Roman Polański (born Romance Raymond Liebling on August 18th, 1933 with Paris) is a actor, Director of Théâtre and Opéra, Producteur, Scénariste, Réalisateur of cinema then a French author, of Polish origin . He in particular carried out Répulsion , Cul of bag , the Ball of the vampires , Rosemary' S Baby , Chinatown , the Tenant and the Pianist . Speaking very usually the Polish, the English, the French, the Spanish , the Italian and the Russian , it forged a cosmopolitan and prestigious career, balanced between Europe and the United States, regularly shaken however by dramas of private life, contentions with justice (feeding the headlines of the Tabloid press) and a chaotic, oscillating professional path between resounding bitter failures and successes.

Biography

Childhood: from Paris to the ghetto of Cracow

Born with Paris from a father painter and plastic manufacturer, Jewish Polish: Ryszard Liebling and of a mother Russian judéo-catholic of origin, Bula Liebling (born Katz-Przedborska), Romance Liebling, future Raymond Roman Polanski, lives in the French capital until its four years before setting out again for the Poland where it passes, with his/her sister Anette (exit of a first marriage of his/her mother), all her childhood and its adolescence although it does not have nationality of it (having been born in France, and enjoying its citizenship by the law of the ground, his/her parents never followed the administrative approaches so that it becomes officially Polish). Neither his mother nor her father, both agnostic, raise it in some worship that it either. After the invasion of the territory west-Polish by the German troops in September 1939, it is constrained of living in the Ghetto of Cracow but avoids the deportation which takes along his/her parents. His/her mother will die in Auschwitz. Escaped of the ghetto, it takes refuge in the countryside in farmers before returning on Cracow where, become wandering, it diverts German vigilance then manages to survive thanks to the underground mutual aid with inhabitants and other children and thanks to the Black-market. It will re-examine his father only after the war but the relation will be conflict after this one had brought back for camp of Mauthausen a mother-in-law with whom the young boy does not get along, the more so as it is found only vis-a-vis the couple, his sister having set out again to live with Paris.

Artistic beginnings

It is after the war in the camps of scouts then with a friend of childhood: Piotr Winowski with which he attends the cinemas more assiduously than the courses of school, erects scaffolding some jokes and invents several stories that the teenager discovers its vocation of artist and actor, catch little to serious by his/her father. In 1945, it misses its " Matura " (Polish vat) but thanks to its talents of draftsman between at the School of the Art schools of which it is returned in 1950. In 1946, it integrates the troop of the Joyeuse Band , intended to record radiophonic spectacles with communist coloring for the children. Two years later, after a hearing, it is selected for the main role of the Fils of the regiment , put in scene by Josef Karbowski. It was acted in fact of a character of young peasant, whooping-cough of the Red Army , made captive by the German during the war. The part becomes, with the wire of the representations, a true national triumph. This success opens to him the doors of a career of actor whom it begins while playing in films from young authors still little known (angular futures stones of the Polish cinema) like Andrzej Wajda, his/her friend, who direct it in particular in 1955 in Génération , work breaking with the academism and the exalté tone, dependant on the exercise of propaganda, of the productions of the time. In 1953, Polanski between at the school of cinema of Łódź where it carries out eight court-measurings noticed with international for their inventiveness, their nonconformism and their astonishing causticity. In 1958, it gains several rewards for Two men and a cupboard and marries in parallel the main actor of the majority of her short films: Barbara Kwiatkowska (divorced four years later).

the Knife in water : birth, discovered and success of a young realizer from Poland

In 1962, it carries out its first feature film, the Knife in water , Co-writing with Jerzy Skolimowski and of which the music is composed by his/her friend: Krzysztof Komeda (death in 1969). It puts at it in scene, in an incredible saving in means but with a frightening effectiveness, the power struggles between a brutal sports correspondent and an arrogant student on a sailing ship. The film is badly accommodated in Poland although it is not an explicit indictment of the socialist life mode. But it leaves outstanding the idea of a permanent climate of insecurity where the sociological antagonisms mixed with more personal stakes and the Class struggle seem still quite palpable in a political system carried by an ideology d'" unification" social and collectivist which completely claims to have abolished these oppositions. After an international success and a price obtained with Venice, the Knife in water is projected officially with the Festival of New York and is seen selected to make the cover of the Time Magazine . Like icing on the cake, it takes down a nomination with the Oscar of the best foreign film. Polanski in fact, which collapses under the proposals, leaves to settle with London where it carries out terrifying it thriller schizophrenic Répulsion with Catherine Deneuve. One year after, it goes in Ireland in order to turn a comedy mild nutter there to absurd and shifted humor but to the squeaking tone: Cul-de-sac , interpreted in particular by Donald Pleasance and Francoise Dorléac. These two works enable him respectively to gain a Ours of Money and a Ours of Gold to Berlin in 1964 and 1965. Produced both by Gene Gutowski, they in addition mark the beginning of the long collaboration of the scenario writer with the scenario writer Gerard Brach. In 1966, it finds his/her two collaborators and his type-setter fetish to write, produce and put in scene the horrific comedy the Ball of the vampires which dynamites the codes and ridicules the mythology of the kind. It holds to with it the top of the poster with that which will be soon his new wife: the American actress Sharon Touches (married on January 25th, 1968).

