In terms of popularity, Polanski is really not a very popular director.
When he won the Best Director Award at the 25th French Lumiere Awards for "I Accuse", an actress left the stage and people outside the auditorium held torches to protest the "shocking" results.
Because the famous director Polanski has a history of sexual assault. Some say it's a struggle between two different ideologies in French culture: some advocates of "political correctness" are clearly unacceptable to it, and Polanski's still winning the "Best Director Award" may symbolize the triumph of "artistic freedom". I don't think it's about ideology. In fact, if we look at the controversial director's works one by one, we will know that the reputation of "best director" is well deserved.
Two Men and the Wardrobe
At the age of 25, Polanski, who was still studying at film school, attracted the attention of the European film industry. He wrote and directed his first award-winning short film, Two Men and the Wardrobe.
This short film of about ten minutes tells an absurd, nonsensical story, with the core of tragedy wrapped under the shell of comedy. At the beginning of the story, two men carrying wardrobes emerge from the waves. They carried their wardrobes into the city, but they were ostracized everywhere, and even inadvertently annoyed a few street thugs because they were helping others, and they were beaten. At the end of the story, the two carry the wardrobe back to the sea, and the mirror of the wardrobe is broken.
The big wardrobe is like a metaphor for dreams, and the city is like a microcosm of society. The film implies a bitter satire of the current state of society, but there is not much sadness that it is not recognized and dreams cannot be realized. On the contrary, the back of the two men disappearing into the waves at the end of the film has a kind of "rather than jade crushing, not for the whole"; this dialogueless short film can also be seen as a microcosm of Polanski's own heart, and his steel stubborn personality is vividly reflected.
Knife in the Water and Desert Island Horror
Seven years later, in 1962, his first novel, The Water Knife, was published.
The story continues its previous simple style, with only 3 actors. The metaphor of the "knife in the water" is clever enough: it is a sign of the balance of the relationship between the three, and it also symbolizes the tension of a sexual emotion and the hidden strength of the male student.
Polanski points out from the outset the couple's seemingly mysterious marriage and the man's arrogant and arrogant character.
When the young male student stops the couple's car and the three of them board the yacht together, the story really begins.
The marriage of men and women has a tendency to gradually collapse because of the male students who are traveling, but they must carefully maintain the stability of the relationship between the three people.
The male student often bored playing with his switchblade, and the moment the knife is thrown into the water by the woman's husband, it means that the relationship between the three is completely out of balance.
Polanski photographs the whole story from the perspective of a bystander, rather carelessly cold, watching the three people switch back and forth in several states of suspicion, nervousness, and jealousy, and the stability and imbalance are only between a thought.
This feature-length debut basically set the tone for Polanski's future films: gloomy and cold, but delicate and tender.
In 1966, the Berlin Golden Bear Award-winning Desert Island Horror continued this style.
It adopts a structure very similar to that of "Water Knife": claustrophobic space, two men and one woman, strangers invading, gaming; it also expresses the sour ridicule of human nature through the appearance of a mysterious marriage and the secret affair with outsiders, exuding a strong sense of despair.
Although its rhythm control and story ideological realm do not reach the height of "Water Knife", it is also a masterpiece.
Rosemary's Baby
"Rosemary's Baby" can be called Polanski's representative work.
It ushers in a new model of horror cinema, interspersed with dreams of demonic encroachment as hints, the emaciated figure of pregnant women, pale faces, closed villa scenes in stark contrast to the kindness of neighbors and wives, and suspense and suspicion make the sense of horror reach its peak.
Polanski's cleverness lies in the fact that Rosemary's baby does not appear directly in the shot, but the audience's sense of fear is not diminished.
He takes a very different approach to the darkness and fear of the human heart, and the metaphors of Satan, believers, and deception correspond to the evil human nature and superficial pleasures of social relations that are actually full of evil thoughts and malice.
At the end of the film, Rosemary's smile hints at her utter depravity: as the mother of Satan, she will sink with the old believers who have deceived her, just as people are deeply harmed by the evil side of human nature, but finally accept and melt into themselves.
After the film was released, it caused an uproar at the time.
Polanski's pregnant wife was implicated in this and brutally murdered in the apartment, with slogans written in blood on the walls.
From "Chinatown" to "Strange Lodger"
The blow to Polanski was undoubtedly enormous.
From "Chinatown" to "Strange Tenant", the world has become completely gloomy, and personal warmth and care seem insignificant.
In "Chinatown", the police investigate the case, but in the end, they find that the whole society is dark and difficult. Unlike previous classic films, the ending of "Chinatown" completely subverts the naïve model of "finding the murderer can solve everything", and shrouding the entire world with a cloud of despair.
"The Strange Lodger" is more like a variation of Rosemary's Baby.
The film's protagonist is Played by Polanski himself, an introverted, Solo-Polish youth who seems to be a portrait of himself.
The "strange tenants" who surrounded him and drove him crazy step by step reflected Polanski's inner self-enclosed hidden disease, marginalizing the whole society, and all the kindness seemed obedient and inappropriate.
Fantasy and reality are intertwined in the film, and the fear of a mentally ill person is revealed. Needless to say, this is yet another work of inner horror mapping external society.
Tess
Tess (1979) is much milder, and its style is not as cold and sharp as Polanski's other works, and it is obedient and violent.
Although it also ends with a sad ending, although it contains no less sad emotions than the previous ones, it no longer has the cold distortion like "Strange Tenant", and people's warmth, purity, desire, and greed are all displayed in a traditional way.
The warm and soft color tone and exquisite composition make the whole film have a painterly texture, and the film tells the tragic life of Tess in such a delicate way that she pursues freedom and pursues love, but ultimately has nothing.
Polanski hides the deep indifference in his heart behind the camera, the beauty of the year has nothing to do with Tess, and Polanski's helpless sigh can be seen from the change of her fate.
When Tess and her lover are arrested, the rising sun behind them is tender.