The new documentary Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, which is available on iTunes, Xbox, Sony, Google, Amazon, and YouTube is a curious addition to the celebrated fugitive’s genre of his own creation. In 2009, Polanski was arrested in Zurich on a decades-old warrant from 1978 stemming from a charge of raping a thirteen-year old girl in 1977. Living in exile in Paris for over three decades, Polanski had not entered the United States since fleeing the country to avoid jail time in the late 1970’s.
As the first Polanski documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired posits, Polanski was the victim of judicial misjustice, namely that for his crimes, probation was recommended, but he wasn’t viewed as a further threat to society, and he was “not required to serve any additional time” beyond the time he spent to undergo a psychological evaluation in prison.
However, as told in both documentaries, Judge Laurence Rittenband changed his mind and would sentence Polanski to prison unless he “agreed to deport [himself].” So, Polanski did what anyone faced with the option of jail or freedom did. He fled.
Because of this, he becomes a polarizing figure throughout both the film industry and the world at large. From his perspective, his “perception…varies depending on the side of the globe,” and even Samantha Geimer, the young girl he raped in 1977, has stood up in support of Polanski and against the judge and the media for the way she has been treated over the past thirty years.
This is all old news though.
So, my question about the current documentary, which is really more of an interview between Polanski’s friend and colleague Andrew Braunsberg, is why now? For the most part, the feeling is that this film is simply trying to minimize Polanski’s rape conviction by making it a minor moment in his life that has unfortunately defined the director for the better part of the last thirty years. Prior to 1977, Polanski has been nominated for two Oscars, had been famous throughout Europe and broke into the United States consciousness with Chinatown. Since this time, his name is associated first with rape, second with the murder of his wife Sharon Tate, who infamously died at the hands of Charles Manson’s family, and third with anything he’s done in Hollywood, including winning Best Director for The Pianist, an award that he was unable to accept because he would have been arrested as soon as he deplaned.
In truth, the film makes every attempt to humanize him, relaying to us his youth in Nazi-occupied Poland, his life in a concentration camp, and his mother’s jettisoning to the gas chamber. There is no denying that these, as well as his wife’s murder, are horrific moments that would not be wished on anyone, but these moments are also designed to overshadow, and it seems absolve Polanski, of his misdeeds in 1977. My intent here is not to vilify the man, demand that he serve his time, or demand that the charges be officially dropped – though they pretty much have given that Switzerland refuses to extradite Polanski, and he always has a home in France. The issue has been covered, covered again, and distorted so many times that it’s difficult to discern the truth from revisionist history and perhaps even some ennui.
Regardless, Polanski is defined by the success of Chinatown and Tess as much as he is defined by Tate’s death, his Oscar win, and encounter with Geimer. Each documentary will remind us of these moments, but will most likely be unable to erase any of them from consciousness.
