Repulsion and The Tenant Wikipedia film pages

Repulsion (film)

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Jump to: navigation, search


Repulsion
Repulsion (1965 film poster).jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Roman Polanski
Produced by
Gene Gutowski
Screenplay by
Roman Polanski
Gérard Brach
 David Stone
Story by
Roman Polanski
Gérard Brach
Starring
Catherine Deneuve
Yvonne Furneaux
Ian Hendry [1]
John Fraser
Music by
Chico Hamilton
Cinematography
Gilbert Taylor
Edited by
Alastair McIntyre
Distributed by
Compton Films
 Royal Films International

Release dates

11 June 1965 (UK)
3 October 1965 (US)




Running time
 105 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
£65,000
Box office
$3,122,166[2]
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological horror film directed by Roman Polanski, and starring Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser and Yvonne Furneaux. The screenplay was based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Polanski. The plot focuses on a young woman who is left alone by her vacationing sister at their apartment, and begins reliving traumas of her past in horrific ways. Shot in London, it was Polanski's first English-language film and second feature length production, following Knife in the Water (1962).
The film debuted at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival before receiving theatrical releases internationally. Upon its release, Repulsion received considerable critical acclaim and currently is considered one of Polanski's greatest movies.[3][4][5] It was the first installment in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", followed by Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976), both of which are also horror films that take place primarily inside apartment buildings.[6] The film was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Gilbert Taylor's cinematography.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Themes and style
5 Reception 5.1 Critical response
5.2 Accolades
5.3 Legacy
6 Trivia
7 Home media
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
Carol Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve), a Belgian manicurist who bites her nails, lives in Kensington, London, with her older sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux). Carol practically sleepwalks through her days, and interacts awkwardly with men. A would-be suitor, Colin (John Fraser), is flummoxed by her behaviour and she rebuffs his advances, disgusted by them. She hides her head in her pillow against her sister's cries of sexual pleasure with her married boyfriend, Michael (Ian Hendry). When Helen leaves on a holiday to Italy with Michael, Carol appears even more distracted at work, gets sent home, stays in the apartment, leaves a raw, skinned rabbit out to rot, and begins to hallucinate, first seeing the walls cracking, a man breaking in and molesting her, then hands reaching out to grab and attack her. Colin breaks into her apartment when she refuses to acknowledge his adoration and he apologizes for his transgression. When he says he wants to "be with" her "all the time," she bludgeons him to death with a candlestick, dumps the body into the overflowing bathtub, and nails the broken door shut.
Later, the imperious landlord (Patrick Wymark) breaks in, looking for the late rent payment. Carol pays him and sits on the sofa, staring into space. He remarks on the decaying state of the apartment, and attempts to ingratiate himself by bringing her a glass of water as he leers at her in her nightgown. When he first propositions her, then sexually assaults her, she gets away. But he comes at her again and she slashes him to death with a straight razor. When Helen and Michael return, they discover the dead bodies. Michael runs for help. Helen, distraught, finds Carol hiding under the bed in a catatonic state. Neighbors arrive - curious, concerned and shocked. Michael returns and carries Carol out, staring creepily at her wide-open eye, face and body. A family photograph on the floor shows Carol as a girl, turned towards an adult male figure in the photograph with a look of loathing.
Cast[edit]
Catherine Deneuve as Carole/Carol Ledoux
Yvonne Furneaux as Hélène/Helen Ledoux
Ian Hendry as Michael
John Fraser as Colin
Patrick Wymark as Landlord
Valerie Taylor as Madame Denise
James Villiers as John
Helen Fraser as Bridget
Hugh Futcher as Reggie
Mike Pratt as Workman
Renée Houston as Miss Balch[7]
Monica Merlin as Mrs. Rendlesham
Imogen Graham as Manicurist
Production[edit]
The story for Repulsion was conceived by Polanski and Gérard Brach, who wrote an outline of the script in Paris.[8] According to Polanski, the film was shot on a modest budget of £65,000.[8] In developing the apartment set decoration, cinematographer Gil Taylor photographed the apartments of various female friends in Kensington for inspiration.[8] To finance the film, Polanski and producer Gene Gutowski approached Paramount Pictures and British Lion Films, but both companies refused. Eventually, Polanski and Gutowski signed a contract with Compton Pictures, a small distribution company that had been known primarily for its distribution of softcore pornography films.[8]
Themes and style[edit]
The film is unusual for being a horror movie that features a female killer.[5] It explores the repulsion Carol feels about human sexuality and the repulsion her suitors experience when they pursue her.[9]
The movie vaguely suggests that her father may have sexually abused her as a child, which is the basis of her neuroses and breakdown.[10] Other critics have noted Carol's repeated usage of items related to her sister's boyfriend Michael,[11] as well as noting that his presence greatly provokes Carol at the beginning of the film.[12]
The film also approaches the theme of boundary breaking, with Tamar McDonald stating that she saw Carol as refusing to conform to the expected "path of femininity".[13]
The film was shot on a low budget and in black and white by Gilbert Taylor (Dr. Strangelove, A Hard Day's Night).[14] It increasingly adopts the perspective of its protagonist. The dream sequences are particularly intense.[15]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Repulsion is widely considered a classic of the psychological thriller/horror genre.
Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the film a positive review stating, "An absolute knockout of a movie in the psychological horror line has been accomplished by Roman Polanski in his first English-language film."[16] Jim Emerson, filling in for Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, included the film in his list entitled "102 Movies You Must See Before...".[17]
Upon the film's release to DVD, Dave Kehr reviewed the film for The New York Times praising the film's techniques and themes, saying, "Mr. Polanski uses slow camera movements, a soundtrack carefully composed of distracting, repetitive noises (clocks ticking, bells ringing, hearts thumping) and, once Carol barricades herself in the cramped, dark apartment, explicitly expressionistic effects (cracks suddenly ripping through walls, rough hands reaching out of the darkness to grope her) to depict a plausible schizophrenic episode."[18]
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 100% of 58 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 8.9 out of 10.[19] The film is currently No. 14 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of best rated films.[20] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 91 based on 8 reviews.[21]
Accolades[edit]
At the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965, Repulsion won both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Silver Berlin Bear-Extraordinary Jury Prize.[22] The film was also nominated for a BAFTA in Best Black and White Cinematography.[23]
The film paved the way for Polanski's entry into the cinemas of Western Europe and drew attention to Catherine Deneuve with her performance.[15]
Legacy[edit]
Repulsion is the first of Polanski's "apartment trilogy", as it preceded Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (Le Locataire, 1976).[24]
The film has also been the source of inspiration for many films and music videos throughout the years:
π (1998) and Black Swan (2010), both by director Darren Aronofsky, allude to the film's themes and visuals.[25]
May (2002), by Lucky McKee, was heavily influenced by the film and has a similar motif of the protagonist's apartment mirroring her mental state.
Scissors (1991), by Frank De Felitta and starring Sharon Stone as a paranoid woman trapped in a mysterious apartment.[citation needed]
Music videos for The Cardigans' "Hanging Around" and Metric's "Monster Hospital" were directly inspired by the film.[26][27]
Trivia[edit]


 This media article uses IMDb for verification. IMDb may not be a reliable source for film and television information and is generally only cited as an external link. Please help by replacing IMDb with third-party reliable sources. (May 2015)
Roman Polanski indicated in his autobiography that he and Brach devised the film as a way to help fund the making of the less commercial Cul-de-sac which was also filmed in the UK.[28]
This was Polanski's first English language film and also the first time a film with a depiction of a female orgasm (albeit sound only) was passed by the British Board of Film Censors.[28]
Home media[edit]
In 2009, the film was released as part of the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray. Both releases contain two documentary featurettes, audio commentary by Roman Polanski and Catherine Deneuve, original trailers, and a 16-page booklet.[29]
See also[edit]
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Official Website of Ian Hendry". Retrieved 6 July 2013.
2.Jump up ^ "Répulsion (1965)". JP's Box Office.
3.Jump up ^ Morgan, Kim (2009-09-27). "Roman Polanski Understands Women: Repulsion". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2013-11-08.
4.Jump up ^ Adams, Sam (2009-07-26). "Roman Polanski's 'Repulsion'". Los Angeles Times. A Second Look. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Bradshaw, Peter (2013-01-03). "Repulsion – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
6.Jump up ^ Wojtas, Michael (2013-10-31). "The keys to Polanski's apartment trilogy and Rosemary's Baby". Impose Magazine. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
7.Jump up ^ "Repulsion". Retrieved 26 August 2013.
8.^ Jump up to: a b c d Polanski, Roman; Gene Gutowski, Gil Taylor (2003). A British Horror Film (from Repulsion bonus materials on 2009 Criterion Collection release) (documentary film). Blue Underground.
9.Jump up ^ "The dazed brutality at the heart of Roman Polanski's films". Retrieved 22 August 2013.
10.Jump up ^ David Bordwell, Noel Carroll (1996). Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 213–214. ISBN 0299149447.
11.Jump up ^ Carl Royer, B Lee Cooper (2005). The Spectacle of Isolation in Horror Films: Dark Parades. Routledge. pp. 79–81. ISBN 078902263X.
12.Jump up ^ Caputo, Davide (2012). Polanski and Perception: The Psychology of Seeing and the Cinema of Roman Polanski. Intellect Ltd. p. 100. ISBN 1841505528.
13.Jump up ^ Jeffers McDonald, Tamar (2010). Virgin Territory: Representing Sexual Inexperience in Film. Wayne State University Press. pp. 145–152. ISBN 0814333184.
14.Jump up ^ "Repulsion; Chinatown – review". Retrieved 21 August 2013.
15.^ Jump up to: a b "Wettbewerb/In Competition". Moving Pictures, Berlinale Extra (Berlin): p.38. 11–22 February 1998.
16.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley (4 October 1965). "Movie Review – Repulsion". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
17.Jump up ^ Emerson, Jim (20 April 2006). "102 Movies You Must See Before...". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
18.Jump up ^ Kehr, Dave (22 July 2009). "A Woman Repulsed, a Man Convulsed". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
19.Jump up ^ "Repulsion – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
20.Jump up ^ "Top 100 Movies Of All Time". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
21.Jump up ^ "Repulsion (re-release)". Metacritic. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
22.Jump up ^ "Berlinale 1965: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
23.Jump up ^ "BAFTA Film Nominations – 1965". British Academy Film Awards. Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
24.Jump up ^ Orr, John; Ostrowska, Elżbieta (2006). The Cinema of Roman Polanski. Wallflower Press. p. 122.
25.Jump up ^ "Distant Relatives: Repulsion and Black Swan". Blogspot. 30 December 2010. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
26.Jump up ^ "The Cardigans - HANGING AROUND (Repulsion) video". NME. Retrieved 9 December 2012.[dead link]
27.Jump up ^ Thill, Scott (15 October 2008). "October Rocks: Metric’s ‘Monster Hospital’ Resuscitates Repulsion". Wired. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
28.^ Jump up to: a b "IMDB Trivia Page". IMDB. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
29.Jump up ^ Atanasov, Svet (10 July 2009). "Repulsion Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
External links[edit]
Repulsion at the Internet Movie Database
Repulsion at AllMovie
Repulsion at Rotten Tomatoes
Repulsion at the Criterion Collection


