--- title: "Man of Marble" year: 1977 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/man-of-marble" fi1m_id: "man-of-marble" imdb_id: "tt0075902" tmdb_id: 224 wikidata_id: "Q1195506" fi1m_score: 86 critics_score: 81 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-26T00:22:39.383940+00:00" updated: "2026-09-26T00:22:39.997947+00:00" region: "ES" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Man of Marble (1977) Directed by Andrzej Wajda · 2h 33m · Drama ## Identity Man of Marble - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/man-of-marble - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** man-of-marble - **IMDb ID:** tt0075902 - **TMDB ID:** 224 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1195506 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075902/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/224, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1195506 **Fi1m score: 86** · Critics 81 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* The statue is in a storeroom, the director is catching a plane, and nobody can quite remember the bricklayer > Andrzej Wajda’s film about a student digging into a discarded 1950s labour hero is angry, intricate and still sharp, built like *Citizen Kane* and shot as two different films. It runs long and the ending stops rather than finishes, but we would not miss it. ## Synopsis Poland in the mid-1970s. Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda), a film school student, wants to make her diploma film about Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), a bricklayer who was a national hero in the early 1950s and then vanished from the newsreels. Her television editor (Bogusław Sobczuk) thinks the subject is dead and would rather she picked another. She finds Birkut’s marble statue lying on its back in a museum storeroom, pulls old propaganda reels from the archive, and tracks down Jerzy Burski (Tadeusz Łomnicki), the celebrated director whose film first made Birkut famous. Burski, catching a plane, tells her how it was done: a record-breaking brick-laying shift at Nowa Huta, staged for the cameras. With a small crew and a wide-angle lens, Agnieszka goes looking for whatever the footage left out. ## Review Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski’s screenplay takes the shape of [*Citizen Kane*](https://film.one/film/citizen-kane) and does not pretend otherwise. A dead or missing man, an investigator with a camera, a chain of witnesses each holding one piece, and old footage that turns out to have been arranged. What Andrzej Wajda does with the shape is the point. The man is Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer turned poster hero of the early 1950s, and the footage is the state’s, so every reel Agnieszka unspools is a small lie told with a full orchestra. Over 153 minutes the film asks how a country makes a hero, what it does with him afterwards, and what a young woman with a borrowed crew can find out about it twenty years on. Krystyna Janda plays Agnieszka as if she has been wound too tight and likes it. She strides through corridors in a denim jacket and flares, chews gum in front of officials, smokes in the archive and tells her cameraman, Leonard Zajączkowski, playing himself, to get low and put the wide lens on. Wiesława Starska and Lidia Rzeszewska dress her in the same clothes throughout, so she looks like a student who has not been home. It is a big performance, pitched at one level, and we admit it wore us down around the middle hour. It also makes sense: she is the only person in the film who is not tired. Edward Klosinski shoots the 1970s in colour under fluorescent light, with wide lenses that make television offices and hotel lobbies look like they were built to intimidate. The fake 1950s newsreels are in black and white, grainy, framed the way that footage was framed, with a narrator who never stops. The flashbacks proper are in colour again, brighter and stranger. Halina Prugar-Ketling cuts between the newsreel version of an event and the remembered version so that we watch the same afternoon twice and see what was cropped. Andrzej Korzyński gives Agnieszka a jittery electronic pop score and gives the propaganda its choral marches, and the two never mix. Jerzy Radziwiłowicz plays Birkut without irony, and that is the film’s best decision. The record attempt at Nowa Huta is the centrepiece: a band, a crowd, cameras on scaffolding, and a broad, gentle man laying bricks faster than is good for him. It moved us more than we expected, and it was because he looks pleased. He believes them. Allan Starski’s storeroom, where Agnieszka first finds the marble Birkut lying among other unwanted statues, tells you where that belief ends before anyone says so. Tadeusz Łomnicki’s Burski is the film’s most interesting witness, a director who staged the record and became famous for it, and who tells the story in an airport lounge as though it were a funny anecdote about a difficult shoot. Michał Tarkowski, as Birkut’s friend Witek, and Piotr Cieślak, as Michalak, the man from security who is always somewhere nearby, carry the middle stretch, and Krystyna Zachwatowicz has a hard, quiet scene as Hanka Tomczyk that we will not describe. The second half takes turns we will leave alone. It is too long. The scenes in the television building, with Magda Teresa Wójcik’s editor and Bogusław Sobczuk’s television editor telling Agnieszka to stop, say the same thing three times. And the film ends abruptly, on a corridor, with a question hanging that it plainly meant to answer. We were annoyed, and then we thought about why a Polish film in 1977 might stop where it did, and the annoyance became something else. Wajda had made [*Ashes and Diamonds*](https://film.one/film/ashes-and-diamonds) nearly two decades earlier and knew how to put a country’s history on one face. Ścibor-Rylski’s script had been written years before it was allowed to be filmed. Both facts show. Watch it in one sitting, in the evening, with the subtitles large; the narrator talks quickly and you will want to catch what he is not saying. *Fi1m score 86, published 26 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews lean firmly positive. Most critics treat the film as one of Andrzej Wajda’s major works, and the praise clusters on a single device: the reconstructed newsreels, suppressed footage and interviews through which Agnieszka pieces together Birkut’s life. Several find this convincing enough that the film works as a thriller about power, reputation and evidence, as well as a political argument. Krystyna Janda and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz are singled out, and the portrait of misplaced idealism and betrayed trust under Stalinism is read as the film’s lasting subject. The spread is narrow. Five of the six reviews are positive, and the reservations are hard to locate, because the one middling score, from The New York Times, belongs to a review whose text is no longer accessible; its verdict cannot be read. No critic argues against the film’s method or its standing, so the disagreement is one of degree, between those who call it a milestone and those who settle for admiring its control. ## Straight answers **Is Man of Marble worth watching?