BORIS GUDOUNOV

My Żuławski retrospective continues over at Diabolique, this time with a look at the director's opera adaptation, Boris Godounov (1989).

"In Andrzej Żuławski’s unusual career full of cinematic outliers and revolutionary masterpieces, there is nothing quite like his lone opera adaptation, Boris Godounov (1989). Admittedly, that’s really saying something. Though it’s perhaps surprising that someone who explored the horror and crime genres with as much enthusiasm as he did frenzied romances would also delve into a classical form, but it shouldn’t come as a shock that he would eventually turn to opera. The director was a lifelong theatergoer and music fan; he adapts scenes from Hamlet, Richard III, and Chekhov’s The Seagull in The Devil (1972), L’important c’est d’aimer (1975), and L’amour braque (1985), respectively, and his distinctive use of music, often in collaboration with the composer Andrzej Korzynski, is one of the most singular features of his films."

Finishing reading over at Diabolique!