Sightlines · reception
How The Tenant was received
1976 · Roman Polanski · The Tenant on Sightlines
The arc
Booed at Cannes in 1976 and widely trashed as self-indulgent, it flopped hard — but decades of reappraisal have turned it into the beloved capstone of Polanski's 'Apartment Trilogy' alongside Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby.
What’s debated
The endless debate: is this the secret best of the Apartment Trilogy, and can anyone talk about it at all without wading into the art-versus-Polanski problem?
Its footprint
The 'if you cut off my head... me and my head or me and my body?' monologue is one of the most-quoted passages in paranoid cinema, and the image of Polanski in drag has become a screengrab staple.
Where it stands
A flop-turned-cult-object that's now a genuine Letterboxd darling — the 'actually the trilogy's best entry' pick for a certain kind of cinephile.
Did you know? Polanski cast himself in the lead role, and the film was shot by Sven Nykvist — Ingmar Bergman's legendary cinematographer.