ABSTRACT
How should I represent Kantor working on a performance? Many methods have been tried already, but none so far has been equal to the task of representing the milieu of gossip around the preparations for each Cricot production. None has matched the atmosphere which, while enthralling and fascinating — was bound to exert a deeply disturbing power over the spectator. The title sequence, composed directly after the shooting, tries to establish the “five faces” of the Master, placed on record in the course of rehearsals. The first face: full of creative unrest, struggling with his material. “I entirely lose myself in all this”, says Kantor. The second face: the despotic overseer. Some trouble on the technical side, in this case in the construction of the horse's skeleton, draws from Kantor a shower of objurgations directed at his loyal collaborators. The next face is Kantor the costumier, refining each set of outfits from the outset so that they might become a second skin to the actor. The director who tries to penetrate deeply into the physiology of the actor (in this case, the scene in which the Mother — Lila Krasicka — is seated in a chair); and the theoretician devising instant conclusions which arise from the process — these are probably the two most significant faces. This is precisely why we have to consider chance and luck as important factors in the creative process, and allow for a certain amount of irony in these “physiological” and “theoretical” processes.
