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Roman Raymond Polanski (born August 18, 1933) is an Academy Award-winning and four-time nominated Polish-French film director, writer, actor and producer.
Polanski began his career in Poland, and later became a celebrated director of both art house and commercial films, making such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974).
Polanski is one of the world's best known contemporary film directors.
He is also known for his turbulent and controversial personal life.
Polanski survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland during WWII.
In 1969, his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the infamous Manson Family.
In 1977, he was arrested in Los Angeles and pleaded guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor", a 13-year-old girl.
Released after a 42-day psychiatric evaluation, Polanski fled to France.
He is considered by U.S.
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Encyclopedia
Roman Raymond Polanski (born August 18, 1933) is an Academy Award-winning and four-time nominated Polish-French film director, writer, actor and producer.
Polanski began his career in Poland, and later became a celebrated director of both art house and commercial films, making such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974).
Polanski is one of the world's best known contemporary film directors.
He is also known for his turbulent and controversial personal life.
Polanski survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland during WWII.
In 1969, his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the infamous Manson Family.
In 1977, he was arrested in Los Angeles and pleaded guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor", a 13-year-old girl.
Released after a 42-day psychiatric evaluation, Polanski fled to France.
He is considered by U.S. authorities to be a fugitive from justice and cannot return to the United States without risking arrest and imprisonment.
Polanski has since avoided visits to countries that were likely to extradite him, such as the United Kingdom.
As a French citizen, he is protected by France's limited extradition with the United States, and Poland is also unlikely to extradite him.
He travels mostly between France, where he resides, and Poland.
Polanski has continued to direct films in Europe, including Frantic (1988), Death and the Maiden (1994), The Ninth Gate (1999), the Academy Award-winning (for best director) and Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or-winning The Pianist (2002), and Oliver Twist (2005).
He has also done occasional work in theatre and in the films of other directors.
Polanski speaks 6 languages: his native Polish and French as well as English, Russian, Spanish, and Italian.
Biography
Early life
Polanski was born Rajmund Roman Liebling in Paris, France, the son of Bula (née Katz-Przedborska) and Ryszard Liebling (aka Ryszard Polanski), who was a painter and plastics manufacturer.
Polanski's parents were agnostics.
His father was a Polish Jew and his mother, a native of Russia, was brought up as a Catholic as she had a Jewish father and a Roman Catholic mother.
The Polanski family moved back to the Polish town of Krakow in 1937, and were living there in 1939, when World War II began.
Poland was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
As a Jewish family, the Polanskis were targets of German Nazi persecution and forced into the Kraków Ghetto, along with thousands of other Polish Jews. His father survived the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria but his mother was eventually murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Polanski himself managed to escape the Kraków Ghetto, and survived the war with the help of a Polish Roman Catholic farmer in poor and uncertain conditions, sleeping in a barn next to cows.
After the war he was reunited with his father and moved back to Krakow.
During the Soviet imposed communism in Poland, he attended the Polish film school in Lódz, and graduated in 1959.
Early short films in Poland and Knife in the Water (1962)
In the early 1950s, Polanski took up acting, appearing in Andrzej Wajda's film Pokolenie (A Generation) (1954) and in the same year in Silik Sternfeld's Zaczarowany rower (known as Enchanted Bicycle or Magical Bicycle).
Polanski's directorial debut was also in 1955 with a short film Rower (known as Bicycle, not to be confused with Zaczarowany rower).
Rower is a semi-autobiographical feature film, currently believed to be lost, which also starred Polanski.
It refers to his violent altercation with a notorious Krakow felon who promised to sell the then cycling enthusiast a bicycle at a secluded location and instead beat him up severely and stole his money.
Several other short films made during his study at Lódz gained him considerable recognition, particularly Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) and When Angels Fall (1959).
The latter starred Polanski's first wife, Barbara Lass.
Polanski's first feature-length film, Knife in the Water, was also the first significant Polish film after WWII that did not have a war theme.
Made from a script by Jerzy Skolimowski, Jakub Goldberg and Polanski himself, Knife in the Water is an intense, moody, claustrophobic three-hander (meaning it had only 3 main characters) about a wealthy, unhappily married couple who decide to take a mysterious hitchhiker with them on a weekend boating excursion.
