Roman Polanski on The Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington: Christmas 2009: We Know Who's Been Naughty... Nice Is a Little Harder to Find

2009-12-23T16:56:56Z

A recent CNN poll found that during this economically troubled holiday season 68 percent of Americans are buying gifts that their friends and family need, compared to 27 percent who are buying gifts they think they would enjoy.

As for me, as part of my annual tradition of getting gifts for my favorite -- and not so favorite -- public figures, I'm going for the middle ground, choosing gifts they need... and that I think you might enjoy.

Here's this year's list:

Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Mitch McConnell and the other congressional obstructionists: a DVD of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, so they can see the proper use of a filibuster -- to fight corruption, not promote it.

Health insurance and drug company lobbyists: Nothing -- they're getting enough from the Senate and the White House this Christmas.

Lou Dobbs: Just a simple "Feliz Navidad."

Mark Sanford and Tiger Woods: Love-sick emails that self-destruct 60 seconds after you send them. "Soul mates" they are actually married too.

Jenny Sanford and Elin Nordegren: Husbands they can trust. An at-home HIV test. The best divorce lawyer money can buy.

Joe Wilson, Kanye West, and Serena Williams: Impulse control.

Meghan McCain: More attention for her fabulous cleaving takes (Karl Rove is a "creepy" Twitter follower; Dick Cheney should "go away"), and less attention for her fabulous cleavage.

Taylor Swift: a Harry Winston-designed mace holder for her next awards show meet-up with Kanye West.

Tareq and Michaele Salahi: a Photoshop class -- it's a much less obnoxious way to get a picture of yourself with Obama and Biden.

Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger: the pilot's seat on my next flight. And the next one. And the next one...

The Iranian people: a green uprising that turns into a velvet revolution.

The American people: Real health care reform (Medicare For All).

Carrie Prejean: New breast implants, so she can give back the ones the Miss California pageant bought for her.

Roman Polanski: a cellmate who also believes that plying someone with champagne and a Quaalude and anally penetrating them is "making love."

Larry Summers: a Goldman Sachs pension -- after all, he's earned it.

Richard and Mayumi Heene: Parenting classes. Behind bars.

Falcon Heene: Classmates who've never watched TV.

David from "David After the Dentist": Classmates who've never watched YouTube.

All the cable anchors who spent endless hours expressing their deep concern for Balloon Boy: the names of some of the 13 million children living in poverty in this country who desperately need their concern and attention, and some time in the media spotlight.

Erin Andrews: a lifetime supply of masking tape. And a plush hotel robe -- floor-length.

Orly Taitz: Someone to tell her that her 15 minutes expired months ago.

The cast of Jersey Shore: a copy of "Dummies for Dummies." Vasectomies for the guys and a lifetime supply of birth control pills for the girls.

Members of the GOP: an Xbox 360. They might as well occupy themselves with something, since they've decided to do nothing in Congress.

Lady Gaga: Guy Ritchie -- She's already stolen everything else that used to belong to Madonna.

The recipients of the 3.9 million foreclosure notices sent to homeowners this year: a cramdown amendment that isn't killed by banking lobbyists.

Goldman Sachs: $23 billion of taxpayers' money. Oops, sorry -- that's what we gave them last year.

That's my list. Now it's your turn to play Santa. Who's been naughty and who's been nice? Please post your gift ideas for your favorite -- and not so favorite -- public figures in the comments section and we'll collect the best ones and unwrap them on Christmas Day.

Court Rejects Polanski Move To Have Case Dismissed

2009-12-21T17:56:44Z

LOS ANGELES — In a case that has polarized public passions, director Roman Polanski did not win his freedom Monday for a 32-year-old sex offense, but an appeals court said in a strongly worded opinion there was probable judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in his case.

The opinion criticized Polanski for fleeing to his native France in 1978 but suggested two legal options that could lead to his freedom now – file a motion to be sentenced in absentia, or drop his extradition fight, return to the United States and be sentenced in person, most likely not resulting in additional jail time.

Swiss: Polanski Extradition Decision In Early 2010

2009-12-16T11:01:35Z

GENEVA — Swiss authorities say they will decide early next year on whether to extradite director Roman Polanski to the United States.

Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli says officials are still studying a U.S. extradition request and an argument by Polanski's lawyers against him being handed over to authorities in Los Angeles for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

Diane Dimond: Let's Talk About Crime -- Not Run From It

2009-12-14T12:27:59Z

It's time again to give you a say on what you read in this space. Your recent letters have ranged from praise to rage - on crime and justice topics as diverse as prison reform, child molesters and crime statistics. Some of you dislike this column so much you can't wait to read it every week just so you can write me with a complaint.

I like that.

If my words do nothing more than open your mind about important national topics then I've done my job. It doesn't matter if you agree with me or not. It's social enlightenment and dialogue I'm after.

There was much reaction to the column, "Is Rape Okay With You?" which revealed that each year 60,000 prisoners are sexually attacked either by another inmate or a guard.

Ralph Logan, a retired state prison warden said, "You are right on the money ... the general public would be shocked at some of the brutality that goes on in our prisons. The strong prey on the weak and there are times officers know what's going on but don't want to be responsible to report it."

Kathleen Koehler wrote, "Society's responsibility does not end with sending one to prison. To ignore abuses, or the possibility thereof, is enabling and insuring that it will happen."

But no letter was more gut wrenching on this topic than the one from Charlie (last name withheld) who told me in his extended family there are six victims of sexual assault. He calls it an epidemic we, as a society, are afraid to effectively address and he added, "I'm most disturbed by comedians and filmmakers who joke about bending over to pick up the soap in prison. It's not a joke. We should be past that."

I agree, Charlie.

Enough of the positive feedback, let's get to the down and dirty.

Reader Thomas Williams claims I bring "an unwelcome slug of crime drama" to his newspaper. Williams took great exception with the column I wrote called "The Crime Clock and You" disseminating annual crime statistics released by the National Center for Victims of Crime. The stats give citizens the mathematical likelihood of one falling victim to a violent crime. Williams believes my work, "...revolves around ginning up fear over violent crime, whether it's in her column or her previous work on Hard Copy and other television shows."

Wait, let me get this straight - discussing annual crime statistics amounts to "ginning up fear?" The experience (and thick skin) I've gained working on various television programs taught me a major life lesson: If we don't try to understand and deal with the dark side of life it will come back to haunt us. If we don't probe, say, the inner workings of a serial killer's mind or what happens later in life to an abused child or how we can make our justice system better then we'll pay the price down the road. Discussing crime and its impact on society can, in my opinion, only make us safer.

About the column on the 175 year prison system given to faux preacher Tony Alamo for taking children as young as eight as his "brides," reader Ron Herman wondered what I meant when I wrote that authorities have been reticent in the past to charge religious leaders. "I am confused by your statement that, 'the doctrine of separation of church and state caused authorities to shy away.'"

Simply put, prosecutors have often passed on such cases believing they are too difficult to win. The defendants always claim they are above state authority due to the Separation Doctrine. I'm glad to say that's changing as we see from cases like Alamo's, the Yearning for Zion Ranch arrests and the recent conviction of Mormon separatist Warren Jeffs.

On my rant about it being high time film director Roman Polanski faced justice for having had sex with a 13 year old I heard from Patrick Riley. "If the case is prosecuted it should be done behind closed doors with the press kept out so that it doesn't become OJ Simpson revisited and the girl can tell all the embarrassing details without having (it) splattered all over the newspapers and TV."

Being a champion of the free flow of information as a way to true enlightenment I can't agree.

And, finally, Diane Layden has written yet again to decry my use of a sexist term. I referred to government officials as "city fathers". She implores me to inspire more young women to civil service by switching to the gender neutral term "city leaders." Point taken.

To head off another scolding I'll admit now I recently used the term "bail bondsmen" referring to those who help suspects get out of jail. I'll say I'm sorry in advance because I just don't think the term "bail bondsperson" has the same ring to it.

'Twilight' Studio To Distribute New Polanski Film

2009-12-14T09:00:47Z

NEW YORK — Summit Entertainment, the distributor of the "Twilight" films, has picked up Roman Polanski's latest movie.

Summit says it will distribute Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" in North America. The film is expected to be released in the first half of 2010.

Polanski Hearing In Sex Case Ends Without Ruling

2009-12-10T15:40:09Z

LOS ANGELES — Lawyers for Roman Polanski and his victim in a 32-year-old case joined forces Thursday to ask an appeals court to dismiss a sexual misconduct charge against the director in the interest of justice.

It was a surprise move in a lively hearing where appellate justices peppered lawyers and a prosecutor with pointed questions, often interrupting their arguments to raise new issues.

