Allan Starski, photo: Piotr Malecki, Jarosław Stachowicz/ FORUM
The Academy Award winner, production designer and set decorator celebrates his 70th birthday on the 1st of January 2013.
"Every single next film is a new challenge", Allan Starski says of his celebrated work in cinema. He was born in Warsaw in 1943, and his father was a screenwriter and songwriter popular during the 1930s and the post-war years. Starski grew up in a home vibrant with meetings of cinema people, and he would secretly read scripts from his father’s desk. "But I always dreamt of becoming an illustrator", Starski reminisces, "and in primary school I planned not to go into my father’s footsteps. I ended up at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts [...] convinced that I would never ever work in the film industry. After graduating I finally realised that all this time I was battling with myself."
He worked as an assistant set designer, then in 1973 made his debut as an independent designer with his work on Ryszard Bera’s Chłopcy / Boys. He started collaborating Andrzej Wajda beginning in 1976, on the set to Smuga Cienia / The Shadow Line. "A fantastic experience", the set designer says in a interview for Puls Biznes magazine in 2012, "because [Wajda] had to build a lot of the decoration in the studio, here in Warsaw. The Cutty Sark, a sailing ship, was built on Chełmska Street. I remember how Andrzej and I covered the hull with another layer of paint because no one else had the patience to do it." Locations included Warsaw, Bulgaria and Bangkok. "In the film, these three places turned into one", Starski recalled, "therefore the colours had to be similar as well as the lighting. The strength of the sun in Bangkok had to be the same as in Warsaw and Bulgaria. And it was.".
Starski and Wajda also collaborated on the 1976 film Człowiek z marmuru / Man of Marble, Bez znieczulenia / Without Anesthesia (1978), Dyrygent / The Orchestra Conductor (1979), Panny z wilka / The Maids of Wilko, which won the Gdynia Film Festival Award in 1979, the Venice Golden Lion Award winner Człowiek z żelaza / Man of Iron (1981), Danton (1982), Korczak (1990), Pierścionek z orłem w koronie / The Crowned-Eagle Ring,(1992), Wielki Tydzień / Holy Week (1995) and Pan Tadeusz (1999). Starski worked on stage productions including Krzysztof Kieślowski's Bez końca / No End (1984), Agnieszka Holland's Europa, Europa (1990) and Plac Waszyngtona / Washington Square (1997), Tadeusz Konwicki 's Lawa / Lava (1989), Janusz Zaorski's Baryton / Baritone (1984) and Jezioro Bodeńskie / Bodensee (1985), Jerzy Stuhr's Historie Miłosne / Love Stories (1997) and Jens Carl Ehlers Flying Fever (1987) and Dream Republic (1992).
Starski won an Academy Award (shared with Ewa Braun) in 1993 for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration for Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List and a nomination to a BAFTA Award. For the set design to Roman Polański’s The Pianist, he received the French Cesar Award. He was also nominated to an Emmy for his work on Jack Gold’s British-American TV war film Escape from Sobibor (1987). He cooperated with Roman Polański again in 2005, on Oliver Twist.
Starski believes that a set design has to make the viewer believe in the authenticity of the world that appears. "Even if the world is a science fiction world, it still has to look real", he says in a 2011 interview for PAP Life. He also talks about having a "professional distortion", saying that when he goes "into a house, a castle or a palace which has the same windows or flooring as 250 years ago, I get excited. I can then see how the craftsmanship looked 200-300 years ago. [...] I ask the owner to show me the basement or the attic. These are places which survive modernization the longest."
His recent projects include the set design for Władysław Pasikowski’s Pokłosie / Aftermath (2012). He is also overseeing renovations of the old Saski Hotel in Warsaw.
Sources: based on the Polish article for culture.pl
Editor: Marta Jazowska