For a man who blithely admits to having sex with an underage girl, Roman Polanski manages a good impression of someone who is more sinned against than sinning. Today comes the news that the Oscar-winning director is lobbying for the dismissal of one of the most notorious sex cases in Hollywood history, paving the way for a possible return to the country he absconded from in 1978.
His lawyers have fixed on fresh evidence uncovered in a new documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, that highlights "a pattern of misconduct and improper communications" between the district attorney's office and Judge Rittenband. In other words the grounds for dismissal appear to be based not on any doubt over Polanski's guilt (so far as I can tell, there isn't any) but on the suggestion that the subsequent trial was not handled as spotlessly as it might have been. On such technicalities are guilty men recast as heroes.
Wanted and Desired screened at Cannes last May - and yes, the film does indeed paint a bleak view of the US justice system. It shows Rittenband as the cynical ringmaster of a media circus; more concerned with furthering his own career than the search for justice. Just as 13-year-old Samantha Gailey was unfortunate enough to run up against Polanski in horny, Austin Powers mode, so Polanski was unlucky to be then dragged before Rittenband.
But let's keep this in perspective. The director knowingly drugged and then had sex with an underage girl. In subsequent interviews he even seemed mildly bemused by all the fuss; perhaps regarding it as an impossibly square, conservative response to a bit of harmless west coast hedonism. "I think he's sorry," Gailey told reporters recently. "I think he knows it was wrong." Maybe so - but I'm not sure he's ever said this publicly.
What's your take on the latest twist? Is all of this now so much water under the bridge, or is Polanski deserving of a custodial sentence? Was he an innocent abroad who somehow misread the mores of middle America? Or is this a case of an amoral coward who ran away from trouble and now demands a Get Out of Jail Free card?
