Polański-Inspired Cinema

barton-fink.jpg, default, A still from ‘Barton Fink’, directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 1991, photo: Circle Films

He was admired by masters of modern art house and Hollywood entertainment experts. He was quoted by the Coen brothers, the leading feminist and provocateur of French cinema Catherine Breillat, Wes Anderson and film animators. We present movies inspired by the works of Roman Polański.

‘Barton Fink’ by Joel and Ethan Coen – Trelkovsky goes to Hollywood

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Barton Fink (1991) - Original Theatrical Trailer

When the Coen brothers were asked by The Independent what inspired them to create Barton Fink, they said:

We’ve always been big Polanski fans, and [The Tenant] is one of his best movies. He’s a great craftsman and storyteller, and he has a great sense of humour. It’s very wholesome, and that’s something you don't see that often. Because The Tenant is a funny movie. At the time, everyone thought it was just creepy – it has been much misunderstood. You know, people frequently have trouble laughing at things that don’t announce themselves as comedy in a broad way.

Barton Fink contained many allusions to Polański’s style. The protagonist, a screenwriter called Barton Fink, comes to Hollywood and loses his artistic freedom and inspiration. He seems to be a distant relative of Trelkovsky, the miserable tenant in Polański’s film. The Coen brothers swiftly operate within closed spaces in a way that is similar to The Tenant and Repulsion, and the hotel in their work transforms into a trap. In Barton Fink, the outside world is the source of oppression; what is inside causes incurable anxiety.

In 1991, the Coen brothers showed their film during the main competition in Cannes and received awards for Best Movie, Best Director and Best Actor (John Turturro). They won thanks to the decision of… Roman Polański, at that time the jury president. By giving them the most important awards, he actually awarded himself – he must have seen the allusions to his style and sensitivity in the work.

The Coen brothers referred to Polański in various other movies, and when asked to create a list of films which impressed them most, five of the 33 works they mentioned were by the Polish director: Knife in the Water, Repulsion, The Tenant, Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown.

Wes Anderson’s movie universe

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Moonrise Kingdom - Official Trailer [HD]

Writing about Polański-inspired movies is a somewhat risky task. It’s really easy to over-interpret and look for traces of the Polish director where they don’t actually exist. Although the director of Chinatown had an impact on an entire generation of international filmmakers, his works from different genres always stood out with their unique style, difficult to capture and describe in several words.

The elements of Polański’s style can be found in works by Wes Anderson, the leading neurotic of American cinema. In a conversation with Paweł T. Felis for Gazeta Wyborcza, he said: ‘There exists no director I would steal from more than I do from Polański. His Rosemary’s Baby is probably the biggest masterpiece of all times.’

Polański and Anderson, who also admits to ‘stealing’ from Scorsese, Huston, Kubrick and Coppola, share a similar absurd sense of humour lined with bitterness and pessimism. And although Anderson’s movies seem stylistically unique, we can find various motifs and staging tricks used by Polański. In Rushmore, a story about a student of an elite academy who gets in trouble for having an affair with his teacher, we can see Chinatown by Polański; in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, we find traces of Pirates; and in Moonrise Kingdom, we see a resemblance to Cul-de-sac and portrait shots similar to those in Rosemary’s Baby.

‘Black Swan’ by Aronofsky – ‘Repulsion’ on a ballet stage

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BLACK SWAN | Official Trailer | FOX Searchlight

While Anderson claims that ‘stealing’ from Polański and other masters of world cinema is involuntary, Darren Aronofsky consciously pays homage to the Polish director. In his debut Pi, a story about prodigy and madness, we can already find his fascination with the apartment trilogy by Polański and his psychological horrors. In Black Swan, Aronofsky’s references to Polański are impossible to overlook.

In this film about a ballet dancer fighting for success, love and recognition, Aronofsky referred to Repulsion, a 1965 story about a woman on the verge of a mental breakdown. Aronofsky subjectified the camerawork, so that the audience could feel part of the internal world of the protagonist, played by Natalie Portman. Psychological cinema intertwined with horror as the young protagonist descended into insanity, similarly to characters in The Tenant or Repulsion.

'Mother!' by Aronofsky – Rosemary & guests

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mother! movie (2017) - official trailer - paramount pictures

This wasn’t the only movie by the American director which was inspired by Polański’s works. Aronofsky’s recent film Mother! is another proof that he owes a lot to Polański in terms of his artistic style. Here, Aronofsky tells the story of a young woman married to a writer in a creative slump. One day, uninvited guests come to their house. Gradually, they take control of the protagonist’s private space, pushing her towards the verge of madness.

In Mother! we can also see influences of Rosemary’s Baby. The similarity between these two works was already suggested on one of the posters promoting Mother! which resembled the unforgettable poster of Polański’s film showing a green pram and Mia Farrow’s face.

Aronofsky yet again subjectified the film story, forcing the viewer to spend one-on-one time with the protagonist and to partake in the process of her internal breakdown. Her pushy guests are the spitting image of the monstrous neighbours living next to Rosemary, and horror constantly intertwines with the absurd.

The similarities between Aronofsky’s film and Polański’s works cannot be boiled down to identical themes, aesthetics or staging methods. What also links Mother! and Polański’s movies is the hidden autobiography understood as a directing strategy and a form of trick played on the audience. Just like Polański, who played with his own biography and often shared provocative allusions to his life, Aronofsky also messed with the audience. Not only did he portray an artist in a creative block, but he also cast his then girlfriend (Jennifer Lawrence) as the artist’s wife.

