Roman Polanski was born in Paris on August 18, 1933. At the age of three, two years before World War II began, his parents moved back to their native Poland. Within a couple of years, both of Polanski's parents were in Nazis concentration camps. After escaping the ghetto, Polanski spent the rest of the war roaming around Poland - finding shelter with Catholic families when he could. After the war, he was reunited with his father. His mother died in the concentration camp. His father wanted him to go to technical school and learn a trade. But Polanski had other ideas in mind. During the war, he found his escape through films. Because the theaters only showed German films during the war, most nationals refused to go, but Polanski went as often as he could. He even took up acting taking small parts in films, on stage, and on radio shows. In 1954, he was accepted into the Lodz Film School as part of their five year program. A year later, he made his first film.
As a kid, Polanski was attacked and almost killed by a man that offered to sell him a bike at a very low price if Polanski would agree to meet him in a nearby bunker to make the transaction. Based on this event in his life, Rower (The Bicycle) is the story of a young man who is attacked in a bunker. Unfortunately, his first student film was never completed as only half the film ever came back from the developers. The other half was lost. As with most of his films, he wrote, directed, and starred in this one.
Two years later, Polanski completed his first film. For a film that is only one minute long, it created a lot of controversy due to its violent content. Morderstwo (Murderer) depicts a man who sneaks into a room and stabs a sleeping man many times. He then sneaks back out of the room. The murderer's face is never seen as he is only shown from the waist down.
