The Tenant (1976)

[Blogathon contribution here.]

Le locataire, France / USA, 126 minutes

Director: Roman Polanski

Writers: Roland Topor, Gerard Brach, Roman Polanski

Photography: Sven Nykvist

Music: Philippe Sarde

Editor: Francoise Bonnot

Cast: Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters, Jo Van Fleet, Bernard Fresson, Lila Kedrova, Rufus, Alain Frerot, Jacques Monod, Claude Dauphin, Dominique Poulange

Director and cowriter Roman Polanski is now likely remembered most, unfortunately, for his sex crime(s). He has always been a good filmmaker and continued to be even when he wandered off into arguably dead-end projects like this. One of his great talents was simply for constructing movies. He recognized and could attract best talents, which probably explains what cinematographer Sven Nykvist (Persona, Fanny and Alexander) is doing here. Polanski's fondness for old Hollywood is even more apparent—in Rosemary's Baby as well—as he casts various icons well past their sell-by dates yet at least as good as you could expect: Melvyn Douglas, for example, a heartthrob leading-man rival of Fredric March and Clark Gable in the '30s, plays a curmudgeonly old landlord in The Tenant. A blowsy bellowing Shelley Winters works well as the concierge of the creepy apartment building. And Jo Van Fleet is decked out in perfect makeup to chew the scenery awhile as a hideous nosy neighbor. The camera itself seems to swoon in her witch-like dizzying presence.

There's a good case, however, that Polanski took a misstep by casting himself as the lead in this strangely toned movie. It turns out he's not bad at being mousy and timid although it never rings entirely true and at about the halfway point the whole project starts to go well off the rails. By the time we're encountering cryptic Egyptology symbols and the cross-dressing starts it kind of falls apart. But I've always been perhaps unnaturally attached to this movie even with all its flaws. It has many amazing small pieces, and if the whole is less than the sum, well, they're still pretty impressive taken on their own.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

USA, 136 minutes
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Ira Levin, Roman Polanski
Photography: William A. Fraker
Music: Krysztof Komeda
Editors: Sam O'Steen, Bob Wyman
Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Patsy Kelly, Ralph Bellamy, Maurice Evans, Angela Dorian, Elisha Cook Jr., Charles Grodin, Tony Curtis, William Castle, Hope Summers

Devil worship in the heart of Manhattan was not exactly a new idea in 1968—producer Val Lewton had already taken a turn at it with The Seventh Victim some two decades before. But Rosemary's Baby is a series of contradictions at multiple levels, mixing old and new, outlandish and pedestrian, fashionable and homely, into a heady brew. It starts with the contradiction of stylish European film director and screenwriter Roman Polanski at the helm of a William Castle production. Castle, whose legend is lampooned in Joe Dante's 1993 Matinee (worth seeing), was famed for his horror movie promotions in the '50s and '60s: The House on Haunted Hill ("filmed in Emergo"), The Tingler ("filmed in Percepto"), and 13 Ghosts ("filmed in Illusion-O"). The words ending in "o" refer to stunts such as vibrating motors attached to the undersides of theater seats for The Tingler.

Castle even makes a cameo in Rosemary's Baby, grinning and honking on a stogie while he waits for Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) to free up a public phone. Rosemary's Baby, both the movie and the novel it was based on, was very much of its particular moment, come swirling out of the mid-'60s and the year of the beast, 196-6-6, long hot summers and deepening of the Vietnam War, etc., when Joan Didion first began to embrace dread as a critical aesthetic and Time magazine dedicated one of its covers to the question, "Is God Dead?" That very Time magazine cover puts in an appearance at one point in Rosemary's Baby in a doctor's waiting room. Blood and fantastical images are used sparingly, but Polanski is working very self-consciously in the realm of horror, with these devil worshipers and a celebrity appearance by Satan himself. At one point, the gnawing physical pain Rosemary experiences in her pregnancy suddenly vanishes and she feels it kicking inside her. "It's alive," she cries with joy and relief, echoing the famous lines from Frankenstein. "It's alive!"

Repulsion (1965)

UK, 105 minutes
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Roman Polanski, Gerard Brach, David Stone
Photography: Gilbert Taylor
Music: Chico Hamilton
Editor: Alastair McIntyre
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Patrick Wymark, Yvonne Furneaux

It's probably not right to call Repulsion a horror movie—it's much too arty and urbane for that. And in spite of a few (highly effective) shock cuts, the disquieting narrative turns are all too naturalistic in the context of mental illness. But I came out of the theater the first time I saw Repulsion with a feeling of desolation I could not shake, and overnight that turned into a case of food poisoning. In spite of the obvious cause, I blamed the movie and not the bad pork ribs and thought of my sickness as profoundly existential. The association has stuck. Repulsion is the kind of movie that inspires one to such things. In fact, it was so disturbing I was even unwilling to look at it again until recently.

