DRAMATURGY OF REALITY
(fragment of master’s thesis)
KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI

	A rich, magnificent, immeasurable reality, either nothing is repeated or we cannot redo the shots. We do not have to worry about how it unfolds: it will keep supplying us, day after day, with extraordinary takes. Reality itself– and that's not a paradox – is the starting point for a documentary. You only need to believe in it from the very beginning, in its dramaturgy, in this reality. André Bazin wrote that at times the cinema does not find any stimuli in technological inventions – when it is not the screen width or the colours of picture, which decide about development of its means of expression, and when the mere fact of movement or sound ceases to fascinate – the cinema refers to literature. He did not mean any film topics or characters – he meant language, as well as structural and dramaturgic patterns. Documentary film, already weary and destroyed by its language, should reach to the reality, and look for dramaturgy, action, and style in it. It should create a new language resulting from more precise that hitherto existing record of reality. The point here is to make a step, which will be a consequence of all manifests wrote by documentary filmmakers, a consequence of Flaherty’s statement that a camera is a tool of creation. An element of action, surprise, punch line – so important in classical dramaturgy; an element of suspension and non-denouement of unordered threads – so meaningful in contemporary dramaturgy – all these elements are not made up, but they constitute an attempt to imitate (variedly seen) the reality. The point is to cease imitating it and pretending, but take it as it is. Just with its lack of punch lines, its concurrent order and mess – it is the most modern and the most truthful structure. Apart from documentary film, no method allowing recording this structure exists. Documentary film should exploit this possibility in full, and take advantage if its individuality. This is a chance. Thinking about dramaturgy of reality I asked a few persons – a student of the last year of history, a welder, and a clerk – to write down precisely all action performed during a day. No dialogs, thoughts, moods, recollections, or night dreams were recorded. Only events available for vision and hearing. All texts were fascinating screenplays. We are used to say that life is a ready screenplay, however only written down sheets of paper provide a glaring proof of it. I do no mean (anyway, it is not possible for technical reasons) the realization of such screenplays. Hence such a postulate is close to popular during the second year of Film School tendencies to put a camera on the corner of the street and film the traffic, for ex. for an hour, when the author is under this ideal concept should drink a beer. Close to apply this method are rebellious filmmakers, who present 8-hour films about a sleeping man, or 10-hour films about a sleeping child (because a child should sleep longer) on festivals. Despite artistic absurdity of such attempts (otherwise such films may be useful for medicine) … no way relating to reality, such films are in a certain way educative. As it turns out, the people, who managed to keep watching them for some time, got excited when the man mumbled, and the tension reached its peak when he tossed himself. This long digression is only to remind the fact that dramatic and dramaturgic importance of any event may be evaluated only according to the context. One should become precisely aware of this fact, when thinking about filming the reality, in which we will not be able to make up neither any big or small event, and when the arrangement, chronology and relations among events will be real, and impossible to change freely. The above-provided examples are of course absurd, since in the films in question the authorship is limited to setting the camera. The film is made by a camera, and next by a developing machine, a copier, etc. A machine is an author. It is possible that it is the final conclusion derived from the theory of dramaturgy of reality, but it is not the point to draw the final conclusion, but the reasonable ones. Invasion of mass media slowly, but inevitably transforms viewer’s awareness. The nature of perception changes. The creator of culture in the upcoming era of post-alphabetic culture, Marshall McLuhan, claims that development of mass media will lead to a complete decline of printed communication. McLuhan’s vision – who is more a technician than a humanist – of small cameras – operating whereof children will learn in elementary schools – of film libraries and TV peripheral devices – is actually a vision of the world, where a printed word will simply not be needed. Probably McLuhan exaggerates – he does not take into account the integration of human culture and its continuity – an invention of TV, similarly as that of the printing in the past – will revolutionize perception, but it will not change the continuity of culture and its nature. Contemporary art more and more frequently uses audio-visual means – they initiate change in the manner of thinking. We begin to think by means of picture, sound, and editing. Today’s professional bents of film makers tomorrow will be the bents of mankind. Then these bents will become a norm. Despite that, I do not believe that comic books will replace printed books. After all, printing, from the moment of invention whereof the literature began, did not supersede the elements existing in the culture – today known as audiovisual, such as ballet, theatre, music, and dance. Only their hierarchy of importance will change. But even such, surely obvious thesis, requires that we make specific decisions. The time in question is a time of a chance of documentary film, which draws conclusions from dramaturgic elements contained in reality. And even though a professional will have the same equipment as an amateur – as today everyone may buy a pen of the brans used by Huxley – the film will continue to be made by artists. In the postulated film, the author will continue to be the most important. He discovers the world for us and for himself. "The moment the film begins, we do not know what is the essence of its subject. It is the film itself that will help us get into the theme, understand its meaning and see its connecting threads". (Richard Leacock). "To be in the right place at the right time, to understand what should take place, what we have to photograph at that moment or how it happens, to be flexible and receptive, to photograph the essential… The filmmaker's individuality appears more strongly when choosing the event and in the method of expression rather than in influencing the events. Subjectivity is not in staging, but in reproducing." (Robert Drew). "The most important is to transmit the feeling of participating in the event." (Richard Leacock) If I quote Leacock and Drew it is because their ideas correspond exactly to the ones I will express. These ideas were born from practice, and the reflections – distinct and countless- about their movies comfort me regarding this conviction. One should skip over the stage of searching for pretexts, which have been always helpful at film production. One should reach at what has been the content of art from the beginning of the world – the human life. Life itself should become a pretext and the content of film at the same time. The way it looks, it lasts, and the way it goes on. I mean here the film without any artistic conventions. Instead of telling about the reality – it should be telling by means of it. Instead of author’s commentary – it should be a partnership relation between a viewers and a producer.[…] The theory of dramaturgy of reality leads to the obvious conclusions – the film made by means of consequent implementation of such theory can be perfectly imagined. It will be a psychological film about a man, a film with strictly fictional action, realized by means of strictly documentary method. Such film will compete with Western, melodrama, criminal, psychological, and drama film. It will not replace Welles or Fellini in the film art, but it will replace many realists. Since the reality, which we frequently catch ourselves finding out, is melodramatic and dramatic, tragic and comical. It is full of surprises and regularities, psychological clashes and the course, wherefrom thoughts and reflections result, reaching far ahead of shot picture or recorded sound. “In the never ending search for the sense of things, their essence and the truth, we will encounter numerous disappointments, but we should always begin doing it anew, not only for the purpose itself, but for the mere way towards achieving it…” (Evald Schorm) (1968)

Excerpt of the graduation monography, under the guidance of professor Jerzy Bossak, of the department of scenography of Lodz Film School, 1968. Published in Film na swie no 3-4 pp. 388-389], 1992.