the Decalogue of Tao

The foreword to Kieslowski & Piesiewicz, Decalogue: The Ten Commandments, London: Faber & Faber, 1991

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I am always reluctant to single out some particular feature of the work of a major filmmaker because it tends inevitably to simplify and reduce the work. But in this book of screenplays by Krzysztof Kieslowski and his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, it should not be out of place to observe that they have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what's really going on rather than being told. They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don't realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.

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Stanley Kubrick, January 1991

K.K. was in France and was doing an audition to an actress who told him this story: years before he was ill, was destroyed on the verge of suicide ... one morning she was coming out of the house, in Paris, and she realizes that as he walks across the street is Marcel Marceau, the greatest mime ever, which is going about his business ... all of a sudden Marceau's glance, only a very brief look, just a moment ... she said at Kieslowski that look who saved her life, she no longer killed herself just for that look ... a look of Marceau clearly that's not really any one look, but this is not the point ...

the point is what Kieslowski says, with whom she is well along, that maybe the meaning of all  the life of Marceau, his birth, because he came to the world, was just to make that look, that one moment to save her life ..

Powazki Cemetery, Warsaw