{ "id": "epk1r1q6pk", "slug": "man-of-marble", "title": "Man of Marble", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1970s", "label": "Drama films 1970s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1970s" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1970s.yr-1975-1979", "label": "Released 1975 to 1979", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1970s.yr-1975-1979" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Eastern Europe · 1946 to 2000: Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "path": [ { "id": "geo.eeu", "label": "Eastern Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946", "label": "Eastern Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru) is Andrzej Wajda's 1976 Polish drama, premiered 25 February 1977, in which student filmmaker Agnieszka investigates Stalinist model worker Mateusz Birkut; it won Cannes FIPRESCI 1978 and prefigured Solidarity.", "snippet": "Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru) is Andrzej Wajda's 1976 Polish drama, premiered 25 February 1977, in which student filmmaker Agnieszka investigates Stalinist model worker Mateusz Birkut; it won Cannes FIPRESCI 1978 and prefigured Solidarity.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1970s.yr-1975-1979", "markdown": "# Man of Marble\n\n**Man of Marble** (Polish: *Człowiek z marmuru*) is a 1976 Polish drama directed by [Andrzej Wajda](https://www.edgepedia.org/andrzej-wajda), released in cinemas on 25 February 1977, about a young filmmaker's investigation of a Stalinist-era model worker whose career the state built and then destroyed.[1](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) Produced by Wajda's Film Unit X from a screenplay by Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski, it became one of the central works of the \"cinema of moral anxiety\" and is widely seen as a forerunner of the [Solidarity](https://www.edgepedia.org/solidarity) movement that emerged in Poland in 1980.[2](https://muzeumkinematografii.pl/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) • [3](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/man-of-marble/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / writer | Andrzej Wajda; screenplay Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski[1](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) |\n| Production | Film Unit X (Zespół Filmowy \"X\"), Poland, 1976; cinematography Edward Kłosiński, music Andrzej Korzyński[2](https://muzeumkinematografii.pl/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) |\n| Premiere | 25 February 1977 at the Skarpa cinema in Warsaw, as a restricted showing[4](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru) |\n| Lead roles | Krystyna Janda as Agnieszka (her screen debut); Jerzy Radziwiłowicz as Mateusz Birkut and Birkut's son Maciek Tomczyk[5](https://wajda.pl/film/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) |\n| Development time | Conceived in 1962; the Communist authorities refused production approval for years, and Wajda said the screenplay was held back for 13 years[4](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru) • [6](https://www.filmcomment.com/interview-andrzej-wajda/) |\n| Awards | Journalist Award at the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdańsk (1977); FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes (1978), screened out of competition[1](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) |\n| Attendance | Nearly three million viewers out of a population of 35 million within three months of the February 1977 release[7](https://www.themilitant.com/1981/4505/MIL4505.pdf) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot and structure\n\nThe film follows Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda, in her screen debut), a film-school graduate making her diploma film in Kraków about Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), a bricklayer who was briefly celebrated as a model worker in Stalinist Poland and then disappeared from public life.[2](https://muzeumkinematografii.pl/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) • [8](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401271/) Her attention is caught by a marble statue of the young \"shock worker\" stored in a museum warehouse and by archival footage of his portrait being torn from a wall.[5](https://wajda.pl/film/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) She obtains outtakes and censored footage and interviews Birkut's friends, his ex-wife, and the filmmaker who made him a hero.[8](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401271/)\n\nThe portrait that emerges is of a man who believed in the workers' revolution and in building housing for all, and whose virtues were his undoing: after his hands were permanently damaged when someone handed him a red-hot brick in an act of sabotage, not an accident, he publicly defended a fellow worker accused of sabotage, was imprisoned, and was dropped by the propaganda machine that had created him.[8](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401271/) • [9](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/) • [17](https://filmint.nu/andrzej-wajdas-walesa/) As a Stakhanovite (a Soviet-era worker celebrated for exceeding production quotas) worker in 1950s [Nowa Huta](https://www.edgepedia.org/nowa-huta), Birkut famously laid more than 28,000 bricks during an eight-hour session.