“[Roman Polanski] was an insatiable presence on the set back then, voraciously interested in everything technical—lighting film stock, makeup, camera optics—with no interest whatsoever, on the other hand, in the sorts of thematic concerns which obsessed the rest of us: politics, Poland’s place in the world, and especially our recent national past. He saw everything in front of him and nothing behind, his eyes firmly fixed on a future toward which he already seemed to be hurtling at maximum speed. And for him that future was out there, in the world, and especially in Hollywood, which he equated with the world standard in cinema. Already then. And that was absolutely unique among us…

“He was probing everywhere, trying to teach himself everything—and succeeding… He looked and acted like a child, but his intellectual range and his ambitions were hardly those of a child…

“[Polanski’s exile from Hollywood] was a complete tragedy. He was the worst possible person this could have happened to… All his life he was headed there. No other European director of his generation understood and loved American filmmaking so well, or so reveled in the possibilities afforded by the American studio system. And I also happen to think that he did much of his best work there: he’s the kind of director who seems to need to buck up against structures and obstacles of the kind you get in a studio. Think of it: he did just two films there—Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown—but what films! It’s a disaster.” — Andrzej Wajda*

“Back then” was the late 1950s through the early ’60s, when Polanski acted in over two dozen features, including Wajda’s A Generation (1955), and Innocent Sorcerers (1960). Polanski’s directorial debut was Knife in the Water (1962).

* Lawrence Weschler, interview with Andrzej Wajda, “The Brat’s Tale: Roman Polanski,” in Vermeer in Bosnia: A Reader (New York: Pantheon, 2004), 91-92, 129-130.

Roman Polanski, center, in A Generation (1955), directed by Andrzej Wajda. Image credit: Filmoteka Narodowa.