Film director Roman Polanski walked out of a Cannes press conference in fury last year, but shared his thoughts on life and cinema with the Chinese media patiently, last Saturday.
The controversial director was part of a Polish filmmakers' delegation to an 11-day screening of nine Polish films in Beijing and Kunming from Oct 24.
Polanski gave a quick yes when asked if he had seen the 2008 documentary Polanski: Wanted and Desired, on his unlawful sex with a minor more than 30 years ago.
"I've seen it," he said. "It is a very good documentary. For the first time, someone tells the truth of what happened without distortion, tries to undo the myth about my problems that I had in America."
He said he was not sorry that he could not pick up the best director Oscar in person because of the incident.
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Polish-French film director Roman Polanski talked about his thoughts on life and cinema with the Chinese media in Beijing. [Guo Yingguang] |
"Many great directors never won an Oscar, like Stanley Kubrick," he said. "Marlon Brando did not go to pick up the award although he was next door. The award is a physical symbol; it is the fact that people decide to vote for your film that counts."
Polanski said The Pianist, which won him the Academy Award in 2003, was a work that satisfied him completely.
"I had the feeling that everything I did before was a rehearsal for making that movie," he said. "If I wanted one of my movies to be put in the grave (with me), it would be The Pianist."
Polanski said that as a holocaust survivor, he was always looking in his artistic career for proper material to reflect those years of war, or the immediate aftermath of the war.
But he did turn down Steven Spielberg's offer to direct Schindler's List.
"The story happened in Krakow, in the ghetto in which I was," he said. "It was too close to my life."
Ryszard Horowitz, Polanski's good friend since early childhood, is holding a photography exhibition in Beijing in conjunction with the film screening. He was actually one of the people saved by Schindler and just like it is shown in the film, had to hide in feces to survive.
Although Polanski created signature works such as Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown in Hollywood, he thinks Hollywood is a "pitiful shame".
"Productions that come out from Hollywood are designed for great consumption, like McDonald's hamburgers," he said.
Unlike many other directors of his generation, Polanski cares about the impact of cinema on the world.
"Trying to change the world through the motion pictures is an illusion or something to satisfy yourself," he explained. "But I think showing the world as it is and being a mirror of reality is something more important. Give people a reflection and their actions may change something."
Retirement is nowhere on the 75-year-old's plans. "I have no interest in gardening," he jokes and shares that his current project is The Ghost, a thriller based on Robert Harris's novel of the same name.
He says China is a fantastic location for shooting movies, but making a movie here will depend on finding the right story.
(China Daily October 28, 2008)
