The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski, 2010)

[Antoine Doinel]

The website and trailer are here.

[puxzkkx]

What a weird cast

[flyonthewall2983]

Shortest trailer I've seen.

[Zobalob]

Shortest trailer I've seen.

Isn't it though....the time just flew by

[Matt]

THR: Polanski arrest puts 'The Ghost' on hold. Well, obviously.

[Galen Young]

New trailer. ("The Ghost Writer")

[Amy Racecar]

It's playing at Berlin on Feb. 11th, with a US run set to launch on the 19th.

[tavernier]

NY Times feature on Polanski

[MichaelB]

It's closer to a superior retread of Frantic than a bona fide Polanski masterpiece, but I'd be lying if I said this wasn't one of the most shamelessly entertaining films I've seen in recent months. Ironically given recent events, I got the impression that Polanski and his cast were having a whale of a time, at least when shooting it.

This review is very accurate, and I particularly liked this bit:

Resemblances to Tony and Cherie Blair are very far from coincidental: both Harris and Polanski have clearly calculated that a libel lawsuit would make for an uproarious day in court, precisely the sort of legal appearance that Mr Blair does not care to make, in fact or fiction. This consideration adds a kind of meta-pleasure to the narrative.

Incidentally, it's still being called The Ghost in Britain, presumably because the novel was a massive bestseller. Talking of which, I've rarely seen a film by a major auteur filmmaker stick so closely to the original text - many elements that I would normally swear were Polanski interpolations turned out to be present and correct on the page.

[colinr0380]

Not having read the orignal novel, and only on the basis of having seen the trailer so far, I'm currently under the impression of there being an interesting Ninth Gate feel to the film - another devilishly powerful, corruptly decadant couple employing someone to provide them with a powerful, world dominating book to take them 'to the next level' or absolve them of their past deeds. In this case their employee has to actually fashion the content to manage perception rather than to discover the book's location in order that they may receive supernatural powers, though that just seems a slight difference! There also seems as if there will be a similar theme of trails of bodies and an ever present, though non-verbalised, threat serving to drive the unwilling protagonist on - though that could apply to many Polanski films not just The Ninth Gate.

Of course currently this is all just wild speculation on my part, but I'd be happy if this film turned out to be a combination of that and the war crime themed Death and the Maiden!

(EDIT: After reading that Guardian review has Emmanuelle Seigner's supernatural-tinged guiding character been cheekily replaced with an in car sat-nav?)

Here's another positive review from Glenn Kenny.

[tavernier]

Manohla's semi-rave

[MichaelB]

Again, that's very fair. It's not the kind of film that's going to resonate in the mind for any great length of time, but she's right to stress the pleasures of watching something by a director who so demonstrably knows what he's doing.

One of the biggest compliments I can pay it is that I checked my watch at what I thought was the halfway mark (so I could write "At about the halfway mark" in my review) and found that it was 25 minutes from the end - and it's a two-hour plus film.

[MichaelB]

It's just won the Silver Bear at Berlin, specifically for Best Director.

[domino harvey]

It's about time Polanski was acknowledged for his work in BUtterfield 8

[tartarlamb]

One of the biggest compliments I can pay it is that I checked my watch at what I thought was the halfway mark (so I could write "At about the halfway mark" in my review) and found that it was 25 minutes from the end - and it's a two-hour plus film.

Very true. When the credits started rolling, I couldn't believe I'd been in the theater for over two hours. Polanski can direct pictures like this with his eyes closed. But Its really hard to compliment this one without it sounding backhanded. I guess its the nature of the project -- this was an easy piece of work. He wasn't stretching for anything extraordinary.

It did make me wish that Polanski didn't waste so much time and energy on mannered literary adaptations like Tess and Oliver Twist. He can do good work when he plays to his strengths.

[LQ]

Me to friend, discussing our latest trips to a local theater: "I was excited to see a poster up for The Ghost Writer, I didn't think it would come anywhere near these parts!"

Friend: " ...um, are you talking about that Nicolas Cage motorcycle movie...?"

