Part of See It Big! (October–December, 2012) & See It Big! (Past Programs)
Sunday, October 14, 2012, 2:00 p.m.

Introduced by David Thomson and Michael Barker, followed by a conversation with Thomson and Barker, and a book signing of Thomson's The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies

Presented in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute

Dir. Andrzej Wajda. 1958, 116 mins. DCP restored by KinoRP. With Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska. This is perhaps the most internationally beloved film from Polish art-film auteur Andrzej Wajda, and was selected as one of the top ten films of all time by both Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola in the recent Sight and Sound directors survey. A visually stunning and historically specific work of political cinema, Ashes and Diamonds takes place on the last day of World War II in a small town, and concerns a Home Army soldier (Zbigniew Cybulski, often dubbed the Polish James Dean) tasked with carrying out a major political assassination. Wajda, a master at creating atmosphere, tension, and multilayered characterizations, never made a more searing film. The screening will be followed by conversation with film scholar David Thomson, about his new book The Big Screen, and Michael Barker, Co-President of Sony Pictures Classics. A book signing with Thomson will follow in the Moving Image Store. The book is a wide-ranging narrative about movies and their signal role in modern life, ranging through time and across media from Eadweard Muybridge to Steve Jobs.