The Saragossa Manuscript (film)

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The Saragossa Manuscript

Directed by	Wojciech Has
Produced by	Kamera Film Unit
Written by	Jan Potocki (novel) Tadeusz Kwiatkowski
Starring	Zbigniew Cybulski Iga Cembrzynska
Distributed by	Film Polski
Release date(s)	1965
Running time	182 min
Language	Polish
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The Saragossa Manuscript is the English title for Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie, a Polish film released in 1965, directed by Wojciech Has.

1 Plot
2 Novel
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Set in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars, Alfons (Zbigniew Cybulski) is a young army captain who discovers an old book that tells the story of his grandfather, Alfons van Worden, who was a captain in the Walloon Guard. The younger van Worden reads of how his ancestor sought the shortest route through the Sierra Morena Mountains. At an apparently deserted inn, the Venta Quemada, he dined with Moorish princesses, Emina (Iga Cembrzynska) and Princess Zibelda (Joanna Jedryka), who inform the captain that they are his cousins and, as the last of the Gomelez line, he must marry them both to provide heirs. He'll have to convert to Islam, but then delights of all sorts will await him. This gets the good captain's attention, and he drinks with the ladies gladly, only to wake and find himself back in a forbidding countryside, lying next to a heap of skulls under a gallows. He meets a hermit priest and a goatherd; each tells his story; he wakes again by the gallows. He's rescued from the Spanish Inquisition, meets a cabalist and hears more stories within stories, usually of love.

While the film was released in the in Poland uncut at 180 minutes it was shortened for release in the U.S. and UK at 152 min. and 125 min. respectively. In the 1990's Jerry Garcia, together with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, financed a restoration and subtitling of an uncut print of the film. This restored print was shown in very limited release in some art film theaters and was later made available on VHS and DVD.

[edit] Novel

The film is based on a novel of the same name written in French by the Polish author Jan Potocki (1761-1815).

[edit] Trivia

Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Luis Buñuel and Jerry Garcia have at various times described The Saragossa Manuscript as their favorite film.
The Saragossa Manuscript is one of the very few films in which Polish stage and screen legend Zbigniew Cybulski does not act while wearing his customary dark glasses.
The film was shot near Częstochowa, Poland, and in Wrocław, Poland.