Dekalog

“I remember getting on eBay and ordering this because I felt like I had to see it. The fact that somebody had made something that was 10 hours, I was like, you can't make anything that's 10 hours. So when I was in film school this was the film, this was the thing you got together like on a Saturday afternoon, you drank a few beers and you just watch this thing over and over again.”

“Kieślowski’s Dekalog. This is a ten-part limited series that he made for Polish television, based on the Ten Commandments. Kieślowski, one of my favorite filmmakers. I just find– I love Red, White, and Blue. Those are three of my favorite films. Double Life of Véronique, which is amazing, which... Is the same, it’s... What’s her name, from Red? Irène Jacob. C’est elle. Alors, elle est merveilleuse dans ce film, le film de Kieślowski. Sorry. I just think in French.”

“And then we finally have the Dekalog, which is maybe the greatest achievement in the history of cinema.”

“A Short Film About Killing, I don't know how to describe it exactly but it puts you into the occasion of sin along with the person in the movie. It's like a pure film but very disturbing. It's one of the more disturbing films I've seen.”

“Dekalog, in this film, ten stories. Of course, after the finish, give me some ideas. He shot it in 16 millimeter and there's a very not so much the camera work or this or that because you know what, they want to show it in TV. He don't want to show off distractive cinematics, but it's flowing and cinematically and very simple like Chekhov, you know, write that story without anything big but meaning of the life in it.”

“The other thing I wanted to talk about my childhood is this Dekalog. In the 80s they were not having enough money to keep on buying films so they started trading films with the other socialist countries... This became a cult film with us, the Dekalog, and when I got to the film school the decisive question was to comment a fragment from the Dekalog so it has a very special meaning to me. I still remember that moment because it brought me to the film school.”

“This is really cool because, for anyone who follows me on social media, you’ll know that I’m a huge Criterion Channel fan. But Dekalog, Kieślowski, is not on the Criterion Channel, one of the few things that isn’t streaming. I was lucky enough to get introduced to this in 1995 at the University of Texas in Austin. We had a library that had really curated old VHS, and so I sat down and watched these really scratchy four-by-three VHS copies. And so now I’m going to get to see them cleaned up.”

“They got the Dekalog one. The Dekalog, oh fuck yeah. Talk about it. That's the whole idea. It's a reference point for everything that we've ever done and we've still never made anything like it.”

“Dekalog, Dekalog: Five. Maybe the greatest movie I’ve seen. Didn’t know you can make stuff like this.”

“Yeah, I'm grabbing the Dekalog box set. Yeah, I am. I saw this years ago over a couple of nights. Like all great art, when you're done watching it, it makes you look at and react to the world differently, and I love that. I love when they can do that.”

“Le Décalogue de Kieślowski. On a vu à partir de 85 dans les années 80, voilà, ça a beaucoup influencé notre travail, on s'est beaucoup inspiré de lui, beaucoup, voilà.”

“[Translated] Wow, this is a classic. For filmmakers, especially those studying film in university, if you haven't seen Dekalog, I think it's a big loss. I learned a lot from it. This is a great director, Krzysztof Kieślowski.”