The Pianist

I keep watching Roman Polanski movies and they keep turning out to be really damn good, so I decided to learn about him a little more. I didn't know that he escaped the Holocaust in Poland as a child or that his pregnant wife was murdered by the Manson Family. It obviously doesn't excuse what he did a few years later, but it does change my perspective a bit. He definitely uses his experience in the Jewish ghettos and avoiding concentration camps to realize The Pianist, a similar story about a real man who also avoided the camps before returning to the radio booths and concert halls. Movies about this terrible period history seem like they sometimes rely too much on the obvious horror of what's happening to seem powerful, but there's a certain frankness about the way this movie was shot that makes it all the more effective without trying too hard to shock the audience. The things that happen are brutal and awful to be sure, but they're not sensationalized, just shot naturally and letting the events speak for themselves. We're not forced to feel sorry for these people, we just do.

This simple approach makes the drama effective but also could have made the film a bit dull, if it was just two and a half hours of people suffering. But the pianist's story eventually takes some turns that are a bit less familiar and interesting to watch, and there are also a few moments where the specific nature of the natural approach makes the action immensely compelling. Several scenes where the brutality and violence of the film are at their highest pitch are shot entirely from various upper story windows, which has the effect of distancing you from the visceral nature of what's happening and making it feel completely real in the process. It seems more like a documentary at these moments, and it's more gripping than some of the most expensive action scenes I've ever seen.

Of course there's also Adrien Brody's performance as the titular character. The acting in this movie is generally pretty low key in keeping with the natural style, and not many members of the cast really stick out much. Brody also doesn't do a lot to call attention to himself, but there's a quiet, moving quality to his work that makes his struggle to survive interesting. His transformation from dignified artist to shambling, desperate mess is pretty intense to watch. It's a much more subtle performance than usually seems to get called out at the Oscars, and while I'm sure the status of the film itself helped him along, it seems like a good choice for the award. I have to admit that Polanski was deserving as well, though I probably would have replaced the Screenplay win with a Cinematography one. The script is fine, but the quality of this film is definitely in its execution.

Rosemary's Baby

So many of these classic "horror" movies really don't resemble what we think of as modern horror in any way. The focus is on things like story and mood rather than surprising the audience to try to make them piss their pants, or pushing the envelope when it comes to gore. I gotta say, I like it the old way. While I still think he's a terrible person, I have to admit Roman Polanski's films are now 2 for 2 when it comes to living up to their reputations. Chinatown was a great, more modern film noir, and Rosemary's Baby is a pretty terrific tale of paranoia. Unlike other Satanic horror of the era that I've seen, where it's pretty obvious from the beginning that something very wrong is happening, this film had me wondering the entire time about multiple aspects of the plot. Not only whether there really was a cult after the baby, but also whether the cult's beliefs were right. The ending answers those questions pretty definitively in a scene I found surprising based on how it seemed to shift the tone away from what had been built over the last couple hours, but I thought it ended up working despite its obviousness.

The movie is pretty much the definition of a slow burn, taking a very long time to develop the characters and their relationships before really getting the plot going. Heck, Rosemary isn't even pregnant until maybe 45 minutes into the story. You spend a lot time just learning about these people and trying to form ideas about who they really are, though it's hard to say anything for certain based on the information given. There's a pretty overtly Satanic scene early on, but it isn't definitely real and after that there's very little solid evidence one way or the other. There's a delicate balance that is maintained, making you wonder if Rosemary's losing it while providing just enough hints to suggest that she might be right after all. Things are slow for a while, but especially in the second half the film turns into a great piece of suspense, with some really nice little touches and perfectly drawn out moments to keep you twisted around in the best way like a classic Hitchcock movie. I again hesitate to call it a horror movie thanks to the modern connotations, but Rosemary's Baby is at least one of the best supernatural (or is it?) thrillers I've ever seen.

Chinatown

However you feel about what Roman Polanski did, it shouldn't affect your opinion of his work. This is actually the first film of his I've seen, but I was definitely impressed by it, although it might have been more the script and the acting than anything he was in charge of. It was still well-made though, a 70s film noir that definitely lives up to the sensibilities of both. A lot of the style, plot, and content could have easily existed in a film from the original noir movement, but while the setting is in the 40s, a lot of the details aren't. The content is a lot racier, with more violence, vulgarity, sexuality, and a rather infamous twist near the end that certainly would have been too much at the time.

A lot of that is just window dressing though, without which the movie would have still been good just on the strength of the story. A nefarious plot about misappropriated water sounds at first like it might have come from an episode of Captain Planet, but it's really an interesting case, and Jack Nicholson's investigation style makes the whole thing into quite the intriguing caper. There's something about his cynicism and world-weariness that makes him seem a bit more human than the average private dick, and just when he starts caring again the world can't help but beat him back down. Good supporting cast too, Faye Dunaway plays the whole femme fatale thing in a way you'd expect from the 70s, and John Huston shows directing isn't his only skill as her rich and enterprising father.

The script is stuffed with great lines and clever stuff for Jack to do, and deserved its Oscar as much as any screenplay usually can. Hard to say why the ending is so great without explaining it, so I'll just say that the movie builds perfectly to a brutal crescendo that fits exactly what it should be based on everything that came before. Even characters that seemed made to disappear early in the film come back in appropriate roles for the conclusion. It's really just the pinnacle of well-constructed filmmaking.