Dan Conley

I’m working on a theory that I introduced in my Stendhal wrap-up essays that I believe applies across my work. It goes something like this: Many of the most important decisions we make in life are ultimately inexplicable. They are driven by feelings, held deeply in our nervous system,

In the film that spun off from this episode — “A Short Film About Love” — Magda responds to Tomek’s self harm with a period of self reflection, followed by her own romantic feelings for him. There is a little evidence for this in the episode, enough for the actors to

One of the interesting similarities between Montaigne, Shakespeare and Tolstoy is that all of them have flashes of romanticism — especially when speaking of youth — but then deeply unhappy descriptions of marriages, both in stories and personal reflections. Montaigne was often reticent to admit to having any romantic feelings at all.

Recently I did some work on my Stendhal project, pulled all the pieces together and wrote a front-piece connecting essay. I liked how that all turned out and mused elsewhere on this site that maybe I could go back to Stendhal and complete a book project on “On Love.” After

Magda seems to sense that something is wrong after Tomek doesn’t call. The doorbell rings and she goes to the door. It’s Art Man again, but she says “I’m not here,” and oddly enough, he takes that declaration at face value and we don’t see him

Before I move on to the next scene, I want to take a few steps back to reinforce something in the last two segments of Episode 6 that deserves further elaboration — Kieslowski’s focus on hands. In the course of their date, the encounter in Magda’s apartment and the