In America
The Lightship, Skolimowski’s first US production, was adapted from a novella by the German writer Siegfried Lenz. Set on a US coastguard ship it was filmed in the North Sea. It is suspended between psychological duel with a doppelgänger theme and a pure performance piece within the stage-like confines of the lightship. However, even though receiving the best film award at the Venice Film Festival, The Lightship had only a very limited release.
Torrents of Spring (1989), adapted from a semi-autobiographical novella by the Russian Ivan Turgenev, was a big budget European co-production starring Timothy Hutton, Nastassja Kinski and Valeria Golino. It could be considered as Skolimowski's most impersonal 'generic' film, the only real departure from his expressed interest in making films only to please himself.
Skolimowski is also an actor, having appeared as Colonel Chaikov, a ruthless yet composed KGB colonel, in White Nights (1985) and Uncle Stepan, a Russian expatriate in Eastern Promises (2007), among other roles. In 2012, he appeared in The Avengers, as a villain interrogating Black Widow.
Read more about this topic: Jerzy Skolimowski
Famous quotes containing the word america:
“She will forever be your Miss America and she sort of becomes the embodiment of your dreams. But you also realize that it’s only her and not you. You feel a part of it—yet so far away at the same time.”
—Michele Passarelli (b. c. 1954)
“Humanism, it seems, is almost impossible in America where material progress is part of the national romance whereas in Europe such progress is relished because it feels nice.”
—Paul West (b. 1930)