[9](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/)\n\nThe film runs two stories at once: the bricklayer's and the filmmaker's. Birkut and Agnieszka never meet, but they meet thematically in their insistence on integrity. Agnieszka's supervisor kills her project on the excuse that she is over budget, and she never finishes her documentary; the film nonetheless ends on an up-beat note suggesting that as long as there are people like her, there is hope for truth.[10](https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/post-new-wave-cinema-in-the-soviet-union-and-eastern-europe/section/4fa38dd7-5edf-4012-b5ea-fa6fca34c157) Critics at the time compared the structure to *Citizen Kane*: a self-reflexive investigation in which a journalist or filmmaker probes a subject's life and exposes the tensions of the society that formed him, making heavy use of flashbacks and newsreel footage.[9](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/)\n\n## Censorship and production history\n\nThe project had one of the longest waits in Wajda's career. In 1962 the documentary filmmaker Jerzy Bossak suggested a film about a former model worker, and the first draft of the script appeared in the magazine *Kultura* in August 1963; the Propaganda Department of the Party's Central Committee refused permission to shoot for years.[4](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru) Wajda later explained what the regime feared: \"in my film, for the very first time, a worker demands and defends his own rights.\"[6](https://www.filmcomment.com/interview-andrzej-wajda/)\n\nApproval finally came in 1976 under the reformist first secretary [Edward Gierek](https://www.edgepedia.org/edward-gierek), after the departure of [Władysław Gomułka](https://www.edgepedia.org/w-adys-aw-gomu-ka) and with Culture Minister Józef Tejchma's consent; the authorities were curious to see the 1950s revisited on screen.[4](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru) • [9](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/) Ścibor-Rylski updated the script to reflect the more liberal conditions of the 1970s, and the role of Agnieszka was greatly expanded, growing during shooting until she became as much the protagonist as Birkut.[11](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/man-of-marble-2026-11) • [9](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/)\n\nThe political pressure continued after completion. The premiere was not an ordinary one: the ceremonial opening in Nowa Huta was abandoned, promotion was restricted, and Warsaw screenings were initially limited to a single cinema; newspaper listings announced the showings as \"reserved screenings,\" which only increased public interest.[4](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru) • [5](https://wajda.pl/film/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) Wajda was also required to remove several scenes referring to the December 1970 protests; he returned to this material when filming *[Man of Iron](https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-iron)* (1981), the second part of the diptych.[1](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) The film proved so politically charged that Tejchma was forced to resign as Minister of Culture for having allowed it to be made.[2](https://muzeumkinematografii.pl/czlowiek-z-marmuru/)\n\n## Casting and collaborators\n\nWajda cast two young actors in the leading roles: Krystyna Janda and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, who played both Birkut and Birkut's son Maciek Tomczyk.[5](https://wajda.pl/film/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) The director had decided early that Radziwiłowicz was the ideal candidate for the young worker.[4](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru) The filmmaker [Agnieszka Holland](https://www.edgepedia.org/agnieszka-holland), then blocked by censors from her own projects, was invited as Wajda's assistant but the Party committee stopped the appointment; she nevertheless contributed unofficially, writing several scenes, doing casting for the main role, suggesting Radziwiłowicz, and conducting the improvised screen-test interview that Wajda liked so much he kept it in the film. She went uncredited.[12](https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/man-principle-agnieszka-holland-remembers-andrzej-wajda) • [13](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/30616/man-of-marble) Holland shot the black-and-white newsreel interview with the young Birkut, one of the film's most noted scenes.[9](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/) Janda said the inspiration for her character was the poet and songwriter Agnieszka Osiecka, whose first name the character already bore in the original script.[9](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/) • [12](https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/man-principle-agnieszka-holland-remembers-andrzej-wajda)\n\n## Reception and legacy\n\nThe film reached a large audience despite the restricted release: nearly three million people out of Poland's population of 35 million saw it within three months.[7](https://www.themilitant.com/1981/4505/MIL4505.pdf) • [11](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/man-of-marble-2026-11) It won the Journalist Award at the Gdańsk Polish Feature Film Festival in 1977, and in 1978, through a French distributor, it was shown out of competition at Cannes, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize; Wajda won the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor) there three years later with *Man of Iron*.