Polish director Roman Polanski attends a news conference for the film "Chacun son Cinema" at the 60th Cannes Film Festival, May 20, 2007. (Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)
Poles cool on cultural hero Polanski
In his home country, Polanksi once enjoyed widespread support. Now, public figures scramble to keep his scandal from affecting the national image.
WARSAW, Poland — When Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss authorities on a 32-year-old rape charge, the first reaction of many Poles was to immediately leap to his defense, but in recent days a counter-reaction has begun to set in that is much less favorable to the respected director.
Polanski's detention caused a major stir in Poland, where it has dominated newspapers and television. Although Polanski — of Polish-Jewish background and a Holocaust survivor — left communist Poland in the 1960s, he is still seen as one of the country's major cultural figures. In the first few days after Polanski's arrest, which occurred Sept. 26 in Zurich three decades after he was convicted of having sex with a minor, he was strongly defended by Polish artists and politicians. Bogdan Zdrojewski, the culture minister, called the U.S. criminal proceedings against Polanski in the 1970s, “a legalized lynching,” accused the judge in charge of the case at the time of meddling, and suggested that the whole matter was tied to the recent U.S. decision to scrap the missile defense shield in central Europe.
Radoslaw Sikorski, the foreign minister, staged a joint appeal with his French counterpart to Hillary Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, calling for her to intervene in the affair.
Sikorski said he hoped the letter would be successful, “because Roman Polanski is a great artist, with great merit for Poland.”
Lech Kaczynski, Poland's conservative and family values president, asked his lawyers to look into the matter.
Polanski's fellow artists were even more forthcoming in his defense. Krzysztof Zanussi, the well-known Polish film producer, called the 13-year-old with whom Polanski had sex in 1977, “an underaged prostitute.”
“I don't believe in the innocence of the victim,” he said on Poland's TVN24 television. “She didn't give the impression that she was there by chance.”
Polish artists, including Andrzej Wajda, the director and Oscar laureate, and Daniel Olbrychski, Poland's best-known actor, joined in an appeal for the authorities to help Polanski.
Why is the United States spending millions upon millions to extradite and try Polanski? (he was quietly forgotten.) Are they doing it for the global publicity?
Please check your facts David. Polanski pleaded guilty to the charges but fled the country before his sentencing. He's been avoiding the consequences for his actions for many years. I don't believe he was ever "quietly forgotten." He was playing the system avoiding arrest until recently.
Forcing himself on a 13-year old after giving her drugs and alcohol is serious stuff. This wasn't some movie he was directing. I don't care that he is (or was) an accomplished director. What difference does that make?
Check out the details of the crime here:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0928091polanskiplea1.html
David, you smoking heap of smelly Euro-drivel. The girl was 13. Can you count that high? He gave her Quaaludes, sexually abused and sodomized her, even after she pleaded with him to stop, repeatedly. What don't you get about this? Ironically, the support from Hollywood and other "luminaries" has only served to create a backlash that, from the looks of things, has virtually assured that your guy Roman will be sentenced to a much deserved vacation in prison, where he is likely to get a taste of his own medicine. Publicity? No, David, not publicity. In America, we don't let people who drug, rape and sodomize 13-year olds get away with it. Schmuck!
David,
i seriously doubt that it's going to cost "millions and millions" to extradite Polanski, who, as Waldemar has pointed out, has already been tried and convicted.
There are few crimes more heinous than the rape of a child, and if it costs the U.S. taxpayer a bundle to put someone like this in jail, it's money well spent.
Mr. Polanski has been involved with sleaze a lot and this one has come home to roost. Unfortunately, many creative geniuses also have loose morals; perhaps the very same quality that gives them access to unfettered creativity also leads to unrestrained behavior in other areas. As a classic example, Charlie Chaplin also had trouble with underage women and faced at least one paternity suit. Lucky for him (though not the girls he abused), in those days it wasn't such a big deal. I'm only sorry that Polish artists and officials have egg on their faces for speaking in defense of Mr. Polanski without thinking of what they were actually saying.
Ideally, prisons would be places for rehabilitation. Because of many obvious reasons and complexities, rehabilitation remains elusive and so prisons simply restrain criminals from being able to repeat their crimes. But even worse, prisons really seem to exist to satisfy our need for revenge.
It's very sad to me that we nurture this need, justify it and glorify it, as if we've won something in revenge.
The bigger question here is how many other girls has he done this to? Its a proven fact that pedophiles don't stop with one and their enough evidence out there that he surround himself with young 14-16 year old for sometime.
The U.S. tried some 12 times to grab him but countries refused to cooperate.
Ask yourself the question, if this was your thirteen year old daugher that he admmitted to drugging and rapping (read the transcripts with her begging him to stop) what would you do. Personnally, I would have gone after him myself but that what we have a legal system for.
A little music, champagne a chemical castration and maybe a hot tub sound nice ?
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