Jeff Norman: Polanski Guilty Plea Could be Withdrawn

2009-12-10T15:23:39Z

When Emily Bazelon of Slate.com recently asked Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley about the Roman Polanski case, "Cooley's deputy tried to shush him." But the DA was apparently in no mood to remain silent. According to Bazelon: "Cooley wanted to hammer home the simple point that Polanski cannot escape the guilty plea he made 30 years ago. 'The plea is airtight,' he said. 'The plea is the Bible.'"

Cooley was referring to Polanski's decision to plead guilty in 1977 to the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. Roger Gunson, the DA at the time, had agreed to drop the other charges - including rape and sodomy - Polanski was facing, in exchange for his plea.

Testifying under oath at his plea hearing, Polanski answered a series of questions designed to ensure he had been adequately counseled, and confirm he understood the potential consequences of his plea. As with any such hearing, one of the most important questions concerned how many years Polanski might spend behind bars as a result of pleading guilty. From the plea transcript:

MR. GUNSON: What is the maximum sentence for unlawful sexual intercourse?

THE DEFENDANT: It's one to fifteen - - twenty years in State Prison.

Even though Polanski actually could have been sentenced to as many as 50 years for pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse, nobody at the hearing corrected him.

Likewise, in the ensuing 32 years since Polanski pleaded guilty, nobody - until now - has publicly noted the obvious discrepancy between the maximum sentence for Polanski's admitted crime, and what the filmmaker said he believed it was.

Loyola Law School Professor Laurie Levenson confirmed Polanski's maximum sentence was indeed 50 years, and nobody disputes it. In "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," an HBO documentary about the case, Gunson acknowledged the judge's sentence was unpredictable. "I'm not surprised," he said, "that [Polanski] left the country under those circumstances."

Furthermore, the plea testimony indicates no deal promising a light sentence had been struck:

MR. GUNSON: Do you understand that at this time, the Court has not made any decision as to what sentence you will receive?

THE DEFENDANT: (No response.)

MR. GUNSON: Do you understand that the Judge has not made any decision?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

The prosecutor addressed the same issue with Polanski's attorney:

MR. GUNSON: Are you aware of any promises that have been made to your client, that have not been stated on the record and in open court today?

MR. DALTON: No.

In a future post, I'll explore why the 30-year discrepancy has not heretofore been recognized. For now, it's important to understand why it matters that Polanski believed the maximum sentence was only 20 years when it was really 50.

According to the decision in a 1985 Supreme Court case called Hill v. Lockhart, a defendant's plea may be withdrawn if "counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, and...there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, he would not have pleaded guilty, and would have insisted on going to trial."

Anybody who thinks there's no significant difference between a 20-year and 50-year prison confinement, probably isn't anyone who's ever been, or is likely to be, imprisoned. But I think it's safe to assume three decades means a lot to an individual who'll actually be deprived of liberty after having been convicted of a serious crime. So it would be plausible for Polanski to claim he would have elected to go to trial if he knew his maximum sentence for pleading guilty was 50 years.

Moreover, it seems the apparent failure to let Polanski know what punishment he might have been forced to endure, establishes that "counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness."

Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman explained, "It's fundamental that the defendant needs to understand what sentence he might be facing in order to make a knowing plea, and in the federal system the law is very clear that the judge can't accept a plea in the first place unless she informs the defendant, and determines that the defendant understands, what the maximum possible penalty is. If the record shows Polanski thought he was facing a much lower maximum sentence at the time of the plea, that's a very strong argument for permitting him to withdraw the plea now, though it's not clear whether withdrawing the plea would do much for him at this point."

Stanford Law School Professor Jeffrey Fisher added, "It's a well settled rule that a judge must make sure the defendant knows his rights and understands the crime he's pleading guilty to, as well as the punishment he's exposing himself to, by pleading guilty."

Under California law, a plea may be withdrawn "at any time before judgment...for a good cause shown..." Levenson told me, "There is no formal judgment until sentencing." Polanski has not been sentenced.

I asked Cooley if the defendant's mistaken belief he could be imprisoned for no more than 20 years, might entitle him to now withdraw his plea. Through his spokesperson, the man who a short time ago boasted Polanski's plea is "airtight," issued this statement:

"While the Polanski extradition is pending before the Swiss courts, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office will have no out-of-court comment on the case."

Whether or not it would behoove Polanski to withdraw his plea, Cooley, an elected official, should explain to the public why the DA's office should have accepted it in the first place, or concede the plea should not have been accepted.

Bernard-Henri Lévy: A Tribute to Beate and Serge Klarsfeld

2009-12-10T10:40:29Z

This year, it is my privilege, with Philippe Labro, to present the prestigious Scopus Prize of Hebrew University of Jerusalem to the two French "Nazi hunters", Beate and Serge Klarsfeld.

The first thing that comes to mind when one contemplates the itinerary of the Klarsfelds is their remarkable solitude. That may seem bizarre when we look at them today, so immensely famous. And yet, it's the truth. Like Claude Lanzmann, all those years when he was working on his masterpiece, Shoah, and Raul Hilberg, who spent decades struggling for the recognition of his monumental work, The Destruction of the European Jews, all the Klarsfelds did, they did alone, that is to say against. I remember the first time I met Beate. It was in 1972. Philippe Tesson had asked me to write a portrait of her for the Paris daily, Combat. She already had to her credit having slapped Chancellor Kiesinger in the face, the law permitting Nazis condemned in France to be tried and judged in Germany, and many other things. But for all that, for the mountains she had moved, her path was full of obstacles: the very people she was pursuing, the States provoked by her activities, the institutions, including Jewish ones, she bothered and disturbed. The Klarsfelds were an institution all by themselves. But they were terribly, sometimes desperately, alone. Perhaps they still are.

What can one do when one is all alone, like Lanzmann, like Hilberg, like the Klarsfelds and faced with mountains to move? Well, one uses cunning, one invents stratagems, beginning with the classic strategy of guerrilla warfare of the weak dissuading the strong. And that's the second striking thing about the Klarsfelds. They are guerrillas. They conduct themselves like anti-Nazi activists, they always have. They believe, as they have always believed, that any means is acceptable when you're fighting a battle of memory. Any means? Like kidnapping, for Barbie. Or a hoax, as in that amusing affair of the phoney press release (how could he possibly deny it ?) announcing that François Mitterrand would no longer have flowers laid at Marshal Pétain's grave every year. Strange tactical alliances. To say nothing of acts like Serge's declaration that he would shed no tears if he learned one day that Aloïs Brunner had died, but not of natural causes. Memory, for the Klarsfelds, this is a war.

Why war? That is the other question. The answer is neither as new nor as obvious as it seems. In principle, of course, for the Law, except that the Klarsfelds have always said they do not particularly like the Law as such. In principle, for Justice, except that the Klarsfelds know there are crimes so monstrously inhuman they are beyond the measure of human justice, to say nothing of reparation. In principle, for morality, except that the Klarsfelds are too detached, still too concerned with their combat, to worry about giving the Barbies, the Papons, and the Touviers lessons in morality. And, as their son Arno Klarsfeld has often pointed out, not one of the latter has ever manifested the least remorse or regret. No, the Klarsfeld's real struggle concerns neither Law, nor Justice, nor Morality, but the Truth. This injection of Truth to which a great French writer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, referred in Hommage à Zola, in 1933, as the sole effective antidote to dictatorship. This injunction of truth, Sigmund Freud added only a few years later, which is the necessary condition of civilization.

And then, finally, the essential. This most moving of moments in the Klarsfelds' adventure, when they realized there is no point in pursuing the executioners unless their victims are taken into account and consequently undertook their great life's work: the construction, in its double version of stone and paper, of the Memorial to the Deportation of the Jews of France. There is a beauty in the life of one haunted by the dead, who talks with them in secret and who, like Solal, the hero of Albert Cohen's novel, Belle du Seigneur, lives a kind of double life, spending his days with the powerful, the princes of the Gentiles, and his nights with ghosts and shadows, children who never grew up, souls that have come up from limbo. And a beauty in this act of counting, one which perhaps unconsciously recalls the most ancient of Jewish acts -- that of Numbers, which was simply a long enumeration of names, that of Exodus, whose real title, in Hebrew, was The Numbers. An act of counting that reminds one of Franz Kafka exclaiming, when a young musician told him of his plans to write a Jewish play whose subject would be the anonymous Jewish crowd, "No, you poor wretch! Judaism is the name; there's nothing left of Judaism if not the act of naming and of counting the names."

I conclude with the name of a precedent laureate, that of the 2003 Scopus Prize, another son of a deportee. A man who could easily have been one of those shadows whose name was reverently archived by the tomb man Klarsfeld has become. A laureate who could not be here with us today as he has been retained by a sombre matter, one Franz Kafka could well have imagined, one that promises him an existence that may finish as it started, hunted and locked away. I ask the officials of Hebrew University of Jerusalem to remember that those fine qualities that led them to honor him with this award six years ago remain, clearly, undiminished. His name is Roman Polanski.

