Dekalog (The Decalogue) (1988) is a Polish film series, originally made as a television miniseries, directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and co-written by Kieślowski with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, with music by Zbigniew Preisner. It consists of ten one-hour films, each of which represents one of the Ten Commandments and explores possible meanings of the commandment—often ambiguous or contradictory—within a fictional story set in modern Poland. The series is Kieślowski's most acclaimed work and has won numerous international awards, though it was not widely released outside Europe until the late 1990s. Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick described it as the only masterpiece he could name in his lifetime. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Krzysztof KieÅ›lowski   (June 27, 1941 Warsaw, Poland – March 13, 1996 Warsaw, Poland) was an influential Oscar-nominated Polish film director and screenwriter, known internationally for his film cycles Three Colors and The Decalogue. ... Krzysztof KieÅ›lowski   (June 27, 1941 Warsaw, Poland – March 13, 1996 Warsaw, Poland) was an influential Oscar-nominated Polish film director and screenwriter, known internationally for his film cycles Three Colors and The Decalogue. ... Krzysztof Marek Piesiewicz (born on October 25, 1945 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish lawyer, screenwriter, and politician, who is currently a member of the Polish Parliament and head of the Ruch Społeczny (RS) or Social Movement Party. ... Janusz Gajos (born September 23, 1939 in Dabrowa Gornicza in Poland) is a Polish actor. ... December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... // Michael Jacksons first film was Moonwalker Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise Who Framed Roger Rabbit, starring Bob Hoskins Coming to America, starring Eddie Murphy Big, starring Tom Hanks Twins, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito Crocodile Dundee II Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis The Naked Gun... Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ... A miniseries (sometimes mini-series), in a serial storytelling medium, is a production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. ... Krzysztof KieÅ›lowski   (June 27, 1941 Warsaw, Poland – March 13, 1996 Warsaw, Poland) was an influential Oscar-nominated Polish film director and screenwriter, known internationally for his film cycles Three Colors and The Decalogue. ... Krzysztof Marek Piesiewicz (born on October 25, 1945 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish lawyer, screenwriter, and politician, who is currently a member of the Polish Parliament and head of the Ruch Społeczny (RS) or Social Movement Party. ... Zbigniew Preisner (born May 20 in Bielsko-BiaÅ‚a, 1955) is one of Polands leading film score composers, best known for his work with director Krzysztof KieÅ›lowski. ... This 1768 parchment (612x502 mm) by Jekuthiel Sofer emulated the 1675 Decalogue at Amsterdam Esnoga synagogue. ... FicTioNaL is a Gaming Legend. ... Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an influential and acclaimed American film director and producer. ...

Though each film is independent, most of them share the same setting (a large housing project in Warsaw) and some of the characters are acquainted with each other. There is also a nameless character (Artur Barciś), possibly supernatural, who observes the main characters at key moments but never intervenes. The large cast includes both famous actors and unknowns, many of whom Kieślowski also used in other films. Typically for Kieślowski, the tone of most of the films is meditative and melancholy, except for the last one, which (like Three Colors: White, which features two of the same actors) is a black comedy. Public housing describes a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. ... White is the English language title of the 1993 French- and Polish-language film, Trois couleurs: Blanc or Trzy kolory: Biały (available with English subtitles). ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

The series was conceived when Piesiewicz, who had seen a 15th-century artwork illustrating the commandments in scenes from that time period, suggested the idea of a modern equivalent. Kieślowski, though an agnostic, was interested in the philosophical challenge and also wanted to use the series as a portrait of the hardships of Polish society, while deliberately avoiding the political issues he had depicted in earlier films. He originally meant to hire ten different directors, but decided to direct the films himself, though using a different cinematographer for each. The term agnosticism and the related agnostic were coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869. ... A Cameraman-Reporter during a MINUSTAH mission in 2007 (Photo: Patrick-André Perron A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera (the art and science of which is known as cinematography). ...

