Jerzy Lipman as a cameraman. What did Jurek bring with him?
Jurek, like me when I was learning how to direct and
believed that I needed to start from scratch which meant finding new actors,
was shooting in a way that wasn't commonly practised.
At that time, if the sun wasn't shining or even if it was shining but there were no clouds in the sky,
shooting was called off because that was called 'a tin sheet'.
I won't shoot. There have to be some clouds in the sky.
In short, the entire aesthetics that was still weighing on us from the pre-war commercial cinema
and which was only overturned by Italian neorealism, made up our artistic ideology.
By shooting in the suburbs, in poor, run-down streets, in workshops...
I spent the entire war working in workshops like these,
I knew what they looked like and I knew how badly the boys who worked there were treated.
I knew what the atmosphere was like there.
Therefore, we shot the kind of poverty, the kind of war and occupation that we knew well.
Jerzy Lipman would shoot while it was raining, so the electricians
would rebel saying no one shoots in the rain, otherwise our lights will explode.
On a grey day? Why? It's the end of the day, everyone's stopped filming, no cameraman is still shooting.
Thanks to this, the film had an image
which foretold something different, something that was quite new.
In addition, we still believed in cinema. What is cinema?
Cinema is the expression of the things we want to say by using the means of film to express them.
A good example of this is the scene of Jasio Krone's death.
How did that happen? It's written there that he's escaping, he's running up to the attic,
but all of the decisions that were made, first how we worked out the screenplay, then how we filmed it,
how the whole thing took on expression, how he decided to die in that way, not by accident after being wounded,
but that he falls, he deliberately climbs onto the balustrade and stands there, like a statue, and throws himself into the void.
It was all there, that he couldn't reach the attic because suddenly it turns out that there's a grating there which he can't open.
All of this together creates an adventure on film, an expression in film that we were chasing,
the thing we were searching for, that we needed because a film in which action was interpreted,
an idea, the inspiration for an idea for a film was what we were then all searching for together.
I have to say that this film belongs to our entire group.
Here, I felt I was the director not because everything in this film is mine.
I felt I was the director because everyone was working for me,
they were all giving me ideas but I was the one taking the responsibility.
Napoleon said, 'It's not important who drew up the battle plan, what matters is who gave the order.'
Because he's the one who takes responsibility.
I think I came to understand this quite quickly that if I was to make a film, the film would need
the strong, definite individuality of the director, yet a film can't be made even by the strongest of individualities.
The people who work with me must feel that they're creating this film together.
That's why I've come up with a saying I always repeat to myself:
if the film is good, it's our film, we've all made it, we all contributed to making it good.
If the film is a failure, and I've made many films that I wasn't happy with, then the film is mine.
That's because I could have chosen other people, not these, I could have chosen a different subject,
I could have not made the film altogether.
Because of this, I take the responsibility for every mistake whereas when we succeed,
the successes are ours since we are the ones who have made the film.
And I think that by holding on tightly to this awareness up to the present day,
I have made many friends, actors,
who enjoy making films with me.
Because mistakes and flaws in a film are my fault,
whereas if a film succeeds it is thanks to everyone who has made the film.
I think that this shaped our group,
the group which began and ended 'A Generation'.
And I think this sense of being a team continued.