Pope film cut down to Polish size

Although it was released in America last November, Poles had to wait until March 3 to see the film about their country's most famous son - Karol Wojtyła. The joint US-Italian-Polish production, Pope John Paul II, went out as a TV mini-series in all countries where it was released, but two. In Mexico and Poland it got a cinema release.

Polish co-producers contributed nine percent of the film's financing. Director John Kent Harrison gave them free rein to edit the film for Polish audiences, and much of the film was cut. Instead of the 200-minute version the Italians get to see, or the 166 minutes aired in the US and Canada, the Polish cinema version is only 130 minutes long.

"If the film is three hours long it means in one evening they can play it twice only, if it is two hours they can sell three films in the same evening," points out Robert Mazurkiewicz, an actor who played Karol Wojtyła's father in the film, and co-owner of Arkady Artists' Agency. "It is mainly because of commercial interests." Instead of the usual 50 or 60 copies of a film printed for cinema release in Poland, 130 copies have been made of Pope John Paul II.

There was another reason for cutting the film, however, as the original contains many scenes explaining Polish politics during the communist years. Much of this was cut from the Polish version as the editors felt the audience was already familiar with it. "They said that people in Poland have seen these stories so many times, one more time isn't necessary," says Mazur-kiewicz.

But Mazurkiewicz laments that the Polish version has lost much of its soul: "The human emotions are strong in the American version, but here they are not because the film is like a documentary." One section that was cut was a scene between the young Karol Wojtyła and a girlfriend who wanted to marry him.

Mazurkiewicz is also sorry that the only version going out in Poland has been dubbed. "Forty percent of Jon Voight's role was voice," he says. As no cinemas in Poland are playing a subtitled version, foreign viewers may prefer to wait for the DVD, which is due for release in Poland in the summer, and will have the full-lenght version of the film.