Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Faye Dunaway tries to kill director/Fugitive to the Stars Roman Polanski with her mind on the set of Chinatown (1974) Polanski vs. Dunaway, Or: It’s All Fun & Games Until Someone Gets a Face Full of Urine “The actors were used to the American warm bath school of directing, which is to say, a collaborative approach. That was not Polanski’s way. ‘Roman is Napoleon with actors, ‘They do what I tell them to do,” says [Paramount production head Robert] Evans. ‘He’d say, ‘In Poland, I could just go make my fucking movies.’ He was dictatorial & controlling. He gave Jack Nicholson so many line readings that Anthea Sylbert, the costume designer, half expected Nicholson to begin speaking with a Polish accent. But Nicholson & Polanski were good friends and Nicholson was more often than not amused by Polanski’s eccentricities. Dunaway, on the contrary, was decidedly not. Dunaway was puzzled about her character’s motivation, and by all accounts, got little guidance from Polanski. He would shout, ‘Say the fucking words. Your salary is your motivation.’ Things came to a head two weeks into shooting. According to Polanski, ‘There was one hair that would stick out from her hairdo and catch the light and I was trying to get rid of it, trying to flatten it and it would not stay.’ Polanski walked around behind her and plucked the hair. Dunaway screamed, ‘That motherfucker plucked my hair!’ and stormed off the set. Polanski did the same. Evans arranged a truce between the director and his leading lady, but it didn’t last long. ‘There was a scene where she gets in the car after seeing her daughter, and Jack is in the car waiting for her and scares the shit out of her,’ recalls John Alonzo, the DP. ‘She kept saying to Roman, ‘Roman, I have to pee. I have to pee.’ ‘No. No. You stay there. You stay there. We shoot, we shoot.’ And then he said, ‘Roll the window down. I got to talk to you. You’re turning too far right. Don’t look at Jack, look ahead.’ Then she threw a coffee-cup full of liquid in Roman’s face. He said, ‘You cunt, that’s piss!’ And she said, ‘Yes, you little putz,’ and rolled the window up. We were all speculating that maybe Jack peed in the cup for her. [Or maybe] she had a small bladder or something.” -excerpted from Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Faye Dunaway tries to kill director/Fugitive to the Stars Roman Polanski with her mind on the set of Chinatown (1974)

Polanski vs. Dunaway, Or: It’s All Fun & Games Until Someone Gets a Face Full of Urine

“The actors were used to the American warm bath school of directing, which is to say, a collaborative approach. That was not Polanski’s way. ‘Roman is Napoleon with actors, ‘They do what I tell them to do,” says [Paramount production head Robert] Evans. ‘He’d say, ‘In Poland, I could just go make my fucking movies.’ He was dictatorial & controlling. He gave Jack Nicholson so many line readings that Anthea Sylbert, the costume designer, half expected Nicholson to begin speaking with a Polish accent. But Nicholson & Polanski were good friends and Nicholson was more often than not amused by Polanski’s eccentricities. Dunaway, on the contrary, was decidedly not.

Dunaway was puzzled about her character’s motivation, and by all accounts, got little guidance from Polanski. He would shout, ‘Say the fucking words. Your salary is your motivation.’ Things came to a head two weeks into shooting. According to Polanski, ‘There was one hair that would stick out from her hairdo and catch the light and I was trying to get rid of it, trying to flatten it and it would not stay.’ Polanski walked around behind her and plucked the hair. Dunaway screamed, ‘That motherfucker plucked my hair!’ and stormed off the set. Polanski did the same.

Evans arranged a truce between the director and his leading lady, but it didn’t last long. ‘There was a scene where she gets in the car after seeing her daughter, and Jack is in the car waiting for her and scares the shit out of her,’ recalls John Alonzo, the DP. ‘She kept saying to Roman, ‘Roman, I have to pee. I have to pee.’ ‘No. No. You stay there. You stay there. We shoot, we shoot.’ And then he said, ‘Roll the window down. I got to talk to you. You’re turning too far right. Don’t look at Jack, look ahead.’ Then she threw a coffee-cup full of liquid in Roman’s face. He said, ‘You cunt, that’s piss!’ And she said, ‘Yes, you little putz,’ and rolled the window up. We were all speculating that maybe Jack peed in the cup for her. [Or maybe] she had a small bladder or something.”

