Personalizing Film Adaptation: Literature into Cinema in the Work of Roman Polanski FUNG Tat-yeung A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in English (Literary Studies) © The Chinese University of Hong Kong August 2005 The Chinese University of Hong Kong holds the copyright of this thesis. Any person(s) intending to use a part of whole of the materials in the thesis in a proposed publication must seek copyright release from the Dean of the Graduate School. ,汝彳統系馆書圓v\ ^MUOV IMi ^^UNIVERSITY""""yM SYSTEMy-^ Abstract The topic for my thesis is "Personalizing Film Adaptation: Literature into Cinema in the Work of Roman Polanski." Polanski is one of the most important film directors, and he often shows his negative views towards modern society through his works, even in times of adaptation. This thesis aims at analyzing the techniques he uses to make his adapted film fit into his views. I will start by showing how Polanski establishes his personal style with his first four original works, Knife in the Water (1962), Repulsion (1965), Cul-de-sac (1966) and The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), in which he shows his interest in alienated human relationships, the victims' psychological torture and the power of evil. Then I will explain how he continues to explore these themes in his eight adapted works, Rosemary's Baby (1968)，Macbeth (1971)，The Tenant (1976), Tess (1979)，Bitter Moon (1992)，Death and the Maiden (1994), The Ninth Gate (1999) and The Pianist (2002). Polanski's techniques include breaking down human relationships so that the villains will destroy others at any cost, making the victims too vulnerable to fight against evil and concluding his films with the evil becoming the ultimate winner. These techniques all together construct Polanski's extreme pessimism towards the world. 撮要 本論文的主題爲「個人化的改編劇本：波蘭斯基的作品如何將文 學融入電影」。波蘭斯基是最重要的導演之一，他的作品，即使是改 編作品，亦經常呈現他對現代社會的批判，本論文旨在硏究波蘭斯基 如何改編原著，以表現他的意念。 本人首先分析波蘭斯基在最早期的四齣原創作品中，如何建立個 人風格，從《水中刀》、《冷血驚魂》、《孤島驚魂》及《天師捉妖》四 齣原創作品中，我們略見波蘭斯基刻意表現人性疏離、受害者所受的 心理折磨及惡魔的勢力。本人繼而分析他在八齣改編作品中如何延續 這些主題，其作品包括《魔鬼怪嬰》、《浴血金鑾殿》、《怪房客》、《驚 絲姑娘》、《偷月迷情》、《不道德的審判》、《魔鬼手記》及《鋼琴戰曲》。 當中所運用的手法，包括破壞人際關係，好讓歹角不惜代價摧毁他 人，令受害者無力對抗惡者，及以惡勢力最終可逃之夭夭的手法結 尾。這些技巧一同建構了波蘭斯基對世界的極度悲觀。 Contents Introduction 1 1 The "Polanskian" Style as Established in Knife in the Water, 10 Repulsion, Cul-de-sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers (I) Knife in the Water and Cul-de-sac 11 (II) Repulsion 22 (III) The Fearless Vampire Killers 26 2 The Breakdown of Human Relationships 32 (I) Friendlessness 33 (II) Unfulfilled Marriages 37 3 The Extreme Sense of Superiority That Destroys Others 67 (I) The Villains' Lust for Power 69 (II) The Victims for the Villains 78 (III) The Villains' Methods of Victimization 84 4 The Vulnerability of the Victims to Fight Against Evil 90 (I) The Victims' Inability to Fight Back 90 (II) Hallucinations as the Victims' Most Vulnerable Moments 108 5 The Extremely Pessimistic Endings 119 (I) The Emphasis of the Evil's Ultimate Domination 121 (II) The Recurrence of Events 129 Conclusion 139 Works Cited 144 Fung 1 Introduction If you are asked to choose the most important film directors of our time, whom will you pick? Among the list are probably D. W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein, who contributed to establish cinema as a major art form in the twentieth century, and some avant-garde directors like Luis Bunuel, Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard and Frangois Truffaut. What is so remarkable about this group of directors is probably that they demonstrate how the “auteur theory" applies to their films. Instead of filming adapted works, though they occasionally do, most of the time they create their own scripts for their films. In addition, some of them even play a major role in different aspects of their films. For example, Sergei Eisenstein and Akira Kurosawa involve themselves a great deal in editing their own films, Satyajit Ray composes music for all his films whilst Frangois Truffaut constantly stars in his own films. Some even use particular crews, such as Ingmar Bergman's choice of Sven Nykvist as his cinematographer, and Federico Fellini ’s choice of Nino Rota as his composer. In other words, the whole ideas of their films are entirely their very own. The result is that their films have been considered as literary works. Sometimes, they are referred to as the representatives of the "poetry of cinema," or simply the "cinematic poets," especially when their films are shown in some art festivals. No matter how you Fung 2 name them, one thing for sure is that they have all contributed to consolidate the position of cinema in the literary world. One name you will definitely not miss out from the list of the most important film directors of our time is Roman Polanski. Some of his films are among the all-time