A lighthearted jaunt around Paris with Roman Polanski, director of some of the darkest, sexiest films on-screen, and participant in some of the darkest, weirdest events in Hollywood.
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If Roman Polanski's life were a movie you'd never believe it. His childhood was spend in Poland during the Holocaust; his father survived the camps, but his mother died at Auschwitz. Polanski grew up to be a filmmaker who, with films like Repulsion, in which Catherine Deneuve played a psychotic young women who slaughtered men unlucky enough to enter her apartment, gained on international reputation that led him to Hollywood. There, his first film, Rosemary's Baby, in which Mia Farrow gives birth to the devil's son, established hi dark vision as mainstream film entertainment.
Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate, were expecting a baby in 1969 when Charles Manson's disciples entered their home and killed everyone inside. Polanski, who had been away, because obsessed with finding the killers: trusting no one, he even ran tests on his friends' cars for possible bloodstains.
Five years later Polanski made Chinatown, a '30s L.A. mystery of murder, money, corruption, incest and betrayal. A few years after that, during a photo shoot for Vogue Hommes, Polanski had what he claims was consensual sex with a minor at Jack Nicholson's home. This led to a charge of rape and boiling Tinseltown scandal. After pleading guilty to one count and spending time in prison, he thought the trouble was over, but upon his release, he heard that the judge intended to put him back, in jail, so he hopped the next plane to Europe. He has lived in Paris ever since.
Now 60 years old, Polanski is married to 28-year-old actress Emmanuelle Seigner (who has starred in two of his films, Frantic and Bitter Moon) and has a two-year-old daughter named Morgane. He has just finished his newest film, Death and the Maiden, based on Ariel Dorfman's play about a woman (Sigourney Weaver) who thinks the man who shows up at her house (Ben Kingsley) is the very person who tortured her in an unnamed South American country.
I met Polanski as he was putting the finishing touches on Death and the Maiden in Paris. He works in a quiet suburb that is so drab and undistinguished; it could be located in Anywhere, USA.
"I don't know where to begin," I begin, as Roman Polanski and i walk from the mixing room to a small restaurant. "I saw all your movies again last week, read your autobiography, and read every interview with you that's ever been published."
"You had nothing better to do with your time?" he asks in his heavily accented English.
"This is my job," I say.
"Well, so now there is nothing to talk about," he says. "You know everything, you've seen everything."
"Wouldn't you love to see a story about yourself that doesn't contain the three words 'unlawful sexual intercourse'?"
Polanski visibly brightens at the thought.
"Sorry," I say. "This ain't it."
"It always comes back to that," he says wearily. But he's smiling.
"I asked a hundred people about you..."
"People who know me or only of me?" he asks.
"Both."
"And?" he asks hopefully.
I rotate my hand in the universal gesture of fifty/fifty: "Pervert/fool. Except for three of my girlfriends who think the whole thing with the girl was overblown, the rest pretty much fell into those categories."
"Everybody's got an opinion, eh?" he says. For the next 10 minutes, he translates the menu from French (I don't speak a word) and extols the merits of blood sausage and kidneys. I choose rack of lamb, and so does he. We split an appetizer of foie gras.
"I have a bone to pick with you," I tell him, trying not to obsess on what a cholesterol nightmare this is. "I know you and Emmanuelle have a child. And I read all these interviews where you said how sorry you felt for people who didn't have children, because they would never know this fabulous thing they were missing. What kind of crap is this?"
"This is not crap," he says, raising his voice. "Why do you think it's crap?"
"For 60 years you didn't have a baby, you were missing this and didn't know it? You were miserable, but you just weren't smart enough to realize it?"
"You see other people being happy, so you suspect that it's something great, but it's the difference between watching, for example, somebody having an orgasm and experiencing one for yourself."
Oh.
"You don't understand what I'm saying?" he asks, getting a little red in the face. "Do you have children?"
"No."
