Dan Conley’s Writing Projects

Episode 4 of The Dekalog requires a trigger warning. Well, arguably, every episode the series demands one. Episode one, if you’ve lost a child, will devastate you. Episode 2 features abortion and infidelity, issues that trigger many. Episode 3 features infidelity, again, plus a very odd scene that evokes

I’m always amused to hear about various Eastern European superstitions and traditions, because they all have a quality of being made up in the moment. They always leave me wondering, are these actual widely shared beliefs common to region or just a family neurosis passed down through the ages?

About 15 years ago, I took a couple wonderful adult education classes at the Newberry Library in Chicago about the works of Nikolai Gogol. The class was taught by a Ukrainian woman who, naturally, spent some time making the case that Gogol is a Ukrainian writer even though his greatest

In the course of my many years of Montaigne analysis and study, if I walked away from it with one vital lesson — a lesson I consistently forget and have to relearn — it is this: all human beings are essentially unknowable. Montaigne is an ideal example. Here is a man who

I noted earlier that this is the least popular of the Dekalog episodes. I think this assessment is unfair, but it’s probably one I shared the first time I watched it. This is a much better episode without the suspense elements, without wondering what Ewa is up to or

The central truth of Dekalog 3 is that Janusz and Ewa are drawn to one another and want to be together, even if just for one very long night. But to get to that truth, you have to put up with a lot of lies coming from Ewa, and it’