-excerpted from Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

This is your brain on tannis root & Satanism: Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby (1968, dir. Roman Polanski)

This is your brain on tannis root & Satanism: Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby (1968, dir. Roman Polanski)

Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski)

Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski)

Mia Farrow on the set of Rosemary’s Baby (1968, dir. Roman Polanski) “[Polanski] had the idea that I should absentmindedly walk across the street into the moving traffic, not looking right or left. ‘Nobody will hit a pregnant woman,’ he laughed, referring to my padded stomach. He had to operate the hand-held camera himself, since nobody else would. I took a deep breath. An almost giddy, euphoric feeling came over me. Together Roman & I marched right in front of the oncoming cars - with Roman on the far side, so I would’ve been hit first. ‘There are 127 varieties of nuts,” he told a journalist. ‘Mia is 116 of them.’ I’ll take a compliment any way it comes. I appeared in every single scene of the film, except when, during [the impregnated with Satan’s spawn sequence] a body double was used in my place. But I didn’t entirely miss out on the scene - one day I found myself - me from convent school, who prayed with outstretched arms in the predawn light - tied to the four corners of a bed, ringed by elderly, chanting witches, while a perfect stranger with bad skin and vertical pupils was grinding away on top of me. I didn’t dare think. After finishing that scene the actor climbed off me and said politely, in all seriousness, ‘Miss Farrow, I just want to say, it’s a real pleasure to have worked with you.’” -excerpted from Mia Farrow’s What Falls Away

Mia Farrow on the set of Rosemary’s Baby (1968, dir. Roman Polanski)

“[Polanski] had the idea that I should absentmindedly walk across the street into the moving traffic, not looking right or left. ‘Nobody will hit a pregnant woman,’ he laughed, referring to my padded stomach. He had to operate the hand-held camera himself, since nobody else would. I took a deep breath. An almost giddy, euphoric feeling came over me. Together Roman & I marched right in front of the oncoming cars - with Roman on the far side, so I would’ve been hit first. ‘There are 127 varieties of nuts,” he told a journalist. ‘Mia is 116 of them.’ I’ll take a compliment any way it comes.

I appeared in every single scene of the film, except when, during [the impregnated with Satan’s spawn sequence] a body double was used in my place. But I didn’t entirely miss out on the scene - one day I found myself - me from convent school, who prayed with outstretched arms in the predawn light - tied to the four corners of a bed, ringed by elderly, chanting witches, while a perfect stranger with bad skin and vertical pupils was grinding away on top of me. I didn’t dare think. After finishing that scene the actor climbed off me and said politely, in all seriousness, ‘Miss Farrow, I just want to say, it’s a real pleasure to have worked with you.’”

-excerpted from Mia Farrow’s What Falls Away

Catherine Deneuve during the filming of Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski) (via)

Catherine Deneuve during the filming of Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski) (via)

Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski) (via) “My aim was to show Carole’s hallucinations through the eye of the camera, augmenting their impact by using wide-angle lenses of progressively increasing scope. But in itself, that wasn’t sufficient for my purpose. I also wanted to alter the actual dimensions of the apartment — to expand the rooms and passages and push back the walls so that audiences could experience the full effect of Carole’s distorted vision.   Accordingly we designed the walls of the set so they could be moved outward and elongated by the insertion of extra panels. When ‘stretched’ in this way, for example, the narrow passage leading to the bathroom assumed nightmarish proportions.” -Polanski, quoted in Roman (1984)

Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski) (via)

“My aim was to show Carole’s hallucinations through the eye of the camera, augmenting their impact by using wide-angle lenses of progressively increasing scope. But in itself, that wasn’t sufficient for my purpose. I also wanted to alter the actual dimensions of the apartment — to expand the rooms and passages and push back the walls so that audiences could experience the full effect of Carole’s distorted vision.  

Accordingly we designed the walls of the set so they could be moved outward and elongated by the insertion of extra panels. When ‘stretched’ in this way, for example, the narrow passage leading to the bathroom assumed nightmarish proportions.”

-Polanski, quoted in Roman (1984)

Catherine Deneuve in opening titles for Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski) Title designer: Maurice Binder

(via)

Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski) (via) “My aim was to show Carole’s hallucinations through the eye of the camera, augmenting their impact by using wide-angle lenses of progressively increasing scope. But in itself, that wasn’t sufficient for my purpose. I also wanted to alter the actual dimensions of the apartment — to expand the rooms and passages and push back the walls so that audiences could experience the full effect of Carole’s distorted vision.   Accordingly we designed the walls of the set so they could be moved outward and elongated by the insertion of extra panels. When ‘stretched’ in this way, for example, the narrow passage leading to the bathroom assumed nightmarish proportions.” -Polanski, quoted in Roman (1984)

Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion (1965, dir. Roman Polanski) (via)

“My aim was to show Carole’s hallucinations through the eye of the camera, augmenting their impact by using wide-angle lenses of progressively increasing scope. But in itself, that wasn’t sufficient for my purpose. I also wanted to alter the actual dimensions of the apartment — to expand the rooms and passages and push back the walls so that audiences could experience the full effect of Carole’s distorted vision.  

Accordingly we designed the walls of the set so they could be moved outward and elongated by the insertion of extra panels. When ‘stretched’ in this way, for example, the narrow passage leading to the bathroom assumed nightmarish proportions.”

-Polanski, quoted in Roman (1984)