"Having followed Kieslowski around Oxford for a day, heard him speak twice, and interviewed him in private, I still find myself in search of the Kieslowski whose name appears at the beginning of some of the most remarkable films in our otherwise cinematically uninspired age. Kieslowski's rise from relative obscurity, to being universally recognised among the ranks of the world's most gifted living film-makers, was meteoric. … Listening to Kieslowski, one is struck by his self-professed lack of faith in the medium with which he has come to address what many hold to be the spiritual malaise of our times. He has become known as someone who finds redemption in our common humanity. In particular, he bemoans the camera as a "stupid" instrument, which, unlike the novel, "cannot show a character's inner feelings." Asked halfway through the Union speaker meeting whether he even likes films, Kieslowski deadpans "No". When questioned as to his greatest cinematic inspirations, he replies: "Life and Literature." As for Hollywood directors whom he admires, he thinks long before coming up with Chaplin and Hitchcock."