Roman Polanski
Encyclopedia
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."
Born in Paris to Polish parents, he moved with his family back to Poland
in 1937, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Holocaust and was educated in Poland
and became a director of both art house and commercial films. Polanski's first feature-length film, Knife in the Water
(1962), made in Poland, was nominated for a United States Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
but was beaten by Federico Fellini
's 8½
. He has since received five more Oscar nominations, along with two Baftas
, four Césars
, a Golden Globe Award and the Palme d'Or
of the Cannes Film Festival in France. In the United Kingdom he directed three films, beginning with Repulsion
(1965). In 1968 he moved to the United States, and cemented his status by directing the Oscar-winning horror film Rosemary's Baby
(1968).
In 1969, Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate
, was murdered by members of the Manson Family while staying at Polanski's Benedict Canyon home above Los Angeles. Following Tate's death, Polanski returned to Europe and spent much of his time in Paris and Gstaad
, but did not direct another film until Macbeth
(1971) in England. The following year he went to Italy to make What? (1973) and subsequently spent the next five years living near Rome. However, he traveled to Hollywood to direct Chinatown (1974). The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, and was a critical and box-office success. Polanski's next film, The Tenant
(1976), was shot in France, and completed the "Apartment Trilogy", following Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby.
In 1977, after a photo shoot in Los Angeles, Polanski was arrested for the sexual abuse
of a 13-year-old girl and pleaded guilty to the charge of unlawful sex with a minor
. To avoid sentencing
, Polanski fled to his home in London, eventually settling in France. In September 2009, he was arrested by Swiss police at the request of U.S. authorities, which also asked for his extradition
. The Swiss rejected that request, and instead released him from custody, declaring him a "free man." During an interview for a later film documentary, he offered his apology to the woman for that unlawful sexual encounter, and in a separate interview with Swiss TV he said that he has regretted that episode for the last 33 years.
Polanski continued to make films such as The Pianist
(2002), a World War II
true story drama about a Jewish-Polish
musician. The film won three Academy Awards including Best Director, along with numerous international awards. He also directed other films, including Oliver Twist
(2005), a story which parallels his own life as a "young boy attempting to triumph over adversity. His most recent film is The Ghost Writer (2010) (known as The Ghost
in the UK), adapted from the novel by Robert Harris
, a thriller focusing on a ghostwriter working with a former British Prime Minister (loosely based on Tony Blair
). It won six European Film Awards in 2010, including best movie, director, actor and screenplay.
s. His mother had a daughter, Annette, by her previous husband. Annette managed to survive Auschwitz, where her mother died, and left Poland forever for France. Roman's father was Jewish
and his Russian-born mother, Bula, had been raised Roman Catholic. Ryszard Liebling had changed his surname to Polański in early 1932.
in 1936, and were living there when World War II began with the invasion of Poland
. Neither of Polanski's parents were religious. Kraków was soon occupied
by the German forces, and Nazi racial and religious purity laws
made the Polańskis targets of persecution, forcing them into the Kraków Ghetto
, along with thousands of the city's Jews
. As a child, Polanski witnessed both the ghettoization of Kraków's Jews into a compact area of the city, and the subsequent deportation of all the ghetto's Jews to concentration camps, including watching as his father was taken away. He remembers from age six, one of his first experiences of the terrors to follow:
His father survived the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
in Austria, but his mother perished at Auschwitz. Polański escaped the Kraków Ghetto in 1943 and survived the war using the name Romek Wilk with the help
of some Polish Roman Catholic families with whom he came into contact. As a child of Jewish ancestry, in hiding without parents, he lived with numerous different Catholic families, attended church, learned to recite most Catholic prayers by heart, and behaved outwardly as a Roman Catholic, although he was never baptized. However, his efforts to assimilate into Catholic households as a member of the family often failed. In one instance, the parish priest visited the family and began to interrogate him, as Polanski recalls:
Writer Mitchell Glazer describes Polanski's difficult childhood:
As he roamed the countryside trying to survive in a Poland now occupied by German troops, he witnessed many horrors, such as being "forced to take part in a cruel and sadistic game in which German soldiers took shots at him for target practice." Author Ian Freer
concludes that his constant childhood fears and dread of violence have contributed to the "tangible atmospheres he conjures up on film."
By the time the war ended in 1945, a fifth of the Polish population had been killed, with the vast majority of the victims being civilians. Of those deaths, 3 million were of Polish Jews
, 90% of the country's Jewish population.
In hindsight, he states that "you must live in a Communist country to really understand how bad it can be. Then you will appreciate capitalism." He does, however, remember events at the war's end and his reintroduction to mainstream society when he was 12, forming friendships with other children, such as Roma Ligocka
, Ryszard Horowitz
and his family:
Polanski attended the National Film School in Łódź, the third-largest city in Poland. In the 1950s Polanski took up acting, appearing in Andrzej Wajda
's Pokolenie (A Generation, 1954) and in the same year in Silik Sternfeld's Zaczarowany rower (Enchanted Bicycle or Magical Bicycle). Polanski's directorial debut was also in 1955 with a short film Rower (Bicycle). Rower is a semi-autobiographical feature film, believed to be lost, which also starred Polanski. It refers to his real-life violent altercation with a notorious Kraków
felon, Janusz Dziuba, who arranged to sell Polanski a bicycle, but instead beat him badly and stole his money. In real life the offender was arrested while fleeing after fracturing Polanski's skull, and executed for three murders, out of eight prior such assaults, which he had committed. Several other short films made during his study at Łódź gained him considerable recognition, particularly Two Men and a Wardrobe
(1958) and When Angels Fall (1959). He graduated in 1959.
Polanski's first feature-length film, Knife in the Water
, was also the first significant Polish film after World War II that did not have a war theme. Scripted by Jerzy Skolimowski
, Jakub Goldberg
and Polanski, Knife in the Water is 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. Knife in the Water was 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).
Polanski left then-communist Poland and moved to France, where he had already made two notable short films in 1961: The Fat and the Lean and Mammals
. While in France, Polanski contributed one segment ("La rivière de diamants") to the French-produced omnibus film, Les plus belles escroqueries du monde
(English title: The Beautiful Swindlers) in 1964. However, Polanski found that in the early 1960s the French film industry was generally unwilling to support a rising filmmaker whom they viewed as a cultural Pole and not a Frenchman.
Repulsion (1965)
Polanski made three feature films in England, based on original scripts written by himself and Gérard Brach
, a frequent collaborator. Repulsion
(1965) is 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
). 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)
Cul-de-sac (1966) is 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
.
The Fearless Vampire Killers/Dance of the Vampires (1967)
The Fearless Vampire Killers
(1967) (known by its original title, "Dance of the Vampires" in most countries outside the US) is a parody of vampire films. The plot concerns a buffoonish professor and his clumsy assistant, Alfred (played by Polanski), who are traveling through Transylvania
in search of vampires. The ironic and macabre ending is considered classic Polanski. The Fearless Vampire Killers was Polanski's first feature to be photographed in color with the use of Panavision
lenses, and included a striking visual style with snow-covered, fairy-tale landscapes, similar to the work of Soviet fantasy filmmakers. In addition, the richly textured color schemes of the settings evoke the magical, kaleidoscopic paintings of the great Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall
, who provides the namesake for the innkeeper in the film.
Polanski met Sharon Tate
while the film was being made, where she played the role of the local innkeeper's daughter. They were married in London on 1968.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Paramount studio head Robert Evans brought Polanski to America to direct the film Downhill Racer, but Polanski read the novel Rosemary's Baby
non-stop through the night and the following morning decided he wanted to write as well as direct it. The film, Rosemary's Baby
(1968), was a box-office success and became his first Hollywood production, thereby establishing his reputation as a major commercial filmmaker. The film, a horror-thriller set in trendy Manhattan, is about Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow
), a young housewife who is impregnated by the devil. Polanski's screenplay adaptation earned him a second Academy Award nomination.
On 9 August 1969, while Polanski was working in London, his wife, Sharon Tate
, and four other people were murdered at the Polanskis' residence in Los Angeles.
Polanski abandoned his project and did not resume working until the production of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth
. Jon Finch
and Francesca Annis
played the lead roles. He adapted Shakespeare's original text into a screenplay with the British theater critic Kenneth Tynan
. In his autobiography Polanski wrote that he wanted to be true to the violent nature of the work, and that he had been aware that his first project following Tate's murder, would be subject to scrutiny and probable cricitism regardless of the subject matter; if he had made a comedy he would have been perceived as callous.
What? (1973)
Written by Polanski and previous collaborator Gérard Brach
, What? (1973) is a mordant absurdist
comedy 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 a winsome young American hippie
woman hitchhiking through Europe.
Chinatown (1974)
Polanski returned to Hollywood in 1973 to direct Chinatown for Paramount Pictures
. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. The stars, Jack Nicholson
and Faye Dunaway
, both received Oscar nominations for their roles, and the script by Robert Towne
won for Best Original Screenplay. Polanski appears in a cameo role.
