Episodes
| Episode | Cast | Cinematography |
|---|---|---|
| Decalogue I | Henryk Baranowski Wojciech Klata Maja Komorowska |
Wieslaw Zdort |
| Decalogue II | Krystyna Janda Aleksander Bardini Olgierd Łukaszewicz |
Edward Klosinski |
| Decalogue III | Daniel Olbrychski Maria Pakulnis Joanna Szczepowska |
Piotr Sobociński |
| Decalogue IV | Adrianna Biedrzyńska Janusz Gajos Adam Hanuszkiewicz |
Krzysztof Pakulski |
| Decalogue V | Miroslaw Baka Jan Tesarz Krzysztof Globisz |
Sławomir Idziak |
| Decalogue VI | Olaf Lubaszenko Grażyna Szapołowska |
Witold Adamek |
| Decalogue VII | Anna Polony Maja Barelkowska Katarzyna Piwowarczyk |
Dariusz Kuc |
| Decalogue VIII | Teresa Marczewska Maria Koscialkowska |
Andrzej Jaroszewicz |
| Decalogue IX | Ewa Blasczyk Piotr Machalica Jan Jankowski |
Piotr Sobociński |
| Decalogue X | Jerzy Stuhr Zbigniew Zamachowski |
Jacek Blawut |
There is a nameless character, played by Polish actor Artur Barciś and possibly meant to be a supernatural figure, who observes the main characters at key moments but never intervenes (this character appears in all episodes except episodes 7 and 10).
| Episode | Character played by Artur Barciś |
|---|---|
| Decalogue I | A homeless man sitting by a fire near the lake |
| Decalogue II | An orderly in the hospital |
| Decalogue III | A tram driver |
| Decalogue IV | A man rowing a boat and later seen carrying the boat |
| Decalogue V | A construction worker holding a measuring pole and then as a different construction worker carrying a ladder |
| Decalogue VI | A man carrying bags of groceries |
| Decalogue VII | Does not appear (Barciś was meant to be a man at the railway station, but Kieślowski experienced technical difficulties including him in this episode) |
| Decalogue VIII | A student at the university |
| Decalogue IX | A man riding a bicycle |
| Decalogue X | Does not appear |
Milk is a symbolic element in some of the films.
| Episode | Occurrence of milk in The Decalogue |
|---|---|
| Decalogue I | The milk is sour. |
| Decalogue II | The doctor carries milk almost all the time. |
| Decalogue IV | Michał is going to buy milk at the end. |
| Decalogue VI | Tomek delivers milk and Magda spills it. |
| Decalogue VII | Ewa tries to breastfeed Ania without any milk, and Wojtek tells Majka that Ania needs a home with milk. |
| Decalogue IX | Roman is pouring milk while watching a child play. |
Read more about this topic: The Decalogue
Famous quotes containing the word episodes:
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)