[show]
v ·
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 e
 
Roman Polanski




















































[show]
v ·
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 e
 
Silver Bear for Jury Grand Prix































































  


Categories: 1965 films
English-language films
1960s drama films
1965 horror films
1960s thriller films
British films
British drama films
British horror films
British thriller films
Films directed by Roman Polanski
Black-and-white films
Rape and revenge films
Independent films
Psychological thriller films
Psychological horror films
Psychological drama films
Fictional portrayals of schizophrenia
Films set in London
Screenplays by Gérard Brach















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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repulsion_(film)











Repulsion (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Repulsion
Repulsion (1965 film poster).jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Roman Polanski
Produced by
Gene Gutowski
Screenplay by
Roman Polanski
Gérard Brach
 David Stone
Story by
Roman Polanski
Gérard Brach
Starring
Catherine Deneuve
Yvonne Furneaux
Ian Hendry [1]
John Fraser
Music by
Chico Hamilton
Cinematography
Gilbert Taylor
Edited by
Alastair McIntyre
Distributed by
Compton Films
 Royal Films International

Release dates

11 June 1965 (UK)
3 October 1965 (US)




Running time
 105 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
£65,000
Box office
$3,122,166[2]
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological horror film directed by Roman Polanski, and starring Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser and Yvonne Furneaux. The screenplay was based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Polanski. The plot focuses on a young woman who is left alone by her vacationing sister at their apartment, and begins reliving traumas of her past in horrific ways. Shot in London, it was Polanski's first English-language film and second feature length production, following Knife in the Water (1962).
The film debuted at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival before receiving theatrical releases internationally. Upon its release, Repulsion received considerable critical acclaim and currently is considered one of Polanski's greatest movies.[3][4][5] It was the first installment in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", followed by Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976), both of which are also horror films that take place primarily inside apartment buildings.[6] The film was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Gilbert Taylor's cinematography.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Themes and style
5 Reception 5.1 Critical response
5.2 Accolades
5.3 Legacy
6 Trivia
7 Home media
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
Carol Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve), a Belgian manicurist who bites her nails, lives in Kensington, London, with her older sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux). Carol practically sleepwalks through her days, and interacts awkwardly with men. A would-be suitor, Colin (John Fraser), is flummoxed by her behaviour and she rebuffs his advances, disgusted by them. She hides her head in her pillow against her sister's cries of sexual pleasure with her married boyfriend, Michael (Ian Hendry). When Helen leaves on a holiday to Italy with Michael, Carol appears even more distracted at work, gets sent home, stays in the apartment, leaves a raw, skinned rabbit out to rot, and begins to hallucinate, first seeing the walls cracking, a man breaking in and molesting her, then hands reaching out to grab and attack her. Colin breaks into her apartment when she refuses to acknowledge his adoration and he apologizes for his transgression. When he says he wants to "be with" her "all the time," she bludgeons him to death with a candlestick, dumps the body into the overflowing bathtub, and nails the broken door shut.
Later, the imperious landlord (Patrick Wymark) breaks in, looking for the late rent payment. Carol pays him and sits on the sofa, staring into space. He remarks on the decaying state of the apartment, and attempts to ingratiate himself by bringing her a glass of water as he leers at her in her nightgown. When he first propositions her, then sexually assaults her, she gets away. But he comes at her again and she slashes him to death with a straight razor. When Helen and Michael return, they discover the dead bodies. Michael runs for help. Helen, distraught, finds Carol hiding under the bed in a catatonic state. Neighbors arrive - curious, concerned and shocked. Michael returns and carries Carol out, staring creepily at her wide-open eye, face and body. A family photograph on the floor shows Carol as a girl, turned towards an adult male figure in the photograph with a look of loathing.
Cast[edit]
Catherine Deneuve as Carole/Carol Ledoux
Yvonne Furneaux as Hélène/Helen Ledoux
Ian Hendry as Michael
John Fraser as Colin
Patrick Wymark as Landlord
Valerie Taylor as Madame Denise
James Villiers as John
Helen Fraser as Bridget
Hugh Futcher as Reggie
Mike Pratt as Workman
Renée Houston as Miss Balch[7]
Monica Merlin as Mrs. Rendlesham
Imogen Graham as Manicurist
Production[edit]
The story for Repulsion was conceived by Polanski and Gérard Brach, who wrote an outline of the script in Paris.[8] According to Polanski, the film was shot on a modest budget of £65,000.[8] In developing the apartment set decoration, cinematographer Gil Taylor photographed the apartments of various female friends in Kensington for inspiration.[8] To finance the film, Polanski and producer Gene Gutowski approached Paramount Pictures and British Lion Films, but both companies refused. Eventually, Polanski and Gutowski signed a contract with Compton Pictures, a small distribution company that had been known primarily for its distribution of softcore pornography films.[8]
Themes and style[edit]
The film is unusual for being a horror movie that features a female killer.[5] It explores the repulsion Carol feels about human sexuality and the repulsion her suitors experience when they pursue her.[9]
The movie vaguely suggests that her father may have sexually abused her as a child, which is the basis of her neuroses and breakdown.[10] Other critics have noted Carol's repeated usage of items related to her sister's boyfriend Michael,[11] as well as noting that his presence greatly provokes Carol at the beginning of the film.[12]
The film also approaches the theme of boundary breaking, with Tamar McDonald stating that she saw Carol as refusing to conform to the expected "path of femininity".[13]
The film was shot on a low budget and in black and white by Gilbert Taylor (Dr. Strangelove, A Hard Day's Night).[14] It increasingly adopts the perspective of its protagonist. The dream sequences are particularly intense.[15]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Repulsion is widely considered a classic of the psychological thriller/horror genre.
Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the film a positive review stating, "An absolute knockout of a movie in the psychological horror line has been accomplished by Roman Polanski in his first English-language film."[16] Jim Emerson, filling in for Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, included the film in his list entitled "102 Movies You Must See Before...".[17]
Upon the film's release to DVD, Dave Kehr reviewed the film for The New York Times praising the film's techniques and themes, saying, "Mr. Polanski uses slow camera movements, a soundtrack carefully composed of distracting, repetitive noises (clocks ticking, bells ringing, hearts thumping) and, once Carol barricades herself in the cramped, dark apartment, explicitly expressionistic effects (cracks suddenly ripping through walls, rough hands reaching out of the darkness to grope her) to depict a plausible schizophrenic episode."[18]
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 100% of 58 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 8.9 out of 10.[19] The film is currently No. 14 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of best rated films.[20] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 91 based on 8 reviews.[21]
Accolades[edit]
At the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965, Repulsion won both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Silver Berlin Bear-Extraordinary Jury Prize.[22] The film was also nominated for a BAFTA in Best Black and White Cinematography.[23]
The film paved the way for Polanski's entry into the cinemas of Western Europe and drew attention to Catherine Deneuve with her performance.[15]
Legacy[edit]
Repulsion is the first of Polanski's "apartment trilogy", as it preceded Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (Le Locataire, 1976).[24]
The film has also been the source of inspiration for many films and music videos throughout the years:
π (1998) and Black Swan (2010), both by director Darren Aronofsky, allude to the film's themes and visuals.[25]
May (2002), by Lucky McKee, was heavily influenced by the film and has a similar motif of the protagonist's apartment mirroring her mental state.
Scissors (1991), by Frank De Felitta and starring Sharon Stone as a paranoid woman trapped in a mysterious apartment.[citation needed]
Music videos for The Cardigans' "Hanging Around" and Metric's "Monster Hospital" were directly inspired by the film.[26][27]
Trivia[edit]


