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
Cinemania & Miscellanea 