A dark and unsettling work, Polanski's debut feature subtly evinces a profound pessimism about human relationships with regard to the psychological dynamics and moral consequences of status envy and sexual jealousy.
Although not well-received by the Polish communist cultural authorities because of its lack of a socially redeeming message, Knife in the Water was nevertheless a major commercial success in the West and gave Polanski an international reputation.
The film also earned its director his first Academy Award nomination (Best Foreign Language Film, 1963).
Despite his reputation as a major Polish filmmaker, Polanski chose to leave communist Poland and moved to France.
British films made in collaboration with Gérard Brach during the mid-1960s
Polanski then made three feature films in England, based on original scripts written by himself and regular collaborator, Gérard Brach.
A psychological horror film focusing on a young Belgian woman named Carol (Catherine Deneuve), who is living in London with her older sister (Yvonne Furneaux). While working as a beautician's assistant at a salon, Carol is often disturbed by the physical decrepitude of her elderly clients, and throughout the course of the film, she becomes increasingly distressed by sexual advances from the men around her.
Her sister departs for a holiday in Italy with a boyfriend, and Carol is left alone in their shared apartment flat. Carol's disordered mind finally breaks from reality as actual threats of domestic and sexual invasion blend into grotesque paranoid hallucinations, causing her to respond with desperate, deadly acts of violence.
The film's themes, situations, visual motifs, and effects clearly reflect the influence of early Surrealist cinema as well as horror movies of the 1950s — particularly Luis Buñuel's Un chien Andalou, Jean Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
Cul-de-Sac (1966)
A bleak nihilist tragicomedy filmed on location in Northumberland. The general tone and the basic premise of the film owes a great deal to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, along with aspects of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party. Indeed, the original title for the film was When Katelbach Comes (named after the actor André Katelbach, who played the role of the master in Polanski's very Beckettian 1961 short film The Fat and the Lean), and among the cast was Jack MacGowran, a veteran of Beckett's stage and television work.
The film's setup concerns two gangsters, Dickie and Albie (Lionel Stander and MacGowran), who are on the run after a heist gone bad. The film opens with Dickie pushing their broken-down car along the tidal causeway of Lindisfarne island. It is implied that the shootout which occurred during the heist had left Albie bleeding and paralyzed, and Dickie, who is also wounded but still mobile, now seeks to contact their underworld boss, Katelbach. (Like Beckett's Godot, Katelbach is frequently alluded to throughout the course of the film, but never actually appears.)
As he searches the island, Dickie discovers that the famous medieval castle is inhabited by an eccentric, effeminate and neurotically excitable middle-aged Englishman named George (Donald Pleasence), and his adulterous, nymphomaniacal young French wife, Teresa (the late Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve's older sister). A series of absurd mishaps, both farcical and tragic, ensues when Dickie decides to take the couple hostage in their castle as he waits (in vain) for further instructions from the mysterious Katelbach.
A spoof of vampire films (particularly those made by Hammer Studios) which was filmed using elaborate sets built on sound stages in London with additional location photography in the Alps (particularly Ortisei, an Italian ski resort in the Dolomites).
The plot concerns a buffoonish professor named Abronsius (Jack MacGowran, the only actor to appear in two consecutive Polanski films until Emmanuelle Seigner two decades later) and his clumsy assistant, Alfred (played by Polanski himself), who are traveling through Transylvania in search of vampires.
The two of them arrive in a small village near a vampire-infested castle, which they plan to examine. While taking lodgings at the village tavern, Alfred falls in love with Sarah, the local innkeeper's daughter (played by Polanski's future wife, Sharon Tate). Shortly after, Sarah is abducted by the vampires and taken to the castle. The rest of the film concerns Abronsius and Alfred's madcap efforts to penetrate the castle walls and rescue the girl. The ironic and macabre ending is classic Polanski.
The Fearless Vampire Killers was Polanski's first feature to be photographed in color and using a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The film's striking visual style, with its snow-covered, fairy-tale landscapes, recalls the work of Russian fantasy filmmakers Aleksandr Ptushko and Alexander Row. Similarly, the richly textured, moonlit-winter-blue color schemes of the village and the snowy valleys evoke the magical, kaleidoscopic paintings of the great Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall, after whom the innkeeper in the film is named.