 This media article uses IMDb for verification. IMDb may not be a reliable source for film and television information and is generally only cited as an external link. Please help by replacing IMDb with third-party reliable sources. (May 2015)
Roman Polanski indicated in his autobiography that he and Brach devised the film as a way to help fund the making of the less commercial Cul-de-sac which was also filmed in the UK.[28]
This was Polanski's first English language film and also the first time a film with a depiction of a female orgasm (albeit sound only) was passed by the British Board of Film Censors.[28]
Home media[edit]
In 2009, the film was released as part of the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray. Both releases contain two documentary featurettes, audio commentary by Roman Polanski and Catherine Deneuve, original trailers, and a 16-page booklet.[29]
See also[edit]
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Official Website of Ian Hendry". Retrieved 6 July 2013.
2.Jump up ^ "Répulsion (1965)". JP's Box Office.
3.Jump up ^ Morgan, Kim (2009-09-27). "Roman Polanski Understands Women: Repulsion". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2013-11-08.
4.Jump up ^ Adams, Sam (2009-07-26). "Roman Polanski's 'Repulsion'". Los Angeles Times. A Second Look. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Bradshaw, Peter (2013-01-03). "Repulsion – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
6.Jump up ^ Wojtas, Michael (2013-10-31). "The keys to Polanski's apartment trilogy and Rosemary's Baby". Impose Magazine. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
7.Jump up ^ "Repulsion". Retrieved 26 August 2013.
8.^ Jump up to: a b c d Polanski, Roman; Gene Gutowski, Gil Taylor (2003). A British Horror Film (from Repulsion bonus materials on 2009 Criterion Collection release) (documentary film). Blue Underground.
9.Jump up ^ "The dazed brutality at the heart of Roman Polanski's films". Retrieved 22 August 2013.
10.Jump up ^ David Bordwell, Noel Carroll (1996). Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 213–214. ISBN 0299149447.
11.Jump up ^ Carl Royer, B Lee Cooper (2005). The Spectacle of Isolation in Horror Films: Dark Parades. Routledge. pp. 79–81. ISBN 078902263X.
12.Jump up ^ Caputo, Davide (2012). Polanski and Perception: The Psychology of Seeing and the Cinema of Roman Polanski. Intellect Ltd. p. 100. ISBN 1841505528.
13.Jump up ^ Jeffers McDonald, Tamar (2010). Virgin Territory: Representing Sexual Inexperience in Film. Wayne State University Press. pp. 145–152. ISBN 0814333184.
14.Jump up ^ "Repulsion; Chinatown – review". Retrieved 21 August 2013.
15.^ Jump up to: a b "Wettbewerb/In Competition". Moving Pictures, Berlinale Extra (Berlin): p.38. 11–22 February 1998.
16.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley (4 October 1965). "Movie Review – Repulsion". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
17.Jump up ^ Emerson, Jim (20 April 2006). "102 Movies You Must See Before...". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
18.Jump up ^ Kehr, Dave (22 July 2009). "A Woman Repulsed, a Man Convulsed". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
19.Jump up ^ "Repulsion – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
20.Jump up ^ "Top 100 Movies Of All Time". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
21.Jump up ^ "Repulsion (re-release)". Metacritic. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
22.Jump up ^ "Berlinale 1965: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
23.Jump up ^ "BAFTA Film Nominations – 1965". British Academy Film Awards. Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
24.Jump up ^ Orr, John; Ostrowska, Elżbieta (2006). The Cinema of Roman Polanski. Wallflower Press. p. 122.
25.Jump up ^ "Distant Relatives: Repulsion and Black Swan". Blogspot. 30 December 2010. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
26.Jump up ^ "The Cardigans - HANGING AROUND (Repulsion) video". NME. Retrieved 9 December 2012.[dead link]
27.Jump up ^ Thill, Scott (15 October 2008). "October Rocks: Metric’s ‘Monster Hospital’ Resuscitates Repulsion". Wired. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
28.^ Jump up to: a b "IMDB Trivia Page". IMDB. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
29.Jump up ^ Atanasov, Svet (10 July 2009). "Repulsion Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
External links[edit]
Repulsion at the Internet Movie Database
Repulsion at AllMovie
Repulsion at Rotten Tomatoes
Repulsion at the Criterion Collection


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Roman Polanski




















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Silver Bear for Jury Grand Prix































































  


Categories: 1965 films
English-language films
1960s drama films
1965 horror films
1960s thriller films
British films
British drama films
British horror films
British thriller films
Films directed by Roman Polanski
Black-and-white films
Rape and revenge films
Independent films
Psychological thriller films
Psychological horror films
Psychological drama films
Fictional portrayals of schizophrenia
Films set in London
Screenplays by Gérard Brach















Navigation menu



Not logged in
Talk
Contributions
Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
Català
Deutsch
Emiliàn e rumagnòl
Español
فارسی
Français
Italiano
Latviešu
Nederlands
日本語
Norsk bokmål
Polski
Português
Русский
Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски
Suomi
Svenska
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The Tenant

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For the novel by Roland Topor, see The Tenant (novel).

The Tenant (Le Locataire)
Locataire.jpg
original film poster

Directed by
Roman Polanski
Produced by
Hercules Bellville
Written by
Roland Topor (novel)
Gérard Brach
 Roman Polanski
Starring
Roman Polanski

Music by
Philippe Sarde
Cinematography
Sven Nykvist
Edited by
Françoise Bonnot

Production
 company

Marianne Productions

Distributed by
Paramount Pictures

Release dates

26 May 1976 (France)
11 June 1976 (USA)
8 October 1976 (Finland)


Running time
 125 min
Country
France
Language
English ·
 French
 
Box office
$5,132,555[1][2]
The Tenant is a 1976 psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, and Shelley Winters. It is based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor.[3] The film is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", following Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. It was entered into the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.[4] The film had a total of 534,637 admissions in France.[5]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Production notes
4 Themes 4.1 Overview
4.2 Kafkaesque Jewish experience
4.3 Doomed cycle, loss of self, and social assimilation
4.4 Isolation and claustrophobia
4.5 Sexual deviance and repression
5 Reception
6 References
7 External links

Plot summary[edit]
Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski), a quiet and unassuming man, rents an apartment in Paris whose previous tenant, Egyptologist Simone Choule, attempted to commit suicide by throwing herself out the window and through a pane of glass below. He visits Choule in the hospital but finds her entirely in bandages and unable to talk. Whilst still at Choule's bedside, Trelkovsky meets Simone's friend, Stella (Isabelle Adjani), who has also come to visit. Stella begins talking to Simone, who becomes aware of her visitors. Initially showing some signs of agitation upon seeing them, Choule soon lets out a disturbing cry, then dies. It isn't clear which of the two has caused this reaction. Apparently unaware that Choule is now dead, Trelkovsky tries to comfort Stella but dares not say that he never knew Simone, instead pretending to be another friend. They leave together and go out for a drink and a movie (1973's Enter The Dragon), where they fondle each other. Outside the theatre they part ways.
As Trelkovsky occupies the apartment he is chastised unreasonably by his neighbors and landlord, Monsieur Zy (Melvyn Douglas), for hosting a party with his friends, apparently having a woman over, making too much noise in general, and not joining in on a petition against another neighbor. Trelkovsky attempts to adapt to his situation, but is increasingly disturbed by the apartment and the other tenants. He frequently sees his neighbors standing motionless in the toilet room (which he can see from his own window), and discovers a hole in the wall with a human tooth stashed inside. He receives a visit and a letter from one Georges Badar (Rufus), who secretly loves Simone and has believed her to be alive and well. Trelkovsky updates and comforts the man and spends the night out with him. Gradually he changes his breakfast habits to those of Simone, and shifts from Gauloises to Marlboro cigarettes.
Trelkovsky becomes severely agitated and enraged when his apartment is robbed, while his neighbors and the concierge (Shelley Winters) continue to berate him for making too much noise. He buys a wig and woman's shoes and goes on to dress up (using Simone's dress which he had found in a cupboard) and sit still in his apartment in the dead of night. He suspects that Zy and neighbors are trying to subtly change him into the last tenant, Simone, so that he too will kill himself. He becomes hostile and paranoid in his day-to-day environment (snapping at his friends, slapping a child in a park) and his mental state progressively deteriorates. He has visions of his neighbors playing football with a human head, sees himself staring out of his own window and finds the toilet covered in hieroglyphs. Trelkovsky runs off to Stella for comfort and sleeps over, but in the morning after she has left for work, he concludes that she too is in on his neighbors' plot, and proceeds to wreak havoc in her apartment before departing.
At night he is hit by an elderly couple driving a car. He is not wounded too seriously, but receives a sedative injection from the doctor due to his odd behavior—he perceives the elderly couple as his landlord Zy and wife—after which the couple returns him to his apartment. A deranged Trelkovsky dresses up again as a woman and throws himself out the apartment window in the manner of Simone Choule, before what he believes to be a clapping, cheering audience composed of his neighbors. The suicide attempt, in fact, wakes up his neighbors, who arrive at the scene together with the police just in time for Trelkovsky to crawl up to his apartment and jump one more time.
The end of the movie is enigmatic. Trelkovsky is bandaged up in the same fashion as Simone Choule in the same hospital bed, but we see his and Stella's own visit to Simone. Trelkovsky then lets out the same disturbing cry that Simone had screamed.
Cast[edit]
Roman Polanski – Trelkovsky
Isabelle Adjani – Stella
Melvyn Douglas – Monsieur Zy
Jo Van Fleet – Madame Dioz
Bernard Fresson – Scope
Rufus – Georges Badar
Shelley Winters – The Concierge
Lila Kedrova – Madame Gaderian
Claude Dauphin – Husband at the accident
Claude Piéplu – Neighbor (as Claude Pieplu)
Romain Bouteille – Simon
Jacques Monod – Cafe Owner
Patrice Alexsandre – Robert
Jean-Pierre Bagot – Policeman
Josiane Balasko – Office Worker
Michel Blanc – Scope's Neighbor
Production notes[edit]
Although typically labelled as the third part of Polanski's so-called "Apartment Trilogy", this came about more by luck than by design. The film adaptation was originally to have been made by British director Jack Clayton, who was attached to the project around seven years before Polanski made it. According to Clayton's biographer Neil Sinyard, Clayton originally tried to make the film ca. 1969 for Universal Studios, from a script by Edward Albee, but this version never made it into production after the relationship between Albee and the studio soured. Paramount bought the rights on Clayton's advice in 1971. Clayton returned to the project in the mid-1970s, and a rough draft script by Christopher Hampton was written while Clayton was preparing The Great Gatsby. By the time Clayton had delivered Gatsby to Paramount in March 1974, he had learned from Robert Evans that Polanski was interested in the project and wanted to play the lead role. While Clayton was occupied preparing foreign language versions of Gatsby for the European market, Paramount studio head Barry Diller began negotiations with Polanksi. Although Clayton later insisted that he was never specifically asked if he was still interested, and never said "no" to it, Diller wrongly assumed that Clayton had lost interest and transferred the project to Polanski, without asking Clayton. When he found out, Clayton called Diller in September 1974, expressing his dismay that Diller had given another director a film which (Clayton insisted) had been specifically purchased by the studio for him, and for doing so without consultation.[6]
Decoration was designed by Pierre Guffroy, the costumes by Jacques Schmidt. Sven Nykvist was responsible for the photography, Jean-Pierre Ruh (fr) for the sound.
Polanski receives no acting credit, despite the fact he plays the lead character.
While the main character is clearly paranoid to some extent (as exemplified in the scene when he believes a neighbour is strangling him, when he is in fact shown strangling himself), this film does not entirely reveal whether everything takes place in his head or if the strange events happening around him exist at least partially, contrary to the previous entries in Polanski's "apartment trilogy."[7][8][9]
The film was shot part in English, part in French, going by whatever the actors present felt more comfortable with. Afterwards, different language versions were produced in post-production, with part of the cast dubbing themselves in both the fully English and the fully French version, while the rest of the French characters were notably dubbed by actors with audibly US American accents. Polanski dubbed himself in three language versions: English, French, and Italian. Isabelle Adjani did not dub herself in the English version. Especially the English version is notorious for poor audio quality where during both the initial shoot and the dubbing, voices were recorded at vastly different levels. Even the bare-bones 2004 DVD release by Paramount (which is the latest home video release to-date, released at the time as part of a rush to release some of Polanski's lesser-known films, including Bitter Moon, Frantic, Cul-de-Sac, and Knife in the Water, in the wake of his 2003 Academy Award for The Pianist) only has monaural sound for both the English and the French version. Modern reviews differ as to whether the audible American accents and the poor audio quality in the English version distract from the French setting and destroy the illusion, or add to the film's creepy surreal atmosphere.
Themes[edit]
Overview[edit]
In his review of the film for The Regrettable Moment of Sincerity, Adam Lippe writes: "Many would attest that The Pianist is Polanski's most personal work, given the obvious Holocaust subject matter, but look beneath the surface, and when the window curtains are drawn aside, Polanski's The Tenant shines brightest as the work closest to his being."[10]
Other than to the works of Franz Kafka (see below), the film's even more mysterious, ambiguous mood and atmosphere as to whether it belongs to either the horror or the psychological thriller genre has garnered it critical comparisons to both its contemporaries Don't Look Now (1973) by Nicolas Roeg[11] and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980),[12] even more so than the previous two entries to Polanski's Apartment Trilogy. Due to its production design, photography, and in how The Tenant crafts a creepily bizarre scenario of a group of neighbors appearing to be praying on a new tenant's life and conspire against him for that purpose, it has also been compared to the black comedy film Delicatessen (1991) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, which also stars the French actor Rufus in a supporting role, just like The Tenant and The Shining seems to suggest a house as the malevolent source to the sinister deeds of its inhabitants, and is set in a post-apocalyptic future where all animals have died and the people of a remote decaying house resort to eat the house's every new janitor.[13][14]
Kafkaesque Jewish experience[edit]
Many reviewers have noted The Tenant's decidedly kafkaesque mood and setting full of anxiety, guilt, self-loathing, alienation, and paranoia, where dark, ominous things occur without reason or explanation and seemingly the shy, subdued protagonist's slightest factual or imaginary misdeeds are quick to be punished by a cabalistic conspiracy with great, absurdist fanfare as if he has committed the gravest crimes and trespasses: "The scheming plots over matters of extraordinary pettiness and inexplicable conspiracies that go on among the neighbours to gang up on others make The Tenant probably the first Kafka-esque horror film."[15] "Much effect is derived from the absurdity of the scenario where all Trelkovsky wants to do is not bother anyone, yet everything Trelkovsky does is seen as an imposition."[16] Reviewers have speculated[15] that the film's kafkaesque atmosphere is in reflection of Polanski's Jewish experience within a predominantly anti-Semitic environment (an autobiographical trait which indeed he shares with Kafka himself):