** *Man of Marble* is worth watching for anyone with an evening to give a long, angry, intricate Polish drama, and we scored it 86. Andrzej Wajda's film about a student digging up a discarded 1950s labour hero runs 153 minutes, repeats itself in the television scenes and stops rather than ends. We would still not miss it, and the staged brick-laying record at Nowa Huta moved us more than we expected. **How long is Man of Marble, and what is it rated?** *Man of Marble* runs 2h 33m. It is a drama film. **Where can I watch Man of Marble in Spain?** *Man of Marble* is not on any streaming or rental service in Spain at the moment. It is available in 1 other country; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How does Man of Marble compare to Citizen Kane?** *Man of Marble* borrows the shape of [*Citizen Kane*](https://film.one/film/citizen-kane), a missing man, an investigator with a camera and witnesses who each hold one piece, and points it at a state that manufactured its own hero. The earlier film is the tighter and more assured of the two; Wajda's is looser, longer and angrier, and its fake newsreels have a bite Welles never needed. Watch *Kane* for the craft, *Man of Marble* for what it dares to say. **What should I watch after Man of Marble?** After *Man of Marble*, try [*Citizen Kane*](https://film.one/film/citizen-kane) (1941, Fi1m 93): The blueprint: a dead man, a reporter, and witnesses who each remember a different person. Then [*Man of Iron*](https://film.one/film/man-of-iron) (1981, Fi1m 78): Wajda’s direct sequel, shot fast at the shipyards while the news was still happening; and [*The Lives of Others*](https://film.one/film/the-lives-of-others) (2006, Fi1m 84): East Berlin, a surveillance file, and the slow cost of listening to other people. ### Reviews we read (6) - **The Guardian**, Philip French (90/100, inferred): French calls the film a riveting, convincing exploration of a man caught in complex times. He especially praises how old documentaries, suppressed footage and interviews are woven together to reconstruct Birkut’s life. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/11/man-of-marble-andrzej-wajda-philip-french-classic-dvd) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (85/100, inferred): Parkinson calls it a complex, nationally important work that remains Wajda’s most important film. He singles out its portrayal of misplaced idealism and betrayed trust in Stalinist Poland. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/man-marble-review/) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (85/100, inferred): Variety calls the film a milestone in Polish cinema and a high point in Andrzej Wajda’s career. It particularly praises Krystyna Janda and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, while singling out Agnieszka’s search for truth as a source of suspense. [Read](https://variety.com/1976/film/reviews/czlowiek-z-marmuru-1200424030/) - **Radio Times**, David Parkinson (4/5): Parkinson calls the film a superbly controlled and disturbing thriller about political power, reputation and evidence. He especially praises Wajda’s convincing reconstruction of contemporary newsreel footage. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-x8xjyx/man-of-marble/) - **The New York Times** (64/100, inferred): The URL identifies a review of the matching film, but the article text is inaccessible. Its verdict and any specifically praised or criticized element cannot be determined. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/23/movies/film-wajada-s-man-of-marble-a-polish-style-citizen-kane.html) - **The Skinny**, D W Mault (★★★★): The review praises the film’s daring deconstruction of Stalinist-era propaganda. It singles out the documentary footage and music as tools that illuminate Agnieszka’s search for the truth about Birkut. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/man-of-marble) ## Details - **Director:** Andrzej Wajda - **Director:** Andrzej Wajda - **Screenplay:** Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski - **Cinematography:** Edward Klosinski - **Editor:** Halina Prugar-Ketling - **Music:** Andrzej Korzyński - **Production design:** Allan Starski - **Costume design:** Lidia Rzeszewska, Wiesława Starska - **Cast:** Krystyna Janda as Agnieszka; Jerzy Radziwiłowicz as Mateusz Birkut / Maciek Tomczyk; Tadeusz Łomnicki as Jerzy Burski; Jacek Lomnicki as Jerzy Burski (young); Michał Tarkowski as Witek; Piotr Cieślak as Michalak; Wiesław Wójcik as Jodła; Krystyna Zachwatowicz as Hanka Tomczyk - **Runtime:** 2h 33m - **Release (Spain):** 14 January 1980 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in Spain Not streaming, renting or buying in Spain at the last check. Also available in: PL. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Citizen Kane* (1941), Fi1m 93: The blueprint: a dead man, a reporter, and witnesses who each remember a different person — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/citizen-kane.md) - *Man of Iron* (1981), Fi1m 78: Wajda’s direct sequel, shot fast at the shipyards while the news was still happening — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/man-of-iron.md) - *Camera Buff* (1979): Kieślowski on what a small camera does to a man and the people around him - *The Lives of Others* (2006), Fi1m 84: East Berlin, a surveillance file, and the slow cost of listening to other people — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lives-of-others.md) - *Burnt by the Sun* (1994): One summer’s day in 1936, and a Soviet hero learning what heroes are for --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/man-of-marble