Caught

As a cinephile friend recently wrote on Facebook: "Trying to sort out how I feel about Polanski's arrest." Roman Polanski is my favorite director, so I don't like that he's in jail. But I'm not going to take an immovable side on this one; too many people already have. I just hope that Polanski, who is 76, will one way or another soon be able to finish up the movie he's working on and continue making more.

This forceful piece by Kate Harding has succeeded in pulling me over to one side. She concludes: "Roman Polanski may be a great director, an old man, a husband, a father, a friend to many powerful people, and even the target of some questionable legal shenanigans. He may very well be no threat to society at this point. He may even be a good person on balance, whatever that means. But none of that changes the basic, undisputed fact: Roman Polanski raped a child. And rushing past that point to focus on the reasons why we should forgive him, pity him, respect him, admire him, support him, whatever, is absolutely twisted."

…And Richard Brody tugs me back. "Since fleeing to France in 1978, Polanski has done what the court could only wish every convict on probation would do: he has kept out of trouble, been gainfully employed, been devoted to his family, been a respected member of the community, made a contribution to society. (Sure, he had the benefit of exceptional resources and connections, but only because, to begin with, he demonstrated exceptional talents.) His life in the last thirty-one years has proven the plea bargain that had been negotiated, requiring no further jail time, to have been entirely justified. Polanski has been rehabilitated. And saying so doesn’t lessen my revulsion at the acts for which he was prosecuted."

This back-and-forth could go on forever. I hope it won't.

(Photo by Sebastien Bozen.)

Comments

[Glows in the Dark]

Socialism at its best -- free room and board in the local jail for Masters of the Arts