"No! I would know it right away from what you said. Have you ever been in love?"
This is not going the way I planned it. "Yes, I'm in love."
"There are some people who go through their lives without being in love. You think they miss something or not?"
"Yeah, they miss something..." I'm fervently hoping no one in the restaurant understands English.
"Don't you feel sorry for them?" he asks.
"Not in the least. What am I, God? I gotta feel sorry for everyone who doesn't get to experience everything?" Now I'm shouting. "Maybe love would fuck up their ability to create, maybe it would derail their plans. Maybe the sex would confuse them. No, I don't feel sorry..."
Polanski puts his hand on mine. "Let's eat," he says, becoming at once very French and very fatherly.
The foie gras calms our nerves, but who knows what it's doing to our arteries?
"Do you and Emmanuelle bicker?" I ask, hoping to lighten things up.
"What is this, 'bicker'?"
"You know, when couples talk to each other in this way, like, 'Oh you said this,' 'No, I said that,' and blah blah blah in a way that's a little cutting..."
"Why would you ask me this?"
"Because there's a tone in Bitter Moon that reminded me of some friends I call the Bickersons, and I was just wondering,"
"Did you like Bitter Moon?" he asks.
"It was flawed," I say delicately, "but it had its moments. My boyfriend, Steve, said it was his favorite kind of movie... you laugh your head off, and then go home and fuck your brains out."
Polanski chuckles. "And Emmanuelle," he says, "she was good, no?"
"You don't need me to tell you if Emmanuelle is good," I say. I'm such a diplomat.
"Did you like her in Frantic?"
"I'll tell you the truth, I was so distracted by Betty Buckley as Harrison Ford's wife in Frantic that everything paled by comparison. I think it was so cruel of you to cast her, because she looked like Harrison's mother. I mean, anybody would have looked bad next to Emmanuelle, but..."
"It was an idea we had," Polanski says, "that Harrison would be one of those doctors who married his college sweetheart and made his life with her. You know this type? But now I'm wondering if it was the right thing, if it brought something to the picture or not, you know? Betty Buckley's a good actress though."
"She's a terrific actress, but..."
"Now when you're telling me this I think probably it was a mistake." Polanski looks glum.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"You should not be sorry if it is the truth. You would not be the first one to tell me when things did not work. Listen, I have to go back to the mixing room."
"Please let me come. I love this part."
"Do you? The technical parts?" His look is leery.
"Yes. There's nothing more boring than when they're shooting a movie, but I love the mixing and the editing."
Polanski grabs my arm and steers me across the street. I think we've made up.
"This is my favorite part, too," he says. "I love making these decisions, where should this be, how loud is this sound, all those little details. You tell me when you're bored and I send someone to take you home."
For the next five hours, I watch as Polanski lays music and sound effects over what seems even at this stage a mesmerizing piece of filmmaking. Whenever he takes a break, we head into the cafeteria and chat.
"Maybe on Saturday I take you to EuroDisney," he says at one point. "I'm a great fan of Disneyland."
"You are?"
"Oh yes, the first time I was there with Fellini and his wife, Giulietta, It was my first time in America, I was nominated for the Academy Award for Knife in the Water, and he was nominated for 8½. And they gave us a trip to Disneyland, and we loved it."
"I'm trying to imagine Fellini in the tea cup..."
"What is this, the tea cup?"
"Forget it," I say.
"Oh, we all loved it. We had great fun. I remember we were in the boat. But we won't have time anyway." He looks genuinely disappointed.
Before we go back in, he turns and says, "Yes, we do."
"Yes we do what?"
"Emmanuelle and I, we do bicker. I never knew what this was called in English."
During another break, the subject turns to drugs (don't ask, it was a stream-of-conscious-ness type thing).
"It's obvious," Polanski says, "that drugs must be legalized. The calamity of this society is really heavy drugs, no? And all this could be eradicated by simple legalization of this stuff."
