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We do not talk enough about Agnieszka Holland.
She also has a great new movie out right now and is about to release another.Mr.
Another Holland movie,Charlatan, is slated to premiere this fall, depending on the festival situation.
(It was on the lineup for the recently canceled Telluride Film Festival.)
I did not know anything about the subject ofMr.
After we see Orwell, we see Gareth telling his story about interviewing Hitler; that was interesting.
When I understood how this metaphorical dimension ofAnimal Farmconnected with the story, I actually wanted more of it.
We shot a lot more Orwell for the film, which I trimmed.
And I thinkAnimal Farmwas directly inspired by several testimonies and by Gareth Joness recollections of the famine.
Your film shows how the media at the time was complicit in covering it up.
It really becomes a story about journalism.Yes.
Everybody can be journalists now without fact-checkers.
This is so important, fact-checking.
It takes a lot of work, time, and money.
Your film gets into the tribal aspect of it.
We have exactly this polarization.
Even if its subtle, this manipulation, it exists, and its very difficult to avoid it.
That is so dangerous.
And the media is in one camp or other.
People are so confused, and its so easy for them to be manipulated.
But they are also soindifferent.
Your parents were journalists, right?My parents were journalists in the communist time in Poland.
He was Jewish, and his family perished in the Holocaust in Poland.
For him, Stalin was the response to Hitler and the Holocaust.
So it was quite logical that he was on this side.
And by then, he was a victim of this regime.
He was arrested on false accusations and committed suicide during his interrogation.
And before that, they went through a very bad divorce, and I was a confidante of both.
I was somehow the parent of my parents in this moment.
I didnt understand everything about the politics.
I was in prison for some underground work for a while.
So between 17 and 22, I knew pretty much about the nature of this regime.
I read all possible underground publications historical books, Orwells books and Arthur Koestler, and so on.
My impact was very minimal, between me and you.
But I was caught and accepted trial.
You said that your father committed suicide while being interrogated.
Do I have it right that he jumped from a window?Yes.
Its inProvincial ActorsandTo Kill a Priest, for example.
Its like Im becoming pregnant with the story.
I recently rewatchedThe Secret Garden, which is one of the best childrens films Ive ever seen.
From the outside, it might seem like it was a project for hire.
But then I learned that you had been bedridden yourself as a child and quite ill.
I thought,Oh my God, this is actually a very personal movie.Yeah, it is.
Maybe one of my most personal.
Really a lot of my childhood is inside it.
That is a book I read many, many times.
And to grown-ups, too: I watched it not long ago, a year ago probably.
I was flying to L.A. from Europe, and I was sitting in business class.
I see that somebody is watching on their screenThe Secret Garden.
I recognized the images.
I wanted also to see how it looks on this screen.
So I found it in the menu, and I watched it myself.
That meeting between the son and the father I found really touching.
Its one of the most powerful scenes in any film Ive seen.
Directors are terrible parasites.
They are stealing from everybody.
I had friends, but I was the one who was telling them what to do.
It was one of the reasons I decided to be a director.
I wanted to be a painter when I was a young teenager, but I also told stories.
I wanted to have power over peoples wishes and to tell them what to do.
When I analyzed those things, I decided these are perfect skills and needs for a film director.
It was very hard to be admitted to film school.
I went to Prague, where I was much more anonymous.
And it was difficult to make movies because of my name.
The fact that I am a woman was the last problem I had, frankly.
But in communist Poland, feminism was practically unknown.
Maybe it was an instinctive thing but not really an ideological one.
I stayed in France and started to work.
Then I worked in Germany and the U.S. and other countries.
Thats when I realized that its much more difficult for a woman to be successful.
I didnt speak any other language except Czech and Russian, which wasnt very helpful.
Polanski was actually quite helpful, even though I didnt know him before.
And Milan Kundera, who was my teacher in Prague, gave me a lot of advice.
Also I started to be invited to festivals and get some prizes.
It was difficult, but at the same time, I was not alone.