Read more: Beate, Roman Polanski, Klarsfelds, World News

Topless Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski Photo Sells For $11,000 (NSFW PHOTO)

2009-12-08T10:14:53Z

(AP ARTICLE)

NEW YORK -- A topless photo of filmmaker Roman Polanski and his wife, Sharon Tate, taken just months before her murder has sold at a New York City auction for just over $11,000.

The black and white portrait by British photographer David Bailey shows the couple embracing. Christie's says it was sold Monday to an unidentified private buyer. The presale estimate was $8,000 to $12,000.

The 76-year-old Oscar-winning director is under house arrest in Switzerland. The United States wants him to face sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He fled the U.S. before being sentenced.

His attorneys plan to argue before a California appeals court that the charges should be dismissed.

Tate was killed in 1969 by followers of Charles Manson.

THE PHOTO:

John Farr: Beauty With Substance: The Best Catherine Deneuve Movies By Farr

2009-12-07T17:58:11Z

Cinematically speaking, there are fewer spectacles less inspiring than physical beauty unaccompanied by any semblance of distinct humanity, character or spontaneous emotion. Unfortunately, we see way too much of this "Stepford" syndrome in our popular media -- whether they're washed-out looking models or those fit, corn-fed, camera-ready young Americans whom you sense don't have much to say beyond what's on the teleprompter.

By contrast, from her first starring role in Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964) to her recent tour-de-force as a mortally ill matriarch in A Christmas Tale (2008), lurking beneath Catherine Deneuve's exquisite features we can sense a keen intuition and depth of character, though most often it's not fully revealed. You may glimpse it in an expression, a glance, a gesture; it almost feels as if this enigmatic actress withholds the full breadth of her intelligence so that we mere mortals are not too threatened by such an imposing double-threat. Or maybe it's just that she's innately shy, and doesn't want to make too much of a fuss. Either way, for us in the audience Deneuve is always incredibly interesting to watch.

And who could doubt her fearless talent after seeing her gradually lose her mind in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965), the follow-up to Umbrellas, seemingly calculated to let the world know that she was so much more than the ingénue of the moment.

She was born in Paris, the daughter of actors. Her older sister, the equally striking, auburn-maned Francoise D'Orleac preceded her as a film actress, but died tragically young shortly after appearing with her sister in Demy's The Young Girls Of Rochefort (1967). By this point, the blonde Catherine was already the bigger star.

Over the course of roughly fifteen years, Deneuve would bear a son with director Roger Vadim (who'd given her an early break in films), marry and split from writer/director David Bailey, give birth to a daughter with actor Marcello Mastroianni, and become involved with legendary director Francois Truffaut, who would be devastated when she broke off the relationship. Though by nature a private individual, her life would be every bit as dramatic as her on-screen portrayals.

Early on, she carried her films, but over time, she would also appear to strong effect in fine ensemble pieces like Regis Warnier's under-exposed East/West (1992), about a young French woman desperate to escape post war Soviet Russia (Deneuve plays the stage actress who helps her); or Manoel de Oliveira's A Talking Picture (2003), where Catherine basically plays herself, a fading but still glamorous film star on a troubled sea voyage.

What this shrewd and gifted performer has cared about all along is picking movies worthy of her talent and persona, and in this goal, beyond just a few inevitable misfires, she has admirably succeeded.

Now a vigorous 66, Catherine Deneuve remains as busy as ever. While awaiting her next release, why not re-visit some of the seminal titles that made her France's "grande dame" of film- and indeed, one of the world's most venerable movie stars:

The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964)- In this kaleidoscopic musical romance, Genevieve (Deneuve) and Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) are young Parisian lovers forced to separate when Guy gets drafted for military service in Algeria. Though they promise to stay true to each other, as time passes life complications intervene, specifically in the form of one Roland Cassard (Marc Michel), a well-off jeweler who can help Genevieve just when she needs it most. Director Jacques Demy's visually sumptuous masterpiece is unique in that it's all-sung, with no spoken dialogue. Thanks to a magical score by Michel Legrand, the bold, risky conceit works. Deneuve is a vision as Genevieve, a role that made her an international star overnight, and Anne Vernon also shines as Genevieve's practical yet fretting mother. Lead billing also goes to Demy's vibrant color palette, a tribute to the '50s Hollywood musicals he so loved. An ideal date movie, "Umbrellas" is a feast for eyes, ears and heart.

Repulsion (1965)- One weekend, Helene Le Doux (Yvonne Furneaux) and boyfriend Michael (Ian Hendry) leave Helene's withdrawn sister Carole (Deneuve) in the London apartment they share, and we witness Carole's mental disintegration, rooted in a visceral contempt for men. Pretty as she is, it's difficult for the opposite sex to leave Carole alone, including ardent admirer Colin (John Fraser). Colin has definitely picked the wrong girl. Still, we're not totally sure whether Carole's deadly acts are real, or whether they exist only in her own twisted mind. Roman Polanski's first English-language film makes for a potent shocker, as we watch a human psyche unravel, with violent implications. The young Deneuve, only a year after premiering as the picture of innocence in Umbrellas, mesmerizes as the demented Carole, a tragic but terrifying creature well past the point of no return. If you crave unsettling, first-rate psychological horror, here's your movie.

Belle de Jour (1967)- Director Luis Buñuel's subtle, kinky black comedy (his first film in color) tells the bizarre story of Severine (Deneuve), a bored young woman in an arid marriage to a medical student (Jean Sorel), who seems to have repressed sadomasochistic tendencies. Her bizarre and erotic dream life begins to meld with reality as she embarks on a secret life as a high-priced call girl to feed her compulsion.And wait till you meet her clients! This unique, still fascinating film includes the director's trademark melding of conscious and unconscious imagery, as in a new and provocative context, we revisit Bunuel's signature themes: namely, the well-ordered but vacuous lives of the bourgeoisie, and the base desires lurking beneath their routinized lives and placid facades. Belle rermains a multi-layered, hypnotic work, and Deneuve is, as always, exquisite. The fabulous Michel Piccoli also registers as a licentious type who points Severine toward her stimulating new pastime.

The Last Metro (1980)- During the Nazi Occupation, German Jewish stage director Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent) goes into hiding in the basement of the Paris theater where his wife and business partner Marion (Deneuve) has taken over the production of a Norwegian play. She's then smitten with the arrival of leading man Bernard Granger (Gerard Depardieu), a womanizer and Resistance fighter new to the troupe, and soon finds her heart and her loyalty divided. Deneuve and Depardieu, both giants of French cinema, have a heady match-up in Metro, Francois Truffaut's slow, smoldering melodrama. Instead of delving into Nazi horrors, the director plays up the anguished love-triangle relationship, and examines the process of the actors as they prepare to mount a show at the famed Theatre Montmartre. Fine acting (especially Jean-Pierre Richard, as a poisonously anti-Semitic drama critic), restrained directing, and Nestor Almendros's beautifully muted color cinematography leads smoothly to a satisfying, appropriately theatrical conclusion. Don't miss this Metro!

Scene Of The Crime (1987)- In a small provincial town, disaffected teen Thomas (Nicolas Giraudi), still reeling from his parents' divorce, meets a gruff, penniless stranger while walking in the countryside. The man, Martin (Wadeck Stanczak), turns out to be an escaped convict, and demands money. Soon after, the fugitive turns up at the riverside nightclub managed by Thomas's mother, Lilli (Deneuve), who falls hard for him. Andre Techine's elegantly complex crime drama, beautifully shot in the French provinces by Pascal Marti, is a first-rate showcase for Deneuve, well-suited (as always) to playing characters with an intriguing, hidden aspect. Her scenes with old French star Danielle Darrieux, who plays Thomas' live-in grandma, are as affecting and convincing as her more tumultuous interactions with Stanczak and Maurice (Victor Lanoux), the estranged husband who wants her back. Murder and sexual frisson are on the agenda, but the film's subtle look at broken-family power dynamics is just as edgy.

A Christmas Tale (2008)- As the dysfunctional Vuillard clan gathers for Christmas, we learn that matriarch Junon (Deneuve) is seriously ill, requiring a bone marrow transplant. The only compatible family members: Junon's mentally fragile grandson Paul, and her alcoholic, ne'er do well middle son Henri (Mathieu Amalric). This situation forces an awkward reunion between Henri and older sister Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), who after settling Henri's debts years before had refused ever to see him again. Still unresolved is whether Junon will even undergo the transplant, and if so, which relative she'll choose to save her life. Arnaud Desplechin's rich, bittersweet tapestry of one complex extended family forced to confront past conflicts resonates on multiple levels: it's at once a story about mortality, unresolved familial anger, and unconsummated romance. Though dealing with intense, often painful emotions, this ambitious film is shot through with warmth and a reassuring recognition of our shared, imperfect humanity, as if to suggest: better a screwed-up family than no family at all. (Look for Deneuve's real-life offspring Chiarra Mastroianni playing her daughter-in-law. Her resemblance to her late father is uncanny.)

