow for a meeting with students at the School. The 1st High School named after St. Raphael Kalinowski. The former Railway Technical School hosted the director in connection with his upcoming round birthday. The school was very well prepared to welcome this exceptional guest, even the school newspaper “Rumor” was entirely dedicated to Zanussi’s film work. There would be nothing strange about this, but this was a technical school that still has the task of educating technicians with the soul of humanists.

Krzysztof Zanussi – 1st High School named after St. Raphael Kalinowski – Krakow, 2011

Krzysztof Zanussi – 1st High School – Krakow, 2011

Zanussi is also a physicist, and technical fields, just as much as humanistic ones, fascinate him. He likes to be involved in topics that later find their way into his films. To begin, the distinguished guest was welcomed in the auditorium by the Krakow Old Town Orchestra of Wiesław Olejniczak. The music motifs of Wojciech Kilar from Zanussi’s films, such as “The Structure of Crystals” and “Quarterly Balance,” appeared. After listening, Zanussi, clearly moved, thanked for such a pleasant surprise. The meeting was not only about the director’s work but also about the role of science in the world, discussions on technical innovations followed, and then a quiz about the director’s work was held. In the unofficial part, at the Inn under the Black Horse, the Archery Kings participated, who presented Zanussi with their highest award – the Guz Oracewicza.

Krzysztof Zanussi with Józef Hojda, the King of the Kurkowe Brotherhood – Oberża pod Czarnym Koniem, Kraków, 2011

I will never forget this meeting, which I organized together with the school, because it was at that time that I received the keys to the director’s apartment in Paris. And yes, thanks to Zanussi, I was able to spend New Year’s Eve and the New Year 2012 with my family in the capital of France. I will reveal here that I was very fortunate that Krzysztof Zanussi invited me to Paris. I knew that many well-known people had already visited this apartment in previous years, many of his friends from the film industry and beyond, including Andrzej Wajda with Krystyna Zachwatowicz, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland… I remember how long he explained to me and my friend, with whom we were together, Marek Pasieka, even drawing the entire plan of the apartment and how to get to it. How to open it and turn on all the disconnected fuses, etc.