Everything for Sale is Wajda's very personal homage to Zbigniew Cybulski, who came to be called the Polish James Dean - a hero of the “lost generation” and star of most of the great Polish films of the late Fifties and Sixties (including Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds). In 1967, Cybulski was killed in a freak accident by a train which he was running to catch. Wajda recreates the incident in Everything for Sale, a film about the making of a film for which the lead actor has disappeared. Wajda weaves fiction and autobiography (involving the director, the actor's wife, and the director's wife, who is also a former lover of the actor) into this extroaordinary work, which constantly reflects on itself in its exploration of the nature of myth, and the exigencies of art. The story involves the search for a successor to the lost star; Daniel Olbrychski, who takes the part, in fact went on to become the most popular figure in recent Polish cinema (among his films with Wajda are Landscape After Battle, The Young Girls of Wilko and The Promised Land). And, just as in the story, the film seemingly grows of its own, so the shape of Everything for Sale was left to the inventiveness of those involved in its making, including Witold Sobocinski, whose color cinematography captures both the harsh landscape of a Polish winter and the artificial decor of the world of film heroes. (JB)