![]() ![]() Via eBay, a Yugoslav design from 1965 using more of the graphics from the title sequence. A marvellous design even if it doesn’t communicate very much about the film. Most of the early examples take their cues from the opening titles whose backgrounds feature drawings with a vaguely Surrealist and occult flavour that I’m guessing are also the work of Jerzy Skarzynski.Ī Czech poster (1966) by Zdenek Kaplan. ![]() Yes, the score is by Penderecki, his first.Īll of which means this is another film that presents a challenge for a poster designer. Some scenes aren’t very far removed from Monty Python, especially those that feature an inept band of Spanish Inquisitors.īackground drawings from the title sequence. As a burgeoning cast of characters appears, many of whom have their own tales to tell, the mood veers into outright sex comedy, albeit with mild philosophical overtones. Van Worden’s adventures seem macabre at first-there are more bones in the opening scenes than in many horror films-but they soon turn farcical. The manuscript of the title is a book discovered during a skirmish in the Napoleonic wars, an account of the strange adventures of Alphonse Van Worden in the Sierra Morena region of Spain one of the soldiers reading the manuscript is Van Worden’s grandson, the first of many coincidental connections. The film suffered by having its 3-hour running time hacked about by distributors which didn’t help its reception outside Poland. ![]() There are odd omissions: plenty of examples from the Eastern Bloc countries but few at all from Western Europe. Watching The Saragossa Manuscript again this weekend sent me looking for posters, some of which can be seen below. I prefer the film to the novel although to be fair to Potocki it’s a long time since I read his book.Īnother Polish design showing Zbigniew Cybulski as Alphonse. I was a beneficiary of this, having been intrigued for years by descriptions whilst hoping in vain that it might turn up on television. The 1965 Polish film by Wojciech Has had another famous enthusiast in Jerry Garcia whose efforts to restore and reissue The Saragossa Manuscript helped bring the film to a new generation of viewers in 1999. No surprise that a lifelong Surrealist was enamoured with Jan Potocki’s rambling collection of stories-within-stories. I saw the film three times which, in my case, is absolutely exceptional. I love The Saragossa Manuscript, both the novel by Potocki and the movie by Has. Polish poster (1965) by Jerzy Skarzynski who was also the film’s production designer. ![]()
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