For over 2,000 outstanding titles on DVD, visit www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com.

To see John's videos for PBS, go to www.reel13.org.

Roman Polanski Begins House Arrest

2009-12-04T08:07:26Z

GSTAAD, Switzerland — Roman Polanski's life took a dramatic turn for the better Friday as he traded a Swiss jail for house arrest surrounded by family in his luxury Alpine chalet.

It's not clear how long this splendid captivity will last – the threat of extradition to the United States and a possible prison term there still hang over the 76-year-old director.

Patricia Zohn: Culture Zohn: Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Tales of Hoffmann), or, a Four-Way Gets Complicated

2009-12-03T15:07:47Z

Bartlett Sher, the director of South Pacific revival just next door to the Met Opera is finished with the wash-that-man-right-out-of-my-hair mission and onto a trickier task: washing that man out of four different pretty heads in Les Contes d'Hoffman. Once again, we visit the tragic love affairs of the 19th Century, only this time, it's not one, but four girls and a guy. Those are not the kind of odds that generally appeal to me. Jacques Offenbach, the composer, actually died before he finished it which may say something about how tough the piece was to conceive or more likely how difficult it is to manage so many women at the same time.

Sher says he is interested in the "outsider" themes that Contes offers up which makes his take on the opera unconventional -- yet because the opera was never finished, each director who has taken it on (including Roman Polanski) brings his own outsider backstory along with him. Offenbach therefore provides the template and the rest is up for grabs. Also, it is stories, not one linear story -- and we all know that can either work very well, or feel like you're at four different events.

The libretto has its roots in ETA Hoffman, he of Nutcracker and Coppelia fame, a writer who seems to have been fascinated with dolls coming to life and getting themselves into a heap of trouble. There's one in Contes also, but let me not get ahead of Charles Fabius, former director of artistic programming of the Paris Opera, whom I invited to help me lay out the complexities.

All photographs by Ken Howard for the Metropolitan Opera/Contes d'Hoffman

CZ: Contes was an unfinished opera. Offenbach was coming off a lifetime of operettas. What were his impulses and why did he never finish?

CF: Wildly popular for his politically satirical and sexually "risque" operettas (imagine SNL set to music), Offenbach had developed an inferiority complex towards the great 19th Century Grand Opera composers such as Meyerbeer, Verdi, Wagner and Gounod, who were all the rage in Paris. Offenbach considered himself just as great a composer, an in hindsight, maybe rightly so. By the time his publisher Choudens finally got him a serious gig at the Opera Comique (not quite Palais Garnier, but better than nothing) , Offenbach was already old and sick. Sensing that he would only have one chance, he kept hesitating, changing and reworking the material for Les Contes d'Hoffman.(The Tales of Hoffman) He died before he could even complete the orchestration. Guiraud finished the job and the premiere was a triumph.

CZ: Offenbach drew on the same source material as the ballet Coppelia -- the doll that becomes a woman and real enough to fall in love with. (ETA Hoffman also wrote the Nutcracker story). He presents four very different sides of women. What were they and were they drawn from his personal experience?

CF: The four women in the opera can be seen as four aspects of the "eternal female": the virgin, the whore, the Barbie doll and the Diva. The lead character, the dashing young poet Hoffmann, subsequently falls for all four of them (this is pre-eHarmony!), but loses them just as quickly, seeking comfort in wine and music...for sure, this story appealed to Offenbach, who had numerous, much talked-about affairs with his own Operetta Divas.

CZ: Why do you think there is more than one female singer cast? Couldn't one singer, like Netrebko, handle all four roles?

CF: I wish!..Funny, when the Met announced it plans for the new Hoffmann with Anna Netrebko, I simply took it that she would sing all four parts (sing three to be exact, as the Diva Stella is merely a silent appearance). I mean, if anyone could do it, she would, and she would bring the house down! Olympia, Giulietta and Antonia each require a different type of voice, but, all three have been sung by a single soprano before (i.e. Beverly Sills, Joan Sutherland, Mary Dunleavy), even if it usually meant transposing down some of the doll's music. With the four "Vilains" (Hoffman's dark alter-ego) already being sung by the same baritone , the opera gains in psychological density if narrowed down to a "menage a trois" between two lovers and a doom-laden inner voice. That said, Netrebko, who is as much a stunning as a cool-headed opera diva, probably realized that she would bring down the house regardless even if appearing for only 45 minutes as the endearing Antonia (for whom Offenbach wrote some of his best music), and crossing the stage as Stella. So, for the same end result (and the same fee?!), why even bother...?

CZ: Is Bart Sher up to the task of tackling what sounds to be a complicated opera? He has done a rollicking Barber of Seville for the Met and of course, just next door, the perfect revival of South Pacific. But doesn't Contes represent a real challenge for a director?

CF: Contes is tricky with its fragmented, loosely related acts. Some directors are better at one story than at another. Olympia's act (Coppelia in the Ballet world) is usually the "easier" one, Giulietta's, however, often ends up as a Carnival of Venice traffic jam. Few directors have been able to pull all stories together in one phantasmagoric dream sequence, like something between New Moon and Rebecca. I have high hopes for Sher, based on the ominous stage magic he created in Joe Tuner's Come and Gone.The question remains whether his sensibility and great care for detail will pay off on the vast stage of the Met, and whether he will have been given enough rehearsal time to stage all those complicated chorus scenes...

CZ: Recently, a new version of Tosca at the Met elicited resounding boos. As someone who was not a veteran of the Zeffirelli version, I found it haunting and beautifully sung, if a bit funky in Act 2 (seeing a three way faux fellatio as a curtain raiser at the Met was certainly unexpected). Does Sher risk everything by presenting a new version of Contes?

CF: Sher not only starts out with great credits, but his productions are never sensational just for the sake of it. He tends to stay faithful to the original material. At least, in spirit. So, I do not foresee a scandal "a la Bondy". And, if Sher lives up to expectations, these Contes could be the absolute highlight of the season, and a welcome cash cow for the Met for years to come.

Contes d'Hoffman appears tonight, and Dec 7, 11, 16, 19, 23, 26, 30 and Jan. 2 at the Met.

Polanski Gets House Arrest In Alpine Chalet

2009-12-02T07:59:45Z

BERN, Switzerland — After more than two months in a Swiss jail, Roman Polanski will be placed under house arrest at his Alpine chalet on Friday, authorities said.

The 76-year-old director must stay in the house and wear an electronic bracelet as officials decide whether to extradite him to the U.S. for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, the authorities said.

Roman Polanski In Jail All Week To Scrape Together Bail

2009-12-01T08:17:28Z

BERN, Switzerland — Roman Polanski will be held in jail at least three more days because he needs more time to pay his $4.5 million bail, Swiss authorities said Tuesday.

All other conditions have been satisfied for the 76-year-old director's house arrest at his Alpine chalet, and the bail transfer is expected in the next couple of days, Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli said.

Johann Hari: Why Are These Artists Defending Pedophiles?

2009-11-27T14:40:06Z

Over the past few years, there has been a
drip-drip of artists defending old men who abuse their power over young
boys and girls for sexual pleasure. It ranges from Alan Bennett's claim
that a teacher who gropes his pupils can be the real child or true
innocent, to the widespread assertion in Hollywood that when a 44-year-old man drugs and anally rapes a 13-year-old girl, it is not
"rape-rape." Indeed, Gore Vidal says the victim is "a young hooker."

Yet
there is, largely, silence in response – and I realize I too have held
off from writing this column several times. Why? Talking about this
requires me to criticize some artists whose work I love, and it forces
me to remember a period of my life I've tried hard to forget. But when
I saw Alan Bennett's new play The Habit of Art at the National Theatre here in London,
I felt somebody had to say this.

I have no
problem with artists sympathetically depicting the inner lives of
pedophiles and pederasts; indeed, it can be a good thing. Every human
being should be understood, and to understand is not to excuse. We
should, for example, know that 70 per cent of child abusers have
themselves been abused as children: it tempers the pedophile-bashing
lynch mob, and forces us to look for humane solutions. It also helps
avoid bad legislation like Megan's Law, which – by driving released
offenders away from their families and friends and sending them into
isolation – actually increases the number of children who are abused.