Further interpretation reveals that the issue of identity can be applied to the relationship between the man behind the camera and the man in front of it. By casting himself in the movie, as a character that, like himself has a Polish name but French citizenship, Polanski is treading in the same autobiographical waters that have kept Woody Allen wet all these years. Add to that the fact that the character he plays is drenched with paranoia, and is flooded by a destructive persecution complex, and you could interpret the whole story as a Holocaust parable. [...] When Trelkovsky fears that strange visitors are coming to get him in the middle of the night, with homicidal intentions no less, this fact immediately jumped to the front of my mind. It is territory Polanski would later cover, with less emphasis on metaphor, in his 2002 film The Pianist [...]. Still, the similarities are too numerous to ignore."
— Mfunk75 (epinions.com), I Wouldn't Touch That Apartment With A 5'5" Pole: Polanski's The Tenant,[17] 2003
Another reviewer has noted that Trelkovsky's characterization and his meek, timid behavior towards his neighbors suggests a Jewish background on his side, and that it also seems no coincidence that former tenant Mme. Choule's name could resemble a Jewish one (probably either Shul or Shmuel).[18]
In keeping with this interpretation that the film's darkly absurd notions reflect a Jewish experience within an anti-Semitic environment, many reviewers have also noted the film's dwelling upon the social dynamic that ensues because Trelkovsky is seen with suspicion due to his being a foreigner, an immigrant alien, and an outcast because he was not born in the country, in fact a Polish ex-patriate just like the director who cast himself in the role, and that several natives directly or indirectly express their wish he would never make himself a permanent home around them. David Lorefice wrote in his review for Raging Bull Reviews: "Two of the film's key themes are racism and being the outsider, things Polanski has experienced quite a bit of spending his adult life outside his native Poland. [...] Everyone will take [Trelkowsky's] money, but it's practically like they are doing him the favor of tolerating him long enough to do so. [...] Both [The Tenant and Rosemary's Baby] are about wanting to like your neighbors but learning to fear them [...]."[16]
Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times: "Trelkovsky exists. He inhabits his own body, but it's as if he had no lease on it, as if at any moment he could be dispossessed for having listened to the radio in his head after 10 P.M. People are always knocking on his walls."[19] In a way, Trelkovsky's hostile neighbors are telling him that he can be a transient, unwanted tenant in a rented apartment for a while, but he shall never make this place his home:

"The film's title [of The Tenant] could be interpreted as follows: An alien is given the chance to rent an apartment for himself in a well-ordered world, however he may be evicted at any given time once the natives find him to be in violation of this world's well-ordered rules, or failing to properly internalize them. In the end, it is of little importance who is normal and who is insane. The individual's paranoia equals our well-ordered world's desire to persecute. Nobody can help Trelkovsky - he can't even help himself. In a disenchanted, jaded world with its fixed social order, the individual and one's autonomy have but one fate: Either submission and internalization of people's rules - or insanity. Which is no real choice. Here, the individual is always on the brink of annihilation, about to lose itself."
— Ulrich Behrens (Filmzentrale), Der Mieter (German review)[20]
Doomed cycle, loss of self, and social assimilation[edit]
The Tenant has been referred to as a precursor to Kubrick's The Shining (1980),[12] as another film where the lines between reality, madness, and the supernatural become increasingly blurry (the question usually asked with The Shining is "Ghosts or cabin fever?") as the protagonist finds himself doomed to cyclically repeat another person's nightmarish fall. Just like in The Shining, the audience is slowly brought to accept the supernatural by what at first seems a slow descent into madness, or vice versa: "The audience's predilection to accept a proto-supernatural explanation [...] becomes so pronounced that at Trelkovsky's break with sanity the viewer is encouraged to take a straightforward hallucination for a supernatural act."[21]
In his book Polanski and Perception, Davide Caputo has called the fact that in the end, Trelkovsky defenestrates himself not once, but twice "a cruel reminder of the film's 'infinite loop'"[22] of Trelkovsky becoming Mme. Choule meeting Trelkovsky shortly before dying in the hospital, a loop not unlike The Shining's explanation that Jack Torrance "has always been the Overlook's caretaker". Timothy Brayton of Antagony & Ecstasy likens this eternally looping cycle of The Tenant to the film's recurring Egyptian motifs:

"There is a recurrent motif of Egyptian hieroglyphics that remains unexplained in the film. Ancient Egyptian religious belief, it is important to note, was based on the notion that all things are the same all throughout history: not the same as Hinduism's conception that everything has happened before and will happen again, but more the belief that everything is always happening. The best I can come up with is to suppose that Trelkovsky, whether in his mind or in reality, is always the same as Simone. He does not become her, so much as we finally reach a point where the distinction between the two of them is no longer important. Either way, the result is the same: there is no Trelkovsky. To someone whose life had been as traumatic as Polanski's, that idea might well have been an attractive one."
— Timothy Brayton (Antagony & Ecstasy), Apartment house fools[23]
Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique writes: "THE TENANT is short on typical horror movie action: there are no monsters, and there is little in the way of traditional suspense. That's because the film is not operating on the kind of fear that most horror films exploit: fear of death. Instead, THE TENANT's focus is on an equally disturbing fear: loss of identity."[24] In his review of the film for The Regrettable Moment of Sincerity, Adam Lippe writes of Trelkovsky's surroundings sinisterly shaping him into an echo of the past: "Coming from a Nazi-occupied childhood, Polanski no doubt uses his character's identity crisis to illustrate society's ability to shape and mold the uniqueness of its members, whether they like it or not."[10] Similarly, Dan Jardine of Apollo Guide writes: "Polanski seems to be studying how people, in our isolating world, increasingly mould themselves to their environment, sometimes to the point where their individual identity is absorbed into the world around them. The longer he is in the building, the more Trelkovsky begins to lose sight of where his internal sense of his 'self' ends, and his social identity begins."[25]

