How to win friends and influence people…Polanski-style.
Famed fugitive film-maker Roman Polanski has been getting a lot of press lately, not too much of it good. Now, I hate to kick a man when he’s down, but with the obvious exception of Chuck Norris, isn’t it the best time? However, an article from Telegraph.co.uk caught my eye, or should I say, at least one part of it did. Let’s begin with the blaring headline,
Why-did-Roman-Polanski-risk-it?
Referring, of course, to his trip to Switzerland that triggered his arrest. The obvious answer is that after years of international travel, not to these shores, and having purchased a chalet in Gstaad, he had lulled himself into a false state of security. Coupled with his massive ego, it led him to believe that they would not “dare” arrest him as he was about to receive a life-time achievement award. Think again, bucko! Add in the recent documentary that sought to establish prosecutorial misconduct, to his lawyers attempts to have all charges dismissed without him ever having to set foot on US soil, and you have a recipe for disaster. In short, he rubbed salt into old wounds and is now going to have to pay the price. So far so good.
But the tone of the article is extremely self-serving, and why wouldn’t it be? The author has a book on Polanski to shill. So we are treated to many instances of his risk-taking and derring-do in the face of Nazi Germany during WWII. All of which is fascinating, but in no way excuses drugging and raping a 13 year old child, against her very vocal wishes. From her testimony at The Smoking Gun,
The girl testified that she left the Jacuzzi and entered a bedroom in Nicholson’s home, where Polanski sat down beside her and kissed the teen, despite her demands that he “keep away.” According to Gailey, Polanski then performed a sex act on her and later “started to have intercourse with me.” At one point, according to Gailey’s testimony, Polanski asked the 13-year-old if she was “on the pill,” and “When did you last have your period?” Polanski then asked her, Gailey recalled, “Would you want me to go in through your back?” before he “put his penis in my butt.” Asked why she did not more forcefully resist Polanski, the teenager told Deputy D.A. Roger Gunson, “Because I was afraid of him.”
So, he was a heroic risk-taker during the war, but he switched from vaginally raping a child to anally raping a child as the risk of impregnating her was too much to bear. As Inspector Callahan says, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” By the by, many ask is it absolutely necessary to describe his acts so graphically? To which, I must reply, absolutely. The not-to-be-trusted media, and the likes of W. Goldberg demand it. Otherwise, they try to create the impression that the little strumpet was begging for it, and but for her age, it was consensual and beautiful. Not on my watch.
Still and all, I would not be even mentioning this article except for the following paragraph, which is ludicrous at its face,
Once, when he ventured out, two German soldiers took aim at him. Their bullets cracked into the ground behind him and “missed me by inches”, Polanski recalled.
Thirty-five years later, Polanski’s statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl was to subject him to the workings of the California criminal justice system, most of whose practitioners he found even less congenial than the Nazis.
So the author would have us believe that even though the Nazis were responsible for his mother’s death, and shot at him, they were infinitely more likeable than the LA District Attorney’s office. That should work out well for you, Roman. As I said, the notion is patently absurd, but this guy has some books to sell. I am reminded of the words of the late, great Groucho Marx who said, upon receipt of a friend’s new book,
“From the moment I picked it up, till the moment I put it down, I could not stop laughing. Some day I intend to read it.”
Over at Patterico’s we discover that Polanski may not have even paid the civil settlement. The horror!
Another development over at Patterico’s. A not disinterested party tries to impugn Patterico anonymously, with predicatable results.
Heh! An interesting take on the audacity of his defender’s over at Big Hollywood.
In other words, “How dare they disturb the sanctity of a film festival!”
The temerity!
More from Chris Burgard over at Big Hollywood. By the way, if you have not seen his movie “Border”, you need to correct that error as soon as possible. It is a fair, but chilling, look at our border and the prices paid by both sides because we do not control it.
October 3, 2009
Tags: Roman Polanski Posted in: Hollywood
3 Responses
It looks like he may sit in the Swiss jail for sometime. My guess is that he will cop some sort of plea that will include time spent behind bars in Switzerland.
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