What I object to is not the compassionate
depiction of these men, but the claim that the victims are unharmed, or
even enjoy it. This suggestion has featured in the work of several
writers I normally admire. In Bennett's previous play The History Boys,
a 50-something teacher called Hector routinely gropes his 17-year-old
pupils' genitals – and they react either with flattered amusement, or
by longing to be the next to be groped. The headmaster who objects is
depicted as a prejudiced buffoon. The most sympathetic boy in the class
– Posner – also grows up to be a pederast himself, who finds it hard to
resist groping his pupils.

In interviews,
Bennett makes it clear he is on Hector's side, saying: "I've been
criticized for not taking this seriously enough. I'm afraid I don't
take that very seriously if they're 17 or 18. I think they are actually
much wiser than Hector. Hector is the child, not them." He added that
good teaching is inherently "erotic."

In his
new play, Bennett takes this analysis further. Benjamin Britten, the
composer, is one of the main characters. He was sexually attracted to
young boys – 13 was his perfect age – and throughout his life he picked
out choirboys, gave them a special role in performing his music, and
lavished adoration on them. According to the book Britten's Children,
he appeared naked before them, snuggled with them in bed, although he
didn't actually have sex with them. As with Michael Jackson, the
parents seemed to know what was going on, and acquiesce.

Yet
Bennett, in his introduction to the play, expresses only one problem
with this. "A boy whose voice suddenly broke could find himself no
longer invited ... which would seem potentially far more damaging to a
child's psychology than too much attention." He also spares a thought
for the "fat boys and ugly boys" who were never admitted to this
sanctum.

This analysis also underpins Stephen
Fry's play Latin!, which was published in 1992. It is set in a prep
school where the central character, Dominic Clarke, is a teacher who
"carnally violates" a 13-year-old orphan in ways one character says are
"too vile, too diverse, for the sane mind to grasp."

Fry
distills the tragic psychology of pedophiles with his usual
brilliance. Dominic says: "When I was a boy, I thought, slept and
played like a boy. Then nature began to drop hints about a change in
status: a cracking voice, hairs about the buttocks, acne ... I never
asked to be a man. I never wanted to be man. I want to be a boy. If
when nature starts thrusting pimples and hairs through the skin, a boy
could be kept from school and the world of men and just carry on
behaving as a boy, then perhaps nature would give up and the pimples
and hairs would recede. The permanent boy could be found."

This
is precisely how the pedophiles I have interviewed in prison viewed
themselves. And isn't it a description of what Michael Jackson tried to
do? When seclusion didn't work, he turned to the surgeons to create the
permanent boy.

But the play has a nasty sting.
Dominic runs away with the 13-year-old to live in Morocco. They write
back to explain that there, young boys and men can live together as
sexual partners. The school's pupils, en masse, demand to be allowed to
live in Morocco. The plain implication is that these 13-year-olds were
also longing to be abused by older men.

I know
Bennett and Fry are wrong, because when I was a teenager, I was
subjected to the persistent sexual advances of an older man in a
position of authority over me. I managed to escape the situation
without being abused, but I know other boys did not. There can indeed
be an initial element of being flattered, or even excited – but it is
also married to feelings of fear and revulsion that somebody who is
supposed to have offered safety is offering danger. The adolescent is
not in a position to make an informed choice. It is healthy for
adolescents to explore their sexualities among themselves – but when an
adult intrudes into this process, it can damage their sexual
development with consequences for the rest of their lives.

I'm
not interested in launching a hysterical attack on Bennett and Fry. I
would like to appeal to their empathy – a quality they have
demonstrated in so much of their work – and urge them to direct it not
just towards Hector and Dominic, but also to their victims.

This
can be a difficult topic to raise because the vilest slur against gay
people has long been that we are closet pedophiles. The defense of
Polanski showed there are plenty of straight people prepared to make
excuses for abusing young girls, just as there are – alas – some gay
people prepared to make excuses for abusing young boys.

But
let's look back towards Britten. Or indeed to Oscar Wilde, who would
(rightly) still be imprisoned today for having paying to have sex with
very poor underage teenagers. Did the violent suppression of
homosexuality perhaps have a deforming effect on their sexualities?
When they were 12 or 13, they had a fleeting moment when they could
explore their sexualities with other boys without shame – but it
quickly slammed shut as they realized this behavior was deemed
immoral. Is this why they seemed to keep returning to 13-year-olds in
their fantasies as representing an idealized time of sexual freedom?

The
taboos protecting young people from sexual abuse took a long time to
build up. They have to be protected from erosion, because Alan Bennett
is terribly wrong – the "real children" are never old men who want to
cop a feel of adolescents.

Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here or here. You can email him at johann -at- johannhari.com

You can follow Johann on Twitter at www.twitter.com/johannhari101

Bernard-Henri Lévy: Polanski's Release From Prison

2009-11-27T10:38:22Z

The decision to free Roman Polanski is a wise decision. It honors the people who took it. It shows that the arguments developed by the movie director's partisans -- including those published on the French review's website of La Règle du Jeu -- have finally been fruitful. It shows that Polanski's French lawyers, Hervé Témime and Georges Kiejman, were right to remain tenacious. At this very moment, I am thinking about Emmanuelle, his wife. I am thinking about his two kids who saw their dad's name ignominiously dragged through the mud. I am mostly thinking about him: Roman Polanski, who I don't know, but whose fate has moved me so much. Nothing will repair the days he has spent in prison. Nothing will erase the immense, unbelievable injustice he has been subjected to. Nothing will take away the hysteria of those ones who have never stopped pouring contempt upon him, hounding him through hatred and asking for his punishment as if we were living the darkest and most ferocious hours of the McCarthy era all over again. At least the nightmare is about to end. At least the end of the hell is looming. And this, for the time being, is what does matter.

Swiss: Polanski Staying In Jail Until At Least Monday

2009-11-27T08:40:10Z

GENEVA — Roman Polanski will remain in a jail outside Zurich for at least three more days until he meets the security conditions of his bail, a Swiss official said Friday.

Polanski wouldn't be placed under house arrest in Switzerland before Monday, because he has yet to fulfill all the requirements to ensure that he stays in his chalet in the Swiss luxury resort of Gstaad, Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli said.

Roman Polanski To Be Quietly Moved To Gstaad

2009-11-26T08:23:10Z

GSTAAD, Switzerland — After two months in a Swiss jail, Roman Polanski prepared Thursday for the splendid captivity of his $1.6 million chalet in one of world's most luxurious winter resorts.

Polanski will have views of snowcapped Alpine peaks, spacious rooms and the all the amenities of a town with a reputation for catering to the wishes of the rich and famous.

Polanski Makes Bail, But Is Still In Jail

2009-11-25T10:56:40Z

GENEVA — Roman Polanski has been granted $4.5 million bail, clearing the way for the fugitive director to move within days from a Swiss jail to house arrest and electronic monitoring at his Alpine resort chalet.

The justice minister said Wednesday she saw no reason to appeal the surprise decision by the Swiss Criminal Court. Polanski would have to remain in Switzerland as authorities assess whether to extradite him to the U.S. for having sex in Los Angeles in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

Naked Roman Polanski & Sharon Tate Picture Going To Auction (NSFW PHOTO)

2009-11-24T20:56:02Z

Christie's auction house is auctioning off a David Bailey photo of Roman Polanski and then-wife Sharon Tate taken shortly before her murder.

Christie's estimates it will sell for between $8,000-$12,000 at the December 7 auction.

From Reuters:

"It's an important image," said Laura Paterson, a vice president at Christie's auction house and a specialist in their photography department.

"It certainly is provocative because of who the characters are. But it's also a touching naked shot of a happy couple," she added. "And Bailey does capture the anything goes flavor of that period."

Polanski is currently in a Swiss jail.

PHOTO:

William Bradley: Tony Blair's Cautionary Tale For Obama

2009-11-24T11:58:47Z

Tony Blair's recent travails, last week over his bid to become the first president of the European Union and today with the start of Britain's Iraq War inquiry, stand as something of a cautionary tale for President Barack Obama. Blair was long the favorite to become the first president of the European Union. But in the end, pilloried on the left for his leading role in the Iraq War and still not supported by the right, he was supplanted by a little-known Belgian bureaucrat.

Just as America had Obamamania in 2008, Britain had Blairmania in 1997. "Things Can Only Get Better" blared, as it were, the ubiquitous Blair campaign song.

Tony Blair's farewell speech.

"Everybody voted for him. He wasn't a politician; he was a craze." That's how the title character puts it in the deliciously vicious roman a clef novel by former Blair friend Robert Harris, The Ghost (as in ghostwriter of the ex-prime minister's memoirs), which was was being made into a movie by Roman Polanski when he was arrested in Switzerland.