Just thought I'd share that exchange.

I am looking forward to seeing this.

[swo17]

I always assumed this film was going to be a big-screen adaptation of this. (My little brother used to be obsessed with this show.)

[Murdoch]

I always assumed this film was going to be a big-screen adaptation of this. (My little brother used to be obsessed with this show.)

If only, childhood favorite of mine.

[Dylan]

There's also a Philip Roth novel called The Ghost Writer.

[tenia]

Me to friend, discussing our latest trips to a local theater: "I was excited to see a poster up for The Ghost Writer, I didn't think it would come anywhere near these parts!"

Friend: " ...um, are you talking about that Nicolas Cage motorcycle movie...?"

Just thought I'd share that exchange.

That's the joke my 17 years old brother made. Sorry for your friend, though.

[colinr0380]

That reminds me of a 51st State/Fifty First Dates misunderstanding I once witnessed a couple of co-workers having. The time expended on figuring out which film each of them was talking about seemed far in excess of the combined worth of the films in question.

[Dualist]

Is the film going to be in first person POV like Ninth Gate? Thank you.

[MichaelB]

Is the film going to be in first person POV like Ninth Gate? Thank you.

The novel is narrated in the first person, but the film isn't - apparently the initial script draft made extensive use of voiceover, but it was subsequently eliminated. On the other hand, the story is very much told from the unnamed ghostwriter's perspective.

[John Cope]

I have to agree with the consensus here and emphasize just how much of a pleasure it is to see a film made with this level of craft, even a film which otherwise doesn't aspire to all that much. Of course the craft helps elevate and deepen the picture's themes and characterizations so that's a benefit. However, it is, in fact a double edged sword as that same high level technical skill which so adroitly and smoothly moves every scene forward also can't help but highlight the extent to which the whole film struggles against itself. There's only so far that technical polish can carry you, after all, and this is an object lesson in that.

At the end I felt this odd anticlimactic sense despite having been drawn in all along and, superficially at least, having appreciated just about every aspect to the production and the experience of seeing it. I tried to locate the source of my discontent. Finally, I realized it was that very fact alluded to above. Scenes that should have great power, like the note passing at the end and the obviously elegant final shot, wind up feeling too self consciously effective on that technical level because they are supporting so little worthwhile content; they call attention to a familiar type of genre void at the center, in other words. The muscular style defeats itself (this is similar to how I felt about Ceylan's Three Monkeys).

At some point about halfway through I thought, "Whoa! Polanski can't be this politically naive. We know he's not". And it turned out he isn't of course but the eventual resolution wasn't much of an improvement given that it simply trades off one set of lazy cliches--the popular right wing villainy of a self perpetuating war machine--for another--shrug inducing easy fatalism and the indifferent notion that everyone is evil, or at least, "in on it". At his best Polanski is always able to inflect that judgment (which isn't on its own terms unconventional for him) with layers of complexity, that cause that final conclusion to have the weight and persuasive power of a freshly wrought conviction, a disilusion that means something to us again because we can see our own weaknesses a little clearer but also comprehend better what it would mean to lose that sense of innocence. This time it seemed as though his hands were tied a bit by somewhat subpar source material. The film is more successful, richer, when it is actually less politically pointed, and more sensitive to emotional nuance, the specifics of a character's complexity rather than an ideological one. Seemingly simple relationship scenes have always been a strong suit of Polanski's. When the film becomes straight up political it starts feeling like just another conspiracy thriller (this same distinction is where it recalls Frantic).

Despite all that, I'd highly recommend it if expectations are set at a proper level. I honestly recommend it for the Wilkinson scene alone, which is just expertly pitched, or the ever-so-slightly surreal use of the green screen seaside backgrounds that aid the overall mood so much, or Williams' searing Kristin Scott Thomas style performance, or Mcgregor's very welcome solid straight man role, etc. On and on. It's an abundance of well honed, precision perfected presents piled under a colorful but hollowed out effigy.

