Posted on 10/01/2009 5:51:07 AM PDT by IbJensen
Hasn't Roman Polanski suffered enough? Didn't he endure all those cool, gray, rainy Paris winters? Wasn't he forced -- well, not forced, but strongly enticed -- to subsist all those years on overpriced fare served up by haughty waiters in Michelin-starred restaurants? Didn't he survive for decades having his vacation options limited, essentially, to the grim monotony of the south of France?
I've got a better question: Shouldn't Polanski and his many apologists give us a break?
I'm a huge fan of Polanski's work. Chinatown is one of my favorite movies of all time, Rosemary's Baby is a masterpiece and he richly deserved the Oscar he won as best director for The Pianist. He's a great artist. Maybe his next film will be a prison movie.
Brilliant auteur or no, Polanski has been a fugitive from U.S. justice since 1978. And there was certainly no artistic merit in the crime he acknowledged committing: During a photo shoot at the Los Angeles home of his friend and Chinatown star Jack Nicholson, Polanski plied a 13-year-old girl with champagne and drugs and had sex with her.
That is grotesque. In general, I agree with the European view that Americans tend to be prudish and hypocritical about sex. But a grown man drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl? That's not remotely a close call. It's wrong in any moral universe -- and deserves harsher punishment than three decades of gilded exile.
Polanski went on the lam after pleading guilty to the crime. He had a deal with prosecutors under which he would essentially walk out of the courtroom a free man -- he had spent 42 days in prison undergoing psychiatric evaluation, and the arrangement was that he would be sentenced to time served.
But Polanski got wind that the judge in the case, said to be something of a publicity hound, was going to refuse to honor the plea bargain and instead impose a prison term. So the director skipped town and surfaced in France, where authorities ruled that his crime wasn't covered by extradition treaties with the United States.
He was arrested Sunday in Zurich, where he had traveled to accept an award -- and where the extradition treaty does cover his crime. Assuming that Polanski puts up a legal fight, it could be months or even years before he is sent back to the United States.
The Justice Department was right to have Polanski nabbed at the Zurich airport and should pursue the case to the end. We've waited this long; we can wait a little longer.
Polanski has dual French-Polish citizenship, and officials in Paris and Warsaw are outraged. Which makes me outraged. What's their beef? That Polanski is 76? That he makes great movies? That he only fled to escape what might well have been an unjust sentence? Sorry, mes amis, but none of this matters. If you decide to become a fugitive, you accept the risk that someday you might get caught.
Much has been made of the fact that Polanski's victim, now 45, has said that she no longer feels any anger toward him and does not want to see him jailed. But it's irrelevant what the victim thinks and feels as a grown woman. What's important is what she thought and felt at age 13, when the crime was committed.
Those who argue that there's something unjust about Polanski's arrest are essentially accepting his argument that it's possible for a 13-year-old girl, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, to ``consent'' to sex with a man in his 40s.
Or maybe his defenders are saying that drugging and raping a child is simply not such a big deal.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge deal. Even in France, it should be a big deal. This isn't about a genius who is being hounded for flouting society's hidebound conventions.
It's about a rich and powerful man who used his fame and position to assault -- in every sense, to violate -- an innocent child.
And it's about a man who ran away rather than face the consequences of his actions. Before any sentence could be imposed, he absconded like a weasel to live a princely life in France.
That's the sort of protagonist, a great director like Polanski must realize, who doesn't deserve a happy ending.
At his present age a jury should give him life in prison. This sounds fair given all the years of freedom he granted himself.
But as his Hollywood apologists would say, "It's only about sex."
He was tried and convicted for charges arising from the incident with the 13 year old. A whole new trial is in order for the charges for fleeing justice. I hope the judge locks him up and tells him it’s not really a “sentence sentence.”
hollywood apologists are sick.
No doubt Polanski has been enjoying a procession of innocent children, and his perversions have most likely continued to deteriorate. Pedophiles never have single, isolated episodes of deviance.
Alan Colmes thinks Polanski has suffered enough.
His opinion on the matter is enough for me!!!
I haven’t seen Rosemary’s Baby, but Chinatown is one of my all time faves too, and I also loved The Pianist. But, the man did what he did. His friends need to deal with it, and get over the disappointment, accept it, and let justice be served.
Alan Colmes opinion is to be valued.
Who is the idiot prosecutor who agreed to that? I heard plea bargin and I assumed that it was something like an overly lenient five years in a minimum security prison instead of a well deserved life sentence (or maybe even dance at the end of a rope if I had my way). But getting off with 42 days?
But Polanski got wind that the judge in the case, said to be something of a publicity hound, was going to refuse to honor the plea bargain and instead impose a prison term.
Publicity hound or believer in justice?
That he only fled to escape what might well have been an unjust sentence?
Anything less than a life sentence would have been getting off easy. This wasn't a case of "Officer, I didn't know she was only seventeen." He had sex with her, which was illegal no matter whether she "agreed" because of her age. He had sex with her against her will, which is rape no matter what her age was. And he drugged her which is just plain, old fashioned illegal no matter what the circumstance. Put all three together and the only sunlight he should ever see should have bar shaped shadows.
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of all the celebs who are trying to claim that his Director's Union card also acts as a rape license?
Are you gay?
Yeah well a couple of days ago I heard Michael Medved say pretty much the same thing - that he should basically get a slap on the wrist and then be allowed to continue with his “pathetic life.”
Have you seen it?
Hey Genie....ALL of your side is standing UP for him.....didn’t you get the memo??
Once a democrat always a democrat.
Except for Reagan, I can’t think of single person in public life who hasn’t regressed to their liberal roots.
Blech.
Can’t listen to Medved, or Bill Bennett for that matter. Prager another wuss.
Chinatown is definitely an all time great to me. I’m not saying The Pianist is an all time great. But for a holocaust film, it blows the doors off Schindler’s List.
Tee hee........when Alan Colmes speaks, I listen.
And know, every time, that he’s dead wrong.
He’s not a weasle - he is a pedophile. How many other victims does he have?
She's my sister! slap She's my daughter! slap She's my sister! slap She's my daughter! slap Sister! slap Daughter! slap Sister! slap Daughter! slap She's my sister AND my daughter!
"I damn near lost my nose....and I like it....I like breathing through it!"
"As long as you don't serve chicken that way."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.