Blair ushered in an era of "Cool Britannia," which many critics say morphed into Cruel Britannia as he swapped his famous friendship with Bill Clinton for an infamous friendship with George W. Bush.

As Britain's Opposition Leader in 1994, Blair, along with Clinton, swiftly emerged as a chief advocate of the the global "Third Way," between the sclerotic sort of socialism which made Labour a consistent loser in Britain and a hyper-capitalism which hollowed out communities. With Blair, Labour became New Labour, a remade force able to take on the reigning Conservatives. Well, more than able to take on the Tories. Able to shatter them, actually, which Blair proceeded to do.

"Things Can Only Get Better," the ubiquitous campaign song of Tony Blair and New Labour.

Blair reinvented a moribund political party, won three national elections (the only Labour politician to do so) beginning with his landslide win in 1997 -- the largest in 165 years -- and quickly became a very major world figure.

Under Blair, Britain "modernised" as "Cool Britannia," and indicators on the economy, the environment, and crime improved for his decade-plus as British prime minister. He made Britain a more inclusive society. And he settled the bloody, decades long conflict in Northern Ireland. Blair and Clinton formed a strong working partnership as Blair became a global player.

Fatefully, Blair became quite the interventionist abroad. He took Britain to war, in one form or another, five times. First when he and Clinton decided to conduct an air war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq when the Iraqi dictator proved intransigent on weapons inspections and other matters. Next when, at Blair's determined instigation, NATO launched an air war to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and bring down the Serbian dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic. Then Blair intervened in the African nation of Sierra Leone, with British forces landing to end a brutal civil war.

Then came 9/11, and Blair, who had formed an unlikely friendship with George W. Bush, was quick to spring to America's side. British resources, notably intelligence, and forces, including its crack special ops forces, were instrumental in helping America overthrow the Taliban's theocratic dictatorship in Afghanistan and rout Al Qaeda from its redoubt.

Bush and Blair address the people of Iraq as the invasion begins.

Then came Iraq. The war far too far, to borrow a phrase and change it a bit. By 2002, it was apparent that Tony Blair had developed a taste for intervention and for turning out dictators, as well as a commitment to his alliance with the US in the 9/11-derived war on terror. Iraq was next on the agenda of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the coterie of neoconservative theorists around them, as it had been all along. Initially skeptical about an Iraq invasion, Blair was caught up in the move. Blair and his people believed that he had major influence over Bush, having banked a great deal of credit with the Afghanistan operation, intel/special ops moves around the world, and world diplomacy in the UN and elsewhere. It turned out that, despite all that and their personal friendship, he did not.

Saddam Hussein was unpopular in much of the Arab world and was a largely secular dictator who was actually oppressing much of his population, especially the Shia. But the Bush/Cheney team, as we've seen, closely associated with various charlatans in the Iraqi exile community and elsewhere, had a totally unrealistic view of how Iraq might be secured and governed in the aftermath of victory in a conventional war. Blair wanted a strong UN role in the governance of Iraq, but Cheney and his allies worked assiduously to undermine Blair's influence with Bush on that and other matters. Such as engagement with Iran and Syria, which Blair has always advocated. To the hardline neoconservatives, Blair, actually a man of the center-left, was a socialist who did not share their view of a civilizational war, and that was that.

A BBC retrospective on Blair.

The other big problem was how to sell an Iraq war. Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator, but that hardly made him unique in the world. His links with Al Qaeda were slight, and there was no serious evidence linking him to the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York, despite what Dick Cheney and the neocons said. You couldn't actually say that we were invading Iraq for its oil. Which, of course, never did pay for the occupation, a later claim of Donald Rumsfeld's. That left WMD (weapons of mass destruction).

Which Saddam Hussein, for all his understandable bluster, didn't really have. He maintained the facade of having them -- consistently blocking weapons inspections -- to maintain fear and order within and to seem more powerful to other countries. Incidentally, merely because an irritating country says it can do things doesn't mean it should be taken seriously. Otherwise, we would believe that North Korea was about to take over the world. It's the job of intelligence services and their decision-making masters in government to determine what is bullshit and act accordingly.

But Bush and Cheney pushed the myth of Iraqi WMD, and its supposedly imminent threat. Because it served their nitwit purpose to do so. Blair lent his credibility to this nonsense and took Britain to war. A war which, as we saw at the Azores Summit prior to the invasion, Blair was far better at explaining and selling than was the falteringly inarticulate Bush.

A war which played right into Al Qaeda's hands, which wanted the West tied down in military operations in the middle of the Islamic world, both to drain America's resources and to inflame a new generation of jihadists. A war which provided Iran with the opening to become the great power of the region, an ambition which has not yet come to fruition.

A war which hamstrung Tony Blair, festooning his once glittering reputation with streamers of screaming charges of "B.Liar," that he not only used his very considerable powers of persuasion to help sell an unsellable war but also facilitated the torture of British citizens at the hands of CIA and Pakistani interrogators.

The Ghost teaser trailer.

Could something like this happen to Barack Obama? Could he pin America down in another faraway quagmire, going far beyond what is needed to ensure that Afghanistan does not again become the base for "The Base," Al Qaeda? Could he see his shining stand against torture slide into a de facto policy of torture?

Blair, who never officially announced his candidacy for the European presidency, made several late moves to try to find his way through the complex thicket of European politics, with calls to various leaders and a speech in Switzerland where he appealed to the continent's dominant center-right faction by warning against too much governmental intervention to overcome the global recession.

But it didn't work. Blair was too big a figure for some of the smaller countries and for some leaders of the larger countries with global aspirations of their own; too controversial for the left and too left for the right. And so the old political dictum that you can't beat somebody with nobody was proved wrong, at least in this instance.

He continues as special Mideast envoy of the Quartet (America, Britain, Russia, and the European Union). But the question of Israel and Palestine continues to be largely intractable. His supposed ally Secretary of State Condi Rice imagined she would negotiate a peace -- at which she clearly failed -- and pushed Blair off to the building up of the Palestinian Authority. Which is only a fraction of the equation. A friend who visited the region last week said that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders she saw barely mentioned Tony Blair.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Eli Davidson: Is The Battle of The Sexes Over? Your Sexual Harassment And What To Do About It

2009-11-06T14:58:14Z

I got splattered with hate tweets after my last post on sexual harassment. The white hot venom that came my way something I had never seen before. As an executive coach, I was surprised to hear of four cases of sexual harrassment in two weeks which prompted me to write the post. However, readers' comments on the last post show that there is a blazing fire of sexual harassment burning in many workplaces.

Lungfish said:

"At work I was once accused, falsely, of harassment and exonerated but not until the woman had ruined my work life and then she retracted her allegation and killed herself a few months later...

I am very careful never, ever to be in a situation where I am alone around children and try to avoid being near children at all because of the threat of being accused by some unstable parent..."

Summer Reyes-Carullo took protecting herself into her own hands- quite literally:

"It pays to know how to protect yourself (self defense). it comes in handy when confronted with people who physically harass / abuse you. i got to punch someone... knocking the air out of him and he never bothered me ever again and no one ever tried anything nasty with me ever"

I must admit that I scratched my head about the 15.9% of those sexual harassment charges filed by men. Hdaryl01 put this statistic into perspective:

"My business employs 15-20 18-25 year old male tradespeople, and previously employed 1 55 year old female administrator. ALL complaints came from my young macho immature testosterone driven blue collar male employees who drive loud jacked up "Chevy" or "Ford" 4X4's pickups AGAINST the staid "professional" older female. Some were shocked when she inquired over lunch if they shaved or waxed their genitals like she does, or had "hidden" piercings.,,,Others, were really uncomfortable with her unsolicited graphic Monday morning depictions of her sexual exploits on the weekend. Etc."

Javaz stated:
"I learned many lessons throughout my career, especially attending office parties after work when I was nearly raped in my early 30's by a very drunk coworker. I did break the rule and reported that man, and guess who was fired? Me."

There was such heated discussion, that I asked two of the top experts on the topic of sexual harassment, Barry Halote, Ph.D., and Allan Gerson, Ph.D., to weigh in on the issue.

"It has been said that there are at least two sides to every story. This will try to cover both sides of the sexual harassment topic. In this case there is the management side, (M), and the employee side, (E). Let us look at three factors from both sides, communication, respect, and office culture/politics.

Communication:
(M): Make clear the policy for the office regarding sexual harassment, and communicate it in a fashion that is easily understood. When in situations that might allow for a charge of harassment, be clear in what you have to say, not just in the words, but in tone, and in body language, which includes facial expression. Much can be made of the way in which something is said.

(E): If you think someone has said or done something that could be sexually harassing, tell that person straight out that you think what they have said or done is not okay with you. Let them explain. If that does no good, communicate this clearly to the next person up the chain of command from you. If the alleged perpetrator is that person, go to the next step up. Document what has happened, so the memory is fresh, and the information can be passed on without confusion.