The film is also notable in that it features Polanski's love of winter sports, particularly skiing. In this respect, The Fearless Vampire Killers recalls Polanski's earlier short film, Mammals.
Relationship with Sharon Tate, Rosemary's Baby (1968), and the Manson murders
Polanski met rising actress Sharon Tate shortly before filming The Fearless Vampire Killers (she was known to producer Martin Ransohoff), and during the production the two of them began dating. On January 20, 1968, Polanski married Sharon Tate in London. In his autobiography, Polanski described his brief time with Tate as the best years of his life. During this period, he also became friends with martial-arts master and actor Bruce Lee.
Shortly after, in 1968, Polanski went to the United States, where he established his reputation as a major commercial filmmaker with the success of his first Hollywood film, Rosemary's Baby, based on the recent popular novel of the same name by Ira Levin. The film is a horror-thriller set in New York about Rosemary (Mia Farrow), an innocent young woman from Omaha, Nebraska, who is impregnated by the devil after her narcissistic actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), offers her womb to a coven of local witches in exchange for a successful career. Polanski's screenplay adaptation earned him a second Academy Award nomination.
In April 1969, Polanski's friend and collaborator, the composer Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969), died from head injuries sustained from a skiing accident, though other accounts of the cause of his death exist. After the short Two Men and a Wardrobe, he scored all of Polanski's feature films (with the exception of Repulsion), and is probably best known in the U.S. for his final collaboration with the director: the haunting soundtrack to Rosemary's Baby.
On August 9 1969, Tate, who was eight months pregnant with the couple's first child (a boy), and four others (Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent) were brutally murdered by members of Charles Manson's "Family", who entered the Polanskis' rented home at 10050 Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills intending to "kill everyone there". Previous resident Terry Melcher had angered Charles Manson because he had declined to record some of his music. Melcher and his girlfriend at the time, actress Candice Bergen, had been living at the house but moved out in February 1969. The following month, Polanski and Tate moved in.
When Manson ordered members of his group to go to the property and kill everyone, they obeyed. After Parent, Sebring, Frykowski, and Folger had been murdered, Tate pleaded for the life of her unborn son. Susan Atkins replied that she felt no pity for her and began stabbing her. She soaked up some of Tate's blood with a towel and wrote "PIG" on the front door with it.
Polanski was at his house in London at the time of the murders and immediately traveled to Los Angeles, where he was questioned by police. As there were no suspects in the case, police checked on the past history of Polanski and Tate to try to determine a motive. After a period of months, Manson and his "family" were arrested on unrelated charges, which revealed evidence of what came to be known as the Tate-LaBianca murders. Polanski returned to Europe shortly after the killers were arrested. He later said that he gave away all his possessions as everything reminded him of Tate and was too painful for him, and that the greatest regret of his life was that he was not in Los Angeles with Tate on the night of her murder.
Films of the 1970s
Polanski's first feature following Sharon Tate's murder was a bleak and violent film version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which was mostly made on location in the rugged environs of Snowdonia National Park in North Wales; Jon Finch and Francesca Annis appeared in the lead roles. Polanski adapted the text into a screenplay with the British theater critic Kenneth Tynan, and gained financing for the film through his friendship with Victor Lownes, who was an executive for Playboy magazine in London at the time.
A number of critics were disturbed by the rampant violence in the film as well as the unsparing bleakness of Polanski's modernist interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedy (influenced by the writings of Polish drama critic and theoretician, Jan Kott). Film critic Pauline Kael commented that the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her household appeared to have been staged in an especially lurid manner that was clearly intended to evoke the Manson killings.
What? (1972)
Written by Polanski and his old partner Gérard Brach, What? is a mordant absurdist comedy made in the spirit of Roger Vadim and Terry Southern and loosely based on the themes of Alice in Wonderland and Henry James. The film is a rambling, shaggy-dog story about the sexual indignities that befall Nancy (Sydne Rome), a winsome young American hippie hitchhiking through Europe. After escaping a farcical rape attempt in the back of a truck, she soon finds herself stranded in the hothouse atmosphere of a remote Italian villa inhabited by a band of decadent, lecherous grotesques — the main three are played by Marcello Mastrioanni, Hugh Griffith and Polanski himself.
