The Mill and the Cross

Trailer Link: http://www.themillandthecross.com/

Poland, Sweden, 2011
Director: Lech Majewski
Screenwriters: Michael Francis Gibson, Lech Majewski
Cinematographers: Lech Majewski, Adam Sikora
Editors: Eliot Ems, Norbert Rudzik
Composers: Lech Majewski, Józef Skrzek
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling, Michael York
Running Time: 97 minutes

Described as stunning, engrossing and visually ravishing by critics and audiences alike, director Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross revolutionizes the way art is portrayed on film, pioneering a new method to “enter” a painting and to create a narrative based on its depicted figures, performed by live actors.

The Mill and the Cross makes use of traditional and contemporary film technologies allowing the audience to live inside “The Procession to Calvary” (1564), an epic painting by Flemish master Pieter Bruegel, depicting both the crucifixion of Christ and the devastation wreaked by the Spanish. The inspiration came from the book The Mill and the Cross written by renowned art historian Michael Francis Gibson, in which the story of Christ’s Passion is set in Flanders in the year 1564, the very year Bruegel painted his masterpiece. Among the 500-plus figures swarming over Bruegel’s canvas, Gibson, together with Majewski, selected a dozen characters whose life stories unfold and intertwine. In the film, Rutger Hauer plays Peter Bruegel. Michael York portrays his friend Jonghelink and Charlotte Rampling plays Mary.

Lech Majewski is a widely reputed Polish visual artist. His video installation Bruegel Suite was exhibited at this year’s Venice Biennale, and will also be on view at CAFH headquarters on West Ave. Majewski’s feature The Garden of Earthly Delights, based on the painting by Hieronymus Bosch, was described by the Washington Post as “the most powerful film made in years.” Majewski also wrote the original story and produced Julian Schnabel’s debut film, Basquiat.