How to Win an Oscar for “Attack of the Crab Monsters”: The Extraordinary Career of Roger Corman 

How to Win an Oscar for “Attack of the Crab Monsters”: The Extraordinary Career of Roger Corman  – lecture by Dr. Paweł Aleksandrowicz

Roger Corman’s impact on the history of American cinema is immeasurable. He directed 50 films and produced more than 400 others, helping to shape such exploitation subgenres as biker films and women-in-prison films. Under his tutelage, the careers of such major figures as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Robert de Niro, and Jack Nicholson began to take shape. Corman produced low-budget B-movies while also distributing international art-house cinema in the United States, giving American audiences the chance to discover the work of Kurosawa, Fellini, and Bergman.

Critics often mocked the rough edges of his films, yet Corman was later honored with an Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement, while the Library of Congress selected “The Fall of the House of Usher” for inclusion in the National Film Registry, a pantheon of the most significant films in American history. This lecture will trace Corman’s richly contradictory career, from his early work as a director through his later roles as a producer and distributor, and explore the enduring influence he has had on cinema to this day.

The lecture will also bring to life some of the many anecdotes from Corman’s remarkable career as a master of low-budget filmmaking: how, in the name of economy, one actor was made to play four different roles in a single film; how Corman tore pages from a screenplay to ensure he could finish a production on schedule; how he managed to make an entire film in just three days; and the story behind the one and only film that failed to turn a profit.

Paweł Aleksandrowicz holds a PhD in Film Studies. His dissertation focused on the films of Roger Corman and explored the question of whether Corman was merely a maker of low-budget cinema or also a genuinely accomplished artist. Paweł currently lectures at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, where he teaches film translation. 

October 25 | 2:30 PM | Warsaw | Kinoteka | Screen 2

Free admission.

Lecture in Polish.