What? is also significant in that it is Polanski's only film to date in which a character breaks the fourth wall. The film was a failure with audiences and critics, although in the years since its release What? has attracted a minor cult following and a modicum of critical notice.
In 1973, Polanski returned to Hollywood to make Chinatown, with Paramount Pictures' Robert Evans as producer.
The film was nominated for a total of 11 Academy Awards.
Stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway both received Oscar nominations for their leading roles.
The screenplay by Robert Towne won for Best Original Screenplay.
Chinatown is a classic example of the neo-noir genre of New Hollywood filmmaking.
It is Polanski's greatest commercial and critical success to date.
Chinatown follows the pessimistic, revisionist New Hollywood neo-noir style. In it, the rapid economic development and urban expansion of Los Angeles during the 1930s is attributed to a (fictionalized) instance of widespread civic corruption.
A private detective (Nicholson) hired to investigate a case of suspected adultery winds up discovering a nefarious cabal of corrupt public officials and crooked businessmen who are secretly undermining the publicly owned water supply. These conspirators are also depriving San Fernando Valley farmland of much-needed irrigation in order to render it practically worthless and thereby force the farmers there to sell out; vast areas of this blighted farmland are then quietly purchased by the conspirators under assumed names at very low prices.
Meanwhile, the conspirators promote construction of a taxpayer-funded dam and aqueduct under the fraudulent pretext that it will be used to enhance the urban water supply, when in fact it will serve only to irrigate the outlying valley and not the city itself — thus causing land prices in the San Fernando Valley (and consequently, the personal profits of the new owners) to skyrocket. The conspirators also plan to cover up this fraudulent misuse of public funds by formally extending the city limits to include the San Fernando Valley.
As the detective finds out, the ringleader of the conspiracy is responsible for the libel and murder of a key public official who was opposed to building the dam, along with the murder of an actress who takes part in the scheme to discredit that official at the beginning of the film, as well as an incestuous rape.
Polanski returned to Europe for his next film, The Tenant, which was based on a 1964 novel by Roland Topor, a French writer of Polish-Jewish origin. In addition to directing the film, Polanski also played the lead role of Trelkovsky, a timid Polish immigrant living in Paris who seems to be possessed by the personality of a young woman who committed suicide by jumping out of the window from her apartment — the very apartment that Trelkovsky now occupies.
Many have noted the similarities with Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, and together with these two earlier works, The Tenant can be seen as the third installment in a loose trilogy of films exploring the theme of urban alienation, social anomie, and the psychic and emotional breakdown of an individual personality. For The Tenant, Ingmar Bergman's regular cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, served as cameraman, and Isabelle Adjani and Shelley Winters both appeared in supporting roles.
Sex alleged with 13-year-old
In 1977, Polanski, then aged 44, became embroiled in a scandal involving 13-year-old Samantha Geimer (then known as Samantha Gailey).
It ultimately led to Polanski's guilty plea to the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
According to Geimer, Polanski asked Geimer's mother if he could photograph the girl for the French edition of Vogue, which Polanski had been invited to guest-edit. Her mother allowed a private photo shoot.
According to Geimer in a 2003 interview, "Everything was going fine; then he asked me to change, well, in front of him."
She added, "It didn't feel right, and I didn't want to go back to the second shoot."
Geimer later agreed to a second session, which took place on March 10, 1977 at the Mulholland area home of actor Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles. "We did photos with me drinking champagne," Geimer says.
"Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't quite know how to get myself out of there." Geimer testified that Polanski performed oral sex on her, and vaginal and anal intercourse, after giving her a combination of champagne and quaaludes. In the 2003 interview, Geimer says she resisted. "I said no several times, and then, well, gave up on that."
In his autobiography, Roman by Polanski, Polanski alleged that Geimer's mother had set up her daughter as part of a casting couch and blackmail scheme against him.
Sex crime charges and guilty plea
Polanski was initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor.
These charges were dismissed under the terms of his plea bargain, and he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
Imprisonment and flight
Following the plea agreement, according to the aforementioned documentary, the court ordered Polanski to report to a state prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, but granted a stay of ninety days to allow him to complete his current project. Under the terms set by the court, he was permitted to travel abroad. Polanski returned to California and reported to Chino State Prison for the evaluation period, and was released after 42 days.