The Tenant (1976)
Polanski returned to Paris for his next film, The Tenant
(1976), 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 a leading role of a timid Polish immigrant living in Paris. Together with his two earlier works, The Tenant can be seen as the third installment in a loose trilogy of films called the "Apartment Trilogy" that explore the themes of social alienation and psychic and emotional breakdown. In his autobiography, Polanski wrote: "I had a great admiration for American institutions and regarded the United States as the only truly democratic country in the world."
Tess (1979)
He dedicated his next film, Tess (1979), to the memory of his late wife, Sharon Tate
. It was Tate who suggested to Polanski that he read it, as she felt it might make a good film. 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 England. Nastassja Kinski
appeared in the title role opposite Peter Firth
and Leigh Lawson
.
The film became the most expensive made in France up to that time. Ultimately, Tess proved a financial success and was well-received by both critics and the public. For Tess, Polanski won France's 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.
Nearly seven years passed before Polanski's next film, Pirates, a lavish period piece starring Walter Matthau
, which the director intended as an homage to the beloved Errol Flynn
swashbucklers of his childhood. The film was shot on location in Tunisia, using a full sized pirate vessel constructed for the production. It was a financial and critical failure.
Frantic (1988)
Frantic
(1988) was Hitchcockian suspense-thriller starring Harrison Ford
and the actress/model Emmanuelle Seigner
, who later became Polanski's wife . The film follows an ordinary tourist in Paris whose wife is kidnapped. He attempts, hopelessly, to go through the Byzantine bureaucratic channels to deal with her disappearance, but finally takes matters into his own hands.
(1992), followed by a film of the acclaimed play Death and the Maiden
(1994) starring Sigourney Weaver
, and then The Ninth Gate
(1999), a thriller based on the novel The Club Dumas
and starring Johnny Depp
.
In 1997, Polanski directed a stage version of his 1967 film The Fearless Vampire Killers
, which debuted in Vienna
followed by successful runs in Stuttgart
, Hamburg, Berlin, and Budapest
. On 1998, Polanski was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
.
In 2001, Polanski filmed The Pianist
, an adaptation of the World War II autobiography of the same name
by Polish-Jewish
musician Władysław Szpilman. Szpilman's experiences as a persecuted Jew in Poland during World War II were reminiscent of Polanski and his family. While Szpilman and Polanski escaped the concentration camps, their families did not, eventually perishing.
When Warsaw, Poland was chosen for the 2002 premiere of The Pianist, "the country exploded with pride." According to reports, numerous former communists came to the screening and "agreed that it was a fantastic film."
In May 2002, the film won the Palme d'Or
(Golden Palm) award at the Cannes Film Festival
, as well as Césars for Best Film
and Best Director
, and later the 2002 Academy Award for Directing
. Because he would have been arrested once in the United States, Polanski did not attend the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood. After the announcement of the Best Director Award, Polanski received a standing ovation from most of those present in the theater. Actor Harrison Ford
accepted the award for Polanski, and then presented the Oscar to him at the Deauville Film Festival five months later in a public ceremony. Polanski later received the Crystal Globe
award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
in 2004.
Oliver Twist (2005)
Oliver Twist
is an adaptation of Dickens's classic, written by The Pianist
s Ronald Harwood
and shot in Prague
. Polanski said in interviews that he made the film as something he could show his children, and that the life of the young scavenger mirrored his own life, fending for himself in WWII Poland.
The Ghost Writer (2010)
The Ghost Writer, a thriller focusing on a ghostwriter working on the memoirs of a character based loosely on former British prime minister Tony Blair
, swept the European Film Awards in 2010, winning six awards, including best movie, director, actor and screenplay. When it premiered at the 60th Berlinale
in February 2010, Polanski won a Silver Bear for Best Director
, and in February 2011, it won four César Awards, France’s version of the Academy Awards.
The cast includes Ewan McGregor
as the writer and Pierce Brosnan
as former British Prime Minister Adam Lang. The film was shot on locations in Germany.
In the U.S., film critic Roger Ebert
included it in his top 10 pick for 2010, and states that "this movie is the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller. Smooth, calm, confident, it builds suspense instead of depending on shock and action. " Co-star Ewan McGregor agrees, saying about Polanski that "he's a legend. . . I've never examined a director and the way that they work, so much before. He's brilliant, just brilliant, and absolutely warrants his reputation as a great director."
Carnage (2011)
Polanski shot Carnage
in February/March 2011. The film is a screen version of Yasmina Reza
’s play God of Carnage
, a comedy about the relationship between two couples after their children get in a fight at school and the selfishness of everyone, which eventually leads to chaos. It stars Kate Winslet
, Jodie Foster
, Christoph Waltz
and John C. Reilly
. Though set in New York, it was shot in Paris due to Polanski's legal inability to travel to the US. The film will have its world premiere on September 9, 2011 at the Venice Film Festival
and is set for release in the US by Sony Pictures Classics on December 16, 2011.
Co-stars Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet commented about Polanski's directing style. According to Foster, "He has a very, very definitive style about how he likes it done. He decides everything. He decided every lens. Every prop. Everything. It’s all him." Winslet adds that "Roman is one of the most extraordinary men I’ve ever met. The guy is 77 years old. He has an effervescent quality to him. He’s very joyful about his work, which is infectious. He likes to have a small crew, to the point that, when I walked on the set, my thought was, ‘My God, this is it?’” Also noting that style of directing, New York Film Festival
director Richard Pena
, during the American premier of the film, called Polanski "a poet of small spaces . . . in just a couple of rooms he can conjure up an entire world, an entire society."
while filming The Fearless Vampire Killers
, and during the production the two of them began dating. On 1968, Polanski married Tate in London. In his autobiography, Polanski described his brief time with Tate as the best years of his life.
She died a year and a half after they were married as one of the victims of the Manson murders, in August 1969. In December of that year, Charles Manson
and several members of his "family" were arrested, tried, and found guilty of first-degree murder of Tate and three friends at Polanski's home. Polanski has said that his absence on the night of the murders is the greatest regret of his life. In his autobiography, he wrote, "Sharon's death is the only watershed in my life that really matters", and commented that her murder changed his personality from a "boundless, untroubled sea of expectations and optimism" to one of "ingrained pessimism ... eternal dissatisfaction with life".
, who starred in Tess. She was between 15 and 17 years old, and he was 43. Their relationship ended at the completion of filming.
In an interview with David Letterman
in 1982, she described their relationship and gave her opinion about his sexual assault case, claiming it was "ridiculous" and his residence in France was "a loss for America."
. They have two children, daughter Morgane and son Elvis. Polanski and his children speak Polish
at home.
of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer during a photo shoot for French Vogue magazine. Soon after he was indicted on six counts of criminal behavior, including rape. At his arraignment Polanski pled not guilty to all charges.
Geimer's attorney next arranged a plea bargain
, which Polanski accepted, in which five of the six charges would be dismissed. As a result, Polanski pled guilty to the charge of "Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a minor," and was ordered to undergo 90 days of psychiatric evaluation at Chino State Prison.
On release from prison after 42 days, Polanski expected that at final sentencing he would be put on probation
, but the judge, Laurence J. Rittenband
, had apparently changed his mind in the interim and now "suggested" to Polanski's attorney, Douglas Dalton, that more jail time and possible deportation
were in order. Polanski was also told by his attorney that despite the fact that the prosecuting attorneys recommended probation, "the judge could no longer be trusted . . ." and the judge's representations were "worthless."
Upon learning of the judge's plans Polanski fled to France on February 1, 1978, just hours before sentencing by the judge. As a French citizen
, he has been protected from extradition and has lived mostly in France since then.
Geimer sued Polanski in 1988, alleging sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress
and seduction. In 1993 Polanski agreed to settle with Geimer; however, in August 1996 Polanski still owed her $604,416. Geimer and her lawyers later confirmed that the settlement was completed.
On 26 September 2009, Polanski was arrested while in Switzerland at the request of U.S. authorities. He was kept in jail near Zurich for two months, then put under house arrest
at his home in Gstaad
while awaiting decision of appeals fighting extradition
to the U.S. On 12 July 2010 the Swiss rejected the U.S. request, declared him a "free man" and released him from custody. All six of the original charges still remain pending in the U.S.
The victim, Samantha Geimer, during a television interview on 10 March 2011, blames the media, reporters, the court, and the judge for causing "way more damage to [her] and her family than anything Roman Polanski has ever done." She adds that the media were "really cruel," stating that the judge was using her and a noted celebrity for his own personal gain from the media exposure.
, was released in Europe and the U.S. where it won numerous awards. The film focuses on the judge in the case and the possible reasons why he changed his mind. It includes interviews with those involved in the case, including the victim, Geimer, who commented about the judge:
In an interview with the prosecuting attorney, Roger Gunson, he states "I'm not surprised that Polanski left under those circumstances," and, "it was going to be a real circus."
