In the 1950s, Andrzej Wajda’s first films served as a direct inspiration for the budding filmmakers of the French New Wave, a concrete example that films made by, for and about contemporary youth were possible. Echoes of Zbigniew Cybulski’s turn in ASHES AND DIAMONDS can be seen in BREATHLESS’s protagonist Michel Poiccard. But it is the second film in Wajda’s “War Trilogy” – with its depiction of a group of young Resistance fighters during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, who escape Nazi persecution by tracing a path through the city’s sewer system – that perhaps has the most enduring resonance for Godard’s work.
In the 1950s, Andrzej Wajda’s first films served as a direct inspiration for the budding filmmakers of the French New Wave, a concrete example that films made by, for and about contemporary youth were possible. Echoes of Zbigniew Cybulski’s turn in ASHES AND DIAMONDS can be seen in BREATHLESS’s protagonist Michel Poiccard. But it is the second film in Wajda’s “War Trilogy” – with its depiction of a group of young Resistance fighters during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, who escape Nazi persecution by tracing a path through the city’s sewer system – that perhaps has the most enduring resonance for Godard’s work.
