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Roman Polanski |
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Director / Screenwriter /
Producer / Actor |
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1933 - |
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Born August 18,
Paris, France |
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Key
Production Countries: UK, France, USA, Poland
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Key Genres:
Drama, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Psychological Drama, Black Comedy, Period Film,
Psychological Drama, Comedy |
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Key
Collaborators: Gerard
Brach (Screenwriter), Alastair
McIntyre (Editor), Herve de Luze (Editor), Krzysztof Komeda (Composer),
Pierre Guffroy (Production Designer), Emmanuelle Seigner (Leading Player), Gene Gutowski
(Producer), Alain Sarde (Producer), Robert Benmussa (Producer), Gilbert
Taylor (Cinematographer) |
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Highly
Recommended:
Rosemary's Baby (1968)*, Chinatown
(1974)* |
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Recommended: Knife
in the Water (1962), Repulsion (1965)*, Cul-de-sac (1966)*, Tess (1979), Death and the
Maiden (1994), The Pianist (2002)^, Oliver Twist (2005) |
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Worth a Look: Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958),
Mammals (1962), Macbeth (1971), Frantic (1988), The Ninth Gate (1999),
The Ghost Writer (2010)^ |
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Approach with Caution: What? (1973), The Tenant
(1976)*, Bitter Moon (1992) |
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Duds: The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; ^
Listed in TSPDT's
21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Roman Polanski
Vision ] [
Wikipedia ] [
BBC
Audio Interview (1972) ] [
Kinoeye
Feature ]
[
Independent
Article (2005) ]
[
Sony Pictures Profile ]
[
Polish Culture Profile ]
[
BFI Feature ]
[
Brainy Quote ] [
Film Comment Article (2010)
] |
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Books: [
Roman Polanski: A Life in Exile ] [
Roman ] [
Roman
Polanski: A Biography ] [
Roman
Polanski ] [
Roman
Polanski: Interviews ]
[
Roman Polanski (Contemporary Film Directors) ]
[
Roman Polanski (Directors) ]
[
The Cinema of Roman Polanski: Dark Spaces of the World ]
[
Roman Polanski: The Cinema of a Cultural Traveller ] |
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"In
addition to the mental scars of his tortured childhood, Polanski
acknowledges the influences on his work of Beckett, Ionesco,
Pinter, Kafka, and
Buñuel.
Atmosphere is the most important element of his films and the
core around which he builds his plots and develops his
characters. Like Hitchcock, he considers actors as simple pawns
in the game of filmmaking and reportedly subjects them to much
abuse on the set, especially the actresses." -
(The
MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994) |
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"People
living on the ragged edge - or forced to live on it: this Polish
(French-born) director's films are concerned with pressures,
alienation and a succumbing to the evil nightmares lurking
within us. One senses a bitterness in Polanski that the beauty
of the images he often creates on screen can't gloss over." -
David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999) |
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"Polanski's
work might be seen as an attempt to map out the precise
relationship between the contemporary world's instability and
tendency to violence and the individual's increasing inability
to overcome the isolation and locate some realm of meaning
or value beyond himself...From his own isolated position - as a
man effectively without a country - Polanski tries to confront
the probems of isolation, violence, and evil, and to speak of
them for an audience prone to their sway." -
J.P.
Telotte (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991) |
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"Compelling tales which are chilling and bizarre are his
trademark." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"People like
Truffaut,
Lelouch and
Godard are like little kids
playing at being revolutionaries. I've passed through this
stage. I lived in a country where these things happened
seriously." -
Roman Polanski |
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"You
have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it
realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't
upset people, then that's obscenity."
-
Roman Polanski |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include Pirates (1986). |
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"Polanski,
like Billy
Wilder and
Ernst Lubitsch before him,
is a genre filmmaker of the classic sort. Although his
contemporaries, such as
Volker Schlondorff and
Krystof Kieslowski, have opted for genres of
voice, the moral fable, and the satire, Polanski has been
far more classical, preferring to use film noir, horror
films, or war films and their traditions of mixing plot and
character layers in accord with the particular genre
convention." -
Ken Dancyger, The Director's Idea: The
Path to Great Directing |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
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●
21st Century Top
50 |
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●
Fringe
Benefits |
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100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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●
Gerald Peary's Magnificent Seven (2006) |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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Claude
Chabrol |
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David Cronenberg |
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Brian De Palma |
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William
Friedkin |
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Curtis Hanson |
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John
Huston |
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Joseph
Losey |
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David
Lynch |
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Jack Nicholson |
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Jerzy Skolimowski |
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Andrzej
Wajda |
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Orson
Welles |
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Roman Polanski's Favourites |
| The
Circus (1928)
Charles Chaplin,
Citizen Kane (1941)
Orson Welles,
8½ (1963)
Federico Fellini,
The Gold Rush (1925)
Charles Chaplin,
Hamlet (1948)
Laurence Olivier,
Odd Man Out (1947)
Carol Reed.
Source: Time Out (1995) |
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