Roman Polanski, genius and predator, was interviewed by Penthouse in 1974 at the time of Chinatown, which was my favorite film for many years. An excerpt:
“Question:
How did you come to make Chinatown, your newest film?
Roman Polanski:
Paramount acquired the rights to it and about a year ago Bob Evans, a vice-president at Paramount, called me and I came to Los Angeles and read the first draft. It had been written specifically for Jack Nicholson and I have always wanted to make a movie with him. So I decided I’d do it and I worked with Bob Towne for two months rewriting it. It was his original script. Already, at that stage, a picture of Faye Dunaway formed itself in my brain, and I was absolutely positive she was the only person who could play the role.
Question:
What was it like working with Jack Nicholson?
Roman Polanski:
Jack is the easiest person to work with that I have come across in my whole career. First of all, he’s tremendously professional, and secondly, it’s very easy for him to do anything you ask. I think he spoils the director, and the writer, because any lines you give him sound right even if they’re awkward or badly written. When he says something, it sounds authentic. He never asks you to change anything. Every other actor I’ve worked with has said, at some time, ‘Can I change this?’ or ‘Can I take this out?’ But that never happens with Jack. It’s amazing, really.
Question:
What about Faye Dunaway?
Roman Polanski:
With her it was just the opposite. I mean she’s hung-up. She’s the most difficult person I’ve worked with. She’s undisciplined, although she works hard. She prepares herself for ages – in fact, too much. She’s tremendously neurotic. Unflexible. She argues about motivations. She’s often late and so on. But then, when you see the final results, you tend to forget all the trouble you went through because she is very good indeed. It’s just a price you have to pay for it.
Question:
How did Jack and Faye get along?
Roman Polanski:
Oh, they get along very well. They’re great friends. So were Faye and I before we started the picture. And we are now. But throughout the production it was fire and water.
Question:
Does Chinatown represent a departure for you in either theme or treatment?
Roman Polanski:
Every film I make represents a departure for me. You see, it takes so long to make a film. By the time you get to the next one you’re already a different man. You’ve grown up by one or two years. Chinatown is a thriller and the story line is very important. There is a lot of dialogue. But I missed some opportunity for visual inventiveness. I felt sometimes as if I were doing some kind of TV show. I thought I had always been an able, inventive, creative director and there I was putting two people at a table and letting them talk. When I tried to make it look original I saw it start to become pretentious, so concentrated on the performances and kept an ordinary look.
Question:
Isn’t that better than having the audience acutely aware of the camera, like a thumb in their eye?
Roman Polanski:
Yes, but I don’t think that’s ever happened to me. Only when your camera makes them nauseous do the critics say, ‘His nervous camera moved relentlessly throughout the entire sequence’ and so on. I’ve read those criticisms of some pictures. It’s the same thing with writers. Sometimes a great stylist writes so smoothly that you’re not aware of what you’re swallowing.”
