Roman Polanski and Other Film Directors Who Act
by Andre Soares
Via Time Out - "They Came from Behind the Camera":
"Oddest of all [the weird stuff found in Rush Hour 3], however, is the spectacle of Roman Polanski – director of Knife in the Water, Repulsion and The Pianist – dressed as a French police chief, snapping on a latex glove and telling our heroes to assume the position. ‘Welcome to Paris,’ he smiles, finger at the ready.
"While Polanski might show chutzpah in taking a role solely defined by questionable sexual practices and law enforcement, his participation cannot be said to show great aesthetic judgement. But just as he is far from the first director to take an acting gig in another man’s film, he is far from the first to take a bad one. Not that its Polanski’s first time in front of the camera: he held his own against Gerard Depardieu in the 1994 two-hander A Pure Formality and made an unforgettable cameo in his own Chinatown, as the hood who whips out a flick-knife to ventilate Jack Nicholson’s nose. That film also had a superb role for a veteran filmmaker: its supremely hateful prime mover, Noah Cross, was marvellously played by John Huston, who by then had directed some three dozen features, including The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen and The Misfits."
The Time Out article lists several other directors who have appeared in front of the camera — a few of those to great effect (Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, Erich von Stroheim in La Grande illusion and Sunset Blvd.).
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