Hold It There, Kitty Cat!-Revisited

I previously addressed the rising controversy over the crook-artist formerly known as artist Roman Polanski shortly after the director took some strides toward getting his case dropped, trying to use the technicalities of the law to his advantage (claiming malfeasance on the part of the original sitting judge for the case, now deceased, who was coached by a deputy district attorney outside the boundaries of the law; this was documented in Marina Zenovich’s pointed film, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” (available online through Netflix Watch Instantly), and was cited by Polanski’s legal team) despite his elected fugitive status. Fortunately, the LA Court was savvy to his ways, and his efforts were stymied with a ruling stating no steps would be taken toward dismissing his case without the physical presence of Polanski in the court room. A hearing was set for last May, and, to no one’s surprise, Polanski did not show up.

(Update: And yesterday, David Wells, the former deputy district attorney who made the claims that he coached Judge Laurence J. Rittenband on sentencing Polanski, issued a formal retraction saying these were false claims. He only wanted to inflate his own ego on the camera, and so he lied that his involvement in the case was more substantial than his actual position. “It never happened,” he added. This undercuts the basis for Polanski’s dismissal.)

Last Saturday justice finally caught up with the director. While traveling to Switzerland to receive an award at the Zurich Film Festival, Polanski was detained by Swiss police on a standing interpol order issued at the request of the LA District Attorney. Expedition to the US is pending, with Polanski’s legal team, which I’m sure is big enough to fully field both sides in a football game, pedaling in high gear to stop these orders. His team’s most recent acquisition is Reid Weingarten, a Washington heavy who rubs shoulders with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. This likely means no end in sight, but one can hope.

The initial (premature) reaction was surprise in Europe. The cultural minister for France stated he was “shocked.”  Over 100 film industry bigwigs—including some of my favorite directors, such as Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, and Wong Kar-Wai—signed a petition expressing “stupefaction” over the arrest. Part of this reaction is due to the fact Polanski has traveled to Switzerland, where he maintains a home, on many occasions as a fugitive and the timing of his arrest—why not one of the countless other times he was in the country in full public regale?—stunned many of his friends and colleagues. (To suppress further bafflement, the LA DA’s office issued a timeline of their efforts over the years, which include a close call in Israel two years ago.)

Other public support was especially ill informed, or at the least utterly stupid. Noted philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was forgiving of the detained director, stating Polanski “perhaps had committed a youthful error.” Really? So a 43-year-old drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl, even if she looked like she “could be any age up to 25” (Thanks for the insight Angelica Huston!), qualifies as youthful error?

Granted, the more heinous elements of the crime—such as the drugging and the raping part—were dropped in a plea bargain 31 years ago, leaving only the “having sex with a minor” crime. This is still a crime. Whatever illicit actions the presiding judge took should not excuse Polanski’s (now this is in jest) “youthful error.” While an actual ruling, if we ever get one, should reflect no more than this crime, any ruling would be a relief if a sense of closure could be brought to this decades long spectacle.

I particularly appreciated the view of Luc Besson. It would be far fetched to say Besson’s contributions to the film world—such as “The Fifth Element” and “La Femme Nikita”—are of a caliber higher than fluff, but they are for the most part incredibly watchable, and sometimes almost revolutionary. Anyhow, even though he is an acquaintance of Polanski, his name was notably absent from the aforementioned petition. Taken from the end of the NY Times article:

“Our daughters are good friends,” Mr. Besson said in a radio interview with RTL Soir. “But there is one justice, and that should be the same for everyone.”

One can hope.

Hold It There, Kitty Cat!

Dear Mr. Polanski,

First I would like to thank you for the wonderful films you have brought us over the past half century. “Knife in the Water,” your tale about a couple that meets tension, suspicion and alarm on the water with the arrival of a young stranger, was my first introduction to you. This film is not the common avenue to your oeuvre but an appropriate start—your first feature length film and first of four Oscar nominations—ably displaying the artist you are, not at an inchoate stage but an expert one.