[1](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) • [2](https://muzeumkinematografii.pl/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) Radziwiłowicz received further awards in Brussels and Belgrade in 1979, and the film won a special jury prize at [Cartagena](https://www.edgepedia.org/cartagena) in 1980.[5](https://wajda.pl/film/czlowiek-z-marmuru/)\n\nIts political afterlife was unusual. The release of *Man of Marble* came to be seen internationally as a herald of the then-rising union [Solidarity](https://www.edgepedia.org/solidarity-polish-trade-union), and one scholar described Solidarity as \"a movement of ten million men of marble, Mateusz Birkuts from Andrzej Wajda's film.\"[3](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/man-of-marble/) • [14](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08883254241229727) Wajda continued the Birkut family story in *Man of Iron* (1981), in which Birkut appears only episodically but gains a new dimension as an aging man who still criticizes the system while feeling its destructive force.[1](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) Late in life Wajda called it \"the best, the most original script I've had at my disposal in my whole long life,\" and the historian Professor Jerzy Eisler has called the story of Mateusz Birkut the best film in Wajda's output.[15](https://manggha.pl/en/exhibition/wajda-95-eng) • [4](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru)\n\nReported runtimes differ between catalogs: the Polish National Film Archive lists 153 minutes, while Wajda's foundation lists 156 minutes and international exhibitors have printed 160, 161, and 165 minutes for different prints.[1](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) • [5](https://wajda.pl/film/czlowiek-z-marmuru/) • [3](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/man-of-marble/) • [16](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100005514/) • [8](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401271/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Człowiek z marmuru, Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny](https://www.fina.gov.pl/lista-polskiego-dziedzictwa-filmowego/czlowiek-z-marmuru/)\n2. [Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru, 1976), Muzeum Kinematografii w Łodzi](https://muzeumkinematografii.pl/czlowiek-z-marmuru/)\n3. [Man of Marble, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/man-of-marble/)\n4. [45 lat temu odbyła się premiera „Człowieka z marmuru”, dzieje.pl](https://dzieje.pl/kultura-i-sztuka/45-lat-temu-odbyla-sie-premiera-czlowieka-z-marmuru)\n5. [Człowiek z marmuru, wajda.pl (Fundacja Kyoto-Kraków)](https://wajda.pl/film/czlowiek-z-marmuru/)\n6. [Interview: Andrzej Wajda, Film Comment](https://www.filmcomment.com/interview-andrzej-wajda/)\n7. [The Militant, vol. 45 no. 5 (1981)](https://www.themilitant.com/1981/4505/MIL4505.pdf)\n8. [Man of Marble, Cineuropa](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401271/)\n9. [Man of Marble, BFI Southbank programme notes (Geoffrey Macnab and Jan Dawson, Sight and Sound)](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/andrzej%20wajda%3Cbr%3Eportraits%20of%20history%20and%20humanity/2026/02/16/man-of-marble/)\n10. [Post New Wave Cinema in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Indiana University Press](https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/post-new-wave-cinema-in-the-soviet-union-and-eastern-europe/section/4fa38dd7-5edf-4012-b5ea-fa6fca34c157)\n11. [Man of Marble, Harvard Film Archive](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/man-of-marble-2026-11)\n12. [\"Man of Principle\": Agnieszka Holland remembers Andrzej Wajda, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/man-principle-agnieszka-holland-remembers-andrzej-wajda)\n13. [Man of Marble, Melbourne International Film Festival archive](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/30616/man-of-marble)\n14. [From Class Struggle to Conservative Revolution: Andrzej Wajda Censors Tadeusz Junak's The Palace, Journal of European Studies (2025)](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08883254241229727)\n15. [WAJDA 95, Manggha Museum](https://manggha.pl/en/exhibition/wajda-95-eng)\n16. [Man of Marble, AFI Silver Theatre](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100005514/)\n17. [End of a Saga: Andrzej Wajda’s Wałęsa: Man of Hope - FilmInt.nu](https://filmint.nu/andrzej-wajdas-walesa/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1970s › Released 1975 to 1979*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-marble", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-marble.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Man of Marble\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-marble. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Man of Marble](https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-marble)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-marble](https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-marble). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Man of Marble\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/man-of-marble. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Man of Marble is Andrzej Wajda's 1976 Polish drama, premiered 25 February 1977, in which student filmmaker Agnieszka investigates Stalinist model worker Mateusz Birkut; it won Cannes FIPRESCI 1978 and prefigured Solidarity." }