Roman Polanski

Repulsion

Repulsion

Roman Polanski followed up his international breakthrough Knife in the Water with this controversial, chilling tale of psychosis. Catherine Deneuve is Carol, a fragile, frigid young beauty cracking up in her London flat when left alone by her vacationing sister. She is soon haunted by specters real and imagined, and her insanity grows to a violent, hysterical pitch. Thanks to its disturbing detail and Polanski’s adeptness at turning claustrophobic space into an emotional minefield, Repulsion is a surreal, mind-bending odyssey into personal horror, and it remains one of cinema’s most shocking psychological thrillers.

Film Info

  • United Kingdom
  • 1965
  • 105 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.85:1
  • English
  • Spine #483

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Roman Polanski, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary featuring Polanski and actress Catherine Deneuve
  • A British Horror Film (2003), a documentary on the making of Repulsion, featuring interviews with Polanski, producer Gene Gutowski, and cinematographer Gil Taylor, among others
  • A 1964 television documentary filmed on the set of Repulsion, with rare footage of Polanski and Deneuve at work
  • Original theatrical trailers
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by film scholar and curator Bill Horrigan

    New cover by Steve Chow

Purchase Options

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Roman Polanski, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary featuring Polanski and actress Catherine Deneuve
  • A British Horror Film (2003), a documentary on the making of Repulsion, featuring interviews with Polanski, producer Gene Gutowski, and cinematographer Gil Taylor, among others
  • A 1964 television documentary filmed on the set of Repulsion, with rare footage of Polanski and Deneuve at work
  • Original theatrical trailers
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by film scholar and curator Bill Horrigan

    New cover by Steve Chow
Repulsion
Cast
Catherine Deneuve
Carol
Ian Hendry
Michael
John Fraser
Colin
Yvonne Furneaux
Helen
Patrick Wymark
Landlord
Credits
Director
Roman Polanski
Screenplay
Roman Polanski
Screenplay
Gérard Brach
Adaptation and additional dialogue by
David Stone
Producer
Gene Gutowski
Cinematography
Gilbert Taylor
Editing
Alastair McIntyre
Associate producers
Robert Sterne
Associate producers
Sam Waynberg
Art direction
Seamus Flannery
Music
Chico Hamilton
Orchestrated by
Gabor Szabo
Sound
Leslie Hammond

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Catherine Deneuve

Actor

Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve

One of cinema’s great beauties, Catherine Deneuve (born Catherine Dorléac in Paris in 1943) is also an icon of the transformative cinematic 1960s. The daughter of two actors and the sister of three (one of whom, Françoise Dorléac, died in a car crash in 1967), Deneuve has acting in her blood. After her major breakthrough in Jacques Demy’s poignant 1964 musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Deneuve continued to prove she was more than just a pretty face in Roman Polanski’s thriller Repulsion and Luis Buñuel’s surreal erotic daydream Belle de jour. Those films may exploit Deneuve’s crystalline loveliness for its seeming inscrutability, but her portrayals of sexual repression in both (and her shocking embodiment of schizophrenia in the former) make for two of the most vivid performances of the era. Those roles set her on the path to becoming a full-fledged movie star, and she went on to act for François Truffaut, Alain Cavalier, Marco Ferreri, and Jean-Pierre Melville. Her performances have grown richer as she’s aged; today, she is a true grand dame of the cinema, and her compellingly enigmatic looks—once interpreted as fragile—have taken on a mature imperiousness, as evidenced in such films as Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale (in which she costars with her daughter with Marcello Mastroianni, Chiara Mastroianni).