[John Cope]

If you will all indulge me a bit I'm going to have to amend the above just slightly. Because while I still feel that the non-productive tensions at the heart of the narrartive proper are a genuine problem I have now come to more fully appreciate the film's finer qualities.

I was drawn back to see this one again primarily due to my own ambivalent responses the first time around. I wanted to shore up those first fleeting reflections. And while I wouldn't categorize the experience of seeing it again as like unto the bolt-from-the-blue style of realization that dawned upon me watching There Will Be Blood the second time, I will say that the additional dimensions I picked up on here effectively complicate and expand Polanski's film.

Well, okay, first off I can't believe my own shortsightedness in respect to the key to this new understanding. It's all up front really with the underlying interest in narrative transparency foregrounded: it is called The Ghost Writer after all! McGregor's character functions as a typical audience proxy but also as a representative of or key to a state of being. He allows for a recognition of the power games of the players, yes, but also a broader contextual sense of the game they are playing as one amongst many possible imaginative narratives of self identity and being in general, something the savviest amongst these players are determinedly unaware of (the real reason for the look on Williams' face at the end). His scene with Wilkinson then comes across less as just another confrontation with a secret power handler and more as an observation of a kind of disquiet upon Wilkinson himself, confronted as he is by a lowly piece of his larger design having crossed through the wall of separation in the narrative he has labored to construct and maintain (this recalls one or two of Dennis Potter's early works). This instability is only accessible if we see the scene from his vantage point and not that of McGregor.

And the ending itself evidences further complex properties than what I initially gave it credit for. I was always troubled by McGregor's actions here as they felt false, an awkaward way to force the dramatic point: would he really do this, in other words knowing what he knows by this point? I came to think of it as a suicidal action but this still didn't make enough sense. Then I realized that the note passing, along with his literally walking out of the frame at the end are his statement to to the power players on the nature of their game, the ultimate validity of it. He chooses to walk out of the frame and away from it because he can, he is able to recognize it for what it is. What we are meant to presume happens to him is a means to definitively end his participation in this narrative on their terms; an aggressive gesture purely for its own sake, an attempt to wrest back control. It is implied to be an irrelevant and impotent action as it can no longer even be represented. The pages blown by the wind are less an indication of fatalism and pointlessness than a declaration of freedom. The alternate claim, of course, is that The Ghost has been rendered a ghost indeed by the dominant power structure, his defiance just another easily quelled soon to be negligible eruption; for those in charge cannot abide the absolute validity of their structuring narrative of power and intrigue questioned as definitive. Either way he is dispersed into an atmosphere of possibility, this escape from one dominant order by no means denying the establishment of another (in this case the emphases on the status of narrative as narrative).

So, all the troubles I had with the film's seeming political heavy handedness can be put down to a distraction with the nature of the form or at least they can be seen as a secondary concern. I still think the meta aspect of all this is perilously weighted down by the need to address the hurtling forward of plot. The highlighting of typical plot mechanics of such thrillers, with gears exposed and turning, creates an uneven balance, an awkward push-pull effect even when one is inclined to give Polanski the benefit of the doubt. The ending, for instance, as I see it now never manages the feat of gelling with the surface reality. If we are to view it as a profound observance of The Ghost's self-assertion and escape it is not quite existing in the same world of action and reaction as the dramatic narrative and this is where the problems with the source material come back to the fore.

Still, the pay off is rich and satisfying from such a compounded reading and even Polanski's minor details start to seem all the more vital and vibrant in their smallness. The way he handles the marginal characters of the cook and the gardener at Brosnan's estate, for instance, not letting them be merely incidental figures but attentively contributing the nuances of a lived, fully filled out, environment. And, conversely, the way he handles the scene of McGregor chased by the two men onto the ferry. On a second viewing I appreciated this much more. In any other picture of this sort we would get close-ups of the villains and, more often than not, they would be aesthetically fetishized one way or the other (which actually could be interesting in the right hands). But here they are barely even seen, always at a distance, as who they are is utterly secondary to what they represent for McGregor. This kind of sensitivity to presentation of detail is what evidences Polanski's greatness.