Respect:
(M): Carry yourself in a manner which builds respect. Bosses or managers who are martinets, or conversely are everyone's pal do not put themselves in a place to be regarded with respect. On the one hand the tyrant builds resentment, which can be turned into actual or false accusations. The pal may put themselves in a position where they get too chummy and may say or do something, even in jest that could be construed as harassing. Respect others' space, physical and psychological.

(E): Respect yourself and others will treat you with respect. It is too easy to slip into familiarity with co-workers or management that goes beyond office decorum. Sometimes, because of the office culture, it is too easy to try to be "one of the boys", especially for women who have traditionally been left out. This can open you to remarks and behaviors that can rapidly deteriorate into discomfort, and possibly harassment. If this does not prevent harassment, respect yourself enough to take it to someone in the company who can help.

Culture/politics:
(M): Know the culture and the politics of the company. This is not restricted to the formal rules, but to the informal as well. Learn from others what goes on in the office, what is okay with them, and what is not. Learn who is comfortable within the office culture, and who is not. It may be that a close knit group is okay with certain behaviors or verbalizations, while others may not be. Know when it is okay to make a particular statement, and to whom. Know the culture. In one situation a boss became afraid even to say to his secretary that she looked nice, or to compliment a particular garment. This is overkill. Be aware of whom you say it to, and how you say it, but don't let paranoia persevere

(E): Offices are like families. Different people come in and out of each other's realm in a fluid manner over the day. Some can be spoken to in ways that would not be okay with others. Make it clear who you are in the "family" and what is okay and what is not. Harking back to communication let it be known in a frank, but polite, and diplomatic way. Does the office culture/politics suit you? Can you change it? Can it be changed? These can be discussed, as in well functioning families."

How are these issues addressed in your workplace? What advice would you give to someone that is challenged with sexual harassment?

Eli Davidson is a nationally recognized motivational speaker and executive coach. Her book, "Funky to Fabulous: Surefire Success Stories for the Savvy, Sassy and Swamped", (Oak Grove Publishing) has won three national book awards. Eli is a reinvention catalyst, who can transform your professional and personal life from Funky to Fabulous with her ten, trademarked Turnaround Techniques that create rapid and remarkable results. Check out her blog at http://funkytofabulous.blogspot.com/

*Follow HuffPostLiving on Twitter and become a fan of Huffington Post Living on Facebook*

Roman Polanski's Lawyer Submits New, Large Cash Bail Offer

2009-11-02T07:09:47Z

PARIS — A French lawyer for Roman Polanski says he has submitted a new bail offer to a Swiss court to try to free the filmmaker from jail.

Lawyer Herve Temime says the offer Monday includes "adequate guarantees" that Polanski will not flee justice if released. The 76-year-old director is awaiting a decision on extradition to the United States.

Michael Seitzman: Polanski To Offer Cash and Cuddliness For Release

2009-11-01T18:33:58Z

It was either that title or, "Polanski Offers Release for Cash and Cuddliness." A toss up, right? Oh, and for those who haven't read the transcript of the victim's testimony,"cuddliness" is how the 13-year-old girl referred to Polanski putting his mouth on her vagina.

Yes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, "A French lawyer for director Roman Polanski, imprisoned in Switzerland, says a new bail offer will be filed Monday and it will be a 'very, very significant' cash amount."

After Switzerland was done peeing itself with laughter the lawyer went on to tell Switzerland not to worry about Polanski running because he would "never behave like a fugitive." Meaning, he won't illegally flee prosecution from a country where he has a home and he won't steer clear of that country's borders and authorities for thirty years. The lawyer then told Switzerland that Roman is available for babysitting.

Some of you are probably wondering why I'm still writing about this. I don't know, maybe it was Bernard-Henri Levy's piece. Who is Bernard Henri-Levy, you ask? A philosopher. That's right, a philosopher. He's actually a writer, but when you're narcissistically unaware of the existence of the other humans you describe yourself as a "philosopher." Anyway, in this one piece (click if you must) he gives us a list of "shamefuls," like how "It is shameful to throw a 76-year-old man into prison for unlawful sex committed 32 years ago." Oh, that reminds me, "philosopher" is also French for douchebag.

The fact that Polanski himself is the reason for the 32 year delay in prosecution is completely lost on Polanski's apologists. As retired Judge H. Lee Sarokin said so eloquently, "It would mean that the fugitive who is most successful in eluding capture gains an advantage over one who is less successful, which, in turn, would mean that the wealthier criminal would have a greater chance of avoiding extradition than the poorer one." Let's also not forget that the flight from prosecution was not a crime that was committed 32 years ago but was in fact a crime committed every single day Polanski remained a fugitive.

But, of all the Polanski ironies, the greatest one of all is the sheer audacity, the outrageousness, the tone-deafness, and the stunning arrogance of offering a "very, very significant" amount of cash for release, after the court has expressly denied bail. In America, we have a name for that. Bribery. But don't worry, Roman Polanski would never do that.

Karin Badt: Polanski: What's On Trial?

2009-10-28T17:37:45Z

What is fascinating about the Polanski case is that it is not particularly about Polanski. Looking at the debate raised in France (where I live) and the United States -- in defense of the extradition decision or against it -- it becomes clear that the Polanski affair has become an occasion for people to express (or rather expose) prejudices, premises, outrage about a whole host of issues, from child abuse to national integrity.

Let's look on "what is on trial" in the range of articles and television shows devoted to the subject. As you will see, Polanski himself is a minor issue in the thicket.

COUNTRIES AND ERAS

1. Switzerland : its decision to snag Polanski after its own Zurich film festival had invited him to receive a life achievement award. What bad manners! The authorities could have snagged him at any other time in Polanski's own Swiss chalet, where he goes several times a year. And how dare Switzerland have contacted the US first! The fury against Switzerland is such that it even elicited a Huff Post blogger to denounce Switzerland, lumping its pretended neutrality in WW II ("letting tanks in") with this recent scandal, and concluding that we should boycott Swiss chocolate. There is a suspicion as well as to Switzerland's real motives for its extradition move: to get the US to be more lenient in its IRS investigations of a major Swiss bank (the USB) which allegedly helps Americans tax-evade in Switzerland.

2. The United States: From the classical French point of view, the US is criminally puritanical about sex as opposed to France , with its own more "liberal" wink-an-eye espousal of affairs under the sheets. The extent of this prejudice is so great that most popular French papers -- such as "Le Monde" and Liberation -- have chosen to distort the facts when reporting on the case. Liberation described Polanski's crime as an "affaires des moeurs", a banal case of mores, rather than a convicted case of "illegal sex with a minor". Le Monde describes what happened as "Polanski's relations with a young girl," forgetting the word "illegal."

The distortion is such that many French readers, responding in blogs, do not understand that Polanski has already been convicted of a criminal charge, which he admitted. At a party last night, a French gentleman noted: "Oh come on, the Americans keep bringing up that old bêtise (little mistake). To his credit, this gentleman had no idea what Polanski's "little mistake" was nor that it was technically a convicted crime. How could he? The French press has been reluctant to repeat the actual facts of Polanski's bêtise: i.e. that the grand jury testimony recounts that on March 10, 1977, a thirteen year old girl was given champagne, a half-quaalude, and then sodomized, while she continually protested.

France's current treatment of the case may also reflect the fact that the French are not so up-to-date on the idea of rape as a "violation" of the person (a crime of unequal power relations) rather than a matter of eros gone awry--a fuzziness exposed in philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy's much ridiculed comment that Polanski should be let off for an "error of a youth" (he was 43 at the time).

NB: while these French views above are prevalent, they have been energetically attacked by the French themselves--so there is no "universal French view".

3. The 1970s: for its wild lenient attitude towards sex, date rape and drugs, and less conscious ideas about "child abuse." Polanski's attitude was part and parcel of the 1970s, when, following the arrest, he referred to Samantha G as the "whore" who ruined his life. Years later, in a televised interview with Diane Sawyer, he tenderly said that at the time, he had no idea that what he did was wrong--"it was spontaneous"--and that now it had dawned on him.

4. The current period: for its stricter attitude towards sex, date rape, drugs, child abuse. Today a crime like Polanski's would receive a much harsher sentence than in 1978. Now, if Polanski returns for sentencing, legally the most he himself could receive is two years.

THE US LEGAL SYSTEM

1. Why is Polanski being charged for "une histoire ancienne", is a popular complaint in Europe. The charge is already "thirty years old"! Interestingly, the French intellectuals critiquing the lack of "prescription" in US law (prescription = dropping of charges after a certain time) overlook the fact that France does not have it either. "Prescription" in France means that after ten years, no one can be charged of a crime. It does not mean that once someone has been convicted, he cannot be punished. It is also interesting that the French call this an "old story" rather than an "old conviction", again minimizing the "crime."