My personal favorite of yours is “Repulsion.” Catherine Deneuve stars as a young beautician staying with her sister in London with a growing distaste of other people. As she is slowly consumed by madness, her fears are manifest in her environment. A crack in the sidewalk becomes a crack in the apartment wall while her room becomes a prison of imagined torture and terror. The introduction of the creepy intruder was particularly chilling. (David Lynch probably used this character as a reference for his creepy guy in the corner in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me;” what they say about imitation and flattery has double the effect when Lynch is the imitator.) I will enjoy returning to the heebie-jeebies in this justified work of art for years to come.

***

Sound is an important part of your arsenal. The creaking and murmuring (and screaming) of the apartment in “Repulsion” and “The Tenant” effects claustrophobia and hysteria, while the haunting opening theme in “Rosemary’s Baby” unnerves the viewer in under two minutes (and this is before any witches or demons). In “Chinatown,” we find ourselves looking over our own shoulders as Jack Nicholson’s Gittes begins to find himself inexorably entangled in a web of corruption: what could be a woman’s screams turns into a man waxing a car; a snoop (or hired assassin!) scratching at the door, possibly waiting for a moment to strike, becomes the building handyman scraping off the name on the door of Gittes’s ersatz former client’s now deceased husband. Each new sound is accompanied by a new fear or paranoia; no matter how benign you get us to expect the worse.

But sometimes there is the divine. In “The Pianist,” when Szpilman is on the precipice of death with a probable Nazi executioner looming above him in a bomb-ridden building with little more than a piano left standing, he puts his fingers on the keys and, instead of the cacophony plausible from an out of tune piano that suffered through various horrors of war, we hear hope.

***

But enough of the consummate artist (and forgoing discussion of your less respectable work: the funny in a hokey way, “The Fearless Vampire Killers;” the funny in a jumbled trash way, “The Ninth Gate;” “Pirates”…), now to the man.

In “Chinatown” you played a very convincing weasel. So convincing that I still think you are one. I applaud the ruling in LA this past week denying you a pardon for your heinous crime over three decades ago, further saying you need to first surrender before the court will hear any disposition. You tried to hide behind the prohibited involvement of an Assistant DA (who coached the media whore Laurence J. Rittenband, the (Dis-)Honorable Judge who presided over your case), maybe hoping for a decision along the lines of the double negative rule in English grammar. But, alas for you, jurisprudence is a different subject. (Enter chuckle/guffaw.)

Marina Zenovich’s smart documentary, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” shined some light on the media frenzy surrounding your illicit moment of disgrace. You have lived a hard life, that goes without question: holocaust survivor; losing your wife and unborn child to Charles Manson’s demented “family.” But you pled guilty to a crime you did commit (not to mention the other counts you had dropped in your plea bargain) and then you ran away.

You have much to thank Ms. Zenovich for since she rightly brought a scalpel not only to you but also the wrongdoings done to you by a corrupt representative of the law (which you used in your attempt to have your case thrown out). But you should also thank her since she didn’t then bring the scalpel to whatever shred of decency you think you have left in the United States.

Now, I will be a hypocrite and instead of urging you to make the trip to the LA court on your own dime and face justice, I will just suggest you stay in Europe. I will continue to watch (and re-watch) your films, and I will always place you in the pantheon of the most talented directors. However, with your victim even coming to your defense yesterday (and also in “Wanted and Desired”), I could never condone your mistake. I find this more sad than convincing—that the 13-year-old girl who you drugged and raped is still left hurting, trying in vain to be forgotten. Your infamy will forever precede her.

The title of Ms. Zenovich’s documentary is taken from your being wanted as a criminal in the US and desired as an artist in Europe. While it would be wrong to say your films are not also desired here (exhibit A: me, I desire them), your crime will not disappear. So stay put where you are, and, if you ever do make the difficult trek to this (not-so-)fair land, do so with your head held high, entering of your accord and not through your lawyers’ chicanery.

Your Loyal Fan,
John