On February 1, 1978, Polanski fled to London, where he maintained residency. A day later he traveled on to France, where he held citizenship, avoiding the risk of extradition to the U.S. by Britain.
Consistent with its extradition treaty with the United States, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens. An extradition request later filed by U.S. officials was denied. The United States government can request that Polanski be prosecuted on the California charges by the French authorities.
Polanski has never returned to England, and later sold his home in absentia.
The United States can still request the arrest and extradition of Polanski from other countries should he visit them, and Polanski has avoided visits to countries that are likely to extradite him (such as the UK) and mostly travels and works in France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland.
Later developments in the case
In a 2003 interview, Samantha Geimer said, "Straight up, what he did to me was wrong. But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us."
Furthermore, "I'm sure if he could go back, he wouldn't do it again. He made a terrible mistake but he's paid for it".
In 2008, Geimer stated in an interview that she wishes Polanski would be forgiven, “I think he's sorry, I think he knows it was wrong.
I don't think he's a danger to society.
I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever — besides me — and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It's an unpleasant memory ... (but) I can live with it."
In 2008, a documentary film of the aftermath of the incident, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Following review of the film, Polanski's attorney, Douglas Dalton, contacted the Los Angeles district attorney's office about prosecutor David Wells' role in coaching the judge, Laurence J. Rittenband. Based on statements by Wells included in the film, Polanski and Dalton are seeking review of whether the prosecutor acted illegally and engaged in malfeasance in interfering with the operation of the trial.
In December 2008, Polanski's lawyer in the United States filed a request to Judge David S. Wesley to have the case dismissed on the grounds of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct.
The filing says that Judge Rittenband (now deceased) violated the plea bargain by keeping in communication about the case with a deputy district attorney who was not involved.
These activities were depicted in Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
In January 2009, Polanski's lawyer filed a further request to have the case dismissed, and to have the case moved out of Los Angeles, as the Los Angeles courts require him to appear before the court for any sentencing or dismissal, and Polanski will not appear.
That same month, Samantha Geimer filed to have the charges against Polanski dismissed from court, saying that decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor's focus on lurid details continues to traumatize her and her family.
Vanity Fair libel case
In 2004, Polanski sued Vanity Fair magazine in London for libel. A 2002 article in the magazine written by A. E. Hotchner recounted a claim by Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's, that Polanski had made sexual advances towards a young model as he was traveling to Sharon Tate's funeral, claiming that he could make her "the next Sharon Tate". The court permitted Polanski to testify via a video link, after he expressed fears that he might be extradited were he to enter the United Kingdom.
The trial started on July 18, 2005, and Polanski made English legal history as the first claimant to give evidence by video link. During the trial, which included the testimony of Mia Farrow and others, it was claimed that the alleged scene at the famous New York restaurant Elaine's could not have taken place on the date given, because Polanski only dined at this restaurant three weeks later. Also, the Norwegian model disputed accounts that he had claimed to be able to make her "the next Sharon Tate". In the course of the trial, Polanski did admit to having been unfaithful to Tate during their marriage.
Polanski was awarded £50,000 damages by the High Court in London. Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, responded, "I find it amazing that a man who lives in France can sue a magazine that is published in America in a British courtroom". According to the British tabloid Daily Mirror, Samantha Geimer commented, "Surely a man like this hasn't got a reputation to tarnish?"
Later career
Unwilling to return to the United States for fear of jail, Polanski continued his work in Europe.
He dedicated his next film, Tess (1979), to the memory of his late wife, Sharon Tate. According to the director, after spending time with him in London in the summer of 1969, Tate left a copy of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles on Polanski's nightstand, along with a note suggesting that it would make a good film.
It was the last time he would see her alive.
Tess was Polanski's first film since his 1977 arrest in Los Angeles, and because of the American-British extradition treaty, Tess was shot in the north of France instead of Hardy's Dorset and Wiltshire (a replica of Stonehenge was constructed at Morienval for the final scene).
The film became the most expensive made in France up to that time, causing producer Claude Berri considerable anxiety when there was difficulty finding a North American distributor for the picture, which was nearly three hours long.
