Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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tausendsassa
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Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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After the DVD of Roman Polanski's The Tenant had been sitting on my shelf for 2 years, I finally watched it on a rainy evening which beautifully complemented the film's atmosphere. Is anyone here familiar with The Tenant?

I don't want to give away anything for people who still want to watch the film (which I can only highly recommend), but there was one particular scene and character that reminded me of a particular scene and character in Inland Empire. So much so that I got the feeling that either David Lynch or the actress in Inland Empire must be familiar with the tenant.

Then there's several similarities to Mulholland Drive, sometimes in visuals/effects where again I got the feeling that David Lynch has to know The Tenant. Now I am aware that D.L. is generally quoted as not being a "film buff", but I still think that The Tenant influenced him. Has D.L. ever referenced Roman Polanski's work in interviews?

Fans of David Lynch's movies - go watch The Tenant :-)
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FauxOwl
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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I love The Tenant... I'm more familiar with The Tenant than Inland Empire. (Lynch is my favorite filmmaker but IE isn't one I've watched a number of times). I'm not sure I've completely absorbed everything in Inland Empire yet. And off hand I'm not sure which scenes you are talking about. You can put it in spoiler tags I suppose if someone who hasn't seen the movie has ventured into this thread....
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tausendsassa
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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The scene I'm referring to - spoiler tags are not even required I guess - is the one where Trelkovsky gets a visit from a neighbor with a petition. Totally reminded me of Grace Zabriskie in IE.
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FauxOwl
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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Ah. That scene does stand out from IE... I'll have to watch the Tenant scene again. Anyway good recommendation... it completes a trilogy of sorts for Polanski with Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby... all three being horror/thriller films where an oppressive apartment building and the lead character's paranoia play a central role. It's probably the weirdest of the three, which appeals to me.
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tausendsassa
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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Yes, Grace Zabriskie is great in that scene.

I found one of the stranger aspects of The Tenant to be the English dubbing, when many of the Parisian characters speak in heavy American accents. Sometimes the dialogue is really hard to understand, the volume is pretty low overall and sometimes really low, even when I cranked my set up all the way. I read that some of the actors dubbed themselves in both the English and French versions, while other (French) actors' dialogue had to be dubbed by (American) English speakers. Polanski dubbed himself in English, French and Italian. The French audio is not contained on my DVD, it might sound better from a technical perspective and more fitting to, well, Paris ;-)

While I watched Rosemary's Baby many times, I yet have to see Repulsion.
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LostInTheMovies
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

Post by LostInTheMovies »

tausendsassa wrote:Now I am aware that D.L. is generally quoted as not being a "film buff", but I still think that The Tenant influenced him. Has D.L. ever referenced Roman Polanski's work in interviews?
Haven't seen The Tenant yet but the film that always throws me for a loop is Maya Deren's experimental short Meshes of the Afternoon. There are a number of images and concepts in there that are almost perfect parallels with Lost Highway and ESPECIALLY Mulholland Drive. Yet when Greg Olson asked Lynch if he'd even heard of Deren, he drew a blank.
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FauxOwl
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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Repulsion is definitely worth seeing as is Meshes of the Afternoon! I agree it would be very strange if Lynch hadn't seen it. It's hard to believe he never saw it during his time at The American Film Institute. Perhaps the name of the filmmaker slipped his mind?
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tausendsassa
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

Post by tausendsassa »

Thanks for the tip, I just watched Meshes of the Afternoon on youtube. I was waiting for the Cowboy to appear ;-)
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FauxOwl
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Re: Roman Polanski's The Tenant

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The version you saw may have been one with an updated soundtrack. Here's the original version:

http://fan.tcm.com/video/meshes-of-the- ... maya-deren

(EDIT: To be more precise, this is the original sound version, the only one Deren herself was involved in. The original version is silent, the sound version came about 10 years later.)
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