Political leaders and entertainers around the world are clamoring for film director Roman Polanski to be freed. Polanski, a resident of France, was en route to the Zurich Film Festival on Saturday when Swiss authorities arrested him on a California court warrant.
Polanski fled the United States in 1977 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. American investigators say Polanski slipped a13-year-old model a hypnotic sedative, gave her champagne, then engaged in various sex acts with her.
His defenders, including 138 in the film industry who signed a petition against the arrest, are proclaiming that Polanski is a victim, that efforts to extradite him would “take away his freedom.” The signatories, including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, expressed “dismay” that Polanski would be detained at a film festival in a “neutral” country. The petition demands the “immediate release” of “a renowned and international artist.”
I won’t deny that Polanski is a gifted director. I particularly enjoyed his 1980 movie Tess, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, and his 2002 work The Pianist, for which he won the Oscar. The latter alludes to Polanski’s personal trauma in surviving the Holocaust (his mother died in a Nazi concentration camp). Polanski also experienced excruciating grief when Charles Manson’s gang murdered his eight-months-pregnant wife Sharon Tate in 1969.
Beyond arguments that he is a fine filmmaker who has suffered, some defenders contend that Polanski should be forgiven for the crime because of his age (76), it happened 32 years ago and his victim wants to forget the whole ordeal.
But these excuses all miss the point. Polanski committed a horrific crime, confessed and fled. To allow him — or anyone less famous — to walk away free sends a message that sexually abusing young teenage girls is no big deal. That’s a message that is wrong, whether it’s 1977 or 2009.
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