33. LOLITA, dir. STANLEY KUBRICK, 1962
to be watched, to be under watch, under surveillance, under the imposed and self-constructed morality of others, what does this do to a person? to selfhood?
the tenant for me was layered in questions. first, the question of human-ness, of the maintenance of sanity, of the lines that separate me from you and how easily they are blurred and lost. beneath that, the sense that sanity, and nearly, the soul, is easily eroded or comporomised when one does not feel safe, when information is passed too freely in the name of some moral code, resulting in power for some and near terror for others.
it was so funny.
and so terrifying.
i found myself laughing solidly for 5 minutes, and then suddenly feeling nauseous with strange fear.
i think if i had not already known of polanski's relationship to the holocaust, of being a child of survivors and i think a survivor himself, i would have felt that this film, with deep roots in what it is to be an outsider, to feel watched, lied about, out of control, came from someone who understood the power of whispers that become petitions that become plans. it was not an accident that the first woman we see booted from the apartment had a disabled child: physically weak, she made visible the weakness that comes from being prey. or, she is prey because of her weakness.
and all of this rolled into a murder mystery, which for me was a great backdrop, but i guess not where i ultimately found focus. i'm interested in who simone choule is to the film (real or imagined), and how she fits into what the film was about to me (which maybe is or is not what it was about to juliet!), but i haven't quite gotten that far in thinking about it yet. will make an addendum to this post once i carve out some more quiet-pondering-the-tenant time. i thought about the film periodically since i saw it, and solidly this morning while walking our dog. still haven't fully gotten where i want to be in my thinking of it, but had to post a new film nonetheless.
lolita was on tv the other day and i watched about 30 seconds before turning it off. i've never seen it and have wanted to watch it fully ever since.
ADDENDUM, 9 JULY 2009: my initial reaction to THE TENANT was to place it in line with the other polanski films i have seen from around the same period--repulsion, chinatown, rosemary's baby. polanski was fascinated by the descent into madness. i am tempted to draw a clear line between the work and the real madness of his own life, but ultimately this seems too tidy a conclusion. i wonder what he has said on the subject? (juliet)
6 comments:
glad to hear you enjoyed The Tenant. it's a big favorite of mine. I first saw it on cable late one night when I was maybe thirteen-fourteen-fifteen, creeped me out it so many ways. I've re-visited it quite a few times since and always find something new (last time's quirky pick-up: the main title theme is played in a loungey-jazz version during the party scene at Scope's [?]). I think it's one of RP's most important films -- at any rate, it's a very important film to me.
greatgreatgreat short write up you gave it, especially the bit about laughing then feeling nauseous with fear.
Lolita is a hoot. Caught the last third or so of it last week myself; been a while since I've seen the whole film. Much more Kubrick than Nabokov, know that going in.
just finished THE TENANT, and when i say "just" i mean but five minutes ago. i had many false starts with this film, and i will be commenting again, once i get my thoughts together.
LOLITA is wonderful, though, and it's been on my mind lately as well! excited to watch it with you.
oooo. nicenicenice new header j&r!!
There is a strong theme out an outsider at the mercy of a conspiracy running through Polanski's work:
Repulsion: Carol's madness is related to her view of sexuality (she is resolutely in fear of it - walking in on her sister's lover shaving in the bathroom after having stayed overnight, her victimization, in varying degrees by the would-be boyfriend and the landlord) -- a conspiracy of sexual predators?
Rosemary's Baby: Rosemary is of course the victim of a coven of witches, made all the more frightening by both the sheer banality of many participants and, worst of all, her own husband).
The Tenant: Trelkovsky sees himself as the victim of his neighbors.
The Fearless Vampire Killers: Polanski & Jack MacGowan battle vampires (often ineffectively) in an effort to save Sharon Tate.
Chinatown's virtual labyrinth of crooked businessmen & politicians affect not only L.A. as a whole but on an individual level in Evelyn; the nominal victim in the conspiracy web seems to be Gittes until the final reveals of the plot begin to kick in.
The evil conspiracy theme is perhaps most obvious in The Pianist, but given the parallels to RP's own life it is certainly of piece with the rest of his films.
Several other films deal if not with conspiracy then with an outsider living amongst a suspicious group. Frantic, Tess, even The Ninth Gate fit into this somewhat.
Of course, not all of the above characters go mad, and I think it's worth arguing that Carol in Repulsion is already there at the beginning of the film (and the only real clue we get to her past is that photo at the end), but in other cases there is a sense that the descent into madness is imposed by others.
Interestingly, many of these films are adaptations, which I think shows that he is drawn to similar ideas in the work of others.
As far as what RP has said about these themes, I highly recommend his autobiography from 1980(ish). It's been a while since I've read it, but I think he does touch on these ideas (amongst stories of hanging out with Mia Farrow & Peter Sellers, parties, etc.)
the tenant/ polanski comment was juliet's!!! credit...
oops! sasha's right--i corrected it
:)
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