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Tag: Roman Polanski

Roman Polansky, Carnage: The Idiocy of Adulthood

Roman Polanski’s Carnage was released in Moscow on December 8, 2011 (one day before my birthday). For those who follow Polanski’s work it is interesting to note a slight shift in his focus in the recent years. The range of themes he covered with his films knows little exception. There were freaks and misfits (The Tenant, Cul de Sac), power struggles (Macbeth), psychic disorders (Repulsion), games with the Devil (Rosemary’s Baby, The Ninth Gate), not to mention a good crime story (Chinatown) or a family drama (Bitter Moon, Knife in the Water). However, since The Pianist Polanski’s attention shifted towards “deeper” societal issues: survival (the theme of The Pianist, yet Oliver Twist explores generally the same topic, based on the life of a child), political games (The Ghost), and now, the process of making politics (Carnage). In spite of this shift, Polanski is far from being an outspoken political film maker: he weaves mystery (The Ghost) and humour (Carnage) skillfully into the story, and this is precisely the reason why both his latest films are more real in their depiction of what goes on in the world of politics, than any other political thriller.

On the surface, Carnage is a study of two pairs of parents who one day got together to discuss the incident between their children. It is generally assumed that parents need to discuss their children in the absense of children. Kids don’t usually understand whatever is going on in the world, so it is the adults who have to make good for them.

What follows is a game of cat and mouse: the innumerable attempts to hide personal problems, family problems, despise, distrust, while simultaneously trying to save one’s face and to maintain the bourgeois status quo. Uncomfortable truth comes to surface: nobody is as good as they’d like to be seen. Zachary’s father (Christopher Waltz) is a 24/7 lawyer who seems to never get off his phone; his wife (Kate Winslet) is an investment broker who doesn’t particularly like her husband’s preoccupation with work; Ethan’s father (John O’Reilly) sells toilet systems and hates small pets, like hamsters; and his wife (Jodie Foster) is a wannabe writer, working on a book on the Darfur crisis and absorbed by problems in Africa.

This is the story of one’s inability to withdraw from the conflict (Zachary’s parents continuously agree to go back to the apartment where they’re once more lured into a dispute over their son); of one’s preoccupation with problems beyond their reach which helps to reaffirm one’s importance and goodness; of one’s lack of will to stand their own ground; and importantly, of the ability to blow an incident out of proportion. All these (in)”abilities” lead to criminalising a person, even a child; and they also help to understand how wars are being waged. It’s not merely because two parties are infinitely opposite and don’t want to find the common ground, and don’t understand each other. They simply don’t listen. Each party only knows one truth, and that truth is usually connected to a host of other factors that just cannot be abandoned. And so, Zachary falls short from being qualified as a juvenile criminal, “armed with a stick”, while hamster is gloryfied as a sort of martyr at the hands of a cruel toilet seat seller…

…as it happens, while parents are talking politics, their children already play together, and hamster is happily engorging on the grass in the heart of New York City.

This is the second time Polansky adapted a stage play to screen (previously it was Death and the Maiden). Written by Yasmina Reza, this is a “comedy of no manners”, but in modern world when politicians and plebeians both use Social Media to foster their agenda, everyone is has a role in this comedy. Everyone is concerned about not losing their face, secretly hating another party, and being wilfully oblivious to the existence of other facts.

Above all, everyone who gets involved in this, has no sense of humour. This is why Paul Arden in his book, God Explained in a Taxi Ride, says that, had the world’s best comedians and stand-up artists been called to discuss politics, they’d never wage a war – their sense of humour wouldn’t permit them to choose the means of action prefereed by “serious people”. The problem is, adults are expected to be “serious”; you cannot be kidding when you already have kids and carry the whole world on your shoulders. As a result, there are wars, hatred wrapped in diplomacy, that fight for an assumed wellbeing of a hamster, having little to no idea about its real needs.

A couple of words about actors. John O’Reilly may not be the usual leading man in Hollywood but in Carnage he shines. At times he will remind you on his Cellophane Man from Chicago, with his open-heartedness and readiness to please. When you don’t see his name in the list of “stars” on IMDb.com, you actually feel sad. Jodie Foster is brilliant at playing someone for whom Jane Fonda’s political exploits could indeed be an inspiration. Kate Winslet is so fully “in” her character’s shoes that she effortlessly goes from a subdued to active involvement in the scene. Christopher Waltz keeps more or less on the sideline until the finale, but his is irreplaceable support of the story dynamics.