Former DA David Wells, made famous for stating on the documentary that he advised the trial judge to incarcerate Polanski, later admitted that he 'played up' his own role in the prosecution and that these back-door conversations in fact did not take place. David Wells's original statements were the most damning against the Polanski prosecution.
In September 2011, the documentary film Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, had its world premiere in Zurich, Switzerland. During an interview in the film, he offers his apology to Geimer: "She is a double victim: My victim, and a victim of the press."
and others, and it was concluded from the evidence that the event could not have happened. Polanski was awarded £
50,000 in damages
by the High Court in London.
* These movies are part of his 'Apartment Trilogy'.
Venice Film Festival
Born in Paris to Polish parents, he moved with his family back to Poland
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
in 1937, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Holocaust and was educated in Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
and became a director of both art house and commercial films. Polanski's first feature-length film, Knife in the Water
Knife in the Water (film)
Knife in the Water is a 1962 Polish drama film directed by Roman Polański. It is Polanski's first feature film, featuring three characters in a story of rivalry and sexual tension.-Plot:...
(1962), made in Poland, was nominated for a United States Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
but was beaten by Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
's 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
. He has since received five more Oscar nominations, along with two Baftas
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
, four Césars
César Award
The César Award is the national film award of France, first given out in 1975. The nominations are selected by the members of the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma....
, a Golden Globe Award and the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
of the Cannes Film Festival in France. In the United Kingdom he directed three films, beginning with Repulsion
Repulsion
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in Britain, as such being his second film made outside his native Poland. The cast includes...
(1965). In 1968 he moved to the United States, and cemented his status by directing the Oscar-winning horror film Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby (film)
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...
(1968).
In 1969, Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
, was murdered by members of the Manson Family while staying at Polanski's Benedict Canyon home above Los Angeles. Following Tate's death, Polanski returned to Europe and spent much of his time in Paris and Gstaad
Gstaad
Gstaad is a village in the German-speaking section of the Canton of Berne in southwestern Switzerland. Part of the municipality of Saanen, Gstaad is known as one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the world....
, but did not direct another film until Macbeth
Macbeth (1971 film)
Macbeth is a 1971 British-American drama film directed by Roman Polanski, based on William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth, about the Highland lord who becomes King of Scotland through treachery and murder. It features Jon Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth...
(1971) in England. The following year he went to Italy to make What? (1973) and subsequently spent the next five years living near Rome. However, he traveled to Hollywood to direct Chinatown (1974). The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, and was a critical and box-office success. Polanski's next film, The Tenant
The Tenant
The Tenant is a 1976 psychological thriller/horror film directed by and starring Roman Polanski based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor. It is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It co-stars actress Isabelle Adjani. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment...
(1976), was shot in France, and completed the "Apartment Trilogy", following Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby.
In 1977, after a photo shoot in Los Angeles, Polanski was arrested for the sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
of a 13-year-old girl and pleaded guilty to the charge of unlawful sex with a minor
Statutory rape
The phrase statutory rape is a term used in some legal jurisdictions to describe sexual activities where one participant is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior...
. To avoid sentencing
Sentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...
, Polanski fled to his home in London, eventually settling in France. In September 2009, he was arrested by Swiss police at the request of U.S. authorities, which also asked for his extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
. The Swiss rejected that request, and instead released him from custody, declaring him a "free man." During an interview for a later film documentary, he offered his apology to the woman for that unlawful sexual encounter, and in a separate interview with Swiss TV he said that he has regretted that episode for the last 33 years.
Polanski continued to make films such as The Pianist
The Pianist (2002 film)
The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman...
(2002), a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
true story drama about a Jewish-Polish
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
musician. The film won three Academy Awards including Best Director, along with numerous international awards. He also directed other films, including Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist (2005 film)
Oliver Twist is a 2005 British drama film directed by Roman Polanski. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1838 novel of the same title by Charles Dickens....
(2005), a story which parallels his own life as a "young boy attempting to triumph over adversity. His most recent film is The Ghost Writer (2010) (known as The Ghost
The Ghost
-Literature:*The Ghost, the English-language translation of the Roman comedy play Mostellaria by Plautus*The Ghost, a character in the British novel Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann...
in the UK), adapted from the novel by Robert Harris
Robert Harris
Robert Harris or Rob Harris may refer to:* Robert Harris , MP for Steyning* Robert Harris , English Puritan* Robert Harris , governor of Anguilla...
, a thriller focusing on a ghostwriter working with a former British Prime Minister (loosely based on Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
). It won six European Film Awards in 2010, including best movie, director, actor and screenplay.
Early life
Polanski was born as Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański in Paris, France, the son of Bula (née Katz-Przedborska) and Ryszard Polański (né Liebling), a painter and manufacturer of sculptureSculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
s. His mother had a daughter, Annette, by her previous husband. Annette managed to survive Auschwitz, where her mother died, and left Poland forever for France. Roman's father was Jewish
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
and his Russian-born mother, Bula, had been raised Roman Catholic. Ryszard Liebling had changed his surname to Polański in early 1932.
World War II
The Polański family moved back to the Polish city of KrakówKraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
in 1936, and were living there when World War II began with the invasion of Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
. Neither of Polanski's parents were religious. Kraków was soon occupied
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
by the German forces, and Nazi racial and religious purity laws
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
made the Polańskis targets of persecution, forcing them into the Kraków Ghetto
Kraków Ghetto
The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major, metropolitan Jewish ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the General Government territory for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation of Polish Jews during the German occupation of Poland in World War II...
, along with thousands of the city's Jews
Holocaust in Poland
The Holocaust, also known as haShoah , was a genocide officially sanctioned and executed by the Third Reich during World War II. It took the lives of three million Polish Jews, destroying an entire civilization. Only a small percentage survived or managed to escape beyond the reach of the Nazis...
. As a child, Polanski witnessed both the ghettoization of Kraków's Jews into a compact area of the city, and the subsequent deportation of all the ghetto's Jews to concentration camps, including watching as his father was taken away. He remembers from age six, one of his first experiences of the terrors to follow:
I had just been visiting my grandmother . . . when I received a foretaste of things to come. At first I didn't know what was happening. I simply saw people scattering in all directions. Then I realized why the street had emptied so quickly. Some women were being herded along it by German soldiers. Instead of running away like the rest, I felt compelled to watch.
One older woman at the rear of the column couldn't keep up. A German officer kept prodding her back into line, but she fell down on all fours, . . . Suddenly a pistol appeared in the officer's hand. There was a loud bang, and blood came welling out of her back. I ran straight into the nearest building, squeezed into a smelly recess beneath some wooden stairs, and didn't come out for hours. I developed a strange habit: clenching my fists so hard that my palms became permanently calloused. I also woke up one morning to find that I had wet my bed.
His father survived the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
in Austria, but his mother perished at Auschwitz. Polański escaped the Kraków Ghetto in 1943 and survived the war using the name Romek Wilk with the help
Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust
Polish Jews were the primary victims of the German Nazi-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Polish Gentiles risked their own lives—and the lives of their families—to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people...
of some Polish Roman Catholic families with whom he came into contact. As a child of Jewish ancestry, in hiding without parents, he lived with numerous different Catholic families, attended church, learned to recite most Catholic prayers by heart, and behaved outwardly as a Roman Catholic, although he was never baptized. However, his efforts to assimilate into Catholic households as a member of the family often failed. In one instance, the parish priest visited the family and began to interrogate him, as Polanski recalls:
"Who exactly are you?" he asked. "Where were you baptized?" . . . "What was the name of your parish priest?" . . . He pursued his inquisition to the bitter end. "You're a little liar," he said finally. "You've never been baptized at all." He took me by the ear and led me over to the mirror. "Look at yourself. Look at those eyes, that mouth, those ears. You aren't one of us."
Writer Mitchell Glazer describes Polanski's difficult childhood:
Truth and myth about Polanski merge in a grisly, Jerzy KosinskiJerzy KosinskiJerzy Kosiński , born Józef Lewinkopf, was an award-winning Polish American novelist, and two-time President of the American Chapter of P.E.N.He was known for various novels, among them The Painted Bird and Being There...
esque tale: at six, slipping through the Cracow sewers with gangs of Jewish children to steal food for their families; having his mother hauled away before his eyes to perish in Auschwitz; at seven, being hidden by various non-Jews (for a fee) and finally being sent to a Polish farm to live with a peasant family. The stories become even darker: near fatal beatings (he has a metal plate in his head), starvation, night escapes across the freezing Polish countryside. And all this before he was twelve.
As he roamed the countryside trying to survive in a Poland now occupied by German troops, he witnessed many horrors, such as being "forced to take part in a cruel and sadistic game in which German soldiers took shots at him for target practice." Author Ian Freer
Ian Freer
Ian Freer is a British non-fiction author and Film magazine editor, who has written several books relating to films. His most recent work was The Complete Spielberg, a guide to the films of Steven Spielberg....
concludes that his constant childhood fears and dread of violence have contributed to the "tangible atmospheres he conjures up on film."
