After the remarkable yet underwhelmingly received Samson (1961) and Siberian Lady Macbeth (1962), Wajda continued his cycle of black-and-white CinemaScope features with The Ashes, an adaptation of Stefan Żeromski’s two-volume doorstopper and a product of Polish cinema’s ’60s turn toward high-budget historical epics. (Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Pharaoh and Wojciech Has’ Saragossa Manuscript are two other examples.) Soon-to-be Wajda regular Daniel Olbrychski shines as Rafał Olbromski, an impoverished nobleman—a reverse Barry Lyndon of sorts—entangled in ever-shifting factions and fronts in the Napoleonic Wars. Characters move in and out of episodic focus as swiftly as they crisscross Jerzy Lipman’s widescreen frame; in microscopically choreographed and costumed combat scenes, over 1,500 bayoneted extras clash on foot and horse, Wajda’s signature lateral tracking shots moving at equestrian speed. While envisioned as an “historical fresco,” the film struck a nerve with Polish nationalists who could not bear the depiction (Wajda’s, but originally Żeromski’s) of Poles as imperfect, manipulable and capable of violence.