Rosemary' S Baby , triumph of a young European scenario writer in Hollywood

After these critical and commercial successes, Roman Polanski carries out its first Hollywood film in 1968: the fantastic thriller Rosemary' S Baby adapted best-seller éponyme of Will go Levin, masterpiece nightmarish where Mia Farrow interprets, at the side of John Cassavetes, an young woman victim of a conspiracy led to its place by a secret society wizard octogenarians admirers of Satan which will make of it the mother of the Antechrist in person. Avoiding the effects large-guignolesques, but grabbed by the concern of determining the fear, to suggest it in its most material aspect, most common (thus most significant), Polanski looks after each detail (a secretary moved in front of a broom cupboard, a lost glove, a exchanged tie…) who, exposed in an alleviating way in a sequence, will make fly later in the dramatic gradation of the account, putting the spectator, who oscillates unceasingly between doubt about the mental health of heroin and conviction as for his suspicions of diabolic plot, in a permanent situation of discomfort. Whereas Hollywood industry, since the end of the Années 1950 seems to be sclerosed for lack of innovation, Polanski is essential quickly like a new blood and the head of prow on the “European” sensitivity very of a broken down model of renewal. Produced with two million dollars, this horror film, also readable like a cruel allegory on the conflict between generations, pays some more than sixteen and rises at the top of the Box-office of 1968. This nice success is largely due to the meeting of the scenario writer with the producer Robert Evans. This last marks the triumphal years of the Paramount in the Années 1970 thanks in particular to the first opus of the saga of the Parrain realized by Francis Ford Coppola or to Love Story of Arthur Hiller, which it has financed both. The work of Evans consists in leaving a very great freedom to the director, contrary to the whole of the American majors. It supported angers of the realizer besides on the plate, supported it in its disputes with Cassavetes and accepted prolongations of turning until scrambling itself personally with Mia Farrow, engaged on another project with her husband of the time Franck Sinatra, project which it gives up finally to finish the film. It will be one of the many causes of their divorce. Recognized as one of best (if it is not the best) science fiction films of all times, Rosemary' S Baby glane with the passage two nominations with the Oscars then is worth with Ruth Gordon which plays the part of Minnie Castevet, figure guardian of the film (semi-luciférienne vieillarde semi-intrusive, with exaggerated and doubtful solicitude), the statuette of the female best supporting role. Polanski seems to be become the new young person king of Hollywood. But this immense success is thwarted by a new drama emerged in its life: the following year, 9 August exactly, whereas it had gone away with the the United Kingdom, its wife: Sharon Touches, enclosure eight month old, is wildly assassinated as four their close friends in their Californian residence at the request of the criminal Charles Manson, guru of " Famille".

