A new take on an eclectic and controversial
director
James Morrison's critical study offers a comprehensive and
critically engaged treatment on Roman Polanski's immense body of
work. Tracing the ...filmmaker's remarkably diverse career from its
beginnings to 2007, the book provides commentary on all of
Polanski's major films in their historical, cultural, social, and
artistic contexts. Morrison locates Polanski's work within the
genres of comedy and melodrama, arguing that he is not merely
obsessed with the theme of repression, but that his true interest
is in the concrete-what is out in the open-and why we so rarely see
it.
The range of Polanski's filmmaking challenges traditional
divisions between high and low culture. For example, The Ninth
Gate is a brash pastiche of the horror genre, while The
Pianist is an Academy Award-winner about the Holocaust.
Dubbing Polanski a relentless critic of modernity, Morrison
concludes that his career is representative of the fissures,
victories, and rehabilitations of the last fifty years of
international cinema.
A volume in the series Contemporary Film Directors, edited
by James Naremore
Matos examines the film Rosemary's Baby directed by Roman Polanski, which is based on the novel by Ira Levi. She states that she is particularly interested in a specific action that she believes was ...employed by the witches to keep the trap door definitively closed for Rosemary. Obviously, as part of the sect's plans, it was held camouflaged, posed as a form of charity or disinterested help being provided by the apparently innocent and kind elderly couple who lived in the neighboring apartment 7 A, the Castevets.
La vinculación de una escenografía cerrada y claustrofóbica con respecto a la desequilibrada psique de unas protagonistas femeninas al borde de la locura, es una constante en las películas de Terror ...Psicológico. Sin embargo, en los films de Roman Polanski, esta constante se convierte en obsesión y lugar común de gran parte de su filmografía. Llegando a crearse una especie de original estilema fundamentado en re-encuadres, oscuras iluminaciones y otras transformaciones arquitectónicas de gran interés y cierta semiología y que podríamos denominar como Poética de lo claustrofóbico. El presente escrito se propone indagar en los significantes y significados que dan unidad a este dispositivo escenográfico-psicológico del director francés, a través del segundo film de su carrera: «Repulsión» (1965).
In this paper, the authors explore the depiction of perversion and the associated interplay of life and death drives in Roman Polanski’s 1992 film Bitter Moon. To begin with, a theoretical discussion ...is presented regarding perverse organizations of mastery and sadomasochism. Perversion is viewed as an expression of the death drive under erotic disguise, in which the destructive fingerprint of the death drive is revealed at every stage, having as its ultimate purpose the destruction of the other. Based on these theoretical insights a dialogue is developed with Polanski’s film, which brings to life the theory of sadomasochistic relations through the multidimensional aesthetic medium of cinema. It is shown how Polanski’s cinematic oeuvre conveys the essence of the difficult and complex experience of perverse relations, where the life and death drives and their transformations are manifested. The portrayal of the sadomasochistic relations in this film contributes to the experiential knowledge with which the authors promote insight that would potentially enrich the clinical work with patients with perverse organizations.
El cine de Roman Polanski es uno de los más ejemplos más clarificadores del empleo de la escenografía como catalizador psicológico. En una de sus aportaciones al género cinematográfico del terror ...psicológico y del fantástico, Rosemary’s Baby (La semilla del diablo, 1968), se consolidan muchas de las constantes audiovisuales que podrían formar parte de dicho mecanismo, que bien podríamos denominar «dispositivo escenográfico-psicológico». Se trata de un sistema estético que parece conformar y unir gran parte del cine del director francés. El presente estudio indagará acerca de dichas operaciones textuales escenográficas, que se erigen como una de las principales bases de la identidad visual del largometraje, especialmente en sus secuencias oníricas, seleccionadas oportunamente para esta disección.
Is it appropriate to honor artists who have created great works but who have also acted immorally? In this article, after arguing that honoring involves identifying a person as someone we ought to ...admire, we present three moral reasons against honoring immoral artists. First, we argue that honoring can serve to condone their behavior, through the mediums of emotional prioritization and exemplar identification. Second, we argue that honoring immoral artists can generate undue epistemic credibility for the artists, which can lead to an indirect form of testimonial injustice for the artists’ victims. Third, we argue, building on the first two reasons, that honoring immoral artists can also serve to silence their victims. We end by considering how we might respond to these reasons.
ONE OF THE ELEMENTS NECESSARY TO MAKE A WORK OF LITERATURE TRAGIC IS THAT THE AUDIENCE HAS SOME FELLOW SYMPATHY, SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL COMPREHENSION OF THE DILEMMAS AND SUFFERING OF THE ...PROTAGONISTS. MACBETH FAILS AS A TRAGEDY IF THE AUDIENCE SEES THE THANE AND HIS LADY AS UNREDEEMED VILLAINS, DEEMS THEIR SUFFERING AS DESERVED AND NECESSARY PUNISHMENT, AND TAKES PLEASURE IN THEIR AGONIES. BUT THIS IS NOT THE RESPONSE OF MOST READERS OR SPECTATORS. THE SPECTACLE OF THE NOBLE MACBETH, DRIVEN BY AMBITION AND THE WILL TO POWER TO THE MOST HEINOUS OF ACTS, SUFFERING THE MOST INTENSE PANGS OF GUILT AND REMORSE, AROUSES, PERHAPS AGAINST THEIR WILL, THE PITY OF THE READERS OR SPECTATORS. THERE IS ALSO IN THE AUDIENCE A SENSE OF FEAR THAT THE EVIL THAT CONTAMINATED MACBETH AND LADY MACBETH CAN POISON ANYONE. ROMAN POLANSKI’S ADAPTATION IS A REALISTIC APPROACH OF THE SHAKESPEAREAN TEXT. IT CREATES PROFOUND CHARACTERS, ESTABLISHING A HIGH DEGREE OF ORIGINALITY OF THE ADAPTATION.
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