Posted on 07/25/2008 11:59:30 AM PDT by Borges
The tragic story of Roman Polanski, his life, his suffering and his crimes, has been told and retold until it assumes the status of legend. After the loss of his parents in the Holocaust, after raising himself on the streets of Nazi-controlled Poland, after moving to America to acclaim as the director of "Chinatown," after the murder by the Manson family of his wife and unborn child ... what then?
He was arrested and tried for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13- year-old girl, one of several charges including supplying her with drink and drugs. Then he fled the country to avoid a prison sentence and still remains in European exile for that reason. That is what everybody remembers, and it is all here in Marina Zenovich's surprising documentary, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired."
But there is so much more, and the story she builds, brick by brick with eyewitness testimony, is about crimes against the justice system carried out by the judge of Polanski's case, Laurence J. Rittenband. So corrupt was this man that the documentary finds agreement among the three people (aside from Polanski) most interested in the outcome: the defense attorney, Douglas Dalton; the assistant D.A. who prosecuted the case, Roger Gunson, and Samantha Gailey Geimer, who was the child involved.
Their testimony nails Rittenband as a shameless publicity seeker who was more concerned with his own image than arriving at justice. Who broke his word to attorneys on both sides. Who staged a fake courtroom session in which Gunson and Geimer were to go through the motions of making their arguments before the judge read an opinion he had already prepared. Who tried to stage such a "sham" (Gunson's term) a second time. Who juggled possible sentences in discussions with outsiders, once calling a Santa Monica reporter, David L. Jonta, into his chambers to ask him, "What the hell should I do with Polanski?" Who discussed the case with the guy at the next urinal at his country club. Who held a press conference while the case was still alive. Who was removed from the case on a motion by both prosecution and defense.
The most significant fact of the film is that the prosecutor Gunson, a straight-laced Mormon, agrees with the defender Dalton that justice was not served. Both break their silences for this film after many years, Gunson saying, "I'm not surprised that he left the country under those circumstances." Samantha Geimer, whose family asked at the time that Polanski not be prosecuted or jailed, came public in 1997 to forgive him, and now says she feels Rittenband was running the case for his own aggrandizement, "orchestrating some little show that I didn't want to be in." And in 2003, I learn from the New York Times, she published a statement, concluding: "Who wouldn't think about running when facing a 50-year sentence from a judge who was clearly more interested in his own reputation than a fair judgment or even the well-being of the victim?"
It is her own well-being that leaves her bitter about the judge and the press, when as a child she became the center of an international media circus. Finally, she says, "I just stayed in my room." Now an intelligent and well-spoken adult, she represents herself with quiet dignity.
Polanski's ordeal with the press began after the 1969 Manson murders. Before the case was linked to Manson, Polanski was widely reported to be a satanic drug addict who probably orchestrated the killings himself. That was a crushing irony for a man who had suffered so much as a child and had now lost so much as an adult.
Yes, what he did with the 13-year-old girl was very wrong. That there were mitigating circumstances should not concern us. He confessed his guilt in a plea bargain arranged by the judge and both attorneys. He turned up at Chino State Prison to serve a 90-day "evaluation" sentence. When Chino agreed with the parole board and two court-appointed psychiatrists (one is in the film) that he should be given parole, Rittenband decided to ignore those opinions because he was getting a bad image, he complained in chambers, while trying to orchestrate the second of his sham sessions (Dalton calls them "like a mock trial").
Zenovich uses file footage of Polanski at the time, TV news bites, newspaper clippings, even scenes from Polanski's films ("Rosemary's Baby" made such an impact that some thought it was made under satanic inspiration). There are no current interviews with Polanski himself -- just older TV interviews. But she has achieved extraordinary access to the other still-living players in the case, and they all seem to be in agreement: Polanski is correct in saying the judge played with him as a cat might play with a mouse. The corruption in Rittenband's courtroom was worthy of "Chinatown."
Note: On July 15, 2008, Polanski and Dalton asked the L.A. district attorney's office to review his case based on new evidence disclosed in the film, including alleged improper communication between a member of the prosecutor's office (not Gunson) and Rittenband.
He still raped a 13 year old girl and he still hasn't paid for it.
forget it jake, it’s chinatown
Sorry to ask a stupid question here, but wouldn’t statute of limitations come into play here?
Other than going into 13, his other major crime was directing "Frantic."
I still thank him for “The Pianist”.
‘Frantic’ came off like a hungover Hitchcock after an all-night party with Eurotrash.
In this town I’m the leper with the most fingers.
I doubt it, purely on the technical grounds that a DA does not want to plead out a child rapist unless he agrees to some serious time.
Whether he pled to 10 years rather than got sentenced to 20, 40 or 50 years probably was immaterial to Polanski.
Either way, he would not be able to direct and his career would end.
That the pornographic child predators may or may not have "talent" for making movies, does not in any way, forgive their debasement of a child, who will forever carry the scars of what that rapist did.
Whether or not Polanski got a "fair deal" or not will never change that girl's life, nor will the fact that her rapist "makes good movies" for some audiences.
Here is how Wikipedia describes the incident:
According to Geimer, Polanski asked Geimer's mother if he could photograph the girl for the French edition of Vogue, which Polanski had been invited to guest-edit. Her mother allowed a private photo shoot. According to Geimer in a 2003 interview, "Everything was going fine; then he asked me to change, well, in front of him." She added, "It didn't feel right, and I didn't want to go back to the second shoot."
Geimer later agreed to a second session, which took place on March 10, 1977 at the Mulholland area home of actor Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles. "We did photos with me drinking champagne," Geimer says. "Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't quite know how to get myself out of there." Geimer alleged that Polanski sexually assaulted her after giving her a combination of champagne and quaaludes. In the 2003 interview, Geimer says she resisted. "I said no several times, and then, well, gave up on that," she says
He’s already been convicted. You don’t get to get out of a jail sentance because you were on the lam (except if you are Mark Rich). The question I have is why hasn’t he been extradited?
France doesn’t much of an extradition treaty with the U.S. He’s in his mid 70s and I doubt he’ll ever set foot in the U.S. again.
Nowhere did I say this. He's a perverted creep who should be extradited to get his punishment, but I still can acknowledge that he has talent and made some good movies that are my favorites. Most of Hollywood are in one regard or the other perverted commies... but this doesn't stop me from appreciating an occasionally good movie.
Source: Polanski Sexual Assault Victim Gives Thumb's Up to "Polanski: The Movie"
I’m talking about the 1st tier film industry not people living there.
So was I. You can’t make a statement like that without some incredulity. It’s like saying everyone in the publishing industry is that. Or music industry. It’s too wide of a net.
The tortured artist mythos lives on.
With a few exceptions that I count on one hand, every time a Hollywood actor/director/starlet opens his or her mouth it’s some anti-Bush, anti-American communist crap phrase. I can give hundreds of examples. The fact that they stay in the headlines through whoring, buggering and adultery (again I could give hundreds if not more of examples) proves my point that Hollywood (again meaning the current crop of best known actors) are mostly commie pervs.
The percentage that open their mouths is a tiny minority. The percentage that stay in the headlines in the manner you mentioned is an even smaller minority.
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