Black years and clearing thanks to Chinatown

Destroyed by this misfortune, it is inserted in the depression but returns all the same in Great Britain to turn very the violent one and desperate Macbeth , according to Shakespeare, produces partly by Hugh Hefner and the subsidiary company of production of the group Playboy . The crudeness of the images, the roughness, the grotesque one and blackness posted of the realization divert the critic and the spectators. In 1972, the realizer, who decides to hold good, is turned over from there towards his first burlesques loves. It leaves a time for the Italy in order to turn a squeaking comedy there to absurd humor with Marcello Mastroianni: What? ( Che? ). In spite of the plebiscite of the press, the film pains to fill the rooms. In 1974, Polanski, very eclectic, are harnessed with the setting in scene of the most famous opera of Alban Berg: Excentric for the Festival of Spolète in Italy. The same year, income with Hollywood, it tastes, in spite of the two preceding failures, with more critical and public great success of its career thanks to Chinatown , homage tinted of irony and pessimism to the golden age of the American Black film of which it takes again the narrative codes and esthetics that it abuses from beginning to end until the vertiginous final apotheosis which seals the victory of immorality, violence and the evil. The film marks its meeting again with his/her producing friend Bob Evans which carries out to him also one of its more professional nice successes, so much on the artistic level than financial: international triumph, Chinatown which cost six million dollars brings back thirty of them only to the the United States. In what seems to be a modernization of the receipts of the Tragédie ancient and even traditional, the unforgettable face with the bandaged nose of Jack Nicholson is outlined, interpreting a private detective fanfaron: J.J Gittes, intrigued by the secrecy dissimulated by tempting and disconcerting Evelyn Mulwray. This one is camped by Faye Dunaway whose relations with the director were more than disastrous during turning. The two stars principal are however made steal the high-speed motorboat by the secondary role of Noah Cross offered to the large scenario writer John Huston (father-in-law of Nicholson at this time) who takes a malicious pleasure to play a capitalist big shot without scruple: ogre growing old, covetous, feeling reluctant, brutal, cynical and incestueux (figure who will absorb all the others besides). Large winner of the Golden Globes in 1975, the film also receives eleven nominations with the Oscars, becoming thus the big favorite in the race with the statuettes. But only the trophy of the better original screenplay (signed Robert Towne) falls to him, the voters having preferred this year to turn to the second opus of the series of the Parrain carried out by Francis Ford Coppola. Polanski returns then a time in France, with Paris to concretize an old draft amendment for the big screen of the novel of Roland Topor: the chimerical Tenant , whose scripte was coécrit by its old accomplice Gerard Brach (coscenarist inter alia Répulsion , Cul of bag , the Ball of the vampires and What? and which will be it from now on, in a appointed way, until the Moons of gall ). Tenant , that it makes light by Sven Nykvist (the chief-operator fetish of Ingmar Bergman) then that it plays and carries out at the sides in particular Isabelle Adjani and of Shelley Winters, sees the day in 1976. But even if the paranoiac and nightmarish strangeness of the account once again allures the critics (who regard still today this work as one of its more succeeded) and in spite of a selection with the Cannes festival, this fable on urban alienation and the social Anomie, of a dry and cold realism mingled with a black imagination near to the hallucinatory Délire , frighten the spectators again. Polanski however, still haloed success of Chinatown remains one of the scenario writers more in vogue of the moment what does not prevent it from being turned over some to extra-cinematographic activities since it ensures the same year the scenic direction of the Rigoletto of Giuseppe Verdi for the Opera of Munich.

Charge of rape and escape towards France

In 1977, Polanski is shown of rape on a thirteen year old young girl: Samantha Geimer . The latter had been castée by the scenario writer for a campaign of photographs on the teenagers ordered by the French edition of the magazine Vogue . During the meeting, on the heights of Los Angeles, with the accesses of the property of Jack Nicholson, the March 10th, it would have saoulée it with alcohol (and perhaps doped with other substances, but the results of the investigation were not made public) then would have taken it of force. Following an extremely media and rocambolesque lawsuit (to which the realizer did not always assist for reason, official, of community projects in Europe with the producer Dino de Laurentiis), he pleads guilty with the main leaders of charge retained against him by the Californian court where it was assigned to appear. Among them, one counted inter alia: “rape by penetration with use of drugs and illicit substances”, “perversion”, “sodomy”, “acts lustful, lascifs and degrading on minor of less than fourteen years” and “provisioning with premeditated injection of medicamentous substances at the risk”. The defendant passes finally, with assent, several months in prison. But he flees of the the United States on April 1st, 1978 after relieving and settles definitively in France. He risked fifty years of prison insofar as the judge in charge of of the business had wanted to reconsider the terms of the Plaidoyer of bargaining. Being of French nationality (because born with Paris), the authorities of the country cannot extradite it by protection of its nationals. The family of the victim will not ask for the opening of a new Outre-Atlantique lawsuit and even decides to by amicable agreement regulate the business, and remote, with the scenario writer in exile represented near it by her lawyers. But the opinion of imprisonment pronounced in California remains always in force on the American ground where Polanski forever which been able to give the feet, with the risk to be stopped and to have to await the promulgation of a new sentence. Also must it be careful in its voyages abroad because in another country, an extradition can be carried out, in particular in the States close diplomatically to the the United States such as the the United Kingdom where the operations are even prompt with being accelerated (the scenario writer went almost never again besides there). For at least twenty years, this business has regularly fed the headlines of the press and involves several polemics after evocation and request for possible specific installations even of grace. But the American authorities always refused with anything. However, those could have required on behalf of the French State the application of a sorrow pronounced at them by Contumace if there had been new lawsuit, but they never asked anything, neither tried, nor open of new procedures. Polanski profited from the permanent support of his/her large friends of Hollywood among which Harrison Ford, Mia Farrow, Jack Nicholson and Bob Evans. Even Samantha Geimer, become mother, was for much in obtaining sound Oscar in 2003 after having publicly announced that it was favorable to her possible return to the the United States and after having declared in connection with its film the Pianist who “had to be judged work and not the man in itself. ”. In his autobiography, the realizer affirms to have been the victim of a machination assembled against him by the mother of Geimer which would have scénarisé the business by handling his/her daughter to which she would have learned the strings well from the Sexual harassment. It would even have, appears it he, makes sing. In this book, it also supports the assumption according to which this one did not live solely with the the United States at the time of the facts. At that time, it placed with the hotel and had a visa of work. It had never followed the steps to obtain the green card .

