"Seven Days in May" - the movie - Is being shown on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM-TV) in one hour

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jan:

I think there is a large difference between say Ridley Scott and Polanski.

Scott could make just about anything he wants to make.

And look what he comes up with.

If he lives a hundred years he will never make something like Tess. Because the beauty in that film is not there for its own sake or to support something as shallow as an android hunter story. Its to support and fulfill a tragic design, originally assigned by Hardy, translated to film by Polanski. No film by Ridley Scott has ever approached a design like that. And you can see why by listening to that silly commentary of his on Gladiator.

So personally, I think its important to sort out the personal life from the artistic vision expressed in the work. Or else we see films as personal psychodramas. Recall, films are generally joint efforts. Chinatown began as a very good script by Bob Towne. Tess ​began as a very good novel by Hardy.

Jim - I'm fully aware that films are joint creative efforts.

I note you leave the inspiration of the amphetamine poetry of Philip K Dick out of your critique of Ridley Scott.

What soul there is in Bladerunner is quite possibly largely due to Dick.

Do you want to articulate the "artistic vision" expressed in Knife in the Water or Repulsion?

I see jealousy, pain, sexual violence, betrayal - a view of the human condition as fallen, broken.

Tess, Thomas Hardy's bleak and redemption-less view of the human lot, is perfect for Polanksi. If Sharon Tate hadn't suggested Tess, I could imagine Polanski making a film of Hardy's Jude the Obscure, possibly the single most depressing novel in all English literature.

Artists make choices.

Those choices inevitably reflect their souls in some fashion or other.