The ten films are titled simply by number (e.g. Decalogue: One). In English, they are sometimes referred to by the commonly used short forms of the commandments based on the King James Bible text (see below). Kieślowski said that the films did not correspond exactly to the commandments, and never used their names himself. However, they appear to follow the Roman Catholic enumeration of the commandments, which is based on that in Deuteronomy. According to the traditional Jewish numbering, based on that of Exodus, the first statement is only I am the Lord your God (interpreted as a commandment to believe in God); but in the first film, the computer is widely regarded as symbolizing not only a false god, but "a graven image", "a thing made in heaven or earth", which is the second commandment in the Jewish numbering. Conversely, reason itself may be that which is put before God. On Jewish and many Protestant numberings, there is only one commandment about Covetousness; on the Catholic reading, there are two, and the ninth film, about a husband's mistrust of his wife, seems to involve this: This page is about the version of the Bible; for the Harvey Danger album, see King James Version (album). ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... Look up greed in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

• One: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. A university professor (Henryk Baranowski) trains his young son in the use of reason and the scientific method, but is confronted with the unpredictability of fate. Reason is deified with tragic results.
• Two: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. A young woman (Krystyna Janda) asks her husband's doctor (Aleksander Bardini) to make a medical pronouncement with impossible certainty. Only God can say who lives and dies.
• Three: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. A family man (Daniel Olbrychski) abandons his family duties on Christmas Eve to deal with a former lover in a crisis (Maria Pakulnis).
• Four: Honour thy father and thy mother. Uncertainty about her real parentage complicates the bond between a young woman (Adrianna Biedrzyńska) and her father (Janusz Gajos).
• Five: Thou shalt not kill. A brutal and seemingly motiveless murder brings together a drifter (Mirosław Baka), a cruel taxi driver (Jan Tesarz), and an idealistic lawyer (Krzysztof Globisz). This is the only one of the films with an explicit political stance, reflecting Kieślowski's opposition to the death penalty.
• Six: Thou shalt not commit adultery. A naive young man (Olaf Lubaszenko) spies on a stranger (Grażyna Szapołowska) through her window and falls in love with her.
• Seven: Thou shalt not steal. A young woman (Anna Polony) abducts her own child, who has been raised by her parents as her sister.
• Eight: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. A Holocaust survivor (Teresa Marczewska) confronts an ethics professor (Maria Kościałowska) who once refused to help her. The story was based on an experience of the filmmakers' mutual friend, the journalist Hanna Krall.
• Nine: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. A man who has become impotent (Piotr Machalica) discovers that his wife (Ewa Błaszczyk) has a lover. (A minor character in this film, a young singer with a heart condition, inspired Kieślowski's and Piesiewicz's next film, The Double Life of Véronique.)
• Ten: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods. Two brothers (Jerzy Stuhr, Zbigniew Zamachowski) inherit a valuable stamp collection and become obsessed with completing it.

(This list follows Catholic and Lutheran tradition; most other Christian sects and Judaism divide the commandments differently, listing the prohibition against "graven images" as the second, and combining the ninth and tenth into one [1]. Poland is predominantly Catholic.) This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... This article concerns the Sabbath in Christianity. ... Daniel Olbrychski (born February 27, 1945 in Łowicz, Poland) is a popular Polish actor. ... Janusz Gajos (born September 23, 1939 in Dabrowa Gornicza in Poland) is a Polish actor. ... Krzysztof Globisz (born January 16, 1957 in Siemianowice Śląskie) is a Polish theatre and film actor. ... Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ... Adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a partner other than the lawful spouse. ... Grażyna Szapołowska (born September 19, 1953 in Bydgoszcz, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodship, Poland) is a film actress. ... ... Hanna Krall (born 1937 in Warsaw) is a Polish writer. ... Impotence or, more clinically, erectile dysfunction is the inability to develop or maintain an erection of the penis for satisfactory sexual intercourse regardless of the capability of ejaculation. ... La Double vie de Véronique (The Double Life of Véronique; Polish title, Podwójne życie Weroniki) is a 1991 French- and Polish-language film directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, co-written by Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, starring Irène Jacob, with music by Zbigniew Preisner. ... Jerzy Stuhr (born April 18th 1947 in Cracow) is one of the most popular Polish actors. ... Zbigniew Zamachowski (b. ... A small thematic collection of stamps featuring birds Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects, such as covers (envelopes or packages with stamps on them). ... Lutheranism describes those churches within Christianity that were reformed according to the theological insights of Martin Luther in the 16th century. ...

Kieślowski expanded Five and Six into longer feature films, Krótki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film About Killing) and Krótki film o miłości (A Short Film About Love), using the same cast and changing the stories slightly. This was part of a contractual obligation with the producers, since feature films were easier to distribute outside Poland. A Short Film About Killing (Polish: Krótki film o zabijaniu) is a 1988 film directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. ... A Short Film About Love (Polish: Krótki film o miłości) is an expanded film version of the sixth episode of director Polish language ten-part made-for-television drama, The Decalogue. ...

External links

• The Decalogue at the Internet Movie Database
• Facets Multi-Media: The Decalogue (synopsis, images, interview)
• The Decalogue at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
• New York Review's in depth analysis of the series
• Roger Ebert on The Decalogue