1979-1999

Hardly, returned with Paris, the director harnesses himself with a company of great width whose Claude Berri is the principal producer: in memory of its late wife Sharon Touches, it carries out a rural and romantic melodrama indeed, of conventional invoice: Tess . It is actually about an adaptation of the novel of Thomas Hardy: Tess d' Uberville which evokes misfortunes of a young country-woman under the era victorienne. Haloed of a nice success in rooms during the year 1979, the film collapses soon under an avalanche of price in any kind, among which three Césars in 1980 (those of the better film, the better realizer and the better photography for Ghislain Cloquet and Geoffrey Unsworth) and three technical Oscars in 1981 (gained on six nominations). The press will be largely made the echo of the idylle, very discussed, between the scenario writer and the youthful actress, Star of the film (eighteen years at the time): Nastassja Kinski . Polanski passes then by the theater with Amadeus of Peter Schaffer, which it puts in scene and interprets at the sides of François Périer. It publishes in 1984, with the editions Robert Laffont, his very noticed autobiography: Romance by Polanski where it reconsiders truculent anecdotes of turning, its unusual journey, its dramas intimate, its personal traumatisms and its notorious professional disagreements (with John Cassavetes and Faye Dunaway inter alia). It attacks ambitious and expensive thereafter project Pirates (financed by the Tunisian producer Tarak Ben Hammar) in homage to Hollywood films of adventures of the Années 1930 which rocked its childhood: those inter alia Michael Curtiz with Errol Flynn. In addition to one nightmarish turning, Pirates is a financial drain. It becomes a film which escapes its realizer completely and which it ends up disavowing. It will be a true fiasco as well on the artistic level as commercial. The film, for a budget of forty million dollars, will bring back of them hardly five. After being itself rebiffé on scene in the theatrical adaptation of the great classic of the one of his favorite authors: Franz Kafka for the Metamorphosis , it ensures the realization in 1988 of a Parisian thriller with Harrison Ford: Frantic which enables him to join again a time with success, but the Moons of gall , the Young girl and Death and the Ninth Door , in addition overall little saved by the critical , are all of the reverses to the boxoffice. Even its consequent appearances as an actor with the cinema are not frank successes as proves it door-close police a simple formality (1994) of Giuseppe Tornatore, where he camps a police chief bourru vis-a-vis one challenged eccentric played by Gerard Depardieu.

August 30th, 1989, he marries in third wedding his new actress fetish of thirty-three years his junior: Emmanuelle Seigner . They have two children together: Morgane (born in 1993) and Elvis (born in 1998). They met during the turning of Frantic . The actress, still beginner, had at the time nineteen years.

President of the jury to the Cannes festival in 1991, it made Barton Fink of the Frères Coen the most preceded work of all the history of the demonstration, allowing him to cumulate the Palme of Gold, the Prix of the setting in scene and the Prix of male interpretation for John Turturro. A new triplet who obliged Gilles Jacob, then acting general of the festival, to take drastic measures concerning the development of the prize lists to prevent that only one film does not concentrate on him too rewards.

He also chaired the jury of the Mostra of Venice in 1996, three years after being honoured there for the unit with his career. But its prize list is prone to controversy after the biography of Neil Jordan on the craftsman of Irish independence: Michael Hakes , considered to be too academic by the critical , obtained the Lion of Gold at the same time as a price of interpretation for its main actor: Liam Neeson and that the very young heroin of Ponette of Jacques Doillon: Victoire Thivisol, three years at this time, was rewarded by the trophy (Coupe Volpi) for the best actress, some finding quite difficult, for its young age, to potentially evaluate its work of interpretation, the rigor of its composition and professional qualities of its play.

In 1998, it is elected member of the Académie of the Art schools of the Institute of France where it côtoie in particular, in the category Artistic creation for the cinema and audio-visual the (created in 1985) Jeanne Moreau, Pierre Schoendoerffer, Régis Wargnier then met there feus Henri Verneuil and Gerard Oury.