By the time the war ended in 1945, a fifth of the Polish population had been killed, with the vast majority of the victims being civilians. Of those deaths, 3 million were of Polish Jews
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
, 90% of the country's Jewish population.
After the war
After the war he was reunited with his father, and moved back to Kraków. His father remarried December 21, 1946 with Wanda Zajączkowska (to a woman Polanski never liked) and died of cancer in 1984. Time repaired the family contacts, Roman came to them to Cracow and Polanskis visited him in Hollywood and Paris. Polanski recalls the villages and families he lived with as relatively primitive by European standards:They were really simple Catholic peasants. This Polish village was like the English village in Tess. Very primitive. No electricity. The kids with whom I lived didn't know about electricity . . . they wouldn't believe me when I told them it was enough to turn on a switch!
In hindsight, he states that "you must live in a Communist country to really understand how bad it can be. Then you will appreciate capitalism." He does, however, remember events at the war's end and his reintroduction to mainstream society when he was 12, forming friendships with other children, such as Roma Ligocka
Roma Ligocka
Roma Ligocka is a Polish costume designer, writer, and painter.She was born in a Jewish family in Kraków a few years before World War II. During the German occupation of Poland her family was persecuted by the Nazis - her father was incarcerated, first in the Płaszów and then Auschwitz...
, Ryszard Horowitz
Ryszard Horowitz
Ryszard Horowitz was born in Kraków, Poland. At the age of only four months, he and his family were transported into a series of concentration camps following the Nazi invasion of Poland. After years of imprisonment, he and his parents survived the horrors of the work camps...
and his family:
Richard was one of the very few children to have survived deportation from the Kraków ghetto and the only one to have survived the transit camp that followed. His father had hidden him in a latrine cesspool, neck-deep, while the other children were being rounded up for liquidation . . . Regina Horowitz was a typical Jewish mother, warm, resilient, and vital—a tower of strength. She always lit candles on Friday nights, and for the first time in my life I found myself in a household where Jewish rites were observed.
Introduction to movies
Occasionally, he was able to watch films, either at school or at a local cinema, using whatever pocket money he had. Polanski writes, "Most of this went on the movies, but movie seats were dirt cheap, so a little went a long way. I lapped up every kind of film." As time went on, movies became more than an escape into entertainment, as he explains:Movies were becoming an absolute obsession with me. I was enthralled by everything connected with the cinema—
not just the movies themselves but the aura that surrounded them. I loved the luminous rectangle of the screen, the sight of the beam slicing through the darkness from the projection booth, the miraculous synchronization of sound and vision, even the dusty smell of the tip-up seats. More than anything else, though I was fascinated by the actual mechanics of the process.
Early career
Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
's Pokolenie (A Generation, 1954) and in the same year in Silik Sternfeld's Zaczarowany rower (Enchanted Bicycle or Magical Bicycle). Polanski's directorial debut was also in 1955 with a short film Rower (Bicycle). Rower is a semi-autobiographical feature film, believed to be lost, which also starred Polanski. It refers to his real-life violent altercation with a notorious Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
felon, Janusz Dziuba, who arranged to sell Polanski a bicycle, but instead beat him badly and stole his money. In real life the offender was arrested while fleeing after fracturing Polanski's skull, and executed for three murders, out of eight prior such assaults, which he had committed. Several other short films made during his study at Łódź gained him considerable recognition, particularly Two Men and a Wardrobe
Two Men and a Wardrobe
Two Men and a Wardrobe is a short Polish black and white silent movie directed by Roman Polański.- Plot :The film features two men, played by Jakub Goldberg and Henryk Kluba, who emerge from the sea carrying a large wardrobe, which they proceed to carry into a town...
(1958) and When Angels Fall (1959). He graduated in 1959.
1960s
Knife in the Water (1962)Polanski's first feature-length film, Knife in the Water
Knife in the Water (film)
Knife in the Water is a 1962 Polish drama film directed by Roman Polański. It is Polanski's first feature film, featuring three characters in a story of rivalry and sexual tension.-Plot:...
, was also the first significant Polish film after World War II that did not have a war theme. Scripted by Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. A graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début Oko wykol...
, Jakub Goldberg
Jakub Goldberg
Jakub Goldberg was a Polish scriptwriter, assistant director and actor....
and Polanski, Knife in the Water is 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. Knife in the Water was 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).
Polanski left then-communist Poland and moved to France, where he had already made two notable short films in 1961: The Fat and the Lean and Mammals
Ssaki
Ssaki was a short film written and directed by Roman Polański in 1961. This was the last of Roman Polański's short films before he began work on his first feature, Nóż w wodzie. the film received awards at Oberhausen and Melbourne.-External links:*...
. While in France, Polanski contributed one segment ("La rivière de diamants") to the French-produced omnibus film, Les plus belles escroqueries du monde
Les plus belles escroqueries du monde
Les plus belles escroqueries du monde is a 1964 film composed of four segments, each of which was created with a different set of writers, directors, and actors.-Cast:...
(English title: The Beautiful Swindlers) in 1964. However, Polanski found that in the early 1960s the French film industry was generally unwilling to support a rising filmmaker whom they viewed as a cultural Pole and not a Frenchman.
Repulsion (1965)
Polanski made three feature films in England, based on original scripts written by himself and Gérard Brach
Gérard Brach
Gérard Brach was a French screenwriter best known for his collaborations with the film directors Roman Polanski and Jean-Jacques Annaud...
, a frequent collaborator. Repulsion
Repulsion
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in Britain, as such being his second film made outside his native Poland. The cast includes...
(1965) is a psychological horror film focusing on a young Belgian
Belgians
Belgians are people originating from the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe.-Etymology:Belgians are a relatively "new" people...
woman named Carol (Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
), who is living in London with her older sister (Yvonne Furneaux
Yvonne Furneaux
Yvonne Furneaux is a French film actress.-Personal life:Yvonne Furneax started her acting career in England in 1952. At first she started with a few minor productions...
). 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
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
's Un chien Andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
's The Blood of a Poet
The Blood of a Poet
The Blood of a Poet is an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and financed by Charles de Noailles. Photographer Lee Miller made her only film appearance in this movie, and it also features an appearance by the famed aerialist Barbette...
, Henri-Georges Clouzot
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Henri-Georges Clouzot was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques, which are critically recognized to be among the greatest films from the 1950s...
's Diabolique
Les Diaboliques (film)
Les Diaboliques , released as Diabolique in the United States and variously translated as The Devils or The Fiends, is a 1955 French black-and-white thriller feature film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot and Paul Meurisse...
and Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
.
Cul-de-sac (1966)
Cul-de-sac (1966) is a bleak nihilist
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
tragicomedy
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
filmed on location in Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
. The general tone and the basic premise of the film owes a great deal to Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
, along with aspects of Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
's The Birthday Party
The Birthday Party (play)
The Birthday Party is the first full-length play by Harold Pinter and one of Pinter's best-known and most-frequently performed plays...
.
The Fearless Vampire Killers/Dance of the Vampires (1967)
The Fearless Vampire Killers
The Fearless Vampire Killers
The Fearless Vampire Killers is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman Polanski, written by Gérard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and co-starring Polanski with future wife Sharon Tate...
(1967) (known by its original title, "Dance of the Vampires" in most countries outside the US) is a parody of vampire films. The plot concerns a buffoonish professor and his clumsy assistant, Alfred (played by Polanski), who are traveling through Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
in search of vampires. The ironic and macabre ending is considered classic Polanski. The Fearless Vampire Killers was Polanski's first feature to be photographed in color with the use of Panavision
Panavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product...
lenses, and included a striking visual style with snow-covered, fairy-tale landscapes, similar to the work of Soviet fantasy filmmakers. In addition, the richly textured color schemes of the settings evoke the magical, kaleidoscopic paintings of the great Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, who provides the namesake for the innkeeper in the film.
Polanski met Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
while the film was being made, where she played the role of the local innkeeper's daughter. They were married in London on 1968.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Paramount studio head Robert Evans brought Polanski to America to direct the film Downhill Racer, but Polanski read the novel Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby is a 1967 best-selling horror novel by Ira Levin, his second published book. Major elements of the story were inspired by the publicity surrounding the Church of Satan of Anton LaVey which had been founded in 1966.-Plot summary:...
non-stop through the night and the following morning decided he wanted to write as well as direct it. The film, Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby (film)
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...
(1968), was a box-office success and became his first Hollywood production, thereby establishing his reputation as a major commercial filmmaker. The film, a horror-thriller set in trendy Manhattan, is about Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
), a young housewife who is impregnated by the devil. Polanski's screenplay adaptation earned him a second Academy Award nomination.