"What happens to The Tenant? Is poor Trelkovsky haunted by ghosts or does he turn insane? Does a (mysteriously) hostile environment drive him to commit suicide, or do the necessities of a cold reality break a tender soul? Could Trelkovsky be identical to Simone Choul from the beginning? Are we even witnessing Simone Choul's very own death hallucination, with Trelkovsky as nothing but a figment of her dying mind?"[26]
— Wollo (Die besten Horrorfilme.de), Der Mieter (German review)
Because of how little we get to know of Trelkovsky's life prior to his applying for the apartment and moving in, only to become an echo of former tenant Mme. Choule because of his frail, almost inexistent personality's weak resistance to either her ghost or his bullying neighbors as if he has always been Mme. Choule and always will be, the film has also been referred to as an early precursor to Fight Club (1999), a film where the final twist reveals it to be about a case of split personality.[10]
Isolation and claustrophobia[edit]
A recurring theme with Polanski's films, but especially pronounced in The Tenant, is that of the protagonist as a silent, isolated observer in hiding. As Brogan Morris writes in Flickering Myth: "One of Roman Polanski’s recurring motifs has always been the horror of the apartment space. It was as recently as his last film, Carnage, and in a crucial sequence of his masterful The Pianist: it's from an apartment window which Szpilman can do nothing but watch atrocities unfold outside. The fascination is there most obviously, though, in Polanski’s 'Apartment Trilogy' [...]. And The Tenant, a blackly comedic meta-horror, is perhaps Polanski's ultimate use of the apartment as a claustrophobic, paranoid zone of terror."[27]

"The Tenant also makes an interesting film to read in term of Roman Polanski's own life – he, like the character he plays, is a Pole who went to live in Paris very shortly after the film was made. His other horror films – Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby – like The Tenant, see the apartment as a home of paranoia and madness. You could extend the analogy further and compare Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant to Polanski's The Pianist, where Adrien Brody's protagonist, a Jew living in Poland under Nazi occupation, is reduced to hiding a pitiful, starving existence hiding in cubbyholes and the bombed-out ruins of buildings where he cannot be sure whether the people he encounters are friend or foe or will betray him. Polanski himself grew up in the Warsaw ghettos as a Jewish child under the Nazi occupation and survived by hiding in the countryside and with other families after his parents were taken to the concentration camps, so perhaps one can see the very personal nature of the recurrent themes of isolation, paranoia and the feeling that the apartment is an alien world in his work."
— Richard Scheib (Moira: Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review), THE TENANT (Le Locataire)[15]
Sexual deviance and repression[edit]
Related to the aforementioned kafkaesque guilt and the theme of identity loss, another theme that appears throughout the film is that of sexual deviance and Trelkovsky's increasing trespassing of traditional gender roles, as he more and more turns into an echo of former tenant Mme. Choule: "In the end, we are left with a question of whether Trelkovsky's feisty neighbors deliberately drive him to madness, or whether he collapses under the weight of his own sexual, ethnic, and social identity crises."[18] "It is suggested that Simone Choule was lesbian whereas Trelkovsky's sexual affinities seem undetermined or repressed."[28] Similarly, German reviewer Andreas Staben writes: "And again, [Polanski] tells of sexual repression, and in Polanski's astounding, unpretentions performance, Trelkovsky's escape into the identity of Simone Choule appears as a consequential closure of all three films [of the Apartment Trilogy]. Other than was maybe the case still with Repulsion, there can be no talk whatsoever of a psycho-pathological case study anymore: Here, the individual is entirely wiped out and all that remains is the horror of facing a pure void."[29]

"In The Tenant, Roman Polanski explores again the psychic terrain of guilt, dread, paranoia, fears of sexual inadequacy and hysteria he made so familiar in Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Macbeth, and Chinatown. [...] [T]he confusion of sexual roles is more pronounced here than anywhere else in [Polanski's] work. The slightly decadent and fetishistic, but innocent, bedtime games of Cul-de-sac have developed into the signs of a basic confusion concerning sexual identity. T.'s acquisition of feminine costume and habits speaks to a repressed and disturbing need. He is not attracted to women, in fact cannot perform sexually when Stella (Isabelle Adjani) takes him home. In this respect he is again the counterpart of Simone Schoul who, he is told, was never interested at all in men. As he is drawn more completely into the idea of becoming this woman, T. pauses to speculate about what defines him. If a man loses an arm, he wonders, does the arm or the remaining body define his selfhood? How much can a man lose, change, or give away and still remain 'himself'? Or, to paraphrase the advertisers, does the cigarette make the man?"
— Norman Hale (Movietone News, no. 52, October 1976, p. 38-39), Review: Tenant[30]
Reception[edit]
Although The Tenant was poorly received on its release, Roger Ebert declaring it "not merely bad -- it's an embarrassment,"[31] it has since become a cult favorite, being named by Bruce Campbell in an interview with Craig Ferguson.[32] The film holds a 90% Certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 29 reviews.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "The Tenant". Box Office Mojo.
2.Jump up ^ http://www.jpbox-office.com/fichfilm.php?id=8166
3.Jump up ^ Vincent Canby (21 June 1976). "The Tenant". The New York Times.
4.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: The Tenant". Festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
5.Jump up ^ "The Tenant". Jpbox-office-com.
6.Jump up ^ Neil Sinyard, Jack Clayton (Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 212
7.Jump up ^ Meyncke, Amanda Mae (2 July 2008). "Roman Polanski's Apartment Trilogy Still As Artful As Ever". Film.com.
8.Jump up ^ Thompson, Anne (25 July 2007). "Rush Hour 3: Ratner Casts Polanski as Sadistic Cop". Variety.com.
9.Jump up ^ "A Polanski Guide To Urban Living". Cinemaretro.com. 19 August 2009.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c Lippe, Adam. The Tenant, The Regrettable Moment of Sincerity, 21 January 2009
11.Jump up ^ Castle, Robert (2004). Disturbing Movies: or the Flip Side of the Real, Bright Lights Film Journal, 30 April 2004
12.^ Jump up to: a b Del Valle, David (2010). Wig of a Poet: Un Polanski Rorschach, ACIDEMIC: Journal of Film and Media, 2010
13.Jump up ^ Hanke, Ken (2006). Delicatessen, Mountain Xpress, 26 March 2008
14.Jump up ^ Taunton, Matthew. "Delicatessen, The Tenant and Le Crime de Monsieur Lange", chapter in Taunton's book Fictions Of The City: Class, Culture and Mass Housing in London and Paris (PDF excerpt), Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 37-48
15.^ Jump up to: a b c Scheib, Richard. THE TENANT (Le Locataire), Moira: Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review
16.^ Jump up to: a b Lorefice, Mike (2003). Le Locataire (The Tenant, France/USA - 1976), Raging Bull Movie Reviews, 8 December 2003
17.Jump up ^ Mfunk75 (2003). I Wouldn't Touch That Apartment With A 5'5" Pole: Polanski's The Tenant, epinions.com, 18 April 2003
18.^ Jump up to: a b Verbatima (2004). Make yourself at home, 17 February 2004, epinions.com
19.Jump up ^ Canby, Vincent (1976). Move Review: The Tenant (1976), New York Times, 21 June 1976
20.Jump up ^ "Der Titel des Films reicht bis an eine Interpretation heran, die so lauten könnte: Da kam einer in diese wohl geordnete Welt, und man gab ihm die Chance, sich einen Platz zu „mieten”. Dieses „Mietverhältnis” aber kann jederzeit gekündigt werden, wenn sich der „Mieter” nicht den festgefügten Verhältnissen anpasst, sie verinnerlicht. So bleibt die Frage, wer hier eigentlich wahnsinnig und wer normal ist, am Schluss fast bedeutungslos. Der Verfolgungswahn des einzelnen reiht sich ein in die Verfolgungsmentalität einer „wohl” geordneten Welt. Niemand kann Trelkovsky wirklich helfen – nicht einmal er selbst. In einer scheinbar aufgeklärten, aber eben auch maßlos abgeklärten Welt mit einer feststehenden Ordnung hat das Individuelle, das subjektive Eigenhaben nur eine Alternative: Unterwerfung und Internalisierung – oder Wahnsinn. Also keine Alternative. Es steht immer vor der Kippe, vor dem Verlust seiner selbst." Behrens, Ulrich. Der Mieter, Filmzentrale
21.Jump up ^ Smuts, Aarons (2002). Sympathetic spectators: Roman Polanski's Le Locataire (The Tenant, 1976), Kinoeye: New Perspectives On European Film, Vol. 2, Issue 3, 4 February 2002
22.Jump up ^ Caputo, Davide (2012). Polanski and Perception: The Psychology of Seeing and the Cinema of Roman Polanski, Intellect Books, 2012, ISBN 1841505528, p. 159
23.Jump up ^ Brayton, Timothy (2007). Apartment house fools, Antagony & Ecstasy, 6 May 2007
24.Jump up ^ Biodrowski, Steve (2009). The Tenant (1976), Cinefantastique, 11 December 2009
25.Jump up ^ Jardine, Dan. Tenant, The, Apollo Guide
26.Jump up ^ "Was passiert im 'Mieter'? Sucht Geisterspuk den armen Trelkovsky heim oder verfällt er schlicht dem Irrsinn? Treibt ihn seine ihm feindlich gesinnte (warum?) Umwelt in einen Freitodversuch oder zerbricht der schüchterne, in sich gekehrte junge Mann an der kalten Realität? Ist Trelkovsky etwa mit Simone Clouche identisch? Oder werden wir gar Zeuge eines Traums, den die sterbende Simone Clouche träumt, und Trelkovsky ist nichts anderes als die Traumgestalt ihrer selbst?" Wollo. Der Mieter, Die Besten Horrorfilme.de
27.Jump up ^ Morris, Brogan (2013). Leeds International Film Festival 2013 Review – The Tenant (1976), Flickering Myth, 18. November 2013
28.Jump up ^ Gwen (2012). Hell is the people next door: The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976), L'avventura di Gwen, 12 May 2012
29.Jump up ^ "Und wieder erzählt er auf von sexueller Repression, wobei Trelkovskys Flucht in die Identität Simone Choules in Polanskis erstaunlicher, gänzlich unmanirierter Darstellung als konsequenter Endpunkt aller drei Filme erscheint. Von einer psychopathologischen Fallstudie kann hier anders als vielleicht noch bei Ekel endgültig keine Rede mehr sein: Das Individuum wird aufgelöst und es bleibt nur der Schrecken angesichts des blanken Nichts." Staben, Andreas. Der Mieter, filmstarts.de
30.Jump up ^ Hale, Norman (1976). Review: Tenant, Movietone News, no. 52, October 1976, p. 38-39
31.Jump up ^ http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-tenant-1976
32.Jump up ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enz6R_Ji0Tg
External links[edit]
The Tenant at the Internet Movie Database
The Tenant (Le Locataire) at AllMovie
The Tenant at Rotten Tomatoes