"Listen, Roman, you haven't been in America in a long time. There is no way that they're going to legalize drugs. I mean, they're about to make smoking illegal..."
"What are you saying?"
"It's like prohibition, but with cigarettes. You can't smoke inside, you can't smoke at work, soon they'll make it so you can't smoke in the streets."
Polanski doesn't miss a beat. He storms off to the corner store, picks out a nice Havana cigar, and puffs on it for the rest of the day. Enough said.
After hours of having me watch as he works, Polanski asks if I like what I'm seeing on the screen.
"Oh, yes," I tell him. "Death and the Maiden is really perfect for you. It's claustrophobic. There are only three characters stuck in this house, and you're never sure if what Sigourney Weaver is feeling is the truth or not. It's perfect for you."
"This is what intrigues me," he says. "Here is this woman who went through hell, worse than hell. She was tortured, violated, abused. And now she has a chance to face her torturer. But maybe it's not him. It's about vengeance and retribution, about the relativity of truth. And what is she capable of, how much degradation and pain is she willing to put him through? What they did to her was unspeakable, yet she wants to talk about it."
"This is certainly going to change how people think about Sigourney," I say. "She's never done anything remotely like this."
"Yes, she's usually used for sort of strong, down-to-earth people, well balanced and healthy. Here she will surprise everyone."
At one point we take a walk, and I ask, "Do you know what cooties are?"
"No, what is this, 'cooties'?"
"It's this thing from when we were kids, and if you did something the other kids thought was stupid or gross, they'd tag you and say you had 'cooties.' It was like an invisible virus that made you an outcast."
"I understand," he says, but I'm not entirely convinced.
"Well," I say, "I have something to confess. I once wrote this piece about how you get cooties in Hollywood. Like, Faye Dunaway got them because she played Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, and it was like all of a sudden everyone thought she beat her kids, like she really was Crawford."
Polanski is nodding.
"And I said that you had cooties, not because you fucked a 13 year old in Jack Nicholson's hot tub, but because Sharon Tate had the misfortune to be killed by Charlie Manson."
"That's what I always thought," Polanski says. "When Sharon died, the press said the most terrible things about us--that it was connected to black magic, that it had something to do with the type of movies I had always made. They just lie and lie and lie, but when they print it, then people think it's true. When they found out that Manson was behind it, then they changed their song. But they were relentless. And when the trouble happened with the girl, it was like everyone said, 'We were right about him, he's crazy, that's why his wife got killed.'"
"You don't get cooties from sleeping with someone underage," I say. "I know, I've done it."
Polanski's eyebrows shoot up. He smiles. "With boys, this is a score. They would never turn you in. They think they've done something wonderful. Cooties. This is a great concept."
When I finally have to leave, Polanski decides that I absolutely must take a detour to La Defense, a huge office complex that Mitterrand has built in the outskirts of Paris. It's out of the way and no one seems to want to go with me, but Polanski corrals one of the assistant editors and makes her take me there. It is acres and acres of office buildings, not a blade of grass in sight. The crowning glory of this monstrosity is a building with a huge arch that you have to walk up thousands of stairs to get to. The assistant editor and I climb as if we're going to the Pyramids. You do not want to cross Roman Polanski.
On Saturday I meet Polanski at his apartment, right off the Champs Elysees. The building is modern and spare, no hint of Paris about it. The elevator opens right into the apartment, where Polanski stands with an unlit cigar in his mouth. I walk right past him and look at the photos on the wall: Polanski and (_Chinatown_ producer) Robert Evans in 1967, long hair flying; the two of them 10 years later in Malta, shorter hair, the same maniacal glint in their eyes; a group shot of Polanski with friends, taken by Helmut Newton, with the inscription, "For Roman ... at the last supper, love Helmut."
His office door is open so I go in and look at the stacks of scripts (they're all in French or Polish) and books. Robert Evans's autobiography The Kid Stays in the Picture is on the top of the pile. I open it to read the inscription, but there is none. "I haven't had time to read it," Polanski confesses.