On 9 August 1969, while Polanski was working in London, his wife, Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
, and four other people were murdered at the Polanskis' residence in Los Angeles.
1970s
Macbeth (1971)Polanski abandoned his project and did not resume working until the production of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth
Macbeth (1971 film)
Macbeth is a 1971 British-American drama film directed by Roman Polanski, based on William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth, about the Highland lord who becomes King of Scotland through treachery and murder. It features Jon Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth...
. Jon Finch
Jon Finch
Jon Finch is an English actor noted for many Shakespearean roles. Perhaps his most notable role was the title role in Roman Polanski's 1971 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. His other famous role was as a down-and-out ex-RAF pilot wrongly accused of murder in Alfred Hitchcock's...
and Francesca Annis
Francesca Annis
Francesca Annis is an English actress, known for her film and television appearances, most recently in the BBC series Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Deceit.-Early life and education:...
played the lead roles. He adapted Shakespeare's original text into a screenplay with the British theater critic Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
. In his autobiography Polanski wrote that he wanted to be true to the violent nature of the work, and that he had been aware that his first project following Tate's murder, would be subject to scrutiny and probable cricitism regardless of the subject matter; if he had made a comedy he would have been perceived as callous.
What? (1973)
Written by Polanski and previous collaborator Gérard Brach
Gérard Brach
Gérard Brach was a French screenwriter best known for his collaborations with the film directors Roman Polanski and Jean-Jacques Annaud...
, What? (1973) is a mordant absurdist
Absurdist fiction
Absurdist fiction is a genre of literature, most often employed in novels, plays or poems, that focuses on the experiences of characters in a situation where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events...
comedy loosely based on the themes of Alice in Wonderland and Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
. The film is a rambling shaggy dog story about the sexual indignities that befall a winsome young American hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
woman hitchhiking through Europe.
Chinatown (1974)
Polanski returned to Hollywood in 1973 to direct Chinatown for Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. The stars, Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
and Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
, both received Oscar nominations for their roles, and the script by Robert Towne
Robert Towne
Robert Towne is an American screenwriter and director. His most notable work may be his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown .-Film:...
won for Best Original Screenplay. Polanski appears in a cameo role.
The Tenant (1976)
Polanski returned to Paris for his next film, The Tenant
The Tenant
The Tenant is a 1976 psychological thriller/horror film directed by and starring Roman Polanski based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor. It is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It co-stars actress Isabelle Adjani. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment...
(1976), which was based on a 1964 novel by Roland Topor
Roland Topor
Roland Topor , was a French illustrator, painter, writer and filmmaker, known for the surreal nature of his work...
, a French writer of Polish-Jewish origin
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
. In addition to directing the film, Polanski also played a leading role of a timid Polish immigrant living in Paris. Together with his two earlier works, The Tenant can be seen as the third installment in a loose trilogy of films called the "Apartment Trilogy" that explore the themes of social alienation and psychic and emotional breakdown. In his autobiography, Polanski wrote: "I had a great admiration for American institutions and regarded the United States as the only truly democratic country in the world."
Tess (1979)
He dedicated his next film, Tess (1979), to the memory of his late wife, Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
. It was Tate who suggested to Polanski that he read it, as she felt it might make a good film. 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 England. Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films , as well as parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move; Paris,...
appeared in the title role opposite Peter Firth
Peter Firth
Peter Firth is an English actor. He is best known for his role as Sir Harry Pearce in the BBC show Spooks, of which he is the only actor to have starred in every episode of the show's 10 series lifespan...
and Leigh Lawson
Leigh Lawson
Leigh Lawson is a film and stage actor, director, and writer.-Career:Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Lawson has acted in film and television since the early 1970s, directed plays in the West End and on Broadway...
.
The film became the most expensive made in France up to that time. Ultimately, Tess proved a financial success and was well-received by both critics and the public. For Tess, Polanski won France's César Awards for Best Picture and Best Director
César Award for Best Director
This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Director .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
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.
1980s
Pirates (1986)Nearly seven years passed before Polanski's next film, Pirates, a lavish period piece starring Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
, which the director intended as an homage to the beloved Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
swashbucklers of his childhood. The film was shot on location in Tunisia, using a full sized pirate vessel constructed for the production. It was a financial and critical failure.
Frantic (1988)
Frantic
Frantic (film)
Frantic is a 1988 thriller film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner.- Synopsis :Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Walker, a surgeon visiting Paris with his wife Sondra for a medical conference. At their hotel, she is unable to unlock her suitcase, and Walker...
(1988) was Hitchcockian suspense-thriller starring Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
and the actress/model Emmanuelle Seigner
Emmanuelle Seigner
Emmanuelle Seigner is a French actress, former fashion model, and singer, best known as the wife of Academy Award winning director Roman Polanski, and for her roles in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly , and Frantic...
, who later became Polanski's wife . The film follows an ordinary tourist in Paris whose wife is kidnapped. He attempts, hopelessly, to go through the Byzantine bureaucratic channels to deal with her disappearance, but finally takes matters into his own hands.
1990s
Polanski followed this with the dark psycho-sexual film Bitter MoonBitter Moon
Bitter Moon is a 1992 film starring Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner and Peter Coyote and directed by Roman Polanski. The film is known as in France. The script is inspired by a book with the same name, written by the French author Pascal Bruckner. The score was composed by...
(1992), followed by a film of the acclaimed play Death and the Maiden
Death and the Maiden (film)
Death and the Maiden is a 1994 drama film directed by Roman Polanski, based on the play by Ariel Dorfman. It starred Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley and Stuart Wilson.-Plot summary:...
(1994) starring Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
, and then The Ninth Gate
The Ninth Gate
The Ninth Gate is a 1999 horror film directed, produced, and co-written by Roman Polanski. It is a neo-noir, occult mystery thriller involving the rare book business, wherein rare-book dealer Dean Corso is hired by bibliophile Boris Balkan to validate a seventeenth-century copy of The Nine Gates...
(1999), a thriller based on the novel The Club Dumas
The Club Dumas
The Club Dumas is a 1993 novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The book is set in a world of antiquarian booksellers echoing his previous work, The Flanders Panel....
and starring Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
.
In 1997, Polanski directed a stage version of his 1967 film The Fearless Vampire Killers
The Fearless Vampire Killers
The Fearless Vampire Killers is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman Polanski, written by Gérard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and co-starring Polanski with future wife Sharon Tate...
, which debuted in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
followed by successful runs in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, Hamburg, Berlin, and Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. On 1998, Polanski was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
.
Post 2000
The Pianist (2002)In 2001, Polanski filmed The Pianist
The Pianist (2002 film)
The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman...
, an adaptation of the World War II autobiography of the same name
The Pianist (memoir)
The Pianist is a memoir of the Polish musician of Jewish origins Władysław Szpilman, written and elaborated by a Polish author Jerzy Waldorff, who met Szpilman in 1938 in Krynica and became a friend of him...
by Polish-Jewish
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
musician Władysław Szpilman. Szpilman's experiences as a persecuted Jew in Poland during World War II were reminiscent of Polanski and his family. While Szpilman and Polanski escaped the concentration camps, their families did not, eventually perishing.
When Warsaw, Poland was chosen for the 2002 premiere of The Pianist, "the country exploded with pride." According to reports, numerous former communists came to the screening and "agreed that it was a fantastic film."
In May 2002, the film won the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
(Golden Palm) award at the Cannes Film Festival
2002 Cannes Film Festival
The 2002 Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski.-Jury:* David Lynch * Sharon Stone* Michelle Yeoh...
, as well as Césars for Best Film
César Award for Best Film
The winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Film .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
and Best Director
César Award for Best Director
This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Director .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
, and later the 2002 Academy Award for Directing
Academy Award for Directing
The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...
. Because he would have been arrested once in the United States, Polanski did not attend the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood. After the announcement of the Best Director Award, Polanski received a standing ovation from most of those present in the theater. Actor Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
accepted the award for Polanski, and then presented the Oscar to him at the Deauville Film Festival five months later in a public ceremony. Polanski later received the Crystal Globe
Crystal Globe
Crystal Globe is the main award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, first given in the city of Karlovy Vary of the Czech Republic, in 1948.In the international competition of films, IFFKV presents the following awards:...
award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary , Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival gained worldwide recognition over the past years and has become one of Europe's major film events....
in 2004.
Oliver Twist (2005)
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist (2005 film)
Oliver Twist is a 2005 British drama film directed by Roman Polanski. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1838 novel of the same title by Charles Dickens....
is an adaptation of Dickens's classic, written by The Pianist
The Pianist (2002 film)
The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman...
s Ronald Harwood
Ronald Harwood
Sir Ronald Harwood CBE is an author, playwright and screenwriter. He is most noted for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay...
and shot in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. Polanski said in interviews that he made the film as something he could show his children, and that the life of the young scavenger mirrored his own life, fending for himself in WWII Poland.
