Can you truly divorce the artist and his art? This is an ethical dilemma that I struggled with throughout my time watching Roman Polanski's films. If I did not know the morbid, awful details of this man's oh-so-public private life, would I respect the movies more?
Here's what I know about Roman Polanski: he is an outstandingly talented filmmaker. I think that is beyond argument. Before this month began I had seen Knife in the Water, The Tenant, Rosemary's Baby, and Chinatown with the latter two being personal favorites of mine as well as undisputed classics of cinema. Many of the filmmakers I've watched stick with one style or genre or type of movie, but Polanski is a hopper: he makes noir, war, horror, thrillers, and period pieces and they are (generally) perfectly executed. The only other filmmakers who come to mind who can jump around so flawlessly are the Coen brothers and Stanley Kubrick- that's high company. Polanski is an Oscar-winner and he has been nominated for that prestigious award in four different decades; that's longevity in a notoriously shifting industry. For this project alone I watched movies he created from 1963 to 2011, and he's still making them! I for one hope he's got many more to come.
Here's what else I know about Roman Polanski: he was born in France to Polish parents but moved back to Krakow in 1936, where he would endure the Holocaust. His mother was killed in Auschwitz, and in fact 90% (around 3 million people) of the Jewish population in Poland would be killed during World War II. He lived in and escaped from the ghetto and was separated from his father for many years. After the war, Polanski went to film school and became involved in the film industry. He made his first feature Knife in the Water in 1962, which garnered a Best Foreign Film nomination at the Academy Awards. Throughout the 1960s Polanski lived in France, England, and the United States and continued to expand his critically-beloved filmography. In 1969, his pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered in Los Angeles by members of Charles Manson's so-called family. He was in London at the time. In 1977, Polanski was arrested at Jack Nicholson's house for the rape of a 13-year old girl whom he had given quaaludes. He was indicted on 6 criminal charges and held in prison for 43 days. After a plea-bargain, Polanski was promised by a judge that he would be put on probation and serve no further jail time. After Polanski realized that the judge was going to renege on his promise, he fled the country and moved to France where he was protected from extradition. Since then, he's been living as a fugitive and the charges remain pending. The 13-year old victim later sued Polanski and settled with him out of court for a large sum. Since that time, the victim has long been an outspoken proponent of Polanski's. She has publicly said the charges should be dropped and that they both would love to put the past behind him. Polanski has been arrested in Europe and held on house arrest as recently as 2010, but so far any attempt at extradition has failed.
Okay, whew! That's a lot of background, right? But it's important not only as a background (to decide whether or not this guy should be in jail or whether or not anyone should watch his movies) but also because the subject matter of his life is present in his movies. For this month I chose The Pianist, Frantic, Repulsion, Tess, The Ghost Writer, and Carnage. The Pianist takes place in the Krakow ghetto during WWII. Frantic is about a man who loses his wife. Tess and Repulsion are both about young girls who are raped or deathly afraid of being raped. See the familiarity with the above story? The movies about young girls being raped were especially difficult for me to watch, knowing the details of Polanski's sordid crime. In fact, Repulsion was easier for me to watch, knowing it was made 12 years before the crime rather than Tess, which was made just a year and a half later. The rumors that Polanski had a romantic relationship with the 15-year old star of Tess made it even more difficult to get through.
But the movies themselves are mostly great. Lizzie and I watched The Pianist first and it ruined our day. It's an extremely vicious look at the savagery of war, and young Adrien Brody definitely deserved his Oscar win (at 29 he was the youngest Lead Actor winner of all time). It's a sad but necessary reminder of how brutal the situation in Poland was, and how easily our fragile society can collapse. Next I watched Frantic, which though enjoyable was the weak spot among these films. I want to make a supercut of every time Harrison Ford clumsily hurts himself in the movie. It's a lot of times. After that came Repulsion which was the surprise super-hit of the bunch. Polanski later said he made the movie simply to fund his next one (the less-commercial Cul-de-sac) but he accidentally created a winner. The imagery was phenomenal; I loved it. Tess was next, and as I mentioned I had a hard time with the subject matter, despite the story being an adaptation of the 1891 novel Tess of the d'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy. The film was beautiful but it felt a lot like Barry Lyndon; painfully slow to watch even though I knew it was gorgeous. It almost feels like watching a series of paintings for 2.5 hours. After that I watched The Ghost Writer which is very well-liked but it felt like a fairly standard political thriller to me. The ending was a lot of fun though. Finally I finished out this project with Carnage, the 2011 adaptation of a play with an all-star cast of Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Cristoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet. This one reaaaally felt like a play (it's just the four of them in one apartment for 90 minutes) but it was still very beautiful and fun to watch. I'd still prefer it as a play I think. And that's technically it for the great director challenge of 2015! I'm going to do a wrap-up post rather than try to stuff it into this (already too-long) Polanski article.
- Repulsion (1965) - 9
- Tess (1979) - 7
- Frantic (1988) - 6
- The Pianist (2003) - 8.5
- The Ghost Writer (2010) - 7
- Carnage (2011) - 7
As I mentioned above, this is technically the end of the road for the great director challenge. I watched 13 directors in 10 months (because I doubled up 3 times). I'm probably going to extend this project to cover a few more directors (Lynch, Noe, Bertolucci, etc.) but the initial resolution is now complete! A full write-up post on my thoughts on the project soon to come.
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