"I did," I say. "He talks about you a lot. He's one of the people who claims to have been invited to Sharon's house the night she was killed." (In Polanski's book, he says that all the people who said that, including Jerzy Kosinski, were lying.)
"Memory plays strange tricks," is all he'll say about it now. "I'll tell you a great story about me and Bob. Once, on the lot of Paramount, he and I were standing and talking, and we see a chick coming out of the comer of one of the alleys, walking away from us. This was in the late '60s. And she goes on her high heels, click, click, click, with a really nice ass and legs. And we both look at her, and say, 'Who is this?' Then we start slowly running after her and we have a hard time to catch up with her. And then we turn the corner, and it is Ruth Gordon! It was when I was shooting Rosemary's Baby, but I didn't recognize her. She had a fantastic body. From behind especially."
Polanski's daughter Morgane comes bounding into the room, but runs out just as quickly. She has Polanski's face in miniature.
"Let's go," he says, grabbing me before I start looking through the drawers.
"Strange place to live," I say when we get outside.
"No, it's perfect. It's not a--what do you call it?--neighborhood. The butcher doesn't come out to say hello. Nobody stops to chat. That's the way I like it."
The next three people who walk by say, "Bonjour Roman." He just nods and smiles.
"When I watch your movies," I say, "I keep thinking of how weird and twisted you always make Paris look."
"Oh yes, in Frantic I wanted it to be that you would only see what a tourist sees. Like the ride from the airport and those freeways and just some side streets that would make you feel disoriented,"
"You're tike a single woman's worst nightmare."
"Again with that?" Polanski says, looking annoyed,
"No, no, I'm talking about your movies. When I saw The Tenant for the first time, I remember that I was afraid to be alone in my apartment. And then, in Repulsion, you have the scene where the woman sees the reflection of a man in her mirror. I almost died ..."
A wicked smile is on his face. "It still works?" he asks.
"Oh, yes. When I saw it last week, I knew what was coming, and I still jumped out of my seat. I was petrified."
"Do you want to come to the editing room with me?" he asks.
"Yes. But every journalist who has gotten into a car with you has said what a lousy driver you are."
"This is bullshit," he says. "I'm a great driver. Just fast. But if you don't want to..."
"Where's the car?" I ask, never one to pass on a dare.
We're in Polanski's Mercedes going about 200 kilometers an hour through the streets of Paris, but since I don't understand the metric system, I'm not sure if this is bad or good. Polanski loves Paris and points out every building of note, every park, every old factory.
At the editing room, we watch and rewatch one of the last reels of the film.
"Let me see the end," I beg, when he stops it once again with just a few minutes to go.
"No," he says resolutely. "For that, you will have to pay seven dollars."
"Please."
"No. Here, I will give you the dollars, I will pay for you. But you must see it from the first to the end. That is the way it will work best." He's actually trying to hand me the money.
I slap his hand away and we head back to the Mercedes.
"Okay," I say. "let's talk about you coming back to America."
"There's nothing to say. There is no deal or anything, I'm no closer to coming back than I was 10 years ago. I would like to clear this up and have it off my head, but..."
"You settled with the girl last year, right?"
"Yes, but part of the deal was that I am not supposed to talk about it. All those people who have opinions about me ... please tell them that I admitted what I did was wrong and I went to jail for it. I went to jail! They seem not to know this. And I want to say to you--you said the girl was 13, but she was really just three weeks short of her 14th birthday."
"You think that makes a difference?"
"Yes," he says, nodding vigorously.
"Maybe here in France, but in America, I think not."
"But here in France I don't have cooties, eh?"
I have to smile. "No, Roman, here in France you're an icon."
Polanski throws back his head and laughs.
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Martha Frankel interviewed Patrick Stewart for the November 1994 Movieline.