The Ghost Writer (2010)
The Ghost Writer, a thriller focusing on a ghostwriter working on the memoirs of a character based loosely on former British prime minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, swept the European Film Awards in 2010, winning six awards, including best movie, director, actor and screenplay. When it premiered at the 60th Berlinale
60th Berlin International Film Festival
The 60th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 11 to February 21, 2010, with Werner Herzog as President of the Jury. The opening film of the festival was Chinese director Wang Quan'an's romantic drama Apart Together, in competition, while the closing film is Japanese...
in February 2010, Polanski won a Silver Bear for Best Director
Silver Bear for Best Director
The Silver Bear for Best Director is the Berlin International Film Festival's award for best achievement in direction.-Awards:-Repeated winners:*Mario Monicelli *Satyajit Ray *Carlos Saura -External links:*...
, and in February 2011, it won four César Awards, France’s version of the Academy Awards.
The cast includes Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
as the writer and Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan began training in commercial illustration, but trained at the Drama Centre in London for three years...
as former British Prime Minister Adam Lang. The film was shot on locations in Germany.
In the U.S., film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
included it in his top 10 pick for 2010, and states that "this movie is the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller. Smooth, calm, confident, it builds suspense instead of depending on shock and action. " Co-star Ewan McGregor agrees, saying about Polanski that "he's a legend. . . I've never examined a director and the way that they work, so much before. He's brilliant, just brilliant, and absolutely warrants his reputation as a great director."
Carnage (2011)
Polanski shot Carnage
Carnage (2011 film)
Carnage is a 2011 black comedy drama film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the acclaimed play God of Carnage by French playwright Yasmina Reza. The film is an international co-production of France, Germany, Poland and Spain.-Plot:...
in February/March 2011. The film is a screen version of Yasmina Reza
Yasmina Reza
Yasmina Reza is a French playwright, actress, novelist and screenwriter. Her parents were both of Jewish origin, her father Iranian, her mother Hungarian.-Career:...
’s play God of Carnage
God of Carnage
God of Carnage is a play by Yasmina Reza. It is about two pairs of parents, one of whose child has hurt the other at a public park, who meet to discuss the matter in a civilized manner. However, as the evening goes on, the parents become increasingly childish, resulting in the evening devolving...
, a comedy about the relationship between two couples after their children get in a fight at school and the selfishness of everyone, which eventually leads to chaos. It stars Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
, Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
and John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...
. Though set in New York, it was shot in Paris due to Polanski's legal inability to travel to the US. The film will have its world premiere on September 9, 2011 at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
and is set for release in the US by Sony Pictures Classics on December 16, 2011.
Co-stars Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet commented about Polanski's directing style. According to Foster, "He has a very, very definitive style about how he likes it done. He decides everything. He decided every lens. Every prop. Everything. It’s all him." Winslet adds that "Roman is one of the most extraordinary men I’ve ever met. The guy is 77 years old. He has an effervescent quality to him. He’s very joyful about his work, which is infectious. He likes to have a small crew, to the point that, when I walked on the set, my thought was, ‘My God, this is it?’” Also noting that style of directing, New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
director Richard Pena
Richard Peña
Richard Peña is the American film program director of the prestigious Film Society of Lincoln Center noted for his organization of the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films series and Scanners .-Early life:Interested in film at a very young age, when Richard was just 12 years old, he was...
, during the American premier of the film, called Polanski "a poet of small spaces . . . in just a couple of rooms he can conjure up an entire world, an entire society."
Barbara Lass
Polanski's first wife, Barbara Lass (née Kwiatkowska), was a Polish actress who also starred in Polanski's 1959 When Angels Fall. The couple were married in 1959 and divorced in 1961.Sharon Tate
He met rising actress Sharon TateSharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
while filming The Fearless Vampire Killers
The Fearless Vampire Killers
The Fearless Vampire Killers is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman Polanski, written by Gérard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and co-starring Polanski with future wife Sharon Tate...
, and during the production the two of them began dating. On 1968, Polanski married Tate in London. In his autobiography, Polanski described his brief time with Tate as the best years of his life.
She died a year and a half after they were married as one of the victims of the Manson murders, in August 1969. In December of that year, Charles Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
and several members of his "family" were arrested, tried, and found guilty of first-degree murder of Tate and three friends at Polanski's home. Polanski has said that his absence on the night of the murders is the greatest regret of his life. In his autobiography, he wrote, "Sharon's death is the only watershed in my life that really matters", and commented that her murder changed his personality from a "boundless, untroubled sea of expectations and optimism" to one of "ingrained pessimism ... eternal dissatisfaction with life".
Nastassja Kinski
In 1976, Polanski started a romantic relationship with Nastassja KinskiNastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films , as well as parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move; Paris,...
, who starred in Tess. She was between 15 and 17 years old, and he was 43. Their relationship ended at the completion of filming.
In an interview with David Letterman
David Letterman
David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...
in 1982, she described their relationship and gave her opinion about his sexual assault case, claiming it was "ridiculous" and his residence in France was "a loss for America."
Emmanuelle Seigner
In 1989, Polanski married French actress Emmanuelle SeignerEmmanuelle Seigner
Emmanuelle Seigner is a French actress, former fashion model, and singer, best known as the wife of Academy Award winning director Roman Polanski, and for her roles in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly , and Frantic...
. They have two children, daughter Morgane and son Elvis. Polanski and his children speak Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
at home.
Sexual assault case
On 11 March 1977, Polanski, then 43 years old, was arrested for the sexual assaultSexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer during a photo shoot for French Vogue magazine. Soon after he was indicted on six counts of criminal behavior, including rape. At his arraignment Polanski pled not guilty to all charges.
Geimer's attorney next arranged a plea bargain
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
, which Polanski accepted, in which five of the six charges would be dismissed. As a result, Polanski pled guilty to the charge of "Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a minor," and was ordered to undergo 90 days of psychiatric evaluation at Chino State Prison.
On release from prison after 42 days, Polanski expected that at final sentencing he would be put on probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
, but the judge, Laurence J. Rittenband
Laurence J. Rittenband
Laurence J. Rittenband was an American judge. He was a judge on the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California....
, had apparently changed his mind in the interim and now "suggested" to Polanski's attorney, Douglas Dalton, that more jail time and possible deportation
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
were in order. Polanski was also told by his attorney that despite the fact that the prosecuting attorneys recommended probation, "the judge could no longer be trusted . . ." and the judge's representations were "worthless."
Upon learning of the judge's plans Polanski fled to France on February 1, 1978, just hours before sentencing by the judge. As a French citizen
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
, he has been protected from extradition and has lived mostly in France since then.
Geimer sued Polanski in 1988, alleging sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress
Intentional infliction of emotional distress
Intentional infliction of emotional distress is a tort claim of recent origin for intentional conduct that results in extreme emotional distress. Some courts and commentators have substituted mental for emotional, but the tort is the same...
and seduction. In 1993 Polanski agreed to settle with Geimer; however, in August 1996 Polanski still owed her $604,416. Geimer and her lawyers later confirmed that the settlement was completed.
On 26 September 2009, Polanski was arrested while in Switzerland at the request of U.S. authorities. He was kept in jail near Zurich for two months, then put under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
at his home in Gstaad
Gstaad
Gstaad is a village in the German-speaking section of the Canton of Berne in southwestern Switzerland. Part of the municipality of Saanen, Gstaad is known as one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the world....
while awaiting decision of appeals fighting extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
to the U.S. On 12 July 2010 the Swiss rejected the U.S. request, declared him a "free man" and released him from custody. All six of the original charges still remain pending in the U.S.
The victim, Samantha Geimer, during a television interview on 10 March 2011, blames the media, reporters, the court, and the judge for causing "way more damage to [her] and her family than anything Roman Polanski has ever done." She adds that the media were "really cruel," stating that the judge was using her and a noted celebrity for his own personal gain from the media exposure.
Documentary films
In 2008 the documentary film, Roman Polanski: Wanted and DesiredRoman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired is a 2008 documentary film directed by Marina Zenovich. It concerns film director Roman Polanski and his sexual misconduct case...
, was released in Europe and the U.S. where it won numerous awards. The film focuses on the judge in the case and the possible reasons why he changed his mind. It includes interviews with those involved in the case, including the victim, Geimer, who commented about the judge:
- "He didn't care what happened to me, and he didn't care what happened to Polanski. He was orchestrating some little show . . . " Geimer's attorney, Lawrence Silver, adds that Polanski "was supposed to be treated fairly, and he clearly was not."
In an interview with the prosecuting attorney, Roger Gunson, he states "I'm not surprised that Polanski left under those circumstances," and, "it was going to be a real circus."
Former DA David Wells, made famous for stating on the documentary that he advised the trial judge to incarcerate Polanski, later admitted that he 'played up' his own role in the prosecution and that these back-door conversations in fact did not take place. David Wells's original statements were the most damning against the Polanski prosecution.
