Daily Inspiration Quote by Roman Polanski

Polanski frames realism as a moral obligation, but he’s also making a director’s power play: if the image doesn’t wound, it’s a lie. The argument flips a common complaint about screen violence. The “obscene” thing isn’t blood; it’s comfort. By insisting that sanitizing violence is “immoral and harmful,” he treats style as ethics. A prettified assault becomes propaganda, training audiences to accept brutality without consequences. Upsetting people, in this logic, is a kind of public service.

It works because it collapses two taboos into one: violence and obscenity. Obscenity is usually coded as sex, not harm, yet Polanski reroutes the charge toward violence that’s made palatable. The provocation isn’t just rhetorical; it’s a manifesto for a cinema that refuses catharsis. Realistic violence doesn’t let you admire the choreography. It makes you sit with the damage, the mess, the aftermath. That’s a direct line to the bleak, destabilizing effect of films like Chinatown and The Pianist, where violation isn’t a plot point so much as an atmosphere.

The subtext is thornier given Polanski’s biography. When the speaker’s life is shadowed by real-world harm, the claim that the moral path is to “show it the way it is” starts to sound like preemptive absolution: don’t blame the filmmaker for what disturbs you; blame reality. It’s a persuasive defense of uncomfortable art, and also a reminder that “realism” is never neutral. It’s a choice about where to point the camera, how long to linger, and whose pain becomes legible.