The arrest of Roman Polanski on the outstanding warrant for the 1977 charges of unlawful intercourse with a minor has brought new attention to an aspect of the directors’ life that many still find murky. It will also no doubt revive interest in Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, the documentary on Polanski that played at the Melbourne International Film Festival last year (which I reviewed here). With some reservations – explained in my review – I recommend the documentary for those who are finding the complex history of Polanski’s charge, trial and exodus confusing.
What I find both interesting and disturbing is, as I noted in that review, the extent to which Polanski has been rehabilitated into public life. These are, after all, very serious child sex charges, and normally our society would see nothing as more unforgivable. There are some mild mitigating factors, but nothing that comes even close to excusing what Polanski – even by his own account – did. Yet somehow excuses seem to be made for Polanski, to the point where we need articles like Kate Harding’s outraged reminder that Polanski raped a child to bring the focus back on the original crime.
I think Polanski, in a strange way, is the beneficiary of the stigma that goes with such offences. We are used to thinking of people who commit such offences as visibly weird, disshevelled, anti-social people (like, say, the Jackie Earle Haley character in Little Children, to take another movie reference). So when confronted with a sex offender as clearly talented as Polanski, who has been able to function in society since his crime, and has made movies like The Pianist that move us deeply, we can’t deal with it. It is, I think, profoundly difficult to reconcile a film as heartfelt and profound as The Pianist with Polanski’s reprehensible actions from decades earlier. Indeed, the two things are so irreconcilable that over time, collectively, people have allowed themselves to just forget Polanski’s past.
But talent has nothing to do with morals, or legality, or justice. It’s tempting to make excuses for someone just because they are clearly a great talent, but Polanski is a sobering reminder that films we like might be made by people we shouldn’t.