page_title: Roman Polanski
section_title: The Ghost Writer (2010)
hierarchical_section_title: Roman Polanski / Film director / 2010s / The Ghost Writer (2010)
caption_attribution_description: English: Roman Polanski and Emmanuelle Seigner at the César awards ceremony Français&#160;: Roman Polanski et Emmanuelle Seigner à la cérémonie des César du cinéma
context_page_description: Roman Polański is a Polish-French film director, producer, writer, and actor. Since 1978, Polanski has been a fugitive from the U.S. criminal justice system; he fled the country while awaiting sentencing on five criminal charges, including rape.
  His Polish-Jewish parents moved the family back from Paris to Kraków in 1937. Two years later, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany starting World War II and the Polanskis found themselves trapped in the Kraków Ghetto. After his mother and father were taken in raids, Polanski spent his formative years in foster homes under an adopted identity, trying to survive the Holocaust.
  Polanski's first feature-length film, Knife in the Water, was made in Poland and was nominated for a United States Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He has since received five more Oscar nominations, along with two BAFTAs, four Césars, a Golden Globe Award and the Palme d'Or of the Cannes Film Festival in France. In the United Kingdom he directed three films, beginning with Repulsion. In 1968, he moved to the United States and cemented his status by directing the horror film Rosemary's Baby.
context_section_description: The Ghost Writer, a thriller focusing on a ghostwriter working on the memoirs of a character based loosely on former British prime minister Tony Blair, swept the European Film Awards in 2010, winning six awards, including best movie, director, actor and screenplay. When it premiered at the 60th Berlinale in February 2010, Polanski won a Silver Bear for Best Director, and in February 2011, it won four César Awards, France's version of the Academy Awards.
  The film is based on a novel by British writer Robert Harris. Harris and Polanski had previously worked for many months on a film of Harris's earlier novel Pompeii, a novel that was actually inspired by Polanski's Chinatown. They had completed a script for Pompeii and were nearing production when the film was cancelled due to a looming actors' strike in September 2007.  After that film fell apart, they moved on to Harris's novel, The Ghost, and adapted it for the screen together.
  The cast includes Ewan McGregor as the writer and Pierce Brosnan as former British Prime Minister Adam Lang. The film was shot on locations in Germany.
  In the United States, film critic Roger Ebert included it in his top 10 pick for 2010, and states that "this movie is the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller. Smooth, calm, confident, it builds suspense instead of depending on shock and action." Co-star Ewan McGregor agreed, having said about Polanski that "he's a legend ... I've never examined a director and the way that they work so much before. He's brilliant, just brilliant, and absolutely warrants his reputation as a great director."
caption: Roman Polanski and Emmanuelle Seigner at the César Awards in 2011
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