Press Play

"The best video essay source on the web." (Roger Ebert) This web site is built on a mix of original video essays and critical, personal writing about film, TV, and their connection to broader cultural concerns. Co-founded by Matt Zoller Seitz, TV critic for New York Magazine, and Ken Cancelosi, it is overseen by Editor-in-Chief Max Winter.

THE REGULARS

Monthly Archives

GREY MATTERS: Vidal Sassoon: In the Salon, In the Movies, In Life

Blogs

Vidal Sassoon did nothing less in his astonishing life than co-engineering the design and mindset of desire and freedom in fashion, cinema, and feminism—in ways that echo to this day.

By Ian Grey
|
June 15, 2012 9:00 AM
|
0 Comments

“Roman Polanski” is a fragmented name, one that encompasses numerous identities and connotations. To some, “Polanski” is the child who survived the Krakow Ghetto during World War II. To others, he is the womanizer whose wife was brutally murdered by a homicidal cult. And still, to others, he is the criminal who fled to Paris while awaiting a statutory rape trial. Yet, to a select group of cinephiles, actors and filmmakers, the name “Polanski” is an adjective, one that ignores the “man’s” personal life and describes the “artist’s” prolific career, which spans nearly six decades. This career produced numerous films that exemplified the “Polanski” style; they explore the psychology of the psychotic, they blend the conventions and iconography of various genres and, oftentimes, they look towards pessimism as a means of comfort. It is Polanski’s third feature film, Cul-de-sac (1966), that best exemplifies the “Polanski” style. The film unites the various elements of a “Polanski film,” creating a self-proclaimed masterpiece.

By Jose Gallegos
|
September 28, 2011 10:28 AM
|
0 Comments

Roman Polanski has been making films for five decades now. His latest film Carnage is yet another of his works that takes place within a single, confining location, the better to allow Polanski to explore social, political and sexual issues. From his student shorts at the National Film School in Łódź to his early features Knife in the Water and Repulsion through his more recent films The Pianist and The Ghost Writer, Polanski has consistently explored how a physical space can affect a character's mental state.

By Steven Santos
|
September 27, 2011 11:26 AM
|
1 Comment

I think people who go to see [Roman Polanski's films] for escapism are not going to be necessarily disappointed, but they're going to have to tweak their understanding of what entertainment is. When you watch a Polanski film, you're watching this sense of abundance in them. They have very cheerful settings — deceptively cheerful. You get the sense that you're watching the seasons change from this brightness to this inner gray that takes over. Violence in Polanski's film is psychological. It's largely implied and it's rarely explicit, and when it is explicit, it's for comedy's sake. When Jake gets his nostril slit in Chinatown, he looks ridiculous for the rest of the film, with the bandage on his nose.