But I cannot complain, really.
The figure of the outsider is a very prevalent one in your work.
Jonesbut also inSecret Garden, inCopying Beethoven, inEuropa Europa, even in something likeTo Kill a Priest.
It seems you have been an outsider your whole life.Certainly my identity didnt fit into the majority ever.
But at the same time, its probably the most pure and true existential situation.
Its what we are on the planet: We are existentially alone, born alone and dying alone.
And in the most difficult moments, you cannot really share it with anyone.
It is a good exercise, I think, immigration to face the truth, which is difficult.
It had few screenings.
Some in Chicago and someplace.
So the film became an orphan, and studio politics kicked it out and it disappeared.
It was a difficult movie to make, actually.
We did the movie practically two or three years after the real priest was assassinated by the secret police.
And wed been quite close to reality, of course.
One: It is very difficult to photograph goodness.
Hunger you might photograph with somebody who wants to eat.
That was something far more interesting to me than just to make a hagiography.
Nobody has shot Ed Harris more interestingly than you have over the course of your career.I love this guy.
Hes my best friend among actors, so maybe that projects in the way Im shooting him.
He became violent or angry.
And we were shooting 20 kilometers from Paris, so he walked to Paris.
He walked to Paris?Yes.
It was long time ago.
Now hes a very self-controlled, wise man.
But he was a Method actor at this time.
When he played the character, he became the character.
When you cast him as a nice character, he was very nice.
When you cast him as a character who is violent, he was violent.
But we had this very special bond from the beginning.
I was able to tame him.
Who are some other actors youve had intense experiences with?Bad or good?
You tell me!Well, I love actors.
Actors are my family.
Especially when you are in another country.
But with actors, its immediate.
Actors are the same in every country.
They have the same needs.
The same kind of gratefulness.
They are giving their emotions, they are giving their bodies, faces.
And what they really need back is truth and trust.
They immediately see if the director doesnt know, or they hate if the director pretends.
And when you’re able to help them somehow, they are really grateful.
Some bad experiences Ive had, but not many.
I attempt to push it, and sometimes it really can be like pushing a piece of furniture.
Rimbaud is an odd part for him, but he gives a great performance.Leonardo was a genius.
Hes a great, very talented actor.
When he was young, he had really the path of genius.
He was already a rising star, but could you tell he would hit the stratosphere?Oh yeah.
He already had the Oscar nomination forGilbert Grape.
But it was his beginning phase; it was beforeTitanic.
I thought he would be huge, but I didnt know in which direction he would go.
And he put on weight and became this man and lost a bit of his angelic side.
I think it was his decision to change.
But that unpredictable, modern edge to her performance really helps the film.I think shes a great actress.
Im always touched when I remember the last scene, when shes singing with the children.
Shes also very talented in the way Leonardo was but without this kind of grace exactly.
Her skills are against her looks somehow.
But shes the best prepared actress Ive ever, ever worked with.
When she was doing something like Henry James, she did all possible homework.
And period things what would be possible, what would be not.
But when the work started, she put everything on the side, and she was just the character.
And its always dictated by the story.
Of course, I see it, I imagine it, so its my point of view.
But sometimes I have the concepts up there before the start of the principal photography.
I step in with my cinematographer and production designer, and we reference different images.
It comes also from locations, from memories, from different sources.
Before we start filming, we say, Okay, we will be shooting in this or that way.
But we started to shoot it, and the camera didnt want to move.
The camera cried to stay.
This happened several times.
The initial concept, which was an intellectual concept, didnt work.
So the opposite visual approach came as a solution, which was more organic to the story.
And the style for that had been very transparent it was realism.
But also I renewed somehow the way of shooting on my episodes.
It became more immediately personal.
And David Simon actually liked it.
With other shows, it was a bit like a stylistic exercise.
Its like mimicking something.
You know that you have to do it as it was established.
So sometimes its a really nice adventure.
But of course, when Im doing my own movie, its my movie.
When Im doing a series, Im serving somebodys vision.
