Wojciech Jerzy Has (April 1, 1925, Kraków – October 3, 2000, Łódź, Poland) was a Polish film director, screenwriter and producer.
Early on in his career, Has gained a reputation as an individualist who avoided political overtones in his art. He produced his most important films throughout the period when the Polish Film School was at its most prominent; however, his work possessed its own stylistic feeling that was independent of the over policial themes that dominated the prevailing Polish School. In practically every film, Has sought to create hermetic environments, in which the problems and storylines of his protagonists were always of secondary importance to the particular world he had created, characterized by an accumulation of random objects that formed unique visual universe.
Has made his debut with
Harmony (1947), a medium-length feature, and began making full-length feature films in 1957. In 1974, he was appointed as professor in the directing department at the National Film School in Łódź. Throughout his long and prolific career, he directed such notable films as
The Saragossa Manuscript,
The Doll and
The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (also known as The Sandglass).
Two currents remain evident in Has's output: one was his cinema of psychological analysis, the other his films of visionary form, in which he most often used the motif of a journey.
Harmonia (click the title to watch)
Written & Directed by Wojciech Has
Completed in 1947, Released in 1948
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Harmonia, a short film Has made in 1947, shortly after graduating from art school in Krakow, is an old-school tearjerker about a poor young boy who wants an accordion, tempered by Has’s occasional forays into dream logic.
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