Roman Polanski

  • Roman Polanski – La Venus a la fourrure AKA Venus in Fur (2013)

    2011-2020DramaFranceRoman Polanski

    Quote:
    Roman Polanski’s penchant for psychosexual mind games conducted in claustrophobic spaces is deliciously revisited in Venus in Fur (La Venus a la fourrure), adapted in French and yet mostly faithful to American playwright David Ives’ Broadway hit of the same name. A teasing dialectic of subjugation and power, female objectification and emasculating rebuke, the film should titillate European audiences with its mischievous combination of think and kink, while seducing a more limited niche in the U.S.
    The play premiered Off Broadway in 2010 and transferred uptown the following season, making an overnight New York stage star and eventual Tony Award winner out of Nina Arianda, the female half of Ives’ table-turning cat-and-mousecapade. Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – Oliver Twist (2005)

    2001-2010CrimeDramaRoman PolanskiUnited Kingdom

    Polanski’s greatly under-rated adaptation of the Dickens classic boasts stunning set design, exemplary, understated acting quite unlike the “Dickensian” grotesques of most TV adaptations, and definitive portraits of Sykes and Fagin by the great actors James Foreman and Sir Ben Kingsley. The latter’s night of terror in the execution cell at the film’s end is one of the most moving scenes in the director’s canon. Polanski is not scared of invoking Lean. In fact, several scenes pay specific homage to the earlier version while offering a totally valid, more naturalistic update. One for the ages, if not the box office.Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – Nóz w wodzie AKA Knife in the Water (1962)

    1961-1970DramaPolandRoman PolanskiThriller

    Quote:
    Before he got all famous with movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist, Roman Polanski created Knife in the Water, his first feature film.

    Water is a small but incredibly engaging movie, taking place during a day trip on a Polish lake. In the film, upscale couple Andrzej and Krystyna (Leon Niemczyk and Jolanta Umecka) drive out to the marina to take a little ride on the water, picking up a tenacious, beefcake hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz, whose character is unnamed in the film) and letting him go along on the trip. Andrzej goes to outrageous lengths to belittle his passenger, as the two men obliquely battle for the attention of Krystyna. It all comes to a head with Andrzej pushing the non-swimming blonde kid into the water, right after tossing his beloved knife into the drink. And there’s more to come after that.Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – The Pianist (2002)

    2001-2010DramaRoman PolanskiUSAWar

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    Plot Synopsis: A brilliant pianist, a Polish Jew, witnesses the restrictions Nazis place on Jews in the Polish capital, from restricted access to the building of the Warsaw ghetto. As his family is rounded up to be shipped off to the Nazi labor camps, he escapes deportation and eludes capture by living in the ruins of Warsaw.Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

    1961-1970ClassicsHorrorRoman PolanskiUSA

    Quote:
    A young couple move into an apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins to control her life.Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – Carnage (2011)

    2011-2020ComedyDramaRoman PolanskiUSA

    Tells the story of two sets of parents who decide to have a cordial meeting after their sons are involved in a schoolyard brawl.Read More »

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