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Roman Polanski


Films directed
Knife in the Water (1962) ·
 Repulsion (1965) ·
 Cul-de-Sac (1966) ·
 The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) ·
 Rosemary's Baby (1968) ·
 Macbeth (1971) ·
 What? (1972) ·
 Chinatown (1974) ·
 The Tenant (1976) ·
 Tess (1979) ·
 Pirates (1986) ·
 Frantic (1988) ·
 Bitter Moon (1992) ·
 Death and the Maiden (1994) ·
 The Ninth Gate (1999) ·
 The Pianist (2002) ·
 Oliver Twist (2005) ·
 The Ghost Writer (2010) ·
 Carnage (2011) ·
 Venus in Fur (2013)
 

Shorts
Rower (1955) ·
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 Lampa (1959) ·
 When Angels Fall (1959) ·
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 Ssaki (1962) ·
 La rivière de diamants (1964) ·
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 A Therapy (2012)
 

Related topics
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The Tenant

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For the novel by Roland Topor, see The Tenant (novel).

The Tenant (Le Locataire)
Locataire.jpg
original film poster

Directed by
Roman Polanski
Produced by
Hercules Bellville
Written by
Roland Topor (novel)
Gérard Brach
 Roman Polanski
Starring
Roman Polanski

Music by
Philippe Sarde
Cinematography
Sven Nykvist
Edited by
Françoise Bonnot

Production
 company

Marianne Productions

Distributed by
Paramount Pictures

Release dates

26 May 1976 (France)
11 June 1976 (USA)
8 October 1976 (Finland)


Running time
 125 min
Country
France
Language
English ·
 French
 
Box office
$5,132,555[1][2]
The Tenant is a 1976 psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, and Shelley Winters. It is based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor.[3] The film is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", following Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. It was entered into the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.[4] The film had a total of 534,637 admissions in France.[5]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Production notes
4 Themes 4.1 Overview
4.2 Kafkaesque Jewish experience
4.3 Doomed cycle, loss of self, and social assimilation
4.4 Isolation and claustrophobia
4.5 Sexual deviance and repression
5 Reception
6 References
7 External links

Plot summary[edit]
Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski), a quiet and unassuming man, rents an apartment in Paris whose previous tenant, Egyptologist Simone Choule, attempted to commit suicide by throwing herself out the window and through a pane of glass below. He visits Choule in the hospital but finds her entirely in bandages and unable to talk. Whilst still at Choule's bedside, Trelkovsky meets Simone's friend, Stella (Isabelle Adjani), who has also come to visit. Stella begins talking to Simone, who becomes aware of her visitors. Initially showing some signs of agitation upon seeing them, Choule soon lets out a disturbing cry, then dies. It isn't clear which of the two has caused this reaction. Apparently unaware that Choule is now dead, Trelkovsky tries to comfort Stella but dares not say that he never knew Simone, instead pretending to be another friend. They leave together and go out for a drink and a movie (1973's Enter The Dragon), where they fondle each other. Outside the theatre they part ways.
As Trelkovsky occupies the apartment he is chastised unreasonably by his neighbors and landlord, Monsieur Zy (Melvyn Douglas), for hosting a party with his friends, apparently having a woman over, making too much noise in general, and not joining in on a petition against another neighbor. Trelkovsky attempts to adapt to his situation, but is increasingly disturbed by the apartment and the other tenants. He frequently sees his neighbors standing motionless in the toilet room (which he can see from his own window), and discovers a hole in the wall with a human tooth stashed inside. He receives a visit and a letter from one Georges Badar (Rufus), who secretly loves Simone and has believed her to be alive and well. Trelkovsky updates and comforts the man and spends the night out with him. Gradually he changes his breakfast habits to those of Simone, and shifts from Gauloises to Marlboro cigarettes.
Trelkovsky becomes severely agitated and enraged when his apartment is robbed, while his neighbors and the concierge (Shelley Winters) continue to berate him for making too much noise. He buys a wig and woman's shoes and goes on to dress up (using Simone's dress which he had found in a cupboard) and sit still in his apartment in the dead of night. He suspects that Zy and neighbors are trying to subtly change him into the last tenant, Simone, so that he too will kill himself. He becomes hostile and paranoid in his day-to-day environment (snapping at his friends, slapping a child in a park) and his mental state progressively deteriorates. He has visions of his neighbors playing football with a human head, sees himself staring out of his own window and finds the toilet covered in hieroglyphs. Trelkovsky runs off to Stella for comfort and sleeps over, but in the morning after she has left for work, he concludes that she too is in on his neighbors' plot, and proceeds to wreak havoc in her apartment before departing.
At night he is hit by an elderly couple driving a car. He is not wounded too seriously, but receives a sedative injection from the doctor due to his odd behavior—he perceives the elderly couple as his landlord Zy and wife—after which the couple returns him to his apartment. A deranged Trelkovsky dresses up again as a woman and throws himself out the apartment window in the manner of Simone Choule, before what he believes to be a clapping, cheering audience composed of his neighbors. The suicide attempt, in fact, wakes up his neighbors, who arrive at the scene together with the police just in time for Trelkovsky to crawl up to his apartment and jump one more time.
The end of the movie is enigmatic. Trelkovsky is bandaged up in the same fashion as Simone Choule in the same hospital bed, but we see his and Stella's own visit to Simone. Trelkovsky then lets out the same disturbing cry that Simone had screamed.
Cast[edit]
Roman Polanski – Trelkovsky
Isabelle Adjani – Stella
Melvyn Douglas – Monsieur Zy
Jo Van Fleet – Madame Dioz
Bernard Fresson – Scope
Rufus – Georges Badar
Shelley Winters – The Concierge
Lila Kedrova – Madame Gaderian
Claude Dauphin – Husband at the accident
Claude Piéplu – Neighbor (as Claude Pieplu)
Romain Bouteille – Simon
Jacques Monod – Cafe Owner
Patrice Alexsandre – Robert
Jean-Pierre Bagot – Policeman
Josiane Balasko – Office Worker
Michel Blanc – Scope's Neighbor
Production notes[edit]
Although typically labelled as the third part of Polanski's so-called "Apartment Trilogy", this came about more by luck than by design. The film adaptation was originally to have been made by British director Jack Clayton, who was attached to the project around seven years before Polanski made it. According to Clayton's biographer Neil Sinyard, Clayton originally tried to make the film ca. 1969 for Universal Studios, from a script by Edward Albee, but this version never made it into production after the relationship between Albee and the studio soured. Paramount bought the rights on Clayton's advice in 1971. Clayton returned to the project in the mid-1970s, and a rough draft script by Christopher Hampton was written while Clayton was preparing The Great Gatsby. By the time Clayton had delivered Gatsby to Paramount in March 1974, he had learned from Robert Evans that Polanski was interested in the project and wanted to play the lead role. While Clayton was occupied preparing foreign language versions of Gatsby for the European market, Paramount studio head Barry Diller began negotiations with Polanksi. Although Clayton later insisted that he was never specifically asked if he was still interested, and never said "no" to it, Diller wrongly assumed that Clayton had lost interest and transferred the project to Polanski, without asking Clayton. When he found out, Clayton called Diller in September 1974, expressing his dismay that Diller had given another director a film which (Clayton insisted) had been specifically purchased by the studio for him, and for doing so without consultation.[6]
Decoration was designed by Pierre Guffroy, the costumes by Jacques Schmidt. Sven Nykvist was responsible for the photography, Jean-Pierre Ruh (fr) for the sound.
Polanski receives no acting credit, despite the fact he plays the lead character.
While the main character is clearly paranoid to some extent (as exemplified in the scene when he believes a neighbour is strangling him, when he is in fact shown strangling himself), this film does not entirely reveal whether everything takes place in his head or if the strange events happening around him exist at least partially, contrary to the previous entries in Polanski's "apartment trilogy."[7][8][9]
The film was shot part in English, part in French, going by whatever the actors present felt more comfortable with. Afterwards, different language versions were produced in post-production, with part of the cast dubbing themselves in both the fully English and the fully French version, while the rest of the French characters were notably dubbed by actors with audibly US American accents. Polanski dubbed himself in three language versions: English, French, and Italian. Isabelle Adjani did not dub herself in the English version. Especially the English version is notorious for poor audio quality where during both the initial shoot and the dubbing, voices were recorded at vastly different levels. Even the bare-bones 2004 DVD release by Paramount (which is the latest home video release to-date, released at the time as part of a rush to release some of Polanski's lesser-known films, including Bitter Moon, Frantic, Cul-de-Sac, and Knife in the Water, in the wake of his 2003 Academy Award for The Pianist) only has monaural sound for both the English and the French version. Modern reviews differ as to whether the audible American accents and the poor audio quality in the English version distract from the French setting and destroy the illusion, or add to the film's creepy surreal atmosphere.
Themes[edit]
Overview[edit]
In his review of the film for The Regrettable Moment of Sincerity, Adam Lippe writes: "Many would attest that The Pianist is Polanski's most personal work, given the obvious Holocaust subject matter, but look beneath the surface, and when the window curtains are drawn aside, Polanski's The Tenant shines brightest as the work closest to his being."[10]
Other than to the works of Franz Kafka (see below), the film's even more mysterious, ambiguous mood and atmosphere as to whether it belongs to either the horror or the psychological thriller genre has garnered it critical comparisons to both its contemporaries Don't Look Now (1973) by Nicolas Roeg[11] and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980),[12] even more so than the previous two entries to Polanski's Apartment Trilogy. Due to its production design, photography, and in how The Tenant crafts a creepily bizarre scenario of a group of neighbors appearing to be praying on a new tenant's life and conspire against him for that purpose, it has also been compared to the black comedy film Delicatessen (1991) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, which also stars the French actor Rufus in a supporting role, just like The Tenant and The Shining seems to suggest a house as the malevolent source to the sinister deeds of its inhabitants, and is set in a post-apocalyptic future where all animals have died and the people of a remote decaying house resort to eat the house's every new janitor.[13][14]
Kafkaesque Jewish experience[edit]
Many reviewers have noted The Tenant's decidedly kafkaesque mood and setting full of anxiety, guilt, self-loathing, alienation, and paranoia, where dark, ominous things occur without reason or explanation and seemingly the shy, subdued protagonist's slightest factual or imaginary misdeeds are quick to be punished by a cabalistic conspiracy with great, absurdist fanfare as if he has committed the gravest crimes and trespasses: "The scheming plots over matters of extraordinary pettiness and inexplicable conspiracies that go on among the neighbours to gang up on others make The Tenant probably the first Kafka-esque horror film."[15] "Much effect is derived from the absurdity of the scenario where all Trelkovsky wants to do is not bother anyone, yet everything Trelkovsky does is seen as an imposition."[16] Reviewers have speculated[15] that the film's kafkaesque atmosphere is in reflection of Polanski's Jewish experience within a predominantly anti-Semitic environment (an autobiographical trait which indeed he shares with Kafka himself):

