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Polanski and Perception

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Polanski and Perception 1 POLANSKI AND PERCEPTION Submitted by Davide Caputo, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film Studies, 15 November 2010. This thesis is available for library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. …………………………………. 2 Abstract Filmmaker Roman Polanski declares in his autobiography that he was greatly influenced by renowned neuropsychologist Richard L. Gregory (1923-2010), whose work, Polanski claims, gave scientific confirmation to many of his own beliefs regarding the nature of perception. Gregory was a strong advocate for what is referred to as the ‘indirect’ theory of perception, a theoretical model that stresses the agency of cognition, specifically hypothesisation, in the act of perceiving. This analysis of Polanski’s cinema is guided by an exploration of perceptual psychology, with special attention paid to how the theory of indirect perception differs from competing, and often more intuitive, models of perception. The two main focuses of this thesis are: a) to identify the ways in which Polanski’s cinematography is actively informed by neuropsychological research on perception, and b) to discuss the various ways in which the key philosophical implications of the theory of indirect perception find expression in his cinema. My analysis will focus primarily on two (unofficial) ‘trilogies’, what I refer to as the ‘Apartment Trilogy’ of Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and The Tenant (1976), and the ‘Investigation Trilogy’ of Chinatown (1974), Frantic (1988) and The Ninth Gate (1999). Also included are minor case studies of Knife in the Water (1962), Death and the Maiden (1994), and The Ghost (2010). This thesis hopes to demonstrate the manner in which Polanski’s cinematic engagement with perceptual psychology evolves over his career, from more psychologically intimate explorations 3 of the perceptual mechanism via portrayals of schizophrenia in his earlier films, to more distant studies of highly proficient perceiving bodies who are nevertheless confronted with serious challenges to their perceptual (and epistemological) frameworks. 4 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank Professor Richard Langton Gregory, whose research into perception guides this exploration of Polanski’s cinema. He was gracious enough to speak with me personally in 2008, just as my work was taking shape; these talks helped solidify the direction my work would take. Professor Gregory passed away on 17 May 2010. I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain (AHRC) for funding this research, the University of Exeter, and the Bibliothèque du Film in Paris for permitting me to access their archive. Special thanks go to my supervisor, Professor Susan Hayward, whose expertise, counsel and patience were (and continue to be) of immense value to me. Finally, I would like to thank Professor John Orr, whose writings on Polanski and Modernism greatly informed the direction of my work. Professor Orr passed away just a few weeks before the submission of this thesis. 5 Table of Contents 1. Initiating a Perceptual Discourse..........................................................................36 2. Schizophrenia and the City.................................................................................118 3. Apartment Trilogy Case Study 1: Repulsion......................................................147 4. Apartment Trilogy Case Study 2: Rosemary’s Baby..........................................176 5. Apartment Trilogy Case Study 3: The Tenant....................................................228 6. Approaching the Investigations..........................................................................259 7. Investigation Trilogy Case Study 1: Chinatown.................................................281 8. Investigation Trilogy Case Study 2: Frantic (Including a Case Study of Death and the Maiden) .........................................................................................................311 9. Investigation Trilogy Case Study 3: The Ninth Gate .........................................344 10. A Bridge Between Trilogies: The Ghost..........................................................387 11. Conclusion........................................................................................................408 12. Roman Polanski Filmography..........................................................................418 13. Bibliography.....................................................................................................420 14. Appendix ..........................................................................................................432 6 Preface A Few Words on the Structure of this Thesis I begin this thesis with an examination of the early part of Roman Polanski’s career, in which I shall discuss Polanski’s educational background, his early shorts, and his first feature, Knife in the Water (1962). This introduction serves as an attempt to ‘locate’ the director within the discourse of national cinema, but what soon becomes evident are the challenges Polanski poses to such a task. The discussion then veers towards the notions of transnationalism and nomadism, which prove a better means to address Polanski’s work. Emerging from this discussion is Polanski’s special interest in visual perception, the issue that ultimately guides this analysis of his films. Whilst this thesis is primarily intended as an analysis of Roman Polanski’s cinema, my particular approach to these films requires that the reader be acquainted with some of the basic tenets of perceptual psychology as well the clinical discourse surrounding the diagnosis schizophrenia. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the polemics of perceptual psychology and schizophrenia as a means of communicating the conceptual framework upon which my specific means of addressing Polanski’s cinema is based. The thesis then moves on to three dedicated case studies (Chapters 3, 4, and 5), collectively referred to as the ‘Apartment Trilogy’. 7 I then turn my attention to another group of films in which Polanski’s engagement with perception takes a new direction. I begin the second part of this thesis with an inter-film discussion of what I refer to as the ‘Investigation Trilogy’ (Chapter 6), which is then followed by dedicated case studies (Chapters 7, 8, and 9). In the final chapter (Chapter 10), I discuss Polanski’s latest feature film, The Ghost (2010), through which I summarise the key points of this thesis and highlight some areas worthy of further investigation. 8 INTRODUCTION Polanski and Poland (Knife in the Water) Roman Polanski began his career in cinema as a young actor, most notably featuring in Andrzej Wajda’s A Generation (1955). Wajda’s film is credited with starting the Polish Film School, a movement that broke from the Marxist didacticism of Poland’s post-war social realist cinema, in favour of putting forth a more ‘individualised vision’ (Ostrowska, 2006: 63) of cinema. Although Polanski’s early involvement with Wajda probably accounts for a large part of his early education as a filmmaker, Polanski’s own cinema, even his early ‘Polish’ output, sits uncomfortably alongside the Polish school, with his first feature, Knife in the Water, marking yet another ‘break’ in Polish cinema. Whilst Polanski’s cinema shares, to varying degrees, Wajda’s concern with the plight of the individual, the idea of cinema serving as ‘psychotherapist of the Polish audience’ (Ostrowska, 2006: 66) was rejected by Polanski. Even Polanski’s cycle of schizophrenia-based films (what I refer to in this thesis as ‘The Apartment Trilogy’), although heavily concerned with psychosis, offer no therapy. Whilst the Polish School rejected the prescriptive aesthetics of the ideologically didactic post-war Polish cinema, these films were equally defined by their resistance to it. Knife in the Water, in contrast, is one of the first examples of truly post-regime Polish cinema. Nevertheless, Polanski’s cinema is certainly influenced by his direct experience of the Polish School, especially in its emphasis on the technical prowess of its filmmakers. 9 There are also indications of strong Polish cultural influences on Polanski’s work, from Polish romanticism to Grotowski and the theatre of the absurd. These influences are often papered-over in analyses of Polanski’s cinema, which tend to ‘claim’ Polanski as a global entity; as convincingly argued by Mazierska (2007), however, the ‘Polishness’ in Polanski’s cinema is indeed informative and not to be entirely overlooked. But the greatest influence on Polanski’s early cinema education is, ultimately, cinema itself. Whilst studying at Łódź, Polanski was able to access a far greater range of world cinema than would have been possible for even the most passionate Polish cinephile in the mid-1950s, a special privilege the government afforded film students (Polanski, 1984: 112), along with granting access to otherwise banned texts (if not directly, then through professors who ‘carelessly’ left these books scattered about classrooms [see Polanski, 1984: 80]). So whilst the influence of distinctly Polish culture on the formation of Polanski’s approach to cinema should not be undervalued,
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