2. The judge's handling of the case. Marina Zenovich's documentary : Polanski: Wanted and Desired" fueled this perspective, in concentrating on the judge's (Lawrence Rittenband) waffling about the sentencing. Polanski was initially given three months in Chino 's psychiatric ward, for psychiatric evaluation. After 42 days served, Rittenband changed his mind and seems to have been about to either sentence Polanski to serve the full term in this psychiatric ward, be deported or have a new prison sentence. Reports in the media are murky as to what he actually was going to do, so it is impossible to have an opinion here.

Incidentally, this particular charge has given the spotlight to Zenovich's film, which frankly was one of the worst films I have ever reviewed at Cannes: confused about perspective (you wonder what the film is about for the first l hour, until you get to Rittenband), amateur in film techniques ("tickertapes" predominate) and lopsided in evidence (the victim was not given a word in the documentary). The point of the film is that Rittenband was a rich powerful man, and so was Polanski, so there! To make this point, the director emphasizes that Rittenband also had had a young girlfriend, age 20, as if this means he were not allowed to judge Polanski's own deviance with a 13 year old.

I interviewed Zenovich at the premiere and asked her pointblank what was her own perspective in the film -- on the rape, or Polanski or law or ... She looked embarrassed and finally sputtered, "As a filmmaker, it is not my place to have an opinion." As to why she did not have the victim speak, she added: "Americans don't open up like Europeans." [!]

Now back to the charge against Rittenband. While everyone is outraged that he might have waffled on the plea bargain, a few have noted that the initial 90 day sentence for a rape of a minor is a rather light sentence.

3. The current US prosecutor: why is he making this charge now? Is he up for re-election? [See law professor Ronald Sokol's op ed, Oct 2, 2009] Critics also have conflated the US move to extradite Polanski with imperialism, comparing it to the Iraq invasion. Note former culture minister Jacques Lang's plea to "protect" Polanski.

4. The privileged status of wealthy criminals. Quite a few articles have critiqued the fact that Polanski, a rich man, might have received more leniency than the typical proletariat rapist. A very curious spin on the "money makes law" issue is the fact that Samantha's civil case against Polanski has been misrepresented in the French press. Fact: Samantha tried Polanski in 1988, in a civil court case -- ten years post the rape -- and received the right to indemnities of perhaps 500,000 dollars (which seems not to have been paid yet). Revealing a peculiar idea of US law, a major French tv show hosted a debate about Polanski -- in his favor--where the MC announced: "Look the girl was paid half a million by Polanski and his lawyer in front of the judge, at the time of the trial, and so"--the MC wiped her brow -- "End of story! Justice has been made!" Apparently, this French host has no problem with the "a private money-funded justice" scheme.

5. Victim legal influence. Samantha G's own reneging of the complaint , which, contrary to public misrepresentation, has not yet reached legal status. See actress Valerie Lemercier's televised comment: "I don't know all the facts [sic], but it is clear for me that since the young girl has stopped her complaint, the affair is closed." Proponents of this view overlook the fundamental question here: What does US law say here--across the board--about the victim's influence over whether a prison sentence is served?

ART

Can an artist be considered superior to the common man? Look at what Polanski has offered. I will add that my own "verdict" of Polanski as an artist is that he is my favorite director of all time. No one is more masterful in exposing the cruelty of unequal power relations, sado-masochism (Death and the Maiden), alienation (Repulsion, Tess, Chinatown) and the awful power of the group (The Tenant, Rosemary's Baby). My (deceased) friend Jean-Pierre Ruh, Polanski's sound-engineer, rhapsodized that no director he has worked with--from Truffaut to Leone--had as much genius in craft as Polanski, to the point of asking him to use a special microphone to make exterior sounds louder than interior sounds, to enhance the "sense of alienation", as well as putting mikes under faucets to do the same. Polanski's training at the famed Lodz film school, his mature vision (his student films at age 22 -- depicting the horror of "others" -- are nothing short of genius), and his absolutely honesty in depicting his own psychic wounds make him one of the most unusual and powerful artists working in film today.

That said: the debate has been is the Artist above the Law? See the interesting twist on this idea in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad editorial by Raymond van den Boogaard, entitled "Art is not made by Nice Guys". It states that serious artists live by other standards than other human beings, and secretly we expect they do, and like it that way, making a comparison between the Polanski rape with the sexual behaviour of Lord Byron, who raped his wife, her sister and a few others: stories that "horrified and delighted the Victorians".

THE MAN HIMSELF

Polanski's past: hasn't he suffered enough? Hasn't he had a horrific childhood and adulthood? Note, most criminals have had bad childhoods and they are not excused because of this. And all respect to Polanski's history, but has anyone considered that it could be this very history that led him to be prone to pedophilia in the first place (a point hinted at in an early biography of Polanski, which notes -- perhaps with no basis -- his supposed repeated sadism with younger women)? After all, pedophilia would be a way to reverse the anguished powerless situation of his childhood: i.e. the victim theme in all his films, from Chinatown to Rosemary's Baby to the Pianist, where a helpless lone victim must submit to "all of them witches". (http://kbadt.free.fr/articles/Art%20After%20Auschwitz.pdf) Polanski's films equally show moments of vengeful violence: he himself pulling the knife on "nosy" Jack Nicholson in Chinatown , or he himself, as a 22-year-old, again pulling a knife on a hapless passerby in his 1958 student short "Two Men and a Wardrobe" (after stoning a cat to death with apple cores).

As for the violence of sado-masochistic machinations in human sexual relations, nobody is more self-aware and honest about this than Polanski himself who gave full-rein to the theme in his film Bitter Moon (19992) as well as in the early masterpiece Knife on the Water (1962).

Polanski's flight: how dare he flee the country! Some argue that he should be punished for this crime as well. Of course, however, it might be reasonable to assume that anyone who has seen Nazis take over his country and kill his mother, would have a natural suspicion (and lack of respect for) national authority, including legal systems.

Polanski's bad manners. He never sent Samantha G, the victim, a thank you note for her generous op ed in the New York Times about how one should let bygones be bygones and give him an Oscar. [This was an actual op-ed]

Polanski's good manners. The strongest point raised in his defense: rehabilitation. He's a nice guy now, and has a family of his own. Especially moving argument by Robert Harris, author of "The Ghost", the film Polanski is making (and won't finish if he doesn't get out soon). A question here: is rehabilitation a legal cause for overruling an earlier verdict?

THE VERDICT

Most spectacularly, what is on trial is the actual verdict: as if the case had not already been tried. Here there are various subsets to the arguments.

a) Is sex with a minor a bad thing? More than one blog-site has been devoted to dredging up child-adult sex relations from romantic history to show "children are not innocent". This ignores the fact that rape is not about sexual innocence but about unequal power relations, which most often targets females inscribed in a patriarchal system -- and children.

b) Was Samantha consenting to some extent, given her sexual past and the "date-rape" atmosphere? As Whoopi Goldberg notoriously said: "it wasn't rape-rape." Alternatively, people have argued (especially fathers with children), that a child is a child, and rape is rape.

c) The mother: isn't she the criminal here, dragging her daughter to a star's mansion for "photographs" (hint hint)?

* * *

What is disturbing about this whole debate -- which predominates in the media -- is that the verdict was already made (and Polanski absolutely frank about his guilt). So, if you disagree with the premises upon which the verdict was based (that it's wrong to have sex with a minor, that it is the perpetrator rather than the mother that should be on trial, that no matter what the girl's sexual history, she is still a child), or believe that a victim should decide if the law should be implemented, clearly your issue should not be with the verdict but with the law itself.

Which brings me to my own opinion. No matter how fascinating on deeper murky cultural political levels this Polanski case is, when it comes to having an opinion on the Polanski case, it should be looked at as a legal case above all.

In other words: IF a) the context of suspicious national behavior (Switzerland), b) suspicious prosecutor motivation c) criminal's painful past, d) criminal's rehabilitation, e) the length of time since the crime has been committed, f) victim opinion, and g) international shenanigans is enough to warrant that a nation's legal verdict should be overturned, then the Polanski case should be buried. But if one believes in the authority of the law--and US law in particular--then the extradition must hold.

Or change the law, so that all convicted child molesters -- the poor and non-famous and the rich and famous alike -- are eligible for leniency -- not just Polanski.

Now, of course, if you don't believe in the law, that's another story.

addendum: I find it ironic that so many French critics have been in favor of leniency, considering this is the same country where -- when I bike through a red light -- at least half a dozen pedestrians shout out: "Madame, la loi est pour tout le monde!!"