It's the first picture in director and co-writer Roman Polanski's so-called "Apartment Trilogy," with Rosemary's Baby from 1968 (in many ways much more the conventional horror picture, because the fantasy might be real and the madness not) and The Tenant from 1976. The idea of a trilogy is a critical figment—I'm not sure anyone thinks Polanski consciously intended them that way—but the elements they share are obvious: isolated individuals lost in great anonymous metropolises slowly going cuckoo inside their apartments, which serve both as sanctuaries and as killing fields. The way they walk the streets, the way they look at the world through peepholes, the obnoxious neighbors, the phones ringing and no one on the other end. All three dwell inside the heads of their protagonists nearly as much as outside. Spoilers ahead.

Chinatown (1974)

#30: Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

I've spent most of my adult life admiring Roman Polanski movies so I knew at least one of his pictures had to make my list. Given his legal status, however, and the anathema that has recently come to surround even the mention of him, it didn't seem particularly wise to include him with the other five directors on my list who get two titles apiece. Still, I can't help recommending any of the following—in fact, can't recommend them enough: Bitter Moon, Death and the Maiden, The Ghost Writer, and the three films of the so-called Apartment Trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and The Tenant).

In the end, I had a very tough time choosing between Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, which is that rare thing among horror films, a picture as nuanced as it is unsettling, and with a good many excellent performances and nice touches about the way it's done.

Chinatown (1974)

USA, 130 minutes
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Robert Towne, Roman Polanski
Photography: John A. Alonzo, Stanley Cortez
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Editor: Sam O'Steen
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman, Darrell Zwerling, Diane Ladd, Roy Jenson, James Hong

I've spent most of my adult life admiring Roman Polanski movies but I was surprised when I got another look at Chinatown recently. It had probably been decades (how the time does fly)—yet not only had I seen it enough to still practically be able to quote the dialogue verbatim right along with the cast, but the complexities of the story are now sufficiently clarified that I'm better able to understand the motivations and sense of each scene. That's no small thing in this densely plotted neo-noir (particularly for someone who has a hard time following a "Perry Mason" story). I would guess that screenwriter Robert Towne's most direct source within the tradition of hard-boiled detective fiction is Ross Macdonald, even more than Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. All three concocted similarly byzantine narratives, but Macdonald always rooted his in the reverberations of fractured families, which is the story at the heart of Chinatown.

In its details the story stands, in fact, as a very nearly perfect match for the kind of sensibilities Polanski has honed (even had thrust on him, as those who know his biography might argue) all his career—a dark, sexualized, twisted undercurrent of debauchery and malevolence, which acknowledges that unblemished innocence may exist in the world, but insists on seeing it only as opportunity. Indeed, Chinatown exists as another of those great collaborations where so many are operating at peak form and bringing so much to bear: Towne, Polanski, actors John Huston, Jack Nicholson, and Faye Dunaway. Richard Sylbert's production design is studded with scores of self-consciously authentic details. The gauzy orange/brown-filtered photography bursts with warm color and texture. Even the perennial pro Jerry Goldsmith chips in a terrific score, used sparingly and just right, guaranteed to rend hearts every time that trumpet swells again (R.I.P. Uan Rasey).

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)

USA/UK, 99 minutes, documentary
Director: Marina Zenovich
Writers: Joe Bini, P.G. Morgan, Marina Zenovich
Photography: Tanja Koop
Editor: Joe Bini

This HBO documentary preceded by little more than a year the revival of interest in Roman Polanski's case following his arrest in Switzerland in 2009, when it appeared possible that he might be extradited to the U.S. I never even noticed it going by, but a friend included it on his list early in 2010 of the best films of the 2000s, so between that and all the furor I knew it was one I wanted to see. And it is indeed worth seeing—among other virtues, for me, it includes information I hadn't known about the legal and ethical improprieties of the presiding judge of the case in the '70s, Laurence Rittenband (who died in 1993). More generally, it seems to me eminently fair, not only about the crime itself, which it doesn't minimize, but also about all the events that swirled around it and the people involved. It doesn't excuse Polanski, but it provides a useful context.

This is one of those cases, of course, in which people tend to line up on opposite sides and take their pleasure throwing blunt objects at one another in the service of discourse (see also O.J. Simpson, Jonbenet Ramsey, Monica Lewinsky, second Iraq War, or, more recently, Casey Anthony). So I want to tread carefully. There's no question that Polanski committed a crime, no question that his defenders often say such silly things that they are, on balance, actively harmful to Polanski's cause, e.g., Whoopi Goldberg's assertion, "I know it wasn't rape-rape" (we all know she wasn't there). And certainly it's a useful thought experiment to ask what if it had been the filmmaker's daughter, or anyone's, who had been the victim in this case.

