Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski is a Polish-French film director, screenwriter, and actor whose films include Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, and The Pianist.

Rosemary’s Baby: A 1968 horror film directed by Roman Polanski about a pregnant woman who suspects her neighbors belong to a Satanic cult. Its domestic paranoia and controlled perspective became defining features of Polanski’s American work.
Psychological horror: A horror mode that builds fear through mental states, uncertainty, and disturbed perception rather than relying chiefly on physical threats. Several Polanski films make subjective dread more prominent than supernatural spectacle.
Kraków: A historic city in southern Poland and one of the country’s major cultural centers. Polanski was born in Paris but grew up in Kraków after his family returned to Poland.
Sharon Tate: An American actor who appeared in films including The Fearless Vampire Killers and was murdered in 1969. Tate starred in Polanski’s 1967 film and was his wife when she was murdered.
Neo-noir: A postwar style of crime film that revisits and alters themes and visual conventions of classic film noir. Chinatown became a major example of neo-noir’s adaptation of noir conventions to modern settings.
Chinatown: A 1974 neo-noir film directed by Roman Polanski and written by Robert Towne, set amid Los Angeles water politics. The film joins his direction to Robert Towne’s screenplay in a celebrated study of corruption.
Suspense: A state of anxious anticipation created when an outcome matters but remains uncertain. His scenes often prolong uncertainty by limiting what characters and viewers can know.
Kraków Ghetto: A Nazi German ghetto established in occupied Kraków in 1941 to imprison the city’s Jewish population. As a Jewish child, Polanski escaped the ghetto; his parents were deported to concentration camps.
Robert Towne: An American screenwriter and director best known for writing Chinatown. Towne wrote the screenplay that Polanski directed, with substantial disagreement over its final resolution.
New Hollywood: A period of American filmmaking from the late 1960s through the 1970s marked by director-driven films and changing studio practices. Polanski’s American films arrived during this period and helped define its ambitious, director-led cinema.

Linked from 12 pages