A Short History of White People

Works as ambitious and as sweeping in their artistic, spectacular and intellectual scope as the project proposed by Zbigniew Rybczyński appear exceedingly rarely. In the history of film, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In a single film, Rybczyński has done nothing less than sum up our entire civilisation, its past and future, while continually relating both to what is happening today. He indicts civilisation, puts it on trial and presents the evidence; he exposes the true causes of events and the motives behind human conduct that ultimately lead to killing. Every historical age will pass before the viewer’s eyes, each bearing the baggage that distinguishes it from the others, with the history of art at the forefront as the face of every era. In the magnificent royal tapestry depicting the civilisation of white humanity, Rybczyński has found the beginning of a thread — a golden thread — and pulled it, setting the tapestry on the path to unravelling. This is an emotional treatment of history by someone who speaks directly, someone outraged. The film is a universal history of killing and plunder, always concealed behind a smokescreen of fabricated justification. If its perspective is partisan, there can be no doubt that the artist stands on the side of painful truth. In its account of the past, Rybczyński’s film is not a historical drama about crowned heads and successive dynasties, but the ugly history of what simply happened to people, regardless of who they were. Despite its considerable length, the screenplay has been written with undiminished invention, humour and precision. It is extensive, but that is not all: throughout, we also “read” a second screenplay — one made up of references to other films, to our general knowledge and to events and situations from recent history, the kind seen on television news. This is a valuable layer of the film, one that activates the viewer. The text treats historical knowledge with great integrity. As we know, that is by no means always the case; history is routinely adjusted in the service of spectacle. Nor can the clarity of the proposed account of universal history be faulted. The examples it offers of history’s mechanisms in action are convincing. We should remember, however, that the screenplay is only the material from which the actual work — an artistic statement — will be made. Here, extraordinary prospects open before the viewer: a major cinematic experience of entirely new parameters. Rybczyński’s film is difficult to discuss within existing categories such as political thriller, action film or historical drama. The historical events it recounts have been filmed many times, but the fact that they will all appear in a single film fundamentally changes its classification. The same is true of its references to the greatest achievements of popular cinema, such as Bond or Indiana Jones. At heart, Rybczyński’s film will instead be a form of meditation on the world. It will be an original meditation because it is dynamic, in motion and at a run, as befits a film of vivid intellectual adventure. It will also constitute a kind of summation — perhaps a reckoning — this time of cinema itself. To sum something up is also to bring it to an end: to close a stage or conclude the whole. Looking at this project, and bearing in mind Rybczyński’s achievements and his visions of cinema’s future — or, more precisely, its absence — it may be regarded as a requiem for the cinema we know. In this accumulation of history and the surging succession of styles and forms, we sense the exhaustion of the “foremost of the arts”. For Rybczyński, a way forward may be opened by new technologies capable of creating an entirely new cinematic language, a tool with which to show what has until now been impossible. This will be the work of Rybczyński’s life. These are not the special effects familiar from films, but something far more consequential: an entry into realms that have so far been wholly inaccessible. This is how I think about the project — as an expedition into the impossible. In his earlier works, Rybczyński was able to make music visible (The Orchestra) and to describe the human figure in a way that exceeds human perception (The Fourth Dimension). I believe a comparable task now lies ahead: perhaps he will manage to film the spirit of an age or, quite literally, to touch history. We will certainly receive a work perfectly attuned to a contemporary world governed by advanced technologies, itself one of that world’s wonders. We should remember that Rybczyński not only uses what already exists or is only just coming into being; he creates new solutions himself, moves ahead of his time and points towards new directions. Thirty years ago, he was one of the very few filmmakers — if not the only one — able to recognise the future of HD recording, then relegated to the margins. Like his colleague Leonardo, Rybczyński is not only an artist but also an inventor, with numerous patents, and he does not separate these two talents. When the film is made, we may expect to see something the world has never seen before. We will receive a new adventure film: popular cinema at its highest level. In one respect, however, the film will be as old as the world. While creating a vision cosmic in every sense, Rybczyński simultaneously passes the beads of history’s rosary through his fingers in prayer for its innocent victims. Without that, there can be no true art.