1. Overview
"The Ghost Writer", also known as "The Ghost", is a 2010 movie directed by Roman Polanski, with a screenplay by Polanski and Robert Harris, based on Harris's novel of the same name. Set in the United States, Europe, and Northern Africa, the movie is a political thriller that revolves around contemporary and international events. It was chosen to open the 60th Berlin International Film Festival and won the Silver Bear for Best Director award from that festival. It's also worth noting that this was the last film Polanski completed before his arrest in 2009. "The Ghost Writer" opened to critical acclaim, especially for Polanski's direction. The leading actor, Ewan McGregor, was awarded the Goya Award for Best Actor. The story of "The Ghost Writer" is about a ghost writer that, at the start of the movie, accepts an offer to complete the memoirs of former British prime minister Adam Lang, which his predecessor, Mike McAra, left incomplete or forever bound to the grave. As "the Ghost" researches for his writing processes, everybody would be better off for him to stop doing so, as he discovers secrets together with the lives of people that spin around them. It's a story that, in an especially intense way, deals with power, reality, truth, consequences, and persona. Considered by some as an alarm to what can be years ahead of its time, "The Ghost Writer" shows us a world which remains strong even when it should have shaded and abandoned its old shell.
1.1. Plot summary
The Ghost Writer is a political thriller by Roman Polanski in 2010 based on Robert Harris's novel The Ghost. A forgotten ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) about to end his career accepts the difficult role of finishing the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan), but that decision will put him in a world of dangerous political games. Before he can finish his script, the latter gets involved in a state scandal when he is accused of having been the CIA's intelligence before pushing through a militarily contaminated agreement with them. Shortly thereafter, when he is about to write another part of the script, his predecessor and former partner is murdered. The plot fools the viewer with visual and illustrative humor. The situations are always slightly exaggerated while maintaining the perfect dose of verisimilitude. It hits the nail on the head by satirizing Tony Blair in the skin of Adam Lang. Each political intervention of the British Prime Minister is filled with real news, says the creator and is capable of putting online thousands of obstacles come from the United States Government. It manifests itself directly against the CIA operation, a geopolitical intrigue that goes beyond truth and lies. In fact, Lang's book H2O tells how the former British President, to protect his own country, had to give in to US interests sending the Polish ex-President Roman Polanski, a US national to allow one of the tanks to pass through the zone where the Reichstag's ancestors were to find out the truth.
1.2. Cast and crew
Production year: 2010. Current director: Roman Polanski. Frances Ford Coppola directed Polanski in "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" in 1988; thirty years later, he directs him in one of his suspense classics. Polanski came back with this dark story of David Kepesh and the woman he falls in love with. Sigourney Weaver plays Patricia (a rich widow) and is the mother of the protagonist in this adaptation of the novel by Philip Roth. The atmosphere of the film is half Gothic and half thriller. Naomi Watts plays the other central character, Consuela Castillo. She is a much younger graduate student and the relationship with the teacher ends up marking the lives of both. Director Roman Polanski. Well, this must be a very scary moment for him. Polanski is a master of terror (as are some of his compatriots - Jacques Tourneur and Jacques Rivette). Yes, Polanski declares: "It won't be a bloodbath." Dr. Eliot Mantle - as the twins have been baptized - is a well-known philosopher who, with his successful brother, separates the ladies. Mantle A (Jeremy Irons) conquers them and educates them in things. Mantle B (Irons, too) entertains them and subdues them. Everything is fine until Mantle A conquers a very special lady, Claire (Geneviève Bujold), who will challenge Jeremy Irons' truths. David Cronenberg adapts this novel and signs the direction of this very special film.
2. Themes and motifs
The Ghost Writer has a very contemporary story packaging of a Cold War thriller. The temperature of the narrative is further increased by the swift unfolding of the plot, a plentitude of twists and turns, and a resolution that occurs on a stormy island. These tactics are consistent with the thriller genre, but form merely the surface of The Ghost Writer. This paper reads the film critically to reveal greater import simmering beneath those superficial layers. We argue that The Ghost Writer broaches the possibilities of disclosure and reading, the text and its materiality, and relations between readers of texts. The Ghost Writer may well be Polanski's 'meatiest' film in the way it meditates on systems of power and control. The Ghost Writer deploys motifs of writing, reading, and disclosure to construct a parable about how contemporary subjectivities, which distinguishes genres and texts, may rise to emancipate themselves from such systems. The Ghost Writer presents an exploration of relations between texts and the histories at once obscured and objectified through them, as well as indications of the control implications of such relations. Such implications, if explored, expose but amplify the project of emancipation evidenced in the relations between texts and subjects in the film.
2.1. Identity and duality
The concept of identity is present during the entire movie. One of the main visual elements is the use of reflections (mirrors, glasses) to show that the viewer is also seen and to create a feeling of duality. The identity of the ghost-writer refers to the fact that he doesn't have a proper name throughout the movie. He is chosen for this special task because he talks, thinks, and acts like Lang, and he is he, after a fashion. He has to write in the first person, which is especially difficult for a ghost-writer that is contributing to the autobiography, a very private genre. The identity of John Maddox corresponds to his previous life. He chooses John as his name in exile and polishes his literary skills to write academic papers on British subjects. But this is still only a role he can play well. In reality, he is a ruthless and cruel Charles Foster Tyne, and he, quite literally, kills. The ghost-writer's task is to complete Caroline's first draft of the Brit's autobiography. They can't choose a ghost-writer with a well-known reputation; hence, they can't be sure the book will be published. As such, Baazler convinces Clay to hire a British ghost-writer without any special skills that will make him recognizable and give The Brit away. Baazler starts to look for a ghost-writer that becomes possible to eliminate. Lang is involved in this radical decision as he is shown leafing through a photo album; "B" is linked to Todd, an American actor and former president of the States. Todd looks a lot like the ghost-writer. Todd Pasch becomes one of the two sides: the reader, the Shape, the Writer. He is the other side: the Writer, the Mover. The younger Todd Pasch talks about how Todd, older, he sees this picture, a mirror of his personal delineation.
