Krzysztof Kieslowski: I really don't know anything about music, and it...

(When asked what a director does) I help.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

doe helping directors

Someone knocks at the door of an apartment to borrow salt or sugar, people run into each other in the elevator, and in this way become inscribed in the spectator's memory.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

running doors memories

That's the greatest sin a director can commit; to make a film simply because he wants to make a film.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

sin want directors

In ten phrases, the ten commandments express the essential of life. And these three words--liberty, equality, and fraternity--do just as much. Millions of people have died for those ideals.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

essentials liberty people

Of course I'd like to get beyond the concrete. But it's really difficult. Very difficult.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

concrete difficult courses

Interior liberty is universal.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

interiors universal liberty

Documentaries deal with people who live real, everyday lives. But if these people trusted us and told us the truth about their lives, it could be used against them - which sometimes happened.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

everyday real people

If I have a goal, then it is to escape from this literalism. I'll never achieve it; in the same way that I'll never manage to describe what really dwells within my character, although I keep on trying.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

goal trying character

I feel Polish. More specifically, I feel like I'm from the tiny village in the Northeast of Poland where I have a house and where I love to spend time. But I don't work there. I cut wood.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

village cutting house

For 6,000 years, these rules have been unquestionably right. And yet we break them every day. People feel that something is wrong in life. There is some kind of atmosphere that makes people now turn to other values. They want to contemplate the basic questions of life, and that is probably the real reason for wanting to tell these stories.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

real people years

The relationship between the films and the individual Commandments [is] a tentative one. The films should be influenced by the individual Commandments to the same degree that the Commandments influence our daily lives.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

degrees film influence

I have no problem being with people of different nationalities.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

different-nationalities problem people

I wanted to describe the world at the same time, through image, express what I felt. It was the time of the great documentary filmmakers: Richard Leacock, Joris Ivens. Today, television has put an end to this type of filmmaking.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

today television world

We're always looking at this love through the eyes of the person who is suffering because of this love.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

eyes looking suffering love

I was happy when I got into film school. I'd simply satisfied my ambition to show them that I could get in - nothing else - although I do believe they shouldn't have accepted me. I was a complete idiot. I can't understand why they took me. Probably because I'd tried three times.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

me happy believe school

To tell you the truth, in my work, love is always in opposition to the elements. It creates dilemmas. It brings in suffering. We can't live with it, and we can't live without it. You'll rarely find a happy ending in my work.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

you truth work love

It's with pleasure that I'm putting film-making aside. I never enjoyed making films. I didn't like the whole film world - an invented, unreal world whose values are completely different to those I'm used to.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

never values pleasure world

I am trained as a film-maker. There is nothing else I can do.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

am i-am nothing i-can

It's not interesting to achieve; the ways of achievement are interesting.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

ways achievement achieve interesting

Things have changed for the worse. That's why former eastern bloc countries are electing communists again. We are missing them and longing for the times we cursed before.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

worse why things missing

I really don't know anything about music, and it's no great experience for me. But I do think that music has a purifying element.