%L discovery1382592
%T The best of all worlds: public, personal, and inner realms in the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski.
%A ES Dziekonska
%I University of London
%D 2002
%O Thesis digitised by British Library EThOS.
%X This thesis is a study of the oeuvre of Krzysztof Kielowski. In particular, I examine
claims made by Kielowski and many critics that in the 1980s the director moved away
from filming the public world, which had been crucial to his work since he began filming
in the late 1960s and became instead primarily concerned with the inner world. Although
I agree that Kieslowski increasingly shifted his emphasis to the inner life, I argue that any
attempt to abandon the public world in his later films was in fact of more limited scope
than his claims suggest and his focus on the inner sphere neither absolute nor lacking in
ambivalence.
I distinguish between three realms of existence in Kielowski's narratives: the public
sphere, namely, public life be it socio-political, economical, or work-related; the personal
sphere, consisting of the individual's family and close friends; and the inner sphere,
comprising the intimate emotional and mental life of the individual. By extensively
examining Kielowski's treatment of these spheres and how they interact with and inform
both one another and the films, I aim to demonstrate that the public and personal realms
continued play a significant part in the productions of the 1980s and 1990s, regardless of
Kielowski's claims otherwise, and result in more complex, multi-layered, and
ambiguous narratives than is usually recognised.
In distinguishing between the spheres that make up the individual's existence, I discuss
the concomitant differences between public and inner realities. I examine the
complications and ambiguities that arose from the combined presence of these quite
distinct realities in the final works and end by looking at how they influenced
Kielowski's decision to abandon fihnmaking in the mid-1990s.
My thesis is also a career-survey of Kielowski's oeuvre and; in addition to substantiating
my arguments, I simultaneously discuss what I believe to be other interesting and
important aspects of Kielowski and his work, including the financing and censorship of
his films, his political tendencies, his representation of his male and female characters as
well as his distinction between youth and adulthood, his collaborative method; his
relationship with his audience, and his critical reception. In doing so I aim to provide a
detailed overview of Kielowski's entire career which can stand alone as a self-contained
and comprehensive reference work and thus fill the current gap in English-language
studies of Kielowski.