During the decade 1990, its work with the theater and the opera was prolific: after having directed for the scene of the Opéra Bastille a new version of the Tales of Hoffmann of Offenbach in 1992 with Jose Van Damm and Natalie Dessay, it puts in scene four years later the part of Terrence McNally: Maria Fixed, the lesson of song which is worth to him a nomination with the Molières. In 1997, it is harnessed with the setting in scene and the supervision of the musical comedy drawn from its traditional the Ball of the vampires which starts with Vienna and starts a triumphal round which will take it along Stuttgart to Hamburg.

the Pianist , rebound and international dedication

It reconsiders the front of the scene and knows a critical triumph and public in 2002 thanks to its film the Pianist , a large free-germano-Polish production (adapted autobiography of the pianist and Polish type-setter Wladyslaw Szpilman) in which it evokes a more personal subject, that of the occupation of the Poland and ghetto of Warsaw during the Second world war, subject which it had always refused to film at the point to decline, ten years before (in 1993), the offer of Steven Spielberg to put in scene the List of Schindler . The film, of a quiet classicism but of a great emotional force, gains the Palme of Gold Cannes festival 2002, seven Césars of which those of the better film, better realizer and better actor for Adrien Brody like three Oscars in 2003 (obtained on seven nominations): those of better put in scene, of the better first masculine role for Brody and of the better adaptation for the scenario writer Ronald Harwood. In spite of the requests, Polanski could not go to Los Angeles for the Cérémonie of the Oscars where it received despite everything a standing ovation of a good part of the room to the advertisement of its name. Giving of the price, Harrison Ford was committed transmitting the trophy personally to him what it did in front of the press in September of the same year to the Festival of American film of Deauville.

Tumult of the years 2000

After this master stroke, the scenario writer harnesses himself with the setting in scene of Hedda Gabler , the drama of Henrik Ibsen, with Emmanuelle Seigner in the title role, with the Théâtre Marigny then supervises with Stuttgart once again the musical comedy drawn from his traditional: the Ball of the vampires . It finds then its happy coproducers and scenario writer of preceding film: Alain Sarde, Robert Benmussa and Ronald Harwood like all its chiefs technicians (Pawel Edelman for photography, Allan Starski for the decoration, Anna B. Sheppard for the costumes or Herve de Luze for the assembly) in order to produce and to carry out in 2005 a new historical reconstitution, this adapted time of the masterpiece of Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist . But the film is a semi-failure; a disappointment however moderate and made less bitter by a victory in front of the courts. Polanski had indeed assigned in justice, the previous year, the direction of the magazine Vanity Fair for slandering in connection with an article published in 2002 by A.E. Hotchner, taking again an advertisement of Lewis Lapham (editor association of the review Harper' S) which affirmed that the scenario writer had made explicit sexual advances with a young top model Norwegian during the voyage which took it along to the funeral of Sharon Tate in 1969. During all the lawsuit, begun the 18 June, Polanski expressed itself in videoconference of fear of being extradited with the the United States in the event of voyage for London. After a strong mediatization and some ram recoveries (with testimony, for example, of Mia Farrow and others), the scenario writer obtains repair and sees himself paying the sum of fifty thousand Livres sterling by Vanity Fair in damage (sentence pronounced by the High Court of justice of England and the Wales). In 2006, after this revenge, it operates a return noticed on the boards for the Théâtre Hébertot where it puts in scene Thierry Frémont in Doute (written by John Patrick Shanley). The same year, he undertakes to finance and carry out the Péplum Pompeii , according to a novel of Robert Harris, with Orlando Bloom and Scarlett Johansson in the main roles. But it gives up the project following problems of timetable, financing and consequent delays of production all due to the planing threat of a strike of the scenario writers, realizers and technicians with Hollywood planned for the summer 2008 (at the moment when turning had been fixed). In May 2007, its intervention with the press conference for the soixantenaire of the Cannes festival (for which it carried out a short film within the framework of a collective project: Each one its cinema or This small blow in the middle when the light dies out and that the film begins with others mythical Réalisateurs of the history of the demonstration such as the Frères Coen, the Frères Dardenne, David Cronenberg and David Lynch) largely created sensation. This one, joined together with fellow-members and colleagues like Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar, Takeshi Kitano, Jane Campion or Alejandro González Iñárritu, declared before the assembly of journalist presents for the occasion, before leaving brutally: “To have here opposite you, like me, the majority of the great names of the contemporary cinema and to put such poor questions… In this case, I have only one thing to say: let us puff out! ”. It very recently appears in the role of a French detective to the expeditious methods in Rush Hour 3 of Brett Ratner. It holds its future projects for the moment secrecies.

