Some words and sentences linger for months after being read. For Jerzy Kosiński’s “The Painted Bird,” there are entire chapters that continue to haunt me years later. I first read this book in high ...

STEPS by Jerzy Kosinski. 148 pages. Random House. $4.95. In his semiautobiographical first novel, The Painted Bird, Jerzy Kosinski told of a six-year-old Eastern European city boy who is set adrift in ...

Václav Marhoul’s “The Painted Bird” begins with utter bleakness but over the course of its 169-minute running time, keeps finding lower depths of misery. When it premiered last fall at the Venice Film ...

This image released by IFC Films shows Stellan Skarsgaard in a scene from "The Painted Bird." (IFC Films via AP) Vaclav Marhoul’s “The Painted Bird” begins with utter bleakness but over the course of ...