2.2. Political corruption
Lang, claiming to speak for himself and many taken-for-fools, only reveals his naivete. Of course, as astutely observed by Ann Dowd in the film, Lang was involved in the whole paper editor, sometimes intimately enough. Knowing them only by the by-line they created, he acted as an important intermediary between the CIA and the British government, as a not-so-transparent paragraph from the Justice report shows. As Lang admits in the film, he knew perfectly well what the thesis was, and his credited chapter was his share of the profits. A man full of good intentions, he soon became one of their many collaborators. They knew just what to say, praise his groundbreaking research, and whisper that characteristic L-shaped smile they all seem to share – and that slithered Pollard's scar. During those years, from being accused of communist leanings, Lang became the CIA's faithful publicist, the man who would explain to the media that this agency is not an unemployment center for fascists. It is some sort of politicized CIA they have been longing for: why do you suppose they took it out of the dustbins and launched it again? The maintaining of a fiction appears to be in their marrow: fake addresses and false biographies. They can sell what is truly the exception of the eccentrics on their staff – unavoidable misfits such as Petra Cerno and Belber. Lang's is best told these entry-level fictions, positing that CIA officers serve the central democratic ideals of a strong nation, a secure nation based on suppositions such as equality of opportunity and on the unwavering belief in certain human ethical standards. The gap between practice and high principles is, well, inherent in the craft of intelligence. In that still-unfortunate manual of the CIA, it reads quite simply: the difficulty of our mission of keeping horrors of townspeople's ignorance.
3. Analysis and reception
The movie has at its foundation a literary detective genre where the characters follow a trail that leads them to a secret and obscure intelligence network based on the character Adam. The main difference between this film and others of the genre resides in the fact that the characters will find out a truth that the author of the secret, Emmett, chooses to ignore, as he is not aware of the implications of the texts he has written, but quickly understands the danger that may follow the revelation of their content. In general, the audience's reception of the film has been good, primarily in the academic area. The analysis, comments, and opinions point to positive aspects as well as several aspects of A Ghost Writer that are not so easily classified. As concepts, the more stated aspects are those that refer to Polanski's way of making the film, utilizing film techniques, especially with the camera, which has enticed several concepts that are to some point stock phrases. The film makes good use of the camera, although it is an element that is taken for granted as it is by some of the movie's production process. The aesthetic choice for the camera's movements and the locations, the choice of costumes, the sceneries, and the spatial organization of the characters' performance, as well as the plethora of objects that are classified by their colors and lights often make reference or lead to the universe of conspiracies and manipulations. Other issues related to the film are also related to how it is recorded, where Polanski's expertise in the transfer of the narrative to images is noted, as he leads the film by way of a subjective and biased voice. The main characters incarnate a story that is very critical of them, and this is the dominant feature in almost all the critics and analyses given to The Ghost Writer. They emphasize and highlight the hypocrisy present in the film and found in several characters, like the very influential ones who are not even close to the wealthy protagonist's intelligence.
3.1. Critical response
The Ghost Writer premiered in Berlin in 2010, and most critics and audience simply loved the film. In the United States, it was, for example, named the best political thriller in decades. A number of things were especially singled out, such as Polanski's directing, the screenplay (including maybe above all political intrigue, irony, and dark humor), and photography. Some critics also underlined that the film works well both as a political thriller and as a comedy. Polanski's directing and Harris' and McGregor's acting were particularly emphasized as being of high quality. In the second half of the article, however, it has been our ambition to discuss The Ghost Writer on a more general basis, as it was presented in this book, and to link the film to the other Polanski films that we have discussed. In 2010, The Ghost Writer won, among other awards, the European Silver Ribbon for Best Director. It was a nominee for, among other things, the Golden Berlin Bear for Best Film and highly placed on lists such as Empire Magazine's best films of the year. Another invitation for Polanski's screenplay was for the BAFTA film awards. The Ghost Writer, we wrote, is a thriller that doesn't try to educate or improve its audience. It operates simply in a positive way, including the screenplay, Marco Müller stated a few days before the premiere. Also, the photography by Pawel Edelman was appreciated. Polanski's use of lighting and landscape is painterly and leads us to think about painters such as Bosch, whom he discussed in essence in his essay "The Cinema of Cruelty: A Beast of Prey" and Fowler's "Money" that at the last minute was published in 1968.
3.2. Awards and nominations
The film was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. It was selected as one of the 10 best films of the year by the National Board of Review and the International Federation of Film Critics. It was also included in the top 10 films of the year by Salon.com, the New York Post, the Village Voice, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Star Tribune. It picked up two awards at the European Film Awards: Polanski and Harris adapted the screenplay for an award for Screenwriter, and the film also won the European Discovery Award for Producer. The Ghost Writer was recognized with 7 nominations for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards and won for Best Director and Outstanding British Film. It was also nominated for 3 European Film Awards, 3 Golden Globe Awards, and 2 Satellite Awards. The film received the David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film, and Polanski was nominated for Best European Film. The Ghost Writer was also in the first round of the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Film Editing. Harris and Polanski received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was also recognized with the Empire Awards' special awards.