‘The Third’ by Jan Hryniak – ‘Knife in the Water’ à rebours

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A still from ‘The Third’, directed by Jan Hryniak, 2005, photo: Kino Świat

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While American directors courageously refer to Polański’s work, Polish cinema rarely does so. One of the exceptions (apart from the Masterclass animation, which is discussed later in the article) is The Third (original Polish title: Trzeci), directed by Jan Hryniak. It alludes to Knife in the Water, Polański’s 1965 debut.

In his film, Hryniak tells the story of a couple of thirty-year-olds who spend their summer on board a yacht. Overworked, without enough time to live, they want to escape their reality and breathe new life into their relationship. They do this with the help of a newly met elderly man, the third.

Jan Hryniak obviously referred to Knife in the Water, but he chose not to imitate Polański or create an efficient remake of his movie. He simply took the same approach, which he used to tell a story about his own generation. Instead of describing an intergenerational conflict happening beneath the surface of words, the director weaved a story together with metaphysical subtexts, which often resembled more those of Krzysztof Kieślowski than Polański.

‘Masterclass’ – Play it again, Roman

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Still from ‘Masterclass’, directed by Ewa Drzewicka, Dominika Fedko, Małgorzata Jachna, Małgorzata Jędrzejec, Weronika Kuc, Aleksandra Rylewicz i Grażyna Trela, photo: Kraków Film Festival

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There is a film whose directors literally reproduced Polański’s works. Masterclass is a six-minute animation created by Ewa Drzewicka, Dominika Fedko, Małgorzata Jachna, Małgorzata Jędrzejec, Weronika Kuc, Aleksandra Rylewicz and Grażyna Trela, who came up with the idea. In this simple and charming work, Trelkovsky meets J. J. Gittes from Chinatown, The Ghost Writer passes by the Pianist, Emmanuelle Seigner meets Mia Farrow, and Catherine Deneuve from Repulsion walks the same paths as Two Men and a Wardrobe (original title: Dwaj Ludzie z Szafą). Masterclass is a tribute to Polański, its directors expressing their gratitude for and fascination with the works of the finest Polish director.

‘L.A. Confidential’ by Curtis Hanson – ‘Chinatown’ years later

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L.A. Confidential - Trailer - HQ

When L.A. Confidential by Curtis Hanson was released in 1997, critics described it as the best neo-noir crime film since Polański’s Chinatown. Despite twenty years having passed since Chinatown’s premiere, both movies had a lot in common – their genre and setting.

Polański took the audience on a trip to Los Angeles in the 1930s. Together with detective Jake Gittes, they explored the dark secrets of the city. Hanson takes us on a strikingly similar tour in his movie. The action of L.A. Confidential takes place in the 1950s. The City of Angels is still ruled by dangerous gangsters, and femme fatales still seduce innocent officers of the law, the bravest of whom has to give up his cynicism to search for the truth and reach for it regardless of the possible consequences.

In this adaptation of a novel by James Ellroy, Polański’s fans found traces of the world and vibe present in the immortal Chinatown.

‘Unknown’ by Jaume Collete-Serra – ‘Frantic’ à la Berlin

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Unknown - Trailer

Jaume Collete-Serra’s Unknown seems to be Polański’s distant relative. In a way that is similar to that of the creator of Rosemary’s Baby, the Spanish director specialises in ambitious productions.

Among Collet-Serra’s films is a horror called Orphan and a survival thriller and B-movie classic The Shallows. In 2011, he created a variation on Frantic by Polański. In the movie, Liam Neeson plays an American scientist who goes to Berlin with his wife to attend a scientific conference. Before he gets there, he has an accident, and when he wakes up in a hospital, he realises that his wife cannot recognise him and that his identity was stolen by another man.

Collet-Serra borrowed the starting point of Unknown from Polański. He may have chosen Berlin instead of Paris as his setting, the doctor played by Harrison Ford was replaced by a scientist with Liam Neeson’s face, and the protagonist’s wife wasn’t missing but instead denied knowing her husband. But despite these differences, the frame of the story remained identical. In order to bring back the status quo ante, all of the characters had to overcome their own limitations and risk their lives for what mattered to them most.

‘For My Sister’ by Catherine Breillat and ‘Queen of Earth’ by Alex Ross Perry – variations on ‘Repulsion’

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A ma sœur ! - Bande Annonce

Although Polański created many movies considered world classics, none of them was as often imitated as Repulsion. The story of a woman gradually losing her mind revolutionised the genre, as it constituted a new type of narrative – a subjective and heavily symbolic story about the human mind and sexuality.

These two movies are clearly related to Polański’s works, but their similarity is not as obvious as in the case of L.A. Confidential or Unknown. Nevertheless, they still owe a lot to Repulsion.

The first is created by one of the leading feminists of modern cinema – Catherine Breillat. In For My Sister (originally: À ma sœur!), this controversial French artist portrays a middle-class family spending their summer in the countryside. The story focuses on two totally different sisters, who try to cope with their budding sexuality in their own distinct ways. Just like Polański in Repulsion, Breillat presented sisters linked by a strong bond despite having completely different characters and described the traumas and fears of female sexuality.

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Queen of Earth - Official Trailer | HD | IFC Films

Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth is another movie telling the story of two distinct women and a man who disrupts their relationship. In this psychological thriller, Elizabeth Moss plays a young woman who goes to a secluded house together with her friend in order to strengthen their bond. Their stay, disturbed by the arrival of an uninvited guest, is the beginning of a psychodrama. In this movie, Repulsion is intertwined with Polański’s Death and the Maiden and Carnage.

Source: The Independent, Konbini.com

Language English