Style of Polanski: cinematographic contribution and artistic importance

As of his first short films, one feels Polanski tried at the same time by the Avant-garde and conventions. The scenario writer, if it one privileges the psychoanalytical track , always sought to appear his own anguishes come from childhood. The traumatism of the war, the experiment of the fights for survival and the lack of affection haunt all its work indeed. The latter, which betrays inclinations for the Baroque, the Fantastique, even the parodic and for the account kafkaïen, obsessional, paranoiac, misanthropist and pessimist, will have of cease only to illustrate the loss of innocence and the violation of returned childhood, in a subjacent way, with its primary fears because confronted with the evil and cruelty through their most obvious demonstrations and darkest, namely: the madness, alienation, physical and psychic torture, dehumanization, perversion, the plot, the victimization or the Sadomasochism. Fact that he mainly interprets his films, appearing is like figure malefic (the man with the knife in Chinatown which notches the nostril of Jack Nicholson), is like a lunatic or the victim of a secret and diabolic conspiracy ( the Ball of the vampires , the Tenant ) is not, in this direction, absolutely pain-killer. Having rather realized door-close, true thrillers psychological with the confusing technical control and into the simple and fluid account, Polanski integrated into it an unequalled direction of macabre and black Humor. The director knew evolved/moved from the point of view of the form while preserving a certain unit set of themes: the latter is born from a constant call to the dialectical master-slave and the relations ambiguities which result from this. This idea finds its higher point of fantasmatic expression and legibility in the Moons of gall and the Young girl and Death .

But first of all, the realizer privileges an art of the very organic precision, which is born at his place from the extreme meticulousness with which it composes his decoration. In Repulsion , Rosemary' S Baby and the Tenant who constitute joined together a kind of trilogy on the apartments malefic, it acts to make the latter the vector of a nightmarish imagery: change of space, material deformation, off-centring of the interiors compared to their daily usual value, transformation into labyrinth where in place of Sabbath with appearance and mysterious disappearance, outgoing arm of the walls, tooth dissimulated in the partition, camouflage of objects, discovered secrete ways… Initially shown under its most protective aspect, most matric, housing proves to be the demonstration of a madness born of driven back phantasms, or the slides of an occult plot. the Pianist is a kind of explanatory synthesis of this esthetic research since the main character who knows the hunger, the cold faces to some extent a supreme danger in the studios which are lent to him by the inhabitants engaged in resistance and the assistance with the Jews in the occupied Warsaw. Initially made hot and softs by the care granted to lightings, these interiors very quickly become more threatening and dangerous still that the ghetto: a noise in excess in excess, a cracking of floor, a sneeze, a broken plate indeed will be fatal. The physical degradation of Szpilman comes besides from the last apartment which it occupies, after this one was despoiled and famished by a war profiteer then before the deflagration of a bomb does not oblige it to flee. It is at this time that a process of depersonalization and dehumanization is established where, like a wild beast, wounded and weakened and lame, the pianist without more piano must only seek his food. In this direction, the classicism of the film which one reproached his director much disappears, leaving side the historical realism with the profit of a subjectivée, allegorical representation and quasi phantasmagoric of the History, as well official as personal because it calls upon of them all the phantoms of last (those of Szpilamn of course but also those of the scenario writer): the panoramic plan, where one sees the hero walking in the labyrinthian alleys of the Polish capital completion destroyed, métaphorise indeed more a Apocalypse as well physical as mental or an interior collapse which it is not an objective testimony of war seen by the prism of the didactic fiction. In all the cases, as of the Knife in water appears a " well; Polanski" style; , at least in the choice of framings: in a succession of long average fixed plans, generally side, with the black and velvety white, transcended by a luminous contrast of light-obscure back-light and seizing, the realizer made sourdre anguish of the Depth of field and the simple movement of the actors in an axis which hardly changes, without no Travelling being carried out nor no operated change of focal distance. It will be always faithful to this manner of filming. He was explained some in a maintenance on Chinatown granted in 1994 and English for television: “I make so that my camera is a witness with whole share of the sequence, as if it were really held without preparation. This tortuous way to use the movement seems to me inappropriate since I try to find the manner simplest and more meaning to film”. The pessimism of the stories and their dramatic end is only the corollary of what is meant before by the development of the form. The assembly at Polanski occupies a very rudimentary function: avoiding the logic of the Field-reverse shot or the affixing simultaneous of many camera angles for the same scene, it generally only intervenes to grade the account dramatically or to connect different narrative sequences, except when it is a question of putting in opposition the same situation lived differently by the called upon characters. The representation imaginary, individual or specific to the hero, generally monstrous, outrageous and nightmarish mixes in a fast rate/rhythm, a cumulative construction (which voluntarily lends to confusion) with a reality felt by other characters. In this direction, the diabolic coitus of heroin in Rosemary' S Baby where are entrechoquent the satanic ritual and the dream of Rosemary or the final suicide of Trelkowski in the Tenant , who perceives his neighbors like creatures properly Grotesques: between animality in humanity (with languages of snakes and pupils refracted), are striking examples. The last of two films recommends to some extent the visual and dramaturgic experiments operated later by a David Lynch, namely the will to break the clear lines of a clearly exposed account in manner " réaliste". The beginning indeed takes for framework a quite recognizable town planning: that of Paris where evolves/moves a person sociologiquement identifiable (the employee in the tertiary sector). Starting from a dramatic base which consists in making it settle in a mysterious studio, the narration slips gradually towards a representation close to the perpetual Hallucination. L'" art of the concret" , as Yannick Rolandeau evokes it, also consists in accurately reconstituting a time (the era victorienne in Tess , the second world war in the Pianist , the preindustrial London of the hollows in Oliver Twist ) which runs up a rhetoric of the " suddenly; subjectivation": poetic narration which consists in making conspicuous the representation, to make it clean to imaginary of the director, hustling conventions. There in fact, at Polanski, it is a question of returning it outrageous to point out nature first initial work: that of a virtual construction, an artifice. To that a hyperreferentialisation is added: how not to think of the cinema German expressionnist where with film of studio Hollywood of the years 1930-1940 such as those inter alia Rouben Mamoulian, of Albert Lewin or Victor Fleming in Oliver Twist ? The camera there cherishes dead ends without prospects, scans bridges on the the Thames with the wet paving stones deserted and misty in a primarily night London, with the dark frontages and menaçantes. The cinéphilie is one within the other competences of the cinema " polanskien" : with Pirate , it tries ressusciter the Michael Curtiz of Capitaine Blood . But what strikes in the starting reference given is the way in which it is used, i.e. a disrespectful manner. The latter, for much criticisms, is a direction a company of destruction. the Ball of the vampires admittedly horrified in its time the most informed vampirologists: never one had dared to integrate before the dimension of homosexuality (the son of the count von Crollock, misadventure of Dracula) and the unbelief at deaths alive (the landlord lately vampirized which laughs in front of the crucifix tended in front of him by an young girl). Aiming more films of the Hammer that those of Friedrich Murnau, the buffoonery and the Parodie are born from the function of the realizer-actor himself which grants the crucial role of Alfred, left servant to the Zanni in the Commedia dell' arte or to the Sganarelle at Molière, whose natural naivety and awkwardness put in failure the project of its Master, professor Abronsius. For Chinatown , the Black film is given to the last style with the irony however of the realization in the shifted characterization of the characters: the popularization of the figure of private to the fatty jokes and the bandaged nose, its victimization (Nicholson spends its time being caught blows in film) and the taking out of bond of the culpability which generally falls to the Femme fatale bring in all logic to the dramatic end. Its two comedies ( Cul-de-sac and What? ) proves on the other hand more respectful Theater of the absurd and its most theatrical film was badly included/understood: Macbeth pointed out large-guignolesque settings in scenes élisabéthaines, too gummed by versions of a empesé academism: it was a question more of being faithful to a tradition to derogate about it.

