THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501270086
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
WE FOUND Roman Polanski, via telephone, at the Hotel Crillon in Paris. This is better than the Los Angeles police have been able to do.
Since 1977, they have vowed that he will never return to California - except in handcuffs. Attempts to extradite him to face 18-year-old charges of statutory rape have failed.
The director of ``Rosemary's Baby,'' ``Chinatown'' and the new socio-political thriller ``Death and the Maiden,'' now at local theaters, is one of the more mysterious, complex and elusive characters on the fringes of modern show business.
His tragic and often bizarre personal life seems to strangely parallel his dark movies, which often center on foreboding moods of impending evil.
``Yes, my films do often concern the problems of someone who is accused,'' he said when the line to Paris was open.
At age 7, he leaned out his family's apartment window in Krakow, Poland, and watched the Nazis walling up the end of his street, sealing off the ghetto. His father pushed him through a hole in the wall and told him, ``Shove off!'' He learned later that his pregnant mother had been seized by storm troopers and gassed at Auschwitz. Alone outside the ghetto, he made his way to Paris and, at age 14, was performing on a popular radio show.
International film success came with a three-character horror-suspense drama called ``Knife in the Water,'' leading to Hollywood success with ``Rosemary's Baby.''
He was in London in August 1969 when his wife, movie star Sharon Tate (then eight months pregnant), was murdered in their Los Angeles home. Also among the dead were four house guests. It wasn't until three months later that police discovered that the murders had been committed by a frenzied pack sent to the house by cult leader Charles Manson.
Polanski later wrote that ``Sharon's death is the only watershed in my life that really matters. Before she died, I sailed a boundless, untroubled sea of expectations and optimism. Afterward, whenever conscious of enjoying myself, I felt guilty.''
In 1976, while shooting a photo layout for Vogue on ``young girls of the world,'' Polanski ended up with a 13-year-old model in the empty home of his friend Jack Nicholson. He was subsequently charged on six counts, including ``unlawful sexual intercourse'' and ``rape by use of drugs.'' Because the girl subsequently refused to testify, he was allowed to plead guilty to only the first charge, and the case was near being closed. The judge, however, sentenced Polanski to psychological testing to be followed by ``an indeterminate sentence.'' There was the threat that he would be expelled from the country at the end of the sentence. Polanski bolted - forfeiting what was believed to have been a $1 million bond.
The Los Angeles police issued a statement saying, ``We've got the dogs out, the hounds are on his trail. We will extradite Polanski from anywhere, as long as there is a treaty.'' He found refuge in Paris, which does not have an extradition treaty.
His exile has not kept him from working. ``Tess'' won four Academy Awards, and now Sigourney Weaver, his leading lady in ``Death and the Maiden,'' is a major candidate for an Oscar nomination.
To get to Polanski, even by phone, is not easy. His publicists initially agreed to an in-person interview, ``on an island off Newfoundland.''
Polanski's handlers eventually agreed to a more routine telephone hookup to Paris. The 61-year-old Polanski turns out to be a good deal more jovial and witty than the brooding artist one would expect.
``Yes, I have suffered a great deal in my life,'' he said, ``but not primarily because of my exile from America. The thought of my mother being torn away before my eyes is there. The murder of Sharon is there. Hatred had accumulated within myself. I was glad when they got the Manson people behind bars for life. But I can still work. I would love to work in America again, it is true. What we have here in Europe could hardly be called an industry. I am a long way, here, from where the money is, and consequently, it is very hard to get films made. But otherwise, it is not so bad. Geena Davis, for example, is just down the hall, doing a phone interview about her new picture, `Speechless.' It is not so different.''
``Death and the Maiden'' is based on a play written by Ariel Dorfman, a Chilean native who splits his time between Santiago, Chile, and Durham, N.C., where he is a professor at Duke University. It involves a woman (Weaver) who was tortured and raped by government militia 15 years ago. As the film opens, her husband (Stuart Wilson) brings home a motorist who aided him on the road (Ben Kingsley). She immediately recognizes the man as one of her tormentors years earlier.
Because she had been blindfolded during her ordeal, she identifies him by voice, smell and mannerisms. Determined to get vengeance, she binds the man and demands a confession. He maintains that she is crazy and that he knows nothing of those events.
Glenn Close won a Tony Award for playing the role of the tortured and torturing woman when the play was produced on Broadway (opposite Gene Hackman as the accused man and Richard Dreyfuss as her nerdish husband).
``I haven't seen any of the theatrical productions,'' Polanski said, ``and I'm glad I haven't. It would have cramped my style. I saw Sigourney in `Aliens' and I thought she had great strength. For that reason, I wanted her.''
Weaver, whom we reached in New York, said: ``Yes, it was different working with Roman. He gives total direction - even to line readings. On the first day of rehearsals, he read the entire script to us - playing all the parts. He allows no questions before rehearsals. Personally, I liked having this kind of direction. I think Roman sees women as being victimized. I don't think he is a sexist at all. The film does, though, suggest the old alibi that `Oh, the woman is crazy. She made all this up.' Overall, though, I think the film is more sympathetic toward her than to Kingsley.''
``Personally, I thought Sigourney would be a more neurotic woman,'' Polanski said. ``That is what I wanted. She is a much better adjusted and quiet woman than I expected. In the play, the woman was frantic from the first scene. At least that is the way I read it. I wanted her frenzy to develop more gradually, but she definitely has to be neurotic from the word `go.' ''
Weaver confirmed, in New York, that ``Roman kept telling me, every day, to `be more neurotic.' I feel with this role that I'm greatly improved as an actress. Everyone had always told me, particularly back when I was in college and Meryl Streep was getting all the parts, that I was too tall to be an actress. I feel that now I have a toehold, at least, in the big, serious roles that Meryl and Glenn Close always get. I realize that I've just never tried very hard to get these parts. I'm ready now.''
Polanski's kinky ``Bitter Moon,'' which was partly about masochistic sex, was a big hit in the art houses last year. In it, he directed his young wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, in love scenes with the new star Hugh Grant (``Four Weddings and a Funeral''). Grant told me the story of how ``Roman sits beside the camera and is very, very funny, yelling at his wife. He keeps saying, `Emmanuelle, can't you be more erotic? If you can't turn Hugh on, how will you turn me on?' He keeps saying `Emmanuelle, you are supposed to be sexy. You look like you were up all night, and I know you weren't.' And there I am, the guy in bed with her while her husband talks to her.''
Polanski, reminded of what Grant had told me, laughed and said, ``Well, it is strange to direct your wife to lick the shoes of her lover, while I sit there and watch. But she is an actress. These things are different. Both Federico Fellini and Charlie Chaplin directed their wives.'' The Polanskis have a toddler daughter, Morgane.
As far as any hope for settling legal problems that keep him out of the United States, there is none. ``I can't see where any progress has been made,'' he said. ``As far as the case involving that woman, it has been settled. It was settled out of court. But, then, the court case remains. I work mostly in France now. All of `Death and the Maiden' was filmed here, in Paris.'' ILLUSTRATION: Roman Polanski
Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley star in Roman Polanski's new film,
"Death and the Maiden."
KEYWORDS: PROFILE ROMAN POLANSKI by CNB