Roman Polanski, Ssaki, and Le Sacrifice Commercial by Stella Artois

Roman Polanski’s 1962 short Ssaki is a Surrealist tale of co-operation and compassion. The two characters (Henryk Kluba and Michal Zolnierkiewicz) wander across the snowy wonderland. We don’t know where they are from, or where they are going to. Initially they have a sledge and they drive one another in turns; then the sledge is stolen, but the spirit of camaraderie never fails them as their journey continues. Polanski who co-wrote the film and directed it received two awards, one at the Cracow Film Festival, another at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

As I was watching Polanski’s short, I couldn’t help recalling this famous Stella Artois commercial, Le Sacrifice. The legacy of Surrealism is hard to overestimate, with its absurd and eery landscapes and rooms inhabited by clowns and phantoms.

Roman Polanski’s ‘Carnage’ to Open 49th New York Film Festival – indieWIRE

Roman Polanski’s ‘Carnage’ to Open 49th New York Film Festival – indieWIRE

by Brian Brooks

The North American premiere of Roman Polanski’s latest film, “Carnage,” will open the 49th New York Film Festival September 30th, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which produces the anticipated annual event, said Friday.

Based on Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage,” the 2009 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, “Carnage” follows the events of an evening when two Brooklyn couples are brought together after their children are involved in a playground fight. Produced by Said Ben Said, the Sony Pictures Classics release stars Academy Award winners Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz and Academy Award nominee John C. Reilly.]

(continue reading at indieWIRE).

 

Roman Polanski – When Angels Fall (1959)

I have recently discovered one of Roman Polanski’s earliest works – it is a 1959 short, Gdy Spadają Anioły (When Angels Fall). You may already notice his interest in the neurotic, the funny, the dramatic, the humble. 20 minutes encapsulate the last day in the life of an elderly woman who works as an attendant in the male toilet. The male characters that come and go intercept with her recollections of life before and during the war.

The film was directed and written by Polanski; the script was based on a short story by Leszek Szymański, “The Toilet Granny“. The old woman was played by Polanski himself – an early experiment for the actor-director that would culminate in Le Locataire (The Tenant). While the Polish forum discussion has described the film as “simply poetry”, the IMDb.com reviewer goes further, citing Paul Tillich’s “you find God only after you have lost all“.

For me, it was a discovery of Polanski’s shorts. I have seen all his features (up to The Ghost, I must admit), including a weird erotic comedy Che? with Marcello Mastroianni. When Angels Fall was also Polanski’s graduate work, which he had to make “complex” to show his directorial prowess. Although it is described by some viewers as “pretentious”, I do find it lingering, dramatic, and thus successful.

As for the meaning… The old woman is often described as someone who keeps recalling her lost hopes and dreams. Strictly speaking, as we can see from flashbacks, there were hardly many hopes and dreams. There was love – first for a man, then for her son, both of whom perished at war. Rather than a story of a loss, this is a story of endurance, of survival that likely hinges on the fear of suicide supported by the thought that everything in this world is God-given, and when the day comes, each will have their worth. Angel falls in the guise of the woman’s son. Whatever life she may have endured on Earth is fully compensated for by a union with her son in heaven.

The ending is unclear, at least to me. It may be that the entire film is a kind of “last day” in the life of the toilet granny. Or it may be that each day she survives on her memories, and by the evening she is visited by her angel (the son) who grants her relief from the day’s work.

My Saturday Music: The Pianist – Chopin’s Ballade no. 1 in G Minor op. 23

I watched The Pianist either shortly before or shortly after Adrien Brody and Roman Polanski had won at the Oscars. A few years later, in 2004, I watched the film on the big screen during the U.K.-wide retrospective of Polanski’s work that was then visiting Manchester’s Cornerhouse. The scene in the video is one of the most poignant in the story and in the film. Regarding the story, this is a dim in colour and sound, yet emotionally vibrant music which many themes seem to highlight the experience of a man’s and his spiritual survival in the war-ridden country. Chopin composed this Ballade during his early years in Paris in 1835-1836, and its structure and time signature seemed controversial, or deviated from Chopin’s other works. Performed in the cold, empty room, at the request of a Nazi officer, this music becomes the symbol of victory of Art that supports man’s spirit through all hardships.

