A far-reaching campaign to digitally restore classics of Polish cinema notched up another success yesterday with the premiere of a revitalised version of  The Wedding  by veteran director Andrzej Wajda.

Although almost forty years have passed since the original premiere in 1973, many members of the original cast and crew gathered in Warsaw to witness the results of the painstaking process of restoration.

Amongst them were Wajda himself,  Maja Komorowska and Daniel Olbrychski, the latter fresh from completing a performance as Marshal Pilsudski in Jerzy Hoffman’s forthcoming 3D epic The Battle of Warsaw 1920.

Regarded as one of the masterpieces of Polish cinema, The Wedding was a faithful adaption  of the play of the same name. Originally written in 1901 by legendary  artist and playwright Stanislaw Wyspianski, the drama is regarded as one of the seminal works in the Polish theatrical canon.

The plot revolves around the real-life wedding of a gentleman poet with a country girl. The playwright was present at the nuptials and reportedly spent the entire festivities standing in the doorway with an intense look on his face . His lack of sociability gave rise to a portentous meditation on Polish society and the inertia regarding the loss of the country’s independence.

Wajda recalled yesterday an encounter with French director Elia Kazan in Paris some years ago. ‘Who wrote you such a marvellous script?’ the Frenchman had asked.

Also present at the premiere last night was the film’s cinematographer Witold Sobocinski, one of the moving spirits behind KinoRP’s programme of restorations. During the process, every frame of a film’s negative must be scanned individually: a normal film usually includes in the region of 100,000 frames. Each one must be cleaned and then modified with regards to the original colour. The film is then passed on to the sound specialists. At the very least, the process takes 6 months to complete.

Amongst the films that have been restored thus far are Wojciech Has’s The Hourglass Sanatorium, Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Austeria and Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds. Many more are planned. (nh)

Source: PAP