No means No, even for talented directors.

Okay, I let myself get caught up in the current saga of exiled film director Roman Polanski. I haven’t seen his new film, “The Pianist”, but I hear it’s pretty good. There’s a big brouhaha in Hollywood these days because it the film has been nominated for an Academy Award. Why is Polanski in exile? Because he “sexually abused” a 13-year old girl back in the ‘70’s. I believe the correct term is rape.

The first I heard of this case was an op-ed in the L.A. Times a month or so ago, written by Polanski’s victim, now a woman in her 30’s. In the essay, she pleaded with her readers, and the Academy no doubt, to judge Polanski’s film on its merits and not on his criminal treatment of her from decades ago. At the time, I was impressed. It seems that the young woman has found a way to forgive the director, and was willing to open herself to public attention. I thought she made sense.

I still think she makes sense, but after reading transcripts from the actual trial, thoughtfully reproduced on the Smoking Gun website, what that 13-year old girl described was an adult male forcibly raping her, both vaginally and anally. Rather than face certain prison time (where he would probably be anally raped himself), Polanski fled the country, never to return. He did the crime, but not the time.

What he did was wrong. And he followed it up by running away, another wrong. During this current climate, in which female Air Force cadets are being raped by their classmates and then dismissed from the Academy, what type of signal are we sending if we give Polanski the Oscar? Shame on the Academy for even giving him the nomination.

More later…
Paul