Latest news with #RomanPolanski
Fox News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring had 'mature' bond after Polanski: author
Marshall Terrill, co-author of "Jay Sebring: Cutting to the Truth," describes how Sharon Tate remained close with her former love, celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, after she married Roman Polanski.
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘An Officer and a Spy' Review: Roman Polanski's New Spin on the Dreyfus Affair
'J'Accuse . . . !' ran the headline of possibly the most famous newspaper column ever written, by Émile Zola in editor Georges Clemenceau's Parisian newspaper L'Aurore in 1898. It furnished Roman Polanski with an obvious title for his French film on the Dreyfus Affair, although for American audiences it has been more generically retitled 'An Officer and a Spy.' The historical drama was released in France in 2019 but is only now being given a very modest run in the U.S. (playing exclusively at New York's Film Forum); in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Mr. Polanksi's notorious sexual misbehavior in the 1970s faced renewed scrutiny and he was ejected from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018 even though he had received an Oscar and a standing ovation from the group for directing 'The Pianist' in 2003. Evidently the entire American motion-picture industry considered him so untouchable that the first film he made after his expulsion was withheld from U.S. viewers, though in France it received 12 César nominations and won three, including another best-director prize for Mr. Polanski.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘An Officer and a Spy' Review: The Dreyfus Affair as an Allegory
In France, Roman Polanski's 'An Officer and a Spy' was released in 2019 as 'J'Accuse …!' — I accuse. On its face, the movie is an account of the Dreyfus Affair, in which a Jewish-French army captain named Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of passing military secrets to the Germans in the late 19th century. The movie shared its original title with Émile Zola's published defense of Dreyfus, which changed both public opinion and history. The accused in Zola's denunciation is unmistakable. Yet who is the movie — and Polanski — accusing, and of what? Now, six years after its French run, 'An Officer and a Spy' is opening in New York at the Film Forum. It's the first new Polanski movie to play in this country since the 2014 release of 'Venus in Fur.' In the years since, Polanski — who fled the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor — became effectively persona non grata here. Film Forum has posted a programming note to its website that refers to the assault, and also states that the movie is 'a well-crafted, dramatic depiction of the Dreyfus Affair' and 'an important contribution to cinema's crucial role in historical storytelling.' 'An Officer and a Spy' is well-crafted; Polanski's movies generally are. Its contribution to cinema's role in historical storytelling, though, seems largely as an allegory about Polanski. The movie opens with cinematic sweep, with Dreyfus (a de-glammed Louis Garrel) being ostentatiously stripped of his miliary rank in a degradation ceremony. It's 1895 and the setting is a vast, austere courtyard of the École Militaire, which was founded by Louis XV. Soldiers and bystanders are in attendance; in the near distance, the recently built Eiffel Tower pierces the gray sky. The tower was built to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution, whose universalist principles — liberté, égalité, fraternité — were extended to all French Jews in 1791, granting them full citizenship. Questions of identity, patrimony and antisemitism are among the issues swirling through 'An Officer and a Spy.' After Dreyfus's degradation ceremony, he is separated from his family and imprisoned on Devil's Island, a penal colony in French Guiana where he is the lone inmate and ordered not to speak to the guards. With each affront, Dreyfus is progressively isolated from France, a point Polanski underscores with a stunning series of long shots of Devil's Island that show it at a greater distance until it disappears from view, like its prisoner. It's a denigration that, at least symbolically, evokes the Nazis' methodical dehumanizing actions toward Jews in 'The Pianist,' Polanski's towering 2002 film about the Holocaust. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Diary of a mad Mumbai housewife
Startling, dreamlike, frustrating, funny — Karan Kandhari's debut feature, 'Sister Midnight,' is an absolute original. Which doesn't mean this diary of a mad Mumbai newlywed doesn't have its antecedents and influences. In interviews, the British Indian director has spoken of his love for Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, and the film's careful framing of explosively reactive slapstick evokes both classic film comedy and the deadpan precision of Wes Anderson. Yet there are darker sources that take 'Sister Midnight' in disturbing, elliptical directions reminiscent of Roman Polanski's 'Repulsion' and Ana Lily Amirpour's 'A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.'
The Guardian
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Adrien Brody wins best actor Oscar for The Brutalist
Adrien Brody has won the Academy Award for best actor for his role in Brady Corbet's post-war epic The Brutalist. In 2003, Brody became the youngest ever winner of the same award, when he took the prize for his role in Roman Polanski's The Pianist, aged 29 years, 343 days. Now 51, Brody's win on Sunday means he retains that record; his key competitor for the award this time round was Timothée Chalamet, 22 years his junior, for Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. Brody's win puts him into the elite ranks of actors who have a 100% win rate at the Oscars from two or more nominations – Vivien Leigh, Hilary Swank, Kevin Spacey, Luise Rainer, Christoph Waltz, Helen Hayes and Mahershala Ali. In The Brutalist, Brody plays László Tóth, a fictional Hungarian modernist architect who survives the second world war, via its concentration camps, and ends up in the US. There, he's commissioned by tycoon Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce) to design and build a huge community centre, with a chapel and swimming pool, in memory of his late mother. The film charts Tóth's career, his combative relationship with his mentor, and his marriage to wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones). In his review, the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw praised Brody's 'angular fierceness and passion', calling it 'a career best for him, surely, and an advance on his performance in Roman Polanski's The Pianist.' Brody has taken almost all of the key awards in the run-up to the Oscars, including the Golden Globe for actor in a drama, the Critics Choice award and the Bafta. But his run was broken last weekend, when Chalamet scooped the Screen Actors Guild prize. In January, a minor row broke out when it emerged that AI had been used to help smooth the Hungarian accents of Brody and Jones. Corbet was quick to dampen down the backlash, saying the performances were 'entirely their own'. The 97th Academy Awards are taking place in Hollywood, hosted by Conan O'Brien.