In September 2011, the documentary film Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, had its world premiere in Zurich, Switzerland. During an interview in the film, he offers his apology to Geimer: "She is a double victim: My victim, and a victim of the press."
Vanity Fair libel case
In 2004, Polanski sued Vanity Fair magazine in London for libel. A 2002 article in the magazine claimed that Polanski made sexual advances towards a young model while traveling to Tate's funeral. The trial included testimony of actress Mia FarrowMia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
and others, and it was concluded from the evidence that the event could not have happened. Polanski was awarded £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
50,000 in damages
Damages
In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
by the High Court in London.
Director
| Year | Film | Oscar nominations |
Oscar wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Zaczarowany rower (also as Bicycle) | ||
| 1957 | Morderstwo Morderstwo Morderstwo is a short film written and directed by Roman Polanski in 1957. This was Roman Polanski's first completed student short at the State Film School in Łódź, Poland. The film takes place predominantly in darkness and in one room. It introduces ideas Polański revisited throughout his career... (also as A Murderer) |
||
| Uśmiech zębiczny Usmiech zebiczny Uśmiech zębiczny is a 1957 Polish short film written and directed by Roman Polański. A man walks down the exterior staircase of some building, He passes a small window. He looks in, and there a young woman standing at a washbasin, drying her hair with a towel that covers her face... (also as A Toothful Smile) |
|||
| Rozbijemy zabawę Rozbijemy zabawe Rozbijemy zabawę was a short film written and directed by Roman Polański in 1957. According to Roman Polanski's autobiography, the film was a stunt which nearly got him thrown out of Łódź film school; Polanski had organized a groups of "Thugs" to go to a school dance and begin disrupting it... (also as Break Up the Dance) |
|||
| 1958 | Dwaj ludzie z szafą Two Men and a Wardrobe Two Men and a Wardrobe is a short Polish black and white silent movie directed by Roman Polański.- Plot :The film features two men, played by Jakub Goldberg and Henryk Kluba, who emerge from the sea carrying a large wardrobe, which they proceed to carry into a town... (also as Two Men and a Wardrobe) |
||
| 1959 | Lampa Lampa (film) Lampa is one of Polish director Roman Polanski's early short films. The eight-minute piece, released in 1959, has an elderly doll-maker hard at work in his shop. Once he's headed off home, the film focuses on apparent whisperings amongst the miscellaneous doll-parts he's left behind... (also as The Lamp) |
||
| Gdy spadają anioły (also as When Angels Fall) | |||
| 1961 | Le Gros et le maigre (also as The Fat and the Lean) | ||
| Ssaki Ssaki Ssaki was a short film written and directed by Roman Polański in 1961. This was the last of Roman Polański's short films before he began work on his first feature, Nóż w wodzie. the film received awards at Oberhausen and Melbourne.-External links:*... (also as Mammals) |
|||
| 1962 | Nóż w wodzie Knife in the Water (film) Knife in the Water is a 1962 Polish drama film directed by Roman Polański. It is Polanski's first feature film, featuring three characters in a story of rivalry and sexual tension.-Plot:... (also as Knife in the Water) |
1 | |
| 1964 | Les plus belles escroqueries du monde Les plus belles escroqueries du monde Les plus belles escroqueries du monde is a 1964 film composed of four segments, each of which was created with a different set of writers, directors, and actors.-Cast:... (also as The Beautiful Swindlers)—segment: "La rivière de diamants" |
||
| 1965 | Repulsion Repulsion Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in Britain, as such being his second film made outside his native Poland. The cast includes... |
||
| 1966 | Cul-de-sac | ||
| 1967 | The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, Madam, but Your Teeth Are in My Neck The Fearless Vampire Killers The Fearless Vampire Killers is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman Polanski, written by Gérard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and co-starring Polanski with future wife Sharon Tate... (also as Dance of the Vampires) |
||
| 1968 | Rosemary's Baby Rosemary's Baby (film) Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin... |
2 | 1 |
| 1971 | Macbeth Macbeth (1971 film) Macbeth is a 1971 British-American drama film directed by Roman Polanski, based on William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth, about the Highland lord who becomes King of Scotland through treachery and murder. It features Jon Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth... |
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| 1973 | What? (also as Diary of Forbidden Dreams) | ||
| 1974 | Chinatown | 11 | 1 |
| 1976 | Le Locataire (also as The Tenant The Tenant The Tenant is a 1976 psychological thriller/horror film directed by and starring Roman Polanski based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor. It is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It co-stars actress Isabelle Adjani. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment... ) |
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| 1979 | Tess | 6 | 3 |
| 1986 | Pirates | 1 | |
| 1988 | Frantic Frantic (film) Frantic is a 1988 thriller film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner.- Synopsis :Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Walker, a surgeon visiting Paris with his wife Sondra for a medical conference. At their hotel, she is unable to unlock her suitcase, and Walker... |
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| 1992 | Bitter Moon Bitter Moon Bitter Moon is a 1992 film starring Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner and Peter Coyote and directed by Roman Polanski. The film is known as in France. The script is inspired by a book with the same name, written by the French author Pascal Bruckner. The score was composed by... |
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| 1994 | Death and the Maiden Death and the Maiden (film) Death and the Maiden is a 1994 drama film directed by Roman Polanski, based on the play by Ariel Dorfman. It starred Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley and Stuart Wilson.-Plot summary:... |
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| 1999 | The Ninth Gate The Ninth Gate The Ninth Gate is a 1999 horror film directed, produced, and co-written by Roman Polanski. It is a neo-noir, occult mystery thriller involving the rare book business, wherein rare-book dealer Dean Corso is hired by bibliophile Boris Balkan to validate a seventeenth-century copy of The Nine Gates... |
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| 2002 | The Pianist The Pianist (2002 film) The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman... |
7 | 3 |
| 2005 | Oliver Twist Oliver Twist (2005 film) Oliver Twist is a 2005 British drama film directed by Roman Polanski. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1838 novel of the same title by Charles Dickens.... |
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| 2007 | To Each His Own Cinema To Each His Own Cinema To Each His Own Cinema is a 2007 French anthology film commissioned for the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a collection of 34 short films, each 3 minutes in length, by 36 acclaimed directors... (segment Cinéma erotique) |
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| 2010 | The Ghost Writer | ||
| 2011 | Carnage |
Actor
- Trzy opowieści (aka Three Stories) as Genek 'The Little' (segment "Jacek", 1953)
- Zaczarowany rower (aka Magical Bicycle) as Adas (1955)
- Rower (aka Bicycle) as the Boy who wants to buy a bicycle (1955)
- Pokolenie (aka A Generation) as Mundek (1955)
- Nikodem Dyzma as the Boy at Hotel (1956)
- Wraki (aka The Wrecks, 1957)
- Koniec nocy (aka End of the Night) as the Little One (1957)
- Dwaj ludzie z szafąTwo Men and a WardrobeTwo Men and a Wardrobe is a short Polish black and white silent movie directed by Roman Polański.- Plot :The film features two men, played by Jakub Goldberg and Henryk Kluba, who emerge from the sea carrying a large wardrobe, which they proceed to carry into a town...
(aka Two Men and a Wardrobe) as the Bad boy (1958) - Zadzwońcie do mojej żony? (aka Call My Wife) as a Dancer (1958)
- Gdy spadają anioły (aka When Angels Fall Down) as an Old woman (1959)
- LotnaLotnaLotna is a Polish war film released in 1959 and directed by Andrzej Wajda.-Overview:This highly symbolic movie is both the director's tribute to the long and glorious history of the Polish cavalry, as well as a more ambiguous portrait of the passing of an era...
as a Musician (1959) - Zezowate szczęście (aka Bad LuckBad Luck (film)Bad Luck is a 1960 Polish comedy film directed by Andrzej Munk. It was entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Bogumił Kobiela – Jan Piszczyk* Maria Ciesielska – Basia* Helena Dabrowska – Wychówna...
) as Jola's Tutor (1960) - Do widzenia, do jutra (aka Good Bye, Till Tomorrow) as Romek (1960)
- Niewinni czarodzieje (aka Innocent Sorcerers) as Dudzio (1960)
- Ostrożnie, Yeti! (aka Beware of Yeti!, 1961)
- Gros et le maigre, LeGros et le maigre, LeLe Gros et le maigre is a short silent, comic film written and directed by Roman Polanski in 1961. Polanski shot this short film just after graduating from The National Film School in Łódź in 1959; it was made in France and was Polanski's last film before the international breakthrough of his...
(aka The Fat and the Lean) as The Lean (1961) - SamsonSamson (1961 film)Samson is a 1961 film made by Academy Award-winning Polish director Andrzej Wajda that uses art house aesthetics to tell a story about the Holocaust. Wajda's World War II film alludes to the Old Testament story of Samson, who had supernatural physical strength...
(1961) - Nóż w wodzieKnife in the Water (film)Knife in the Water is a 1962 Polish drama film directed by Roman Polański. It is Polanski's first feature film, featuring three characters in a story of rivalry and sexual tension.-Plot:...
