All Over Polanski

Matt Zoller Seitz‘s Press Play is running a week’s worth of essays about Roman Polanski, concluding and coinciding with Friday’s big-deal premiere of Carnage at the New York Film Festival.

The first essay, narrated by Simon Abrams and edited by Serena Bramble, is called “Polanski’s God” — a riff of the director’s bleak world view and apparent attitude toward religion and God.

Tuesday will see a piece by Steven Santos on the architecture and claustrophobia in Polanski’s films. On Wednesday an appreciation of Cul-de-Sac by L.A. filmmaker Jose Gallegos will appear. On Thursday Jim Emerson will contemplate the visual rules and regulations in Chinatown. Friday’s finale will be another collaboration between Seitz and Kim Morgan, focusing on Repulsion.

7 thoughts on “All Over Polanski

  1. No disrespect to what Simon Abrams had to say about Polanski, but the best part of this was the opening. Serena Bramble not only found great links between the films but editing them together in a very informative and exciting manner.

    Thanks Carl LaFong for the youtube link to her other work.

  2. @The Pope – I agree… I stopped watching because I thought Abrams’s observations were pretty run of the mill, plus there looked like there might be CARNAGE spoilers, but verbal explanations inevitably diminish Polanski’s work in my book.

  3. Wonderfully done. Reminded of what a great film GHOST WRITER was/is. Must disagree with his assessment of PIANIST. I found it to reveal Polanski’s guilt of survival. If the PIANIST is Polanski, then he is the least responsible for his survival of the War and the perils of the Jews. The PIANIST does nothing to help himself but depends solely on the actions of Christian friends and even a Nazi guard. All die but the PIANIST. Spoiler alert? Look forward to Tueday post.

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