With final, only Tess avoids excesses baroques what was reproached to him much. Many thinks that they are only one beautiful book there images (evoking paintings of Thomas Gainsborough and John Reynolds) of more than three hours when the spectator is detached from any possibility of compassion vis-a-vis the heroin grabbed by the wheel of the destiny, very found victim of the male appetites and the moral mean action. But the concern for Polanski is to stick to the very elaborate and erudite irony of Thomas Hardy interfering the preciosities with a language cultivated with the wild study a company (in fact victorienne) ballotée between violence, born from his report/ratio with the hierarchy and the fastener with its rigorisms as dangerous as they are inexorable. This brutal moralism prohibits indeed any possibility of social rise and widens the gap between the growing old aristocracy and the middle-class on the one hand and other the working world and the farming community. Accordingly, it is clear that the scenario writer remains faithful to his own narrative logic since it takes the fiction like prism of writing of a history read on the side of the losers, the small ones, dominated and not of the winners ( Macbeth except).

Catalog of films

Realizer

Years 1950

  • 1955 : the Bicycle ( Rower )
  • 1956: Murder ( Morderstwo )
  • 1956: To laugh at all its teeth ( Uśmiech Zębiczny )
  • 1957: Glass fragments the ball! or the spoilsport ( Rozbijemy Zabawę )
  • 1957: Kirk Douglas (documentary)
  • 1958: Two men and a cupboard ( Dwaj Ludzie Z Szafą )
  • 1959: the Lamp ( Phosphoresced )
  • 1959: When the angels fall ( Gdy Spadają Anioły )

