Three days ago, exiled film director Roman Polanski was arrested after flying into Switzerland to attend the Zurich Film Festival — a festival at which Polanski was to receive a lifetime achievement award. The United States government has called for him to be extradited to U.S. soil since 2006 for the crime of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Since the crime, the director has evaded the U.S., refusing to attend Academy Award ceremonies and filming on international soil.
Polanski is as famous for this crime as he is for his slain wife, Sharon Tate, murdered by the Manson family in 1969, and his stunning films such as Chinatown, The Pianist, and Rosemary’s Baby. He has been a French citizen since he fled the United States in 1978.
On Saturday, it was unknown whether Polanski would be extradited to the United States for sentencing. Yesterday, the French government appealed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the release of Polanski from his Swiss jail. His next film, The Ghost, planned for release in February of next year, is currently in an unfinished stage of postproduction and now dwells in a state of limbo. The film stars Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan and centers around a ghostwriter who unveils deadly secrets in the memoirs of a British prime minister.
Polanski’s French lawyer, Herve Temime, stated that politicians and film festival organizers from France, Germany, Switzerland and Poland are lobbying for the director’s defense:
“We have begun by requesting his release,” he said in a statement. “After that, his defense team will demonstrate the illegal nature of the extradition request he is facing. There is no legal reason based on the facts or the most basic principles of justice to keep Roman Polanski in prison for even a single day.”
Even on United States soil there is an outcry for Polanski’s liberation; producer Harvery Weinstein has called for a petition against his extradition, while German Film Academy presidents have stated that “The German Film Academy finds it revolting that Roman Polanski has been arrested for an act committed more than 30 years ago.”
This final statement is stunning in that it seems to view the moral implications of Polanski’s actions as having diminished by the passage of time. The best course of action would seem to be divorcing the director’s career — which has never faltered in quality, as he has always produced stunning works — with his personal life.
Today, it’s still not known if Polanski will be extradited to the U.S. More news on Polanski’s arrest as it develops.
This line is the dumbest thing I have heard in years – “The German Film Academy finds it revolting that Roman Polanski has been arrested for an act committed more than 30 years ago.”
A crime is a crime people. I sat in a 28 year old case about rape. It was rape then, it was rape now due to new evidence found.
With that said, you don’t get off the hook for something that has passed the antique mark.
Find him guilty or not guilty and move on. Just because he is semi-famous means nothing and should mean nothing.