The legendary director Roman Polanski was arrested Saturday in Switzerland, as he arrived to receive an award at the Zurich Film Festival. After hiding out in France for the last 30 years, he now faces extradition to the United States, where he would finally be forced to face the consequences of the 1977 charges against him for raping, sodomizing, and drugging a 13-year-old girl.
The French are furious. (So are a few Huffington Post bloggers, I might add.) This fury is infuriating, but not really all that surprising. The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has been railing against the Swiss for two days, and Nicolas Sarkozy wants "a rapid resolution to the situation which would allow Roman Polanski to rejoin his family as quickly as possible." The intrepid French daily Le Monde has described Polanski's crime as an affaire de moeurs--a moral transgression, or sexual misconduct. That does sound more poetic than rape.
French officials are pissed for two reasons. Roman Polanski is a French citizen, and two other countries have teamed up to wrench him from his home and drag him into another legal system. The Americans would not be thrilled if France and Italy joined forces to throw Steven Spielberg in jail for speeding along the Riviera. Hillary Clinton would be all over that.
The second reason the French, as well as commentators and film buffs the world over, are upset is that Polanski's drugging and rape of a 13-year old girl just doesn't seem like that big a deal to them. Or, even worse, it is somehow excusable because of earlier traumas in his life. Frédéric Mitterrand, the culture and communications minister and nephew of the beloved former president François Mitterrand, has announced that he "greatly regrets that Mr. Polanski has had yet another difficulty added to an already turbulent existence." CNN quoted Polanski's friend, the photographer Otto Weisser, as saying, "He's a brilliant guy and he made a little mistake 32 years ago -- what a shame for Switzerland."
Polanski has certainly experienced terrible tragedy. Raised in the Warsaw ghetto, his mother was killed in a concentration camp during World War II. Shortly after his success with the film Rosemary's Baby, his gorgeous, pregnant young wife Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson Family. But if Polanski were a nobody--an anonymous survivor of the Holocaust or a sad widower in middle America, no defense attorney would be able to get him off on prior suffering. It's not an excuse, legally or morally, and Polanski should be extradited. Rape is rape, regardless of your level of fame, privilege, or even pain. And even if you make great movies, you shouldn't be able to feed drugs to adolescent girls and get away with it.
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I happen to love his work. I feel badly about his past. But he is not above the law.
The French have no reason to be upset. They did not turn Polansky over b/c they had no agreement with the US which would have required them to. They protected their citizen and he would have been out of reach in France if he had remained there. He traveled to another jurisdiction, and those countries (Switzerland and US) acted according to their agreement and international law. How is it anyone's fault that Polanski decided to leave the jurisdiction that gave him refuge?
Even if said woman no longer wants a prosecution? This isn't about violence against women, or justice. It is about revenge and the desire of a self-obsessed legal system to "get their man". If I thought otherwise, I would support this action. The reality is that this same system continually gives a pass to all manner of horrors domestically. No, this is about certain people not being able to stand that Polanski had a career. The victim has been compensated, she wants to move on. What will be served by incarcerating him now?
There are actually two crimes here. The original rape, and Polanski's flight from justice.
Thank you Anna Wainwright, for writing a lucid, well-reasoned article on this debacle. The clarity and coherence of your blog is a breath of fresh air !!
Really disappointed in some HuffPo bloggers.
Maybe if he'd just raped a child, then he would have been out just in time to get this years NBA season started. Being a Holocaust survivor is no excuse for being a child rapist. During the mid nineties, many bosnians escaped the horrors of what was going on in Eastern Europe and over a million have settled in the United States, especially the Midwest. Should they be able to rape and pillage, because of what they experienced during the war?
It's not, he's not great, he's mediocre. He's not Kubrick or Spielberg or Hitchcock. However if any of those great directors had done, what Roman has done, I would feel the same way.
I survived Catholic schools, and Catholic priest.
Can I go rape a child now?
If you choose to take everything literally.
Many catholics have survived horrendous abuse at the hands of priests. Many have commited suicide unable to deal with the trauma. It's not about the Holocaust, it's about a traumatic event, and whether it gives you the right to go on and traumatize others.
Your name speaks for itself.
I love how my posts drive you crazy.
tata
Maybe it seems dumb to you. But I bet it doesn't seem as dumb to little boys and girls who were terrorized and sodomized by pedophile priests.
All of that is meaningless however if you consider two things. One, picture your 13 year old daughter alone with a 44 year old man. He lures her, drugs her, has sex with her and sodomizes her...all against her will. Secondly, the man who did this confesses to doing it. Now are you telling me all those excuses would cause you to let this man walk if this was your daughter? If that's the case, please don't have kids or rethink your priorities. Hmm... no more Polanski movies vs. bringing my child's rapist to justice. Tough call.