(aka Knife in the Water) voice of Young Boy (1962) - RepulsionRepulsionRepulsion is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in Britain, as such being his second film made outside his native Poland. The cast includes...
as Spoon Player (1965) - The Fearless Vampire KillersThe Fearless Vampire KillersThe Fearless Vampire Killers is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman Polanski, written by Gérard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and co-starring Polanski with future wife Sharon Tate...
as Alfred, Abronsius' Assistant (1967) - The Magic ChristianThe Magic Christian (film)The Magic Christian is a 1969 British comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath and starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, with noteworthy appearances by John Cleese, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough and Roman Polanski. It was loosely adapted from the 1959 comic novel of the same...
as Solitary drinker (1969) - What? as Mosquito (1972)
- Chinatown as Man with Knife (1974)
- Blood for DraculaBlood for DraculaBlood for Dracula is a 1974 film directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol and Andrew Braunsberg. It stars Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Maxime McKendry, Stefania Casini, and Arno Juerging...
(Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
) as Man in Tavern (1976) - Locataire, Le (aka The TenantThe TenantThe Tenant is a 1976 psychological thriller/horror film directed by and starring Roman Polanski based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor. It is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It co-stars actress Isabelle Adjani. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment...
) as Trelkovsky (1976) - Chassé-croisé (1982)
- En attendant Godot (TV) as Lucky (1989)
- Back in the USSRBack in the USSR (film)Back in the USSR is a 1992 American thriller film directed by Deran Sarafian and starring Frank Whaley, Natalya Negoda and Roman Polanski. The film is set in Moscow during the last years of the Soviet Union, with Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika in full swing...
as Kurilov (1992) - Una pura formalità (aka A Pure Formality) as Inspector (1994)
- Grosse fatigueGrosse FatigueGrosse Fatigue is a 1994 French comedy film directed by Michel Blanc. It was entered into the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Michel Blanc - Michel Blanc / Patrick Olivier* Carole Bouquet - Carole Bouquet* Philippe Noiret - Philippe Noiret...
(aka Dead Tired) as Roman Polanski (1994) - Hommage à Alfred (aka Tribute to Alfred Lepetit, 2000)
- ZemstaThe Revenge (film)The Revenge is the English title for Zemsta, a film released in 2002, directed by Andrzej Wajda. This film is an adaptation of a perennially popular stage farce of the same name by the Polish dramatist and poet Aleksander Fredro....
(aka The Revenge) as Papkin (2002) - Rush Hour 3Rush Hour 3Rush Hour 3 is a 2007 martial arts/action-comedy film, and the third installment in the Rush Hour film series, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, that began with the 1998 film Rush Hour and continued with the first sequel Rush Hour 2 in 2001. The film was officially announced on May 7, 2006,...
as Detective Revi (2007) - Caos Calmo as Steiner (2007)
Writer
- Script for A Day at the BeachA Day at the BeachA Day at the Beach is a 1970 film based on the 1962 book Een dagje naar het strand by Dutch author Heere Heeresma. The screenplay was written by Roman Polanski, who was originally intended to be the director, although most of the direction was finally done by first-timer Simon Hesera.-Plot:Set in...
(1970) based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Simon Heere HeeresmaSimon Heere HeeresmaSimon Heere Heeresma , was a Dutch author and poet.Simon Heere Heeresma was born in Amsterdam in 1932. His first collection of poetry, published in 1954, was called Children's Room, but his breakthrough came in the 1960s and 1970s in the Provo generation...
. - Polanski's autobiography, Roman by Polanski, sometimes known as Roman.
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1963 | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures... |
Best Foreign Language Film (Knife in the Water Knife in the Water (film) Knife in the Water is a 1962 Polish drama film directed by Roman Polański. It is Polanski's first feature film, featuring three characters in a story of rivalry and sexual tension.-Plot:... ) |
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| 1965 | Berlin Film Festival 15th Berlin International Film Festival The 15th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 25 to July 6, 1965.-Jury:* John Gillett * Alexander Kluge* Ely Azeredo* Monique Berger* Kyushiro Kusakabe* Jerry Bresler* Karena Niehoff* Hans Jürgen Pohland... |
Silver Berlin Bear-Extraordinary Jury Prize Jury Grand Prix The Jury Grand Prix is a Silver Bear award given by the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival to one of the feature films in competition... (Repulsion Repulsion Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in Britain, as such being his second film made outside his native Poland. The cast includes... ) |
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| 1966 | Berlin Film Festival 16th Berlin International Film Festival The 16th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 24 to July 5, 1966.-Jury:* Pierre Braunberger * Franz Seitz* Emilio Villalba Welsh* Khwaja Ahmad Abbas* Pier Paolo Pasolini* Lars Forssell* Hollis Alpert... |
Golden Bear Golden Bear According to legend, the Golden Bear was a large golden Ursus arctos. Members of the Ursus arctos species can reach masses of . The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are North American subspecies of the Brown Bear.... (Cul-de-sac) |
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| 1968 | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences | Best screenplay adaptation (Rosemary's Baby Rosemary's Baby (film) Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin... ) |
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| 1974 | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences | Academy Award for Best Director (Chinatown) | |
| 1974 | Golden Globe Awards | Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture This page lists the winners of and nominees for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Since its inception in 1943, it has been presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an organization composed of journalists who cover the United States film industry for publications based... (Chinatown) |
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| 1974 | British Academy of Film and Television Arts British Academy of Film and Television Arts The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:... (BAFTA) |
Best Direction (Chinatown) | |
| 1979 | Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César) | César Award for Best Picture (Tess) | |
| 1979 | Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César) | César Award for Best Director César Award for Best Director This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Director .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:... (Tess) |
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| 1979 | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences | Academy Award for Directing (Tess) | |
| 1979 | Golden Globe Awards | Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film (Tess) | |
| 1979 | Golden Globe Awards | Golden Globe Award for Best Director—Motion Picture (Tess) | |
| 2002 | British Academy of Film and Television Arts British Academy of Film and Television Arts The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:... (BAFTA) |
Best Film; Best Director (The Pianist The Pianist (2002 film) The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman... ) |
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| 2002 | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences | Academy Award for Best Director (The Pianist) | |
| 2002 | Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César) | César Award for Best Director (The Pianist) | |
| 2002 | Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César) | César Award for Best Film (The Pianist) | |
| 2002 | Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César) | César Award for Best Director (The Pianist) | |
| 2004 | Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Karlovy Vary International Film Festival The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary , Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival gained worldwide recognition over the past years and has become one of Europe's major film events.... |
Crystal Globe Crystal Globe Crystal Globe is the main award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, first given in the city of Karlovy Vary of the Czech Republic, in 1948.In the international competition of films, IFFKV presents the following awards:... for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema |
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| 2009 | Zurich Film Festival Zurich Film Festival The Zurich Film Festival ' is an important international film festival, held annually in Zurich, Switzerland. A stated objective of the festival is to discover and support young, aspiring filmmakers and to offer the industry, audiences, the press and a broader public an exciting cinema experience... Golden Icon Award |
Lifetime achievement | |
| 2010 | Berlin Film Festival 60th Berlin International Film Festival The 60th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 11 to February 21, 2010, with Werner Herzog as President of the Jury. The opening film of the festival was Chinese director Wang Quan'an's romantic drama Apart Together, in competition, while the closing film is Japanese... |
Silver Bear for Best Director Silver Bear for Best Director The Silver Bear for Best Director is the Berlin International Film Festival's award for best achievement in direction.-Awards:-Repeated winners:*Mario Monicelli *Satyajit Ray *Carlos Saura -External links:*... (The Ghost Writer) |
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| 2010 | European Film Awards | Best Film; Best Director; Best Screenwriter (The Ghost Writer) | |
| 2010 | Lumiere Awards (France's Golden Globes) | Best Director; Best Screenwriter (The Ghost Writer) | |
| 2011 | Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César) | César Award for Best Director César Award for Best Director This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Director .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:... (The Ghost Writer) |
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| 2011 | Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (César) | César Award for Best Screenwriter (The Ghost Writer) |
Other awards
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsNew York Film Critics Circle Awards
New York Film Critics' Circle Awards are given annually to honor excellence in cinema worldwide by an organization of film reviewers from New York City-based publications. It is considered one of the most important precursors to the Academy Awards....
- 1980 Tess nominated for Best Direction
- 1980 Tess nominated for Best Foreign Film
- 1974 Chinatown nominated for Best Film
- 1971 Macbeth nominated for Best Direction
- 1971 Macbeth nominated for Best Film
- 1965 Repulsion nominated for Best Direction
- 1965 Repulsion nominated for Best Screenwriting
Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
- 1966 Cul De Sac nominated for National Syndication of Italian Film Journalists
- 1962 Knife in the Water won for Fipresci Prize