Przegląd filmów o Chopinie w Nowym Jorku

Celebrating

the 200th anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin’s birth, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Polish Cultural Institute present a series of films inspired by the life and art of the great Polish composer. Filmmakers around the world have explored Chopin’s legacy since the beginning of the film era. Ranging from drama to documentary and from animation to experiment, the series reveals the cinema’s fascination with Chopin’s music and his life, fraught as it was with illness, stormy love affairs, and exile from his homeland.

Six diverse programs will be presented from January to May, highlighted by Andrzej Zulawski’s visually stunning The Blue Note, starring Polish pianist Janusz Olejniczak and Sophie Marceau, and James Lapine’s Impromptu, with Hugh Grant and Judy Davis; as well as a program of experimental films, including one of the world’s most innovative: The Orchestra by Academy Award winner Zbigniew Rybczynski.

The series launches with three programs in January :

The Youth of Chopin and Calling Mr. Smith

Aleksander Ford’s 1951 classic The Youth of Chopin will be presented together with Calling Mr. Smith by Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, one of the first and most persuasive World War II-era film experiments. The Youth of Chopin was one of the first postwar Polish films to receive international attention and remains the least romanticized film portrait of the composer: a man confronted with the social and political transformations of his time, to which he responded with his unique music.

The International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Film

The second program features footage of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw at different stations in its history. Two Polish documentaries, Born in Warsaw and Under the Sign of Chopin, along with a rarely screened archival newsreel, bring to light now-legendary performances by Krystian Zimerman, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fou Ts’Ong, Bernard Ringeissen, and Adam Harasiewicz.

Impromptu, dir. James Lapine, UK/France 1991

Impromptu, which stars Hugh Grant as Fryderyk Chopin and Judy Davis as George Sand, portrays the compelling personalities of the two artists, who are alternately drawn to and alienated from each other.

Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, in association with the Polish National Film Archive and Polish National Television.

March 1, 2010 will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fryderyk Chopin , the great Polish composer. Born in Zelazowa Wola, then the Russian partition of Poland, Chopin left his homeland in 1830, during the violently suppressed November Uprising, never to return. He joined the Great Emigration of Poland’s cultural elite in Paris and, having refused to apply for his passport through the Russian embassy, he became an émigré without the right to return to Warsaw. He died in Paris in 1849 at the age of thirty-nine. Poland, and his yearning for it, nourished Chopin’s imagination and were the substance of his music.

In recognition of Chopin and his music, an array of concerts, festivals, and other events will take place around the world throughout

2010. Warsaw, the City of Chopin, will offer occasions to hear his most celebrated contemporary interpreters. These will include Anniversary Concerts (February 22-28) by Piotr Anderszewski, Daniel Barenboim, Rafal Blechacz, Kevin Kenner, Evgeny Kissin, Garrick Ohlsson, Janusz Olejniczak, Murray Perahia, and Ivo Pogorelić; a Gala Concert on Chopin’s birthday (March 1), featuring Leif Ove Andsnes, Martha Argerich, Dang Thai Son, and Yundi Li, and in August, the Chopin and His Europe International Festival, with 50 concerts and over 1,000 performers. As always, Warsaw will host the 16th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, October 2-23. For Chopin Year 2010 worldwide programming, please check updates at www.chopin2010.pl

Calendar of screenings and film descriptions
More about Fryderyk Chopin
More about Chopin 2010 anniversary
2010 Chopin concerts in the US