Further interpretation reveals that the issue of identity can be applied to the relationship between the man behind the camera and the man in front of it. By casting himself in the movie, as a character that, like himself has a Polish name but French citizenship, Polanski is treading in the same autobiographical waters that have kept Woody Allen wet all these years. Add to that the fact that the character he plays is drenched with paranoia, and is flooded by a destructive persecution complex, and you could interpret the whole story as a Holocaust parable. [...] When Trelkovsky fears that strange visitors are coming to get him in the middle of the night, with homicidal intentions no less, this fact immediately jumped to the front of my mind. It is territory Polanski would later cover, with less emphasis on metaphor, in his 2002 film The Pianist [...]. Still, the similarities are too numerous to ignore."
— Mfunk75 (epinions.com), I Wouldn't Touch That Apartment With A 5'5" Pole: Polanski's The Tenant,[17] 2003
Another reviewer has noted that Trelkovsky's characterization and his meek, timid behavior towards his neighbors suggests a Jewish background on his side, and that it also seems no coincidence that former tenant Mme. Choule's name could resemble a Jewish one (probably either Shul or Shmuel).[18]
In keeping with this interpretation that the film's darkly absurd notions reflect a Jewish experience within an anti-Semitic environment, many reviewers have also noted the film's dwelling upon the social dynamic that ensues because Trelkovsky is seen with suspicion due to his being a foreigner, an immigrant alien, and an outcast because he was not born in the country, in fact a Polish ex-patriate just like the director who cast himself in the role, and that several natives directly or indirectly express their wish he would never make himself a permanent home around them. David Lorefice wrote in his review for Raging Bull Reviews: "Two of the film's key themes are racism and being the outsider, things Polanski has experienced quite a bit of spending his adult life outside his native Poland. [...] Everyone will take [Trelkowsky's] money, but it's practically like they are doing him the favor of tolerating him long enough to do so. [...] Both [The Tenant and Rosemary's Baby] are about wanting to like your neighbors but learning to fear them [...]."[16]
Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times: "Trelkovsky exists. He inhabits his own body, but it's as if he had no lease on it, as if at any moment he could be dispossessed for having listened to the radio in his head after 10 P.M. People are always knocking on his walls."[19] In a way, Trelkovsky's hostile neighbors are telling him that he can be a transient, unwanted tenant in a rented apartment for a while, but he shall never make this place his home:

"The film's title [of The Tenant] could be interpreted as follows: An alien is given the chance to rent an apartment for himself in a well-ordered world, however he may be evicted at any given time once the natives find him to be in violation of this world's well-ordered rules, or failing to properly internalize them. In the end, it is of little importance who is normal and who is insane. The individual's paranoia equals our well-ordered world's desire to persecute. Nobody can help Trelkovsky - he can't even help himself. In a disenchanted, jaded world with its fixed social order, the individual and one's autonomy have but one fate: Either submission and internalization of people's rules - or insanity. Which is no real choice. Here, the individual is always on the brink of annihilation, about to lose itself."
— Ulrich Behrens (Filmzentrale), Der Mieter (German review)[20]
Doomed cycle, loss of self, and social assimilation[edit]
The Tenant has been referred to as a precursor to Kubrick's The Shining (1980),[12] as another film where the lines between reality, madness, and the supernatural become increasingly blurry (the question usually asked with The Shining is "Ghosts or cabin fever?") as the protagonist finds himself doomed to cyclically repeat another person's nightmarish fall. Just like in The Shining, the audience is slowly brought to accept the supernatural by what at first seems a slow descent into madness, or vice versa: "The audience's predilection to accept a proto-supernatural explanation [...] becomes so pronounced that at Trelkovsky's break with sanity the viewer is encouraged to take a straightforward hallucination for a supernatural act."[21]
In his book Polanski and Perception, Davide Caputo has called the fact that in the end, Trelkovsky defenestrates himself not once, but twice "a cruel reminder of the film's 'infinite loop'"[22] of Trelkovsky becoming Mme. Choule meeting Trelkovsky shortly before dying in the hospital, a loop not unlike The Shining's explanation that Jack Torrance "has always been the Overlook's caretaker". Timothy Brayton of Antagony & Ecstasy likens this eternally looping cycle of The Tenant to the film's recurring Egyptian motifs:

"There is a recurrent motif of Egyptian hieroglyphics that remains unexplained in the film. Ancient Egyptian religious belief, it is important to note, was based on the notion that all things are the same all throughout history: not the same as Hinduism's conception that everything has happened before and will happen again, but more the belief that everything is always happening. The best I can come up with is to suppose that Trelkovsky, whether in his mind or in reality, is always the same as Simone. He does not become her, so much as we finally reach a point where the distinction between the two of them is no longer important. Either way, the result is the same: there is no Trelkovsky. To someone whose life had been as traumatic as Polanski's, that idea might well have been an attractive one."
— Timothy Brayton (Antagony & Ecstasy), Apartment house fools[23]
Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique writes: "THE TENANT is short on typical horror movie action: there are no monsters, and there is little in the way of traditional suspense. That's because the film is not operating on the kind of fear that most horror films exploit: fear of death. Instead, THE TENANT's focus is on an equally disturbing fear: loss of identity."[24] In his review of the film for The Regrettable Moment of Sincerity, Adam Lippe writes of Trelkovsky's surroundings sinisterly shaping him into an echo of the past: "Coming from a Nazi-occupied childhood, Polanski no doubt uses his character's identity crisis to illustrate society's ability to shape and mold the uniqueness of its members, whether they like it or not."[10] Similarly, Dan Jardine of Apollo Guide writes: "Polanski seems to be studying how people, in our isolating world, increasingly mould themselves to their environment, sometimes to the point where their individual identity is absorbed into the world around them. The longer he is in the building, the more Trelkovsky begins to lose sight of where his internal sense of his 'self' ends, and his social identity begins."[25]

"What happens to The Tenant? Is poor Trelkovsky haunted by ghosts or does he turn insane? Does a (mysteriously) hostile environment drive him to commit suicide, or do the necessities of a cold reality break a tender soul? Could Trelkovsky be identical to Simone Choul from the beginning? Are we even witnessing Simone Choul's very own death hallucination, with Trelkovsky as nothing but a figment of her dying mind?"[26]
— Wollo (Die besten Horrorfilme.de), Der Mieter (German review)
Because of how little we get to know of Trelkovsky's life prior to his applying for the apartment and moving in, only to become an echo of former tenant Mme. Choule because of his frail, almost inexistent personality's weak resistance to either her ghost or his bullying neighbors as if he has always been Mme. Choule and always will be, the film has also been referred to as an early precursor to Fight Club (1999), a film where the final twist reveals it to be about a case of split personality.[10]
Isolation and claustrophobia[edit]
A recurring theme with Polanski's films, but especially pronounced in The Tenant, is that of the protagonist as a silent, isolated observer in hiding. As Brogan Morris writes in Flickering Myth: "One of Roman Polanski’s recurring motifs has always been the horror of the apartment space. It was as recently as his last film, Carnage, and in a crucial sequence of his masterful The Pianist: it's from an apartment window which Szpilman can do nothing but watch atrocities unfold outside. The fascination is there most obviously, though, in Polanski’s 'Apartment Trilogy' [...]. And The Tenant, a blackly comedic meta-horror, is perhaps Polanski's ultimate use of the apartment as a claustrophobic, paranoid zone of terror."[27]

"The Tenant also makes an interesting film to read in term of Roman Polanski's own life – he, like the character he plays, is a Pole who went to live in Paris very shortly after the film was made. His other horror films – Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby – like The Tenant, see the apartment as a home of paranoia and madness. You could extend the analogy further and compare Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant to Polanski's The Pianist, where Adrien Brody's protagonist, a Jew living in Poland under Nazi occupation, is reduced to hiding a pitiful, starving existence hiding in cubbyholes and the bombed-out ruins of buildings where he cannot be sure whether the people he encounters are friend or foe or will betray him. Polanski himself grew up in the Warsaw ghettos as a Jewish child under the Nazi occupation and survived by hiding in the countryside and with other families after his parents were taken to the concentration camps, so perhaps one can see the very personal nature of the recurrent themes of isolation, paranoia and the feeling that the apartment is an alien world in his work."
— Richard Scheib (Moira: Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review), THE TENANT (Le Locataire)[15]
Sexual deviance and repression[edit]
Related to the aforementioned kafkaesque guilt and the theme of identity loss, another theme that appears throughout the film is that of sexual deviance and Trelkovsky's increasing trespassing of traditional gender roles, as he more and more turns into an echo of former tenant Mme. Choule: "In the end, we are left with a question of whether Trelkovsky's feisty neighbors deliberately drive him to madness, or whether he collapses under the weight of his own sexual, ethnic, and social identity crises."[18] "It is suggested that Simone Choule was lesbian whereas Trelkovsky's sexual affinities seem undetermined or repressed."[28] Similarly, German reviewer Andreas Staben writes: "And again, [Polanski] tells of sexual repression, and in Polanski's astounding, unpretentions performance, Trelkovsky's escape into the identity of Simone Choule appears as a consequential closure of all three films [of the Apartment Trilogy]. Other than was maybe the case still with Repulsion, there can be no talk whatsoever of a psycho-pathological case study anymore: Here, the individual is entirely wiped out and all that remains is the horror of facing a pure void."[29]