As for the film, Brody’s performance reaches its pinnacle here. One cannot help thinking, though, that in order to bring out the best in ourselves we should aim to find the means to work with the best, prolific, demanding people out there. When Polanski received his Oscar as the director, he did so also as someone who made a young actor take his skill to a level that probably well exceeded the actor’s experience. Thankfully for Brody, he was ready to take the challenge.

People Vs. Artists

I know I’ve not written anything about Roman Polanski’s arrest on this blog – but I have written an article. As always, I allow myself to do what the legal system of some countries evidently cannot: namely, to make my own mind, without falling into either “protectionism” or emotionalism. I sent the article to one of the papers in the UK but have not heard anything. And to judge by the stance taken in this case by The Guardian, in particular, the article like mine is unlikely to be published. To use The Guardian‘s scale, I’ve got French views.

People vs. Roman Polanski

The point that Polanski’s supporters seem to be missing has to do with the shift in values that has been occurring over the last couple of decades (at least). The shift in values has to do with what is defined as art, and with who is defined as an artist. The shift in values has to do with how artists are compared and chosen. There is nothing wrong, of course, with listening to Maria Callas and Rufus Wainwright with a similar degree of pleasure. But if we apply “genius” to both of them, the question rises: if we have to choose further, who of these two will be the ‘ultimate’ genius, and why?

Because of this it is futile to argue that Polanski should be pardoned due to the sheer merit of his work. I argue in the article that nobody is interested in the present state of things. Nobody is interested in who Polanski is (or how old he is), just as nobody cares about Samantha Geimer, her family, her children. The entire attention is focused – farcically and paradoxically – on the event that took place 32 years ago, and the present is judged entirely in the light of the past, if with a sprinkle of today’s cynicism. The situation is strangely reminiscent of the one explored in The Tenant, a Polanski film.

Jacques Derrida – a Frenchman, of course – proposed a very valuable but perhaps improbable for our opinionated society idea: to forgive means to forget. Judging by Geimer’s interview of a few years ago, this is exactly what she has been trying to do all this time: to put the incident behind, to forgive, and to move on.

And, honestly, the publicity surrounding it was so traumatic that what he did to me seemed to pale in comparison… Here’s the way I feel about it: I don’t really have any hard feelings toward him, or any sympathy, either. He is a stranger to me. But I believe that Mr. Polanski and his film should be honored according to the quality of the work. What he does for a living and how good he is at it have nothing to do with me or what he did to me. I don’t think it would be fair to take past events into consideration.

It is the society that seems to be unable to grasp the fact that, for all the terrible nature of the incident, its repercussions for the victim were not as gruesome as they could be. It is the society, as well, that continuously blurs the boundary between a child and an adult. We are used to the trend of mass-producing Lolitas and putting the burden of responsibility on adult men, but on this occasion we have a different situation: 32 years later Samantha Geimer, a married woman with children, is still treated as a 13-year-old girl who was raped by a famous film maker.

I argue that Polanski should be pardoned not because of the merit of his work or certain tragic circumstances of his life. The aim of the legal system of each country is intelligent justice, and on this occasion the legal system must be above the public opinion. Rather than taking into account Polanski’s work – the significance of which the current imbroglio cannot detract from – the American legal system should better remember that, with the possible extradition, the country where Polanski is not native will again be robbing him of his family, as it already did once, thanks to Charles Manson’s gang. By re-opening the case, the legal system will also not do any justice to the woman. It is best to admit that there are occasions when legal judgement is non-applicable, especially when a significant period of time has elapsed, and the victim has expressed her opinion.

As for why Hollywood’s defense has provoked a backlash of “average Americans”… getting back to the start of this post, people do not discern between artists, and it is for this very reason “being Polanski” (or Allen, or Scorsese) is no different from “being John Smith”. Whenever there is a chance to bring an artist down – and the public defamation of artists and other public figures has been trendy for a while – the crowd is always up for it. This is not done with Justice in mind. This is merely an opportunity to bring an accompished person down to an average level, to the level where the crowd can treat this person as one of its own.

This antagonism between people and artists is the very antagonism that underpins democracy. Freedom is the paramount condition in which a great work is born; equality challenges it by ascertaining the right to produce an average piece of work rather than an outstanding one. Freedom is associated with artists; equality is close to people’s heart. In democracy, equality both threatens and is threatened by freedom – but it is, in its turn, a pre-condition of democracy. The Polanski case this time round sheds tons of light on this antagonism, and the outcome of the situation may well predict how freedom and equality will co-exist in future.

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