Possession: The Screenplay

The facsimile typewritten and annotated script of the 1981 cult classic, together with the shocking never-before-published screenplay that Hollywood refused to make The 1981 film Possession, directed by Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski (1940–2016), is a no-holds-barred portrait of a disintegrating marriage. Featuring impassioned performances by Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill, the film starts as a psychodrama, develops quickly into a queasy supernatural horror film and ends up exploding all known genres. A work of rampant and sustained power, its visual daring is equaled by its rich imagination and deep spiritual conviction: a film for the bold and adventurous. Published for the first time as a facsimile of the typed script, Possession includes handwritten annotations and edits by screenwriters Zulawski and Frederic Tuten (born 1936). This typescript offers amazing insight into the creation of the cult film and is a fascinating document of collaboration between two outstanding artists. As an added bonus, this publication also includes Zulawski and Tuten's mysterious, never-before-published script for The Invisibles—a story that, though never filmed, is even darker and more complex than Possession.