"In The Tenant, Roman Polanski explores again the psychic terrain of guilt, dread, paranoia, fears of sexual inadequacy and hysteria he made so familiar in Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Macbeth, and Chinatown. [...] [T]he confusion of sexual roles is more pronounced here than anywhere else in [Polanski's] work. The slightly decadent and fetishistic, but innocent, bedtime games of Cul-de-sac have developed into the signs of a basic confusion concerning sexual identity. T.'s acquisition of feminine costume and habits speaks to a repressed and disturbing need. He is not attracted to women, in fact cannot perform sexually when Stella (Isabelle Adjani) takes him home. In this respect he is again the counterpart of Simone Schoul who, he is told, was never interested at all in men. As he is drawn more completely into the idea of becoming this woman, T. pauses to speculate about what defines him. If a man loses an arm, he wonders, does the arm or the remaining body define his selfhood? How much can a man lose, change, or give away and still remain 'himself'? Or, to paraphrase the advertisers, does the cigarette make the man?"
— Norman Hale (Movietone News, no. 52, October 1976, p. 38-39), Review: Tenant[30]
Reception[edit]
Although The Tenant was poorly received on its release, Roger Ebert declaring it "not merely bad -- it's an embarrassment,"[31] it has since become a cult favorite, being named by Bruce Campbell in an interview with Craig Ferguson.[32] The film holds a 90% Certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 29 reviews.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "The Tenant". Box Office Mojo.
2.Jump up ^ http://www.jpbox-office.com/fichfilm.php?id=8166
3.Jump up ^ Vincent Canby (21 June 1976). "The Tenant". The New York Times.
4.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: The Tenant". Festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
5.Jump up ^ "The Tenant". Jpbox-office-com.
6.Jump up ^ Neil Sinyard, Jack Clayton (Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 212
7.Jump up ^ Meyncke, Amanda Mae (2 July 2008). "Roman Polanski's Apartment Trilogy Still As Artful As Ever". Film.com.
8.Jump up ^ Thompson, Anne (25 July 2007). "Rush Hour 3: Ratner Casts Polanski as Sadistic Cop". Variety.com.
9.Jump up ^ "A Polanski Guide To Urban Living". Cinemaretro.com. 19 August 2009.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c Lippe, Adam. The Tenant, The Regrettable Moment of Sincerity, 21 January 2009
11.Jump up ^ Castle, Robert (2004). Disturbing Movies: or the Flip Side of the Real, Bright Lights Film Journal, 30 April 2004
12.^ Jump up to: a b Del Valle, David (2010). Wig of a Poet: Un Polanski Rorschach, ACIDEMIC: Journal of Film and Media, 2010
13.Jump up ^ Hanke, Ken (2006). Delicatessen, Mountain Xpress, 26 March 2008
14.Jump up ^ Taunton, Matthew. "Delicatessen, The Tenant and Le Crime de Monsieur Lange", chapter in Taunton's book Fictions Of The City: Class, Culture and Mass Housing in London and Paris (PDF excerpt), Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 37-48
15.^ Jump up to: a b c Scheib, Richard. THE TENANT (Le Locataire), Moira: Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review
16.^ Jump up to: a b Lorefice, Mike (2003). Le Locataire (The Tenant, France/USA - 1976), Raging Bull Movie Reviews, 8 December 2003
17.Jump up ^ Mfunk75 (2003). I Wouldn't Touch That Apartment With A 5'5" Pole: Polanski's The Tenant, epinions.com, 18 April 2003
18.^ Jump up to: a b Verbatima (2004). Make yourself at home, 17 February 2004, epinions.com
19.Jump up ^ Canby, Vincent (1976). Move Review: The Tenant (1976), New York Times, 21 June 1976
20.Jump up ^ "Der Titel des Films reicht bis an eine Interpretation heran, die so lauten könnte: Da kam einer in diese wohl geordnete Welt, und man gab ihm die Chance, sich einen Platz zu „mieten”. Dieses „Mietverhältnis” aber kann jederzeit gekündigt werden, wenn sich der „Mieter” nicht den festgefügten Verhältnissen anpasst, sie verinnerlicht. So bleibt die Frage, wer hier eigentlich wahnsinnig und wer normal ist, am Schluss fast bedeutungslos. Der Verfolgungswahn des einzelnen reiht sich ein in die Verfolgungsmentalität einer „wohl” geordneten Welt. Niemand kann Trelkovsky wirklich helfen – nicht einmal er selbst. In einer scheinbar aufgeklärten, aber eben auch maßlos abgeklärten Welt mit einer feststehenden Ordnung hat das Individuelle, das subjektive Eigenhaben nur eine Alternative: Unterwerfung und Internalisierung – oder Wahnsinn. Also keine Alternative. Es steht immer vor der Kippe, vor dem Verlust seiner selbst." Behrens, Ulrich. Der Mieter, Filmzentrale
21.Jump up ^ Smuts, Aarons (2002). Sympathetic spectators: Roman Polanski's Le Locataire (The Tenant, 1976), Kinoeye: New Perspectives On European Film, Vol. 2, Issue 3, 4 February 2002
22.Jump up ^ Caputo, Davide (2012). Polanski and Perception: The Psychology of Seeing and the Cinema of Roman Polanski, Intellect Books, 2012, ISBN 1841505528, p. 159
23.Jump up ^ Brayton, Timothy (2007). Apartment house fools, Antagony & Ecstasy, 6 May 2007
24.Jump up ^ Biodrowski, Steve (2009). The Tenant (1976), Cinefantastique, 11 December 2009
25.Jump up ^ Jardine, Dan. Tenant, The, Apollo Guide
26.Jump up ^ "Was passiert im 'Mieter'? Sucht Geisterspuk den armen Trelkovsky heim oder verfällt er schlicht dem Irrsinn? Treibt ihn seine ihm feindlich gesinnte (warum?) Umwelt in einen Freitodversuch oder zerbricht der schüchterne, in sich gekehrte junge Mann an der kalten Realität? Ist Trelkovsky etwa mit Simone Clouche identisch? Oder werden wir gar Zeuge eines Traums, den die sterbende Simone Clouche träumt, und Trelkovsky ist nichts anderes als die Traumgestalt ihrer selbst?" Wollo. Der Mieter, Die Besten Horrorfilme.de
27.Jump up ^ Morris, Brogan (2013). Leeds International Film Festival 2013 Review – The Tenant (1976), Flickering Myth, 18. November 2013
28.Jump up ^ Gwen (2012). Hell is the people next door: The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976), L'avventura di Gwen, 12 May 2012
29.Jump up ^ "Und wieder erzählt er auf von sexueller Repression, wobei Trelkovskys Flucht in die Identität Simone Choules in Polanskis erstaunlicher, gänzlich unmanirierter Darstellung als konsequenter Endpunkt aller drei Filme erscheint. Von einer psychopathologischen Fallstudie kann hier anders als vielleicht noch bei Ekel endgültig keine Rede mehr sein: Das Individuum wird aufgelöst und es bleibt nur der Schrecken angesichts des blanken Nichts." Staben, Andreas. Der Mieter, filmstarts.de
30.Jump up ^ Hale, Norman (1976). Review: Tenant, Movietone News, no. 52, October 1976, p. 38-39
31.Jump up ^ http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-tenant-1976
32.Jump up ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enz6R_Ji0Tg
External links[edit]
The Tenant at the Internet Movie Database
The Tenant (Le Locataire) at AllMovie
The Tenant at Rotten Tomatoes


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Roman Polanski


Films directed
Knife in the Water (1962) ·
 Repulsion (1965) ·
 Cul-de-Sac (1966) ·
 The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) ·
 Rosemary's Baby (1968) ·
 Macbeth (1971) ·
 What? (1972) ·
 Chinatown (1974) ·
 The Tenant (1976) ·
 Tess (1979) ·
 Pirates (1986) ·
 Frantic (1988) ·
 Bitter Moon (1992) ·
 Death and the Maiden (1994) ·
 The Ninth Gate (1999) ·
 The Pianist (2002) ·
 Oliver Twist (2005) ·
 The Ghost Writer (2010) ·
 Carnage (2011) ·
 Venus in Fur (2013)
 

Shorts
Rower (1955) ·
 Uśmiech zębiczny (1957) ·
 Rozbijemy zabawę (1957) ·
 Morderstwo (1957) ·
 Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) ·
 Lampa (1959) ·
 When Angels Fall (1959) ·
 Le Gros et le maigre (1961) ·
 Ssaki (1962) ·
 La rivière de diamants (1964) ·
 Cinema Erotique (2007) ·
 A Therapy (2012)
 

Related topics
Roman Polanski sexual abuse case ·
 Mia and Roman ·
 Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired ·
 Sharon Tate
 



Authority control
VIAF: 174533984 ·
 GND: 4835862-9 ·
 SUDOC: 177245212 ·
 BNF: cb16460766s (data)
 

  


Categories: French films
French thriller films
French horror films
1976 films
1976 horror films
1970s thriller films
French satirical films
Supernatural horror films
Supernatural thriller films
Black comedy films
Films based on French novels
Films directed by Roman Polanski
Psychological thriller films
Films shot in Luxembourg
Paramount Pictures films
Screenplays by Gérard Brach
Transgender in film








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