Roman Polanski's Arrest Makes Everyone Go Insane

Posted by Michael Dance

Funny how controversies that are thirty years old can come back with such a vengeance.

As you probably know, over the weekend Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in a sting set up by L.A. prosecutors. He'll very possibly be brought to the U.S. for the first time since '77 to face sentencing for raping a 13-year-old girl.

It's a complicated story, but basically, he was about to get off on a petty lenient plea deal, but the judge was prepared to renege on the deal, so before sentencing he fled the country to France. Since he has French citizenship, France could refuse his extradition back to the U.S. So he's been living over there ever since, still making films and even winning an Oscar for 2002's The Pianist.

But please, don't start gearing up your talking points until you look a little bit further into things. Here's a longer recap, and here's his Wikipedia page. And you also might want to check out the pro-Polanski documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.

But now Hollywood's coming to his defense, which Salon is presumably super-duper pissed off about (their op-ed: "Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child"). Polanski's own victim has forgiven him and wants to drop the whole thing, but Movie City News points out the weakness of some of the forgive-Polanski side's arguments. And if you really want to dive right into the line-in-the-sand public opinion brawls, read through a few of the 181 comments on this AwardsDaily post.

Overall, it's a mess and I'm sick of it. And I'd rather not take a stand here, because I don't want to get called (a) a maniac out for Polanski's blood or (b) someone who encourages rape along with the rest of those Hollywood liberal elites.

Unfortunately, it's the biggest story to hit the awards circuit in a while, given Polanski's status as one of the great living directors. His upcoming film The Ghost, by the way, was scheduled for a 2010 release but isn't entirely finished, leaving its fate up in the air.

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Roman Polanski's Arrest Makes Everyone Go Insane

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