Legal News

LBers, On the Topic of Polanski, Hollywood Disagrees With You

By Ashby Jones

We threw out the question on Monday: Is the prosecution of Roman Polanski warranted or best left alone?

LBers’ responses were nearly unanimously in favor of bringing the 71-year-old film director back to California to make him pay for his crime. A reader named Steve Myson could have been speaking for most who chose to comment when he said:

He pled guilty and fled the jurisdiction. Why is this even up for debate?

It led us to wonder if there was anyone out there who felt differently, felt that Polanski was being treated unfairly or that the U.S. justice system was marching in too rigid or formalistic a fashion.

We didn’t have to look far. Over at the Jezebel blog (subtitled “Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women”), Kate Harding points a finger at two groups, each of which is petitioning the move to bring Polanski back to the U.S. Click here for a list of one; here for the other. (Be forewarned, LBers. Jezebel throws out its fair share of four-letter words.)

Most of the signatories to the petition are Hollywood-celeb types or European public-thinkers. Writes, par example, the French writer and thinker Bernard-Henri Levy:

Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.

He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.

Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.

We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it.

And then there’s Debra Winger (pictured), who, according to Variety on Monday demanded Polanski’s release and criticized Swiss authorities for their “philistine collusion” in arresting Polanski as he entered the country.

“This fledgling festival has been unfairly exploited, and whenever this happens the whole art world suffers,” Winger said in a statement on Monday.

Continues Jezebel’s Harding:

That’s apparently what this is about, in the minds of all these great artistes: Philistinism. A failure to appreciate A) Polanski’s genius and B) the sanctity of international film festivals. No, I am not even kidding about the second part. From the SACD petition:

By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance, undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects.

Yes I can totally see how arresting a fugitive child rapist is a slippery slope toward censorship. If I were a creative professional, I’d certainly be concerned about the authorities coming after me and my work! Except, I am a creative professional, and I’m not worried, because unlike Roman Polanski, I have neither raped a child nor jumped bail and evaded capture for three decades.

LBers, the floor is again yours.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 29, 2009 (boomark / email).