Career: Return to Europe

Polanski’s first feature following Sharon Tate’s murder was a bleak and violent film version of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971). Jon Finch and Francesca Annis appeared in the lead roles. He adapted Shakespeare’s original text into a screenplay with the British theater critic Kenneth Tynan, and gained financing for the project through his friendship with Victor Lownes, who was an executive for Playboy magazine in London at the time. Polanski wanted to make the film in the play’s actual historical setting of Scotland, but while scouting for locations there he could find no suitable sites that were still unmarked by telephone poles and other such modern installations. He eventually chose to shoot in an area of Britain which would provide him with a much more convincing medieval landscape complete with picturesque Norman castles: the rugged environs of Snowdonia National Park, North Wales. The production took six months to complete and exceeded its initial budget by at least $500,000 mostly due to weather problems (it rained frequently during the location filming in Wales) as well as Polanski’s insistence on shooting multiple takes of several technically challenging scenes in these adverse conditions. When the film finally premiered in December 1971, a number of critics were disturbed by its rampant violence as well as the overwhelming nightmarish atmosphere and unredeemed nihilism of Polanski’s very modernist interpretation of Shakespeare (influenced by the writings of Polish drama critic and theoretician, Jan Kott). Film critic Pauline Kael commented that the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her household appeared to have been staged in an especially lurid manner that was clearly intended to evoke the Manson killings.

Written by Polanski and previous collaborator Gérard Brach, What? (1973) is a mordant absurdist comedy made in the spirit of Roger Vadim and Terry Southern and loosely based on the themes of Alice in Wonderland and Henry James. The film is a rambling shaggy dog story about the sexual indignities that befall Nancy (Sydne Rome), a winsome young American hippie hitchhiking through Europe. After escaping a farcical rape attempt in the back of a truck, she soon finds herself stranded in the hothouse atmosphere of a remote Italian villa inhabited by a band of decadent, lecherous grotesques — the main trio are played by Marcello Mastrioanni, Hugh Griffith and Polanski himself. What? is also significant in that it is Polanski’s only film to date in which a character breaks the fourth wall. The film was a failure with audiences and critics, although in the years since its release What? has attracted a minor cult following and a modicum of critical notice.

After filming Chinatown (1974) in Los Angeles, Polanski returned to Paris for his next film, The Tenant (1976), which was based on a 1964 novel by Roland Topor, a French writer of Polish-Jewish origin. In addition to directing the film, Polanski also played the lead role of Trelkovsky, a timid Polish immigrant living in Paris who seems to be possessed by the personality of a young woman who committed suicide by jumping out of the window from her apartment — the very apartment that Trelkovsky now occupies. Many have noted the similarities with Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, and together with these two earlier works, The Tenant can be seen as the third installment in a loose trilogy of films called the “Apartment Trilogy” that explore the themes of social alienation and psychic and emotional breakdown. For The Tenant, Ingmar Bergman’s regular cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, served as cameraman, and actors such as Isabelle Adjani, Shelley Winters, Melvyn Douglas and Jo Van Fleet appeared in supporting roles. The Tenant also marked the first of three consecutive occasions that French composer Philippe Sarde would score a Polanski film. In his autobiography, Polanski wrote: “I had a great admiration for American institutions and regarded the United States as the only truly democratic country in the world.”

Unwilling to work in the United States after 1978 for fear of jail, Polanski continued to work in Europe. He dedicated his next film, Tess (1979), to the memory of his late wife, Sharon Tate. According to the director, after spending time with him in London in the summer of 1969, Tate left a copy of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles on Polanski’s nightstand, along with a note suggesting that it would make a good film. Tess was Polanski’s first film since his 1977 arrest in Los Angeles, and because of the American-British extradition treaty, Tess was shot in the north of France instead of Hardy’s Dorset and Wiltshire; a replica of Stonehenge was constructed at Morienval for the final scene. Nastassja Kinski (with whom Polanski had been romantically involved) appeared in the title role opposite Peter Firth and Leigh Lawson. The film became the most expensive made in France up to that time, causing producer Claude Berri considerable anxiety when there was difficulty finding a North American distributor for the picture, which was nearly three hours long. Matters were also complicated when cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth died in the middle of production and had to be replaced by Ghislain Cloquet. Tess was eventually released in North America by Columbia Pictures, which had also distributed Polanski’s earlier Macbeth. Ultimately, Tess proved a financial success and was well-received by both critics and the public. For Tess, Polanski won French César Awards for Best Picture and Best Director and received his fourth Academy Award nomination (and his second nomination for Best Director). The film received three Oscars: best cinematography, best art direction and best costume design. In addition, Tess was nominated for best picture (Polanski’s second film to be nominated) and best original score.

Nearly seven years passed before Polanski completed his next film, Pirates (1986), a lavish period piece starring Walter Matthau, which the director intended as an homage to the beloved Errol Flynn swashbucklers of his childhood. Pirates was followed by Frantic (1988), starring Harrison Ford and the actress/model Emmanuelle Seigner. She would go on to star in two more of his films, Bitter Moon (1992) and The Ninth Gate (1999).

[Text from Wikipedia]