Years 1960

Years 1970

Years 1980

Years 1990

Years 2000

Actor

Scenario writer

Years 1950

  • 1955 : the Bicycle ( Rower )
  • 1956: Murder ( Morderstwo )
  • 1956: To laugh at all its teeth ( Usmiech Zebiczny )
  • 1957: Glass fragments the ball! or the spoilsport ( Rozbijemy Zabawe )
  • 1957: Kirk Douglas (documentary)
  • 1958: Two men and a cupboard ( Dwaj Ludzie Z Szasa )
  • 1959: the Lamp ( Phosphoresced )
  • 1959: When the angels fall ( Gdy Spadaja Z Nieba Anioly )

Years 1960

Years 1970

Years 1980

Years 1990

Producer

Years 1960

  • 1960 : the Large one and thin the (producing)
  • 1966: G.G. Passion (producing)

Years 1970

  • 1970 : has Day At the Beach
  • 1972: Afternoon off has Champion

Years 1990

Years 2000

Author (bibliography)

  • Three film scripts: the Knife in water original of Jerzy Skolimowski, Jakub Goldberg and Roman Polanski '' Repulsion '' [original screenplay of Roman Polanski and Gerard Brach. original Cul-de-sac of Roman Polanski and Gerard Brach; introduction and translation by Boleslaw Sulik . New York: Fitzhenry and Whiteside. 275p. ISBN 0064300625 (work in English)
  • Polanski, Novel. (1973). Romance Polanski' S What? Original From the screenplay . London: Lorrimer. 91p. ISBN 0856470333
  • Polanski, Novel. (1973). What? . New York: Third near. 91p. ISBN 089388121X
  • the Tenant. Paris: Apron adapted by Gerard Brach and Roman Polanski, according to the novel of Roland Topor: The chimerical Tenant '' (1976)
  • Romance by Polanski (1984, edition Robert Laffont)
  • the Pianist. Paris: Apron ISBN 2847250166

Theater

Opera

Decorations, honors, nominations and rewards

  • 1958 : Golden delicious Spoils Festival of San Francisco, bronze medal with the Festival of Brussels, diploma of honor to the 5th Festival of Film of Oberhausen (Germany) for short-measuring Two Men and a cupboard
  • 1961: mention of the Festival of Turns for the Large one and thin the
  • 1962: Grand Prix of the International Days of the Short-measuring of Turns for the Mammals
  • 1962: price FIPRESCI of international Criticism for the Knife in water (nomination with the Lion of Gold)
  • 1963: nomination with the Oscar of the best foreign film for the Knife in water
  • 1965: Bear of Money for the Grand Prix of the Jury of the Festival of Berlin for Repulsion (nomination with the Bear of Gold)
  • 1966: Bear of Gold of the Festival of Berlin for Bottom of bag
  • 1969: nomination with the Oscar of the best scenario adapted for Rosemary' S Baby
  • 1974: BAFTA of the best realizer for Chinatown
  • 1975: Golden Globe of the best dramatic film and the better realizer for Chinatown
  • 1975: named with the Oscar of the best film and the better realizer for Chinatown
  • 1976: Official selection in competition with the Cannes festival for the Tenant (nomination with the Palm of Gold)
  • 1980: César of the best film and the better realizer for Tess
  • 1981: Golden Globe of best foreign film for Tess
  • 1981: named with the Oscar of the best film and the better realizer for Tess
  • 1988: named with the molière of the best actor for the Metamorphosis
  • 1991: President of the Jury of the Cannes festival
  • 1993: Lion of Gold of honor for the whole of its career to the Mostra of Venice
  • 1996: President of the Jury of the Mostra of Venice
  • .......: raised with the row of knight in the Order of Arts and the Letters.
  • .......: raised with the row of Officer in the Order of Arts and the Letters.
  • .......: raised with the row of Commander in the Order of Arts and the Letters.
  • 1997 : named with the Molière of best put in scene for Maria Fixed, the lesson of song
  • 1998: elected official member of the Academy of the Art schools of the Institute of France.
  • 1999 : Clear Rene Price for the whole of its cinematographic work.
  • 1999 : European Award special for its " exceptional artistic contribution to the cinema world européen" and Special price for the whole of its career to the Festival of film of Stockholm
  • 2002: Palm of Gold of the Cannes festival for the Pianist .
  • 2003 : Star of gold of the realizer for the Pianist
  • 2003: César of the best film and the better realizer for the Pianist
  • 2003: BAFTA of the best film and the best realizer for the Pianist
  • 2003: Oscar of the best realizer for the Pianist and nomination for the Oscar of the best film
  • 2004: special Crystal ball of the Festival of Karlovy Vary for the “remarkable artistic contribution of the whole of its work to the cinema and the visual and esthetic importance of its work in the renewal of the cinematographic language”.
  • 2004 : doctorate Honoris causa of the national university of Cinematography of Bucharest
  • 2006: European Award of honor for the whole of its career
  • 2007: Gold eagle of the National Academy of Arts with Moscow for the whole of its career

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