Tess was eventually released in North America by Columbia Pictures, which had also distributed Polanski's earlier Macbeth.
Ultimately, Tess proved a financial success and was well-received by both critics and the public.
For Tess, Polanski won French César Awards for Best Picture and Best Director and received his fourth Academy Award nomination (and his second nomination for Best Director).
The film received three Oscars: best cinematography, best art direction and best costume design.
In addition, Tess was nominated for best picture (Polanski's second film to be nominated) and best original score.
Pirates (1986), Frantic (1987), and relationship with Emmanuelle Seigner
Nearly seven years passed before Polanski completed his next film, Pirates (1986), a lavish period piece starring Walter Matthau, which the director intended as an homage to the beloved Errol Flynn swashbucklers of his childhood (particularly Captain Blood).
The film was a major commercial and critical disaster, and stands as the biggest flop of Polanski's career.
The debacle of Pirates was followed by Frantic (1987), starring Harrison Ford and the actress/model Emmanuelle Seigner.
She would go on to star in two more of his films, Bitter Moon (1992) and The Ninth Gate (1999).
Polanski and Seigner married in 1989.
They have two children, Morgane and Elvis.
Elvis is named after Polanski's favorite singer, Elvis Presley.
Recent work and honours
In 1997, Polanski directed a stage version of The Fearless Vampire Killers, a musical, which debuted on October 4, 1997 in Vienna as Tanz der Vampire, the German title of the film version. After closing in Vienna, the show had successful runs in Stuttgart, Hamburg and Berlin.
On March 11, 1998 Polanski was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
In May 2002, Polanski won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) award at the Cannes Film Festival for The Pianist, for which he also took Césars for Best Film and Best Director, and later won the 2002 Academy Award for Directing. He did not attend the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood because he would have been arrested once he set foot in the United States. After the announcement of the "Best Director Award", Polanski received a standing ovation from most of those present in the theater . In 2004, he received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
During the summer and autumn of 2004, Polanski shot a new film adaptation of the Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, based on Ronald Harwood's screenplay. The shooting took place at the Barrandov Studios in Prague, Czech Republic. The actors included Barney Clark (Oliver Twist), Jamie Foreman (Bill Sykes), Harry Eden (the Artful Dodger), Ben Kingsley (Fagin), Leeanne Rix (Nancy), and Edward Hardwicke (Mr. Brownlow). Besides the cast, the director gathered some collaborators from his previous movies: Ronald Harwood (screenplay), as noted, Allan Starski (production designer), Pawel Edelman (director of photography), and Anna Sheppard (costume designer).
Damian Chapa has completed an unauthorised biopic of Roman Polanski titled Polanski, which he co-wrote and directed in addition to playing the lead.
Current projects
Polanski made a cameo appearance in Rush Hour 3 as a French police official. He is currently directing an adaption of Robert Harris' The Ghost, a novel about a writer who stumbles upon a secret while ghosting the autobiography of a former British prime minister. It will star Ewan McGregor as the writer and Pierce Brosnan as the prime minister. Filming takes place in Germany.
Style
Most of Polanski's films are intelligent psychological suspense thrillers, notable for their deliberate pacing, carefully established mood and atmosphere, and often Gothic treatment of settings and characters. As a stylist, Polanski favors long takes, deep-focus photography, detailed mise-en-scène and wide panoramic compositions; jump cuts and montage almost never appear in his work.
A recurring theme in his films is the relationship between victim and perpetrator, and the unstable and shifting dynamics of power relations between characters often resolve themselves in sudden outbursts of senseless violence. Many of Polanski's films (especially his early works) deal with characters struggling for mastery over an intractable situation and feature a circular plot structure — i.e., the action is framed by an ironic recurrence of events or reversal of fortunes at the end.
In this sense, Polanski's oeuvre — particularly, his most celebrated work from the 1950s through to the 1970s — seems to reflect a decidedly pessimistic and desolate absurdist worldview. However, Polanski's old tendency towards unremitting bleakness appears to have mellowed in recent years, with films like Death and the Maiden and The Pianist ultimately imparting a more hopeful view of human nature and admitting the possibility of redemptive action in the face of a hostile and incomprehensible universe.
Filmography
Actor
Writer
External links
- Official site
- (via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center)
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