classics, like Repulsion (1965)，Rosemary 's Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974), each considered as the best of its genre, whilst some others are not so favourably received by the critics, like The Fearless Vampire Killers (aka Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck or Dance of the Vampires) (1967), Pirates (1986), Frantic (1988) and Bitter Moon (1992). However, one cannot deny that this Polish director has established his very personal cinematic style. I would argue moreover that the audience could easily associate this personal "Polanskian" style with a world of human darkness, expressing his profound disappointment in human nature. In fact, almost all Polanski's films have the power to leave the audience feeling uneasy for days. What is so special about Polanski is that whilst most of the often-talked-about “autews” usually write their own original screenplays, half of Polanski's films are actually adapted from other literary works. However, as I hope to demonstrate in this thesis, even in times of adaptation, Polanski still manages to prove that the “autew theory" applies to each one of his films because, under his very personal Fung 3 touch, the films he bases on other literary works are more than just adaptations, but become new ones separated from the originals. Polanski's aim, as I conceive it, of being an “auteur” or "personal" film director while at the same time being far more of an "adapter" than other auteurs is a particularly difficult task. Indeed, among the many forms of criticism directed by "high" art forms, such as literature, towards "popular" art forms like film, one of the most potent and frequently used is that film is precisely a mere adaptation of literature, and an adaptation that can never hope to equal the complexity and sophistication of an original literary work. For example, Virginia Woolf, though a postmodernist writer, openly expresses her contempt towards film adaptation. She "excoriated the adaptations that reduced a novel's complexity nuanced idea of 'love' to 'a kiss,' or rendered 'death,' literal-mindedly, as a 'hearse'" (Stam, 3-4), and even "describe[d] film spectators, in terms that borrow[ed] from racist discourse, as twentieth-century 'savages,' whose eyes mindlessly 'lick up' the screen" (6). As Woolf's remarks make clear, film adaptation faces a dilemma, one which Polanski's work (more than any other film director I believe) makes clear. As Robert Stam explains in "Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation," which he writes for his book Literature and Film: A "faithful" film is seen as uncreative, but an "unfaithful" film is a shameful Fung 4 betrayal of the original. An adaptation that updates the text for the present is upbraided for not respecting the period of the source, but respectful costume dramas are accused of a failure of nerve in not 'contemporizing' the text. If an adaptation renders the sexual passages of the source novel literally, it is accused of vulgarity; if it fails to do so, it is accused of cowardice. The adapter, it seems, can never win. (8) As a result, it is very difficult for a director to stand out as an “auteuf^” when adapting literary works, and yet, Polanski manages to prove himself to be a true “auteur” precisely by taking on the challenge that Stam articulates and in being (to use Stam's terms) "unfaithful" and "faithful" at once - an adapter but also an original. Using the terms of film-adaptation, Polanski continually demonstrates his ability to strike a balance between being faithful and being creative. On one hand, Polanski seldom changes the dialogue spoken by the characters in the original texts, for example in his movies Rosemary's Baby, Macbeth (1971) and less (1979). In addition, Polanski is often careful to reproduce the settings of his source texts. This approach is elucidated in Andre Bazin's article "Theater and Cinema," in which he explains Jean Cocteau's philosophy of "filmed theater," the rationale Cocteau uses in making his own play Les Parents terribles (aka The Storm Within) (1948) into a film: [I]f the room of the play became an apartment in the film, thanks to the Fung 5 screen and to the camera it would feel even more cramped than the room on the stage. What it was essential to bring out was a sense of people being shut in and living in proximity. (Bazin, 90) Among Polanski's adapted films, two are based on plays, namely Macbeth and Death and the Maiden (1994), and Cocteau's rationale in filmmaking is highly traceable in these two films, both of which are especially attentive to reproducing the setting of their original texts. The old and dark castle chosen for Macbeth, which gives the audience the creeps, not only fits very well in the Shakespearean setting, but also adds colours to the eerie atmosphere of this story of demonology.