The Ghost Writer (2010)

The Ghost, France/Germany/UK, 128 minutes
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Robert Harris, Roman Polanski
Photography: Pawel Edelman
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Editor: Herve de Luze
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, Kim Cattrall, Tom Wilkinson, Robert Pugh, Timothy Hutton, Jon Bernthal

I liked this quite a bit more the first time I saw it, so much so that I named it as my favorite movie of 2010 some six months or so ago (even understanding there were still a good many gaps to fill eventually, as there usually are with year-end exercises). I suppose I may have had some motivation to defend an artist whose work I love a good deal against the transgressions committed by the man, lately returned to higher profile. In my mind, I had The Ghost Writer slotted (in a generally weak year) as mid-range second-tier Polanski along with such titles as Bitter Moon and Death and the Maiden. Now I'm inclined to put it more at the level of The Ninth Gate, an interesting mess with unfortunate overtones of professionalism and some pronounced tendency toward foolishness. A lot of my problems with it now lie in the story, particularly the ludicrous resolution, so of necessity there will be spoilers on the other side of the jump. Beware.

The good news is that it remains on the surface an appealing enough political thriller, reminiscent in many ways, I think almost self-consciously so, of Hitchcock—there's a bit of a "wrong man" thing going with the story and an intriguing mystery, but it's Alexandre Desplat's score that does much of the work recalling Hitchcock. There's even a theme that emerges toward the end that I swear comes directly out of a Hitchcock picture, though I can't put my finger on which one. But it's so familiar it's almost distracting. The music is overbearing, deliberately so, intruding constantly on the action, particularly in the transitions. If it were as bad as some of what we get from, say, Hans Zimmer, it would be unbearable simply because of the way it's used. Instead it's one of the most effective elements here.

Madness, Rage, Petulance, and The Tenant

(This is my contribution to the Roman Polanski Blogathon hosted March 27-29, 2011, by Cinema Directives.)

Released in 1976 and premiering at that year's Cannes festival, Roman Polanski's The Tenant is the third installment of his so-called Apartment Trilogy, after Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, a handy way of yoking together three of his movies that appear conceived along similar lines. Set in great cities of the world (London, New York, and Paris) and focused on fragile characters confined to relatively small spaces within them, all three deal to varying degrees with insanity and the paranormal in confusing and terrifying circumstances. They are creepy and effective, each fitting neatly enough into the horror genre, albeit going well beyond genre expectations.

I have always read The Tenant as the most personal of them, not least, perhaps, because Polanski himself takes the starring role and indeed occupies a good deal of the screen time (though never formally credited). It's hard not to see Polanski struggling to make something of his larger personal experience with the unnerving and disquieting story that The Tenant tells. Though not the first movie Polanski made after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate, when she was just two weeks shy of giving birth to their child, I think it may be the first in which he attempted to address the repercussions of that event and others in his life.

Roman by Polanski (1984)

As a good American, I am genuinely torn about this whole thing with Roman Polanski. On the one hand, there's no doubt that he committed a crime, and a serious one at that, and arguably got away with it. But on the other hand I respect, admire, and love his movies so much (especially Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Tenant, and at least two made after the crime, Bitter Moon and Death and the Maiden), and believe they are significant and important enough that I want very badly to look the other way. I'll own that because it's an awful lot of great movies from just one artist, two of which would likely never have been made if the mob outside with the torches and pitchforks had anything to say about it. (There's also the issue, which I note in passing, raised by William Faulkner on John Keats: “If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is worth any number of old ladies.”) Then there's the serious and generally underreported problem, explored at some length in the 2008 HBO documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, with the presiding judge in the case, who was removed from it for various ethical improprieties after Polanski had fled the country; they were not eccentric tics of interpretation, but serious breaches. Additionally, I think sexual predation of children is too often a grossly misunderstood crime, and certainly one abused on a regular basis in order to manipulate inflamed passions. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, because it does—and, in this particular case, did—but there are exceptions, which I sometimes think are probably more like the rule, and which in any event certainly mean that the extra mile always needs to be gone to not give the mob what it wants. All this said, Polanski's memoir adds still another level of complexity to the story by fleshing out the uniquely remarkable context of his life: his parents taken away by Nazis when he was just 5 years old, left at that age to fend for himself in the Polish countryside; as a youth, surviving and eventually escaping the oppressions of the Soviet-sphere Communist regime that followed World War II in Poland; and of course the well-known fate of his first wife Sharon Tate, who, two weeks short of giving birth to their first child, was slaughtered by the Manson group. More generally, Polanski's account contributes a lot to an understanding of the life that has shaped the sensibility that has driven an undeniably impressive body of work. So if tending toward a sense that splitting the difference here and just letting Polanski continue with his life and work as the best possible course of justice for everyone, all things considered, with Polanski simply required to endure the public approbation he has and certainly will from now on—if that makes me an apologist, then, well, I'm sorry.

In case it's not at the library.