Word: wajda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...significant credit as a historical film Danton brings forth the contradiction interest in the Revolution. Robespierre stresses Egalite, Danton prefers Liberie; Robespierre will use any means to meet his goals, Danton will practically reject the revolution if he can secure passes and prosperity for the common man. Happily, Wajda refuses to interpret Robespierre's section Glacial idealist or self serving demagogue, Wajda won't say. On the other hand, he does edit out some of Danton's flaws, barely mentioning his constant philandering, his willingness to accept bribes, and what may have been a just for power. Indeed, Danton...
THERE CAN BE LITTLE QUESTION as to why Wajda, a polish director with Polish interests, chose a French historical subject, and made his movie as a co-production with a French studio. The obvious parallels between France in 1794 and Poland in 1983 allow Wajda to commitment on the Polish crisis while ostensibly dispassionately examining a 200 year old incident. Indeed, more puzzling given Wajda's reputation as a Solidarity apologist, is the Polish government's support of the production through Film Polski. Not surprisingly after seeing the final version the Polish authorities decided to postpone indefinitely the film...
...close fit between the story and Poland's current convulsions actually presents the film's greatest problem. One has the nagging sense that the image on the screen is Gdansk or Warsaw, retracted by Wajda's lens to look to Paris. And rather than heightening the film's urgency, this imparts the slightly bitter tests of propaganda, setting the viewer on the defensive. Wajda goes to far as to cast French actors at the Dantonist "indulgent" and poles as the hard line Jacobins such as Robespierre and St. Just, the film's real villain. Pszoniak even bears an unfortunate though...
...Although Wajda denies making Danton in response to the events in Poland, it is impossible to forget his political background and decline to read between the frames. When Danton declaims. "Without bread there is no justice, peace or law," or when he tells Robespierre. "Come back to earth I have the only power the street," how can one not hear the echo of Lach Walesa? Like Walesa, Danton is an orator a reversed leader a man too busy for effete manners a man of the people...
Danton's impact is lessened when the film is robbed of its university Nevertheless it is an important thoughtful meditation on revolution and unfliacting idealism. Wajda's humanism ultimately transcends national interests and to tyrants everywhere he sends a vivid reminder that within four months of killing Danton Robespierre too was sacrificed to that implacable god, the revolution...