Roman Polanski
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Roman Polanski’s ‘Chinatown’ Fifty Years On August 16, 2024
Nineteen seventy-four was a great year in the history of cinema. The American New Wave was in full swing, revitalising Hollywood after a long period of stagnation and decline. It was a year that gave audiences The Conversation, The Parallax View, The...
The God-Haunted World of ‘Chinatown’ June 24, 2024
The English novelist P.D. James once wrote that murder mysteries aren’t about death, but about “the restoration of order,” stealth theodicies sealed by happy endings. We expect an orderly universe. When a mystery breaks the rules, it gets our attenti...
Roman Polanski at Ninety August 22, 2023
How should we assess the reputation of a late-career movie director?In the case of Roman Polanski, who turns ninety on August 18, we can clearly tick the box denoting a solid body of work. He’s responsible for half a dozen enduring films, and one — 2...
It's OK to Like Good art by Bad People May 24, 2023
In 2017, the essayist and critic Claire Dederer wrestled at length, in the pages of the Paris Review, with the question, “What do we do with the art of monstrous men?” How should we engage with the work of Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson...
The Polanski Problem April 21, 2023
“Can I still listen to David Bowie?” That’s the question the essayist Claire Dederer hears over and over when speaking at colleges. Bowie had been a hero of Dederer’s own youth and of her adulthood, a musician whose strangeness reassured Dederer and ...
