Wojciech Jerzy Has

Wojciech Jerzy Has was a Polish film director screenwriter and film producer Wojciech Jerzy Has was born in Kraków with Jewish origin on his fathers side and Roman Catholic on his mothers During the wartime German occupation of Poland Has studied at the Kraków Business and Commerce College and later clandestine underground classes at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts until it was disbanded in 1943 When the war ended he went on to study at the reconstituted Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków In 1946 Has completed a oneyear course in film and began producing educational and documentary films at the Warsaw Documentary Film Studio and in the 1950s moved on to work at Polands premier filmmaking academy the National Film Studio in Łódź Has made his debut with Harmony Harmonia 1948 a mediumlength feature and began making fulllength feature films in 1957 In 1974 he was appointed as professor in the directing department at the National Film School in Łódź Throughout his long and prolific career he directed such notable films as The Saragossa Manuscript The Doll and The HourGlass Sanatorium also known as The Sandglass Early on in his career Has gained a reputation as an individualist who avoided political overtones in his art He produced his most important films throughout the period when the Polish Film School was at its most prominent however his work possessed its own stylistic feeling that was independent of the over policial themes that dominated the prevailing Polish School In practically every film Has sought to create hermetic environments in which the problems and storylines of his protagonists were always of secondary importance to the particular world he had created characterized by an accumulation of random objects that formed unique visual universe Hass oeuvre is commonly associated with Surrealist painting in Polish criticism This is reinforced by the directors dream poetic and his use of objects which are also characteristic of many canvasses by the Surrealists Has also created a number of intimate psychological dramas during his career such as How to Be Loved and Farewells focusing on damaged individuals who have difficulty settling into life In his work he was fascinated by outsiders and people incapable of finding their place in reality Two currents remain evident in Hass output one was his cinema of psychological analysis the other his films of visionary form in which he most often used the motif of a journey From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia