Updated and continually extended version. Ever since the legendary film director Roman Polanski was unexpectedly arrested on September 26th last year in Switzerland on the old unlawful sex charges from the Seventies, I wanted to voice my own more objective thoughts about the much maligned case. I will screen comments and all off topic and offensive language and/or abusive content will be deleted without a second thought with its IP address blocked. But be warned, this is very extensive research, so if you can’t deal with long microanalysis, just take a few paragraphs at a time. All constructive comments are welcome.
To start with, what I found out foremost over the last months, is the shocking amount of twisted accusations based on the fact that most people never properly examined the wider picture to know better about this infamous case, yet they keep repeating the same falsehood they heard on the news having no clear understanding about any of it, voicing their sad prejudices and ill information without qualms based on hearsay or wishful thinking and most of all damaging hatred. I came across blogs mixing it all up with rightwing politics, personal prejudices and wholly misled feminist and misplaced child abuse agendas to attract readers, painting a much more obscene picture than it ever was, fuelling and justifying a very unsettling lynch mob attitude that is even more appalling than anything.
Another thing I found was, that certain blogs and newspaper articles simply deleted or blocked more positive or neutral comments to maintain an atmosphere of blind condemnation. That’s not allowing freedom of speech, but in fact suppression thereof of in order to manipulate the public and to inflame their hate-filled ideas. It seems especially major US newspapers have the tendency to omit vital details and block more objective comments, to uphold a neutral tone they’re supposed to, but rather paint it the crime of the century and allow only negative slander and offensive abuse. Even the Wiki page is constantly reedited to remove vital information that gives a more balanced view. Since this is not a published book, I don’t require citing my very reliable sources. Though I gladly and gratefully accredit their own efforts of research and neutrality.
So here are more of the interesting facets (without prejudice) according to the court transcripts and other sources of information – willing to paint a different picture many people rather want to ignore, still out to criticise someone blindly than find out the finer details, and that this case most of all is not as black and white they all want it to be. Nor ever was or can be for many reasons. It also deals with the sociopolitical and juristic side of things in the context of then and now, delves into his diverse art and other events to gel the overall picture of the much maligned and hailed man, and current affairs as they develop. I’m sure many will agree with the following findings, and many not. Take your pick.
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First, the girl named Samantha Gailey (now Geimer), Polanski was supposed to have violated the terrible way many still state, was very familiar with Quaaludes, or as others knew it, Mandrax. It was very popular in the Sixties and Seventies and used during sexual activity because of heightened sensitivity coupled with relaxation and euphoria. It is the recreational drug he supposedly had slipped her, which is not true according to her very own testimony. On closer examination, he was not found responsible for having plied the drug, which then is called furnishing a controlled substance with intent in legal terms, and was one of the six counts, since he had found the Quaaludes in Jack Nicholson’s bathroom during the photoshoot at his house. According to her statement, he showed her the small container, asked her if it was Quaaludes, and she said yes. She also stated that he had offered her a piece, and after she wasn’t interested at first, took one. This however lies in direct contradiction to his version.
She had told Polanski that she had used Quaaludes before she had stolen from her mother and sister, who [the twenty year old sister] in fact had been institutionalised for Quaaludes abuse, and that she [Geimer] liked champagne. Many students and others took Quaaludes then, and she had willingly taken it again while with Polanski after she felt thirsty and they opened a bottle of champagne. One could say, as an adult he should have prevented her from taking it, but since she had told him she had taken the drug before, might not have had any reservation for her to take it again. He left it to her. The acting caretaker, who let them in, still present at that moment, testified to that he didn’t subversively drug her with anything as still reported. She was the one who filled their glasses and had a drink with them before she left. Besides, why didn’t the girl simply decline and ask for something else to drink? According to Ms Geimer, he had asked her if she was ok with the Quaaludes and if he could still be driving her back home after taking a piece, to which she answered “I don’t know,” and that he took a piece. While in some interviews later, she stated that she had lied to him about having taken Quaaludes before and simply took a piece and he the other, she however had told the courts that she had taken some before. Curious.
According to his own words, however, he said he shouldn’t take a piece himself for needing to drive, and never said if he eventually had taken it. He stated that he did not offer her a piece, but that she took one herself without his direct request. Since Quaaludes was used for the given properties other than a calming effect, it is entirely reasonable to think that she knew which it would have on her, or what purpose it served, since she had taken it before. In the very small amount she had consumed it, it predominantly served as aphrodisiac and not as sedative. Once at the house, she took the champagne they had found in the kitchen on her own volition in the company of the acting caretaker without his forcing her to drink it, so the count of plying her with alcohol was unsubstantiated too and recorded as such. She had also volunteered to him and the courts that she had sex with two kids from the age of eight, with one down the road and her boyfriend of the age of seventeen she had at that time. That did not only shock Polanski, but it didn’t seem to hold much significance to her. Or the fact, that she had stated in later interviews that she had told him to have had sex only once before, and is another rather inconsistent account.
That doesn’t make her in any form ‘experienced’, or any difference to us today legally, but then previous sexual encounters were included in the records or if they had taken any alcohol before. Today this is deemed irrelevant, yet could make a significant difference to expose relevant details to make or break a case of guilt or innocence. Or person’s life. If anyone was guilty related to the drugs or champagne, than that’s Jack Nicholson for actually having had them at his home. Not that champagne was illegal then, but Quaaludes was in fact the sixth best selling drug on the market in the US during those days where it was legally sold, before its widespread abuse to ‘lude out’ made it a prescription drug only. It should be noted that Polanski was brought some Quaaludes the next day courtesy of a pal of the sister’s boyfriend, and that right before another friend asked if he had some for him, which Polanski then fetched to hand it to him at his hotel lobby, and promptly was arrested to get caught with it. Sounds like a classic set-up. That is why the cops, having noticed it in his hand, included the count of drug furnishing, before it became clear that he had not brought it along to the Nicholson home. Polanski also had his own Quaaludes prescriptions, but they were a higher strength to keep himself composed, that’s why he in fact asked the arresting officer if he could have the confiscated pill back to calm down – but that was obviously still ‘evidence’ at that time and he declined his request.
Of course, one could say, what girl of that age can judge for herself concerning drugs and alcohol or even sex. But she obviously was not unversed in either or her family after what she had told him, and was not forced to take any of it while with him. She was certainly not as experienced in regards to sex as Polanski, but schooled enough, even to the judge’s own words. The fact that he liked younger women like many others should not make him a sexual predator, and the fact that she was knowledgeable about drugs and alcohol (like many kids for various reasons then and now) at that point was certainly not Polanski’s fault but the family’s alone. He wasn’t in fact sure it was Quaaludes, unlike her, since they came in different sizes white pills and blue coloured capsule form. Just so to correct people’s repeat argument that what she took knocked her out, even with a glass of champagne, that in fact requires several pills and has merely a calming effect when taken as single pill. It’s not a sleeping pill either or causes anterograde amnesia as in today’s date rape drugs. Quaaludes was in fact so popular, that they even had different size decorative ceramic jars with the name in relief to show them off, and people of today have simply no concept that they took them like candy.
Many people of course have a problem with her having been that young even if she had consented, and him being that much older. So what are we talking here? ‘Decent behaviour limits’, ‘moral outrage’? What you were taught is ‘immoral’, and what not, while others don’t have such reservations and makes neither attitude the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ one, just different ‘opinions’ of different eras? Or is it sheer dictatorship that physical love should know any age difference? In other cultures many underage girl were/are even married off to older man and Polanski came from a different culture altogether. And why so virulently opposed to his attraction to younger women? Or is it simple unwillingness to accept that teenagers can be sexual beings? I wonder where all the underage mothers come from other than having slept with their teenage boyfriends, and many don’t even know who their kid’s father is in fact. Maybe they should just take precautions.
Of course, it’s technically against the law, but the bile attached to this case in particular is nothing but double standards clad in sanctimonious calls for his head suddenly, while others are allowed to do it and never see any charges brought forward, but call him a child molester because of the huge age gap and for too many reading their own feelings into this, and neighbour X is doing it right now and they probably would simply ignore it. I for one do not ever believe the girl was a hooker like controversial Gore Vidal recently stated, and that kind of disrespectful statement is just as wrong and in fact doesn’t do Polanski any service in any form either coming from the same Hollywood camp. He might have shot off his mouth at times by saying that [all] men like younger woman, but I doubt that he’s wrong in essence, except most people might not have been that upfront or unconventional. Ms Geimer was certainly not a whore as many called her, but neither was Polanski the vile rapist many others want him to be, simply according to the overall testimonies and forensic findings.
Which are as follows: on medical examination, the girl was found not physically harmed, and was never threatened to sleep with him by force at no such words from her. No anal or vaginal trauma was evident and recorded as such by a rape kit examination performed the next day. No blood on clothing, panties, or perineum. Full speculum examination done with ease. Adult female. Anal examination reveals no hematoma, lacerations or blood. No traumatic acute fissures seen. No sphincter tear. No evidence of forced entry, examination was normal. Vaginal and anal slides were negative, and tested negative for semen. Some say, that can happen when no force is applied, but woman and teenagers, or even men, know if no lubrication is used or the female is not willing and therefore lubricated enough, it will still cause visible vaginal or anal trauma on dry friction no matter how ‘careful’ a man is and ‘willing’ the female. The physical dynamics of penetration vaginally or rectally, are clearly defined by needed female or other lubrication to facilitate easy penetration not to hurt, to avoid laceration and soreness even in younger, still suppler women. She never complained of abdominal or rectal discomfort or indeed severe pain and bleeding as seen after forcible sex, and these documented facts speak in his favour and that it was indeed consensual.
Of course one can say, because he apparently (since he in fact never mentioned oral sex) had performed cunnilingus on her first, that could have served as lubrication for later intercourse and therefore no physical trauma occurred as in forced intercourse, if that however is sufficient to aid anal intercourse is another question. But either way, if he had or not orally conditioned her, if no ‘force’ was used, it is simple intercourse no matter it might lead to minor damage in anal intercourse unless extra lubricant or of course saliva is used, of which neither was evident nor traces found inside her. She herself stated often enough later it wasn’t rape, and only the ignorant and ill-informed public had willingly turned it into a brutal rape case with more vitriol than even Michael Jackson had to deal with. Curious enough too, that in the whole of California at that time no one had been sentenced to jail for a similar offence in years, at their discretion, but Polanski was made an example of for publicity reasons the prejudiced judge fully exploited since he was a celebrated director and not some unknown hoodlum.
After he had vaginal intercourse with her to which he however always had stood firm, and yet, she still did not try to fend him off despite her claims that it was ‘scary’. Then, to her own words again only, he flipped her over and ‘went through her back’, penetrated her anally, but, still did nothing to stop him beyond her alleged words he never could confirm either. Odd that there were no marks on her since he seems to have rough handled her. Apparently not. At that point, according to her while having anal intercourse, they were interrupted by someone at the door and he left her, to answer it. She got up to dress her underwear and sat down on the bed again. By now we know that allegedly was Anjelica Houston, and that she had reneged on her statement for having charges of cocaine possession waved, granting her immunity from prosecution in return to give evidence for the prosecution, not him. The usual double dealings by corrupt cops as standard procedure and a friend to fall into his back suddenly.
However, according to Polanski, they were not interrupted by Huston at the door, but by a light on the phone signalling someone [Huston] was in the house, [and in fact on the phone], and after he assured the girl it was ok, they finished making conventional [not anal] love. In fact, it was Polanski who called into the corridor for Huston afterwards through the door crack [while Huston was still on the phone and called back his name] and, while Ms Geimer hurried into the very living room Huston was making that very call, she grabbed the rest of her clothes quickly. And, to Ms Geimer’s own words to put Huston into context, stated, “I said ‘hello’ to her”, ‘the woman on the phone’ she saw and, that ‘she peered around a glass partition’, as she put it in her testimony, since she didn’t know Huston. She said they were met at the Nicholson residence by a woman with dark hair and two dogs, and that she did not know the woman’s name. The acting caretaker [Helena Kallianiotes]. She was asked to identify a photo of Houston, and said, “That was the woman that was there [on the phone].” She never said it was the same woman who apparently had interrupted them, since of course, Huston hadn’t.
In fact, in her testimony, the extent of the cited conversation between her and Huston was limited to Huston interrupting her phone conversation and asking “Are you the girl Roman is taking pictures of?” and she said yes while exiting the house, which is exactly what Polanski had stated, and that this was the only conversation between the two, not that Huston had interrupted them, and they [evidently not] exchanged words, before he [evidently not] returned to [evidently not] sodomise her again. More curious inconsistencies on Ms Geimer’s part why she contradicted herself even then. When Huston joined him after he had dressed, the girl hurried through the kitchen to the car. He followed her to introduce her to Huston there. Now, if Ms Geimer said she had interrupted them while having sex, but Huston was in fact on the phone, it makes no sense either way, for one, letting him apparently return to ‘take her again’ after Huston was actually at the door and left again, and then even less to see that very woman on the phone later only. To Huston’s credit, however, she also stated, the cops had victimised Polanski and her with this drugs blackmail, and said, “I don’t think he’s a bad man. I think he’s an unhappy man.” And, that, “He would never harm anyone or forcibly rape or sodomise an unwilling girl.”
She probably had the better insight into this than all those blind haters clamouring for his head and mind you, she in fact wasn’t his biggest fan. Huston claimed the girl looked ‘sullen’ which she found rude, and could have been for several reasons only the two concerned know, but didn’t appear distressed or inebriated in any form not to make her apparent fear of him known to her. Though Ms Geimer didn’t seem to have felt it necessary to stop him from copulating with her twice that day even, to her own words however only, and Polanski said she was very animated and talkative before and once they left, and certainly wasn’t doped up or Huston would have said so. Ms Geimer had testified: “I said, ‘no, no. I don’t want to go in there. [The bedroom] No, I don’t want to do this. No!’ And then I didn’t know what else to do.” Adding: “We were alone and I didn’t know what else would happen if I made a scene. So I was just scared, and after giving some resistance, I figured well, I guess I’ll get to come home after this.”
Now, the more than striking problems with any of this course of event is this: why did she not once make a dash for the door saying she’s afraid of him? Why did she not once call for help at any given time instead of letting him, to her words, come back? Why did she let him, to her own words, take off her underwear again? Why did she allow him to have, to her words, more anal intercourse with her without any resistance? According to her, he climaxed inside her anally after Huston had apparently left again and ejaculated externally. According to him, however, Huston never interrupted them and he had withdrawn vaginally before ejaculation and climaxed externally. She claimed that she was afraid of him, yet did not make any active attempts to fight him, nor took the ONE chance to call for help [from Huston being there] despite no physical impairment to do so. By all logic, unless a victim is restrained in some form, sedated or threatened, anyone in danger of being assaulted, again and fully conscious, would seize every available means of defending themselves or try to escape at all costs.
If someone is really ‘scared’ or of being raped, again, with potential help standing right outside, to her own words, a woman at that, how only could she have failed to seize that one chance to stop him? She repeatedly maintained she was afraid of him, yet he had no such impression, nor Huston, before he, to Ms Geimer’s words, joined her at the door, and then let the ONE opportunity slip to get away from him. Why did she not ONCE make her fears known while Huston was apparently there? She was not imprisoned or hindered to get away from him, walk out the door, yet it appears that she even let him return and have more sex with her. Unlike many love/d to repeat, she certainly wasn’t semi nor fully unconscious or physically incapacitated according to her own words and Huston’s. It makes no sense to me that she never called on Huston for help.
Afterwards, to her own words, she put her underwear back on again and went into the bathroom to dress. Many stated that she was ‘repeatedly raped’, blindly ignoring what she actually said herself, “He came back and had more sex with me,” not ‘raped me’. But evidently, he had not come back at all to have more sex [anal or otherwise] with her again, since Polanski only talked to Huston after sex and her introduction to Huston once he followed the girl outside to the car and then returned to the house to explain things to her, omitting the sex, which to Huston however was perfectly clear had taken place, and that they had a drink. On the DA’s question, why Ms Geimer hadn’t said anything [to Huston], she stated, that: “I was still pretty much afraid of him, I didn’t-though there was someone else there. I didn’t know what to say.” According to him, however, she had met Huston afterwards, not during sex, and she certainly didn’t appear ‘afraid’ to Huston. Of course, if she was not actually at the door, there was no way to call on her.
This is of course where many people stumble/d over her overall accounts not to make any sense anymore. No one wouldn’t know ‘what to say’ suddenly, and Huston didn’t have the impression she was ‘pretty much afraid of him’ once introduced. Why did she not once make a ‘scene’ to actually find out if he was a danger while Huston was there [apparently at the door], rather than state that she ‘figured’ he was, said she was ‘scared’ of him, said ‘no’, yet he never could confirm any of it in any form. Being ‘scared’ has clear signs of agitation and want of getting away, yet, her overall behaviour did not substantiate any of that. No one who is scared lets herself be taken again after apparent help had appeared right at the unlocked door, to her own words, and leaves again, to her own words. To me, this alone is utterly illogical to let herself be ‘raped’ again, especially since he said they saw Huston only afterwards. He might have been very promiscuous, but no one else ever stated that he was a sexual danger, and in all these years, no one else had ever cried rape. Other than Ms Geimer.
What happened that day is certainly not straightforward and many don’t believe a word she stated. Was it ‘lewd acts’ against her ‘expressed’ will beyond her passive words, giving ‘some resistance’, yet let pass by every single chance to extract herself from him. Or was it simple sex acts with not much participation on her part. Or even more than she denied at his statement that she was very responsive. Can it be seen either way, or was it misperception on either part. Was it breakdown of more explicit signals and communication needed to convey her apparent disinclination, or was it silent disregard on his part not to have noticed them. So, where does passive resistance start and where passive endurance end? Was it taking no active resistance as a yes, or acquiescence as consensual. Does consent or non-con have to be given verbally, or physically? Or both? Or maybe not at all. Or with a kick in the face. Too many variants can be applied to be sure either way. The degrees of rape are plenty and none is the same – but was ‘this’ rape, or not ‘rape’?
She claimed she cannot remember what he asked her beyond her next cycle, which they, according to him, in fact had never discussed during sex, nor if she was on the pill at that point but in the car initiated by her, not him, yet, she did not raise her voice when she could have called on Huston. He can clearly remember having asked her if she likes what he’s doing before and she said, “It’s alright”, yet, she cannot recall any of it suddenly. Puzzling contradictions and uncertainness as to why she didn’t call for her help, or why her version is so different and utterly illogical, and only she knows why. This strongly suggests that it was indeed consensual, since, by all logic, first of all, there certainly was no reason to signal to anyone that she was ‘afraid of him’, after she had consented and willingly engaged in sex with him. She claimed years later that it wasn’t rape, and he always had maintained that it was consensual. To anyone with the slightest common sense, the only conclusion they can arrive at, after all these highly contradictive and most of all her unfounded statements of ‘fear’ and things regarding Huston, is, that it was mutual and no one interrupted them. To me, only this makes perfect sense.
Of course, to some simply sleeping with an underage girl is immoral and a form of brutalisation, but, would it still be the same if the teenager does not consider herself being ‘immoral’ or brutalised in such a form? Or, is this just another adult concept and that they cannot allow the adolescent to ignore the adult’s idea, that it is simply ‘illegal’ for others to perform any sexual act on them? Or they on the adult? Who is the judge when it comes to a young person’s ‘body’ and ‘sex’? The teen or the adult? Or, is it in fact the ‘law’ simply prohibiting the minor to judge for herself flat out? In that case, many are breaking the ‘law’ at this very second despite ‘consenting’. Yet many will never see any ‘punishment’, wile others are sent down for two years as maximum sentence applicable in California today or can be fined. The law of statutory rape takes away the freedom of choice for each person to be allowed to decide at his or her given constitutional right of judging for themselves this law directly violates. Hence, it is unconstitutional at its dictating the minor automatically to become the ‘victim’, and the adult the ‘perpetrator’.
It is a flat out denial of their right for privacy, their consensual conduct and shows no regard for individual self-rule, giving dubious reasons to imposing it by stating its sole purpose is to prevent underage pregnancies. It does not take into account that teenagers are having sex with either other teens or adults, when they could simply be educated to take precautions, rather than ‘punish’ them for being ‘promiscuous’. This is nothing but a puritan crusade enforced on people under a legal banner to satisfy public ‘morale’ rather than promote ‘safe sex’. It says it is there to ‘protect’ the minor or woman, when all it does is mercilessly reduce the female to be rendered impotent to decide for herself, just so to buy into the rape myth that all men are evil rapist and child molesters. This isn’t to empower women, but to achieve the exact opposite by turning them into a ‘child’, who has no say in the matter and leaves men utterly paranoid on how to approach a female. It entirely defeats its own purpose to liberate them when it imprisons or ‘fines’ both parties and simply is legislated morality imposed on ‘free people’. Apparently, sexual freedom isn’t included in that ‘constitutional rights’ package.
This is even more apparent in professor/student relations, where US faculties impose penalties or expulsion on both, without ever listening to the minor aged side saying s/he was not ‘victimised’. Indeed, many (not only sexual) liberties are perfectly illusionary, and in fact, this entire ‘rape’, [or current Polanski rape baiting process] pressure has often enough turned cornered men against women who finally struck out for having been made into the brute by defending themselves against these women, who had thought them rapists all along by provoking or belittling the man. Physical and/or mental violence works both ways, and the woman is not always the victim. Or even the minor, since many didn’t even consider themselves as ‘victims’ or ‘abused’ later, even when sexually ‘used’ or after engaging in mutual sex, unless of course it was violent and/or painful in some form, yet are equally ignored and not believed. But in contrast they suddenly would be heard had they claimed ‘rape’, when at times there never was any. It is a very complex matter and wide open to more abuse after the actual [or imaginary/false] abuse, and no case is the same, nor should it be treated like that let alone by any blanket laws. But people don’t really want to hear such considerations and rather think a law takes care of things when it hardly does, either way, and makes things only worse for both parties.
It should be stressed, that the six indictment counts were of what he initially was ‘accused’ of, not was he was ‘convicted’ of since only one was found credible. But of course, because he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex, people still believe all the other counts are ‘fact’ and that he was given exemption by dropping them, which is incorrect. The case had two counts of, furnishing a minor with drugs, and, having committed a lascivious act on a child, but they both were also found unsubstantiated as per testified findings and because she was not a child anymore by common definition, but adolescent, a teenager. So ‘child abuse’ or ‘child rape’ is also incorrect, though many ultra feminists call Ms Geimer a ‘child’ still today, while considering their own children teenagers in contrast or young adults when it suits them. On the one hand these ‘kids’ are allowed/demand to walk and talk the adult schtick, yet when it goes wrong are surprised and cry wolf, especially when a teen is dressed up too sexy, giving up conflicting signals men simply cannot decipher anymore and end up in prison for even looking at them the ‘wrong way’. Stand naked in your own kitchen, look innocently out the window into the street, passing mom with kids cries paedophile, and the poor sod faces years behind bars with real child molesters. Seriously twisted.
Youngsters always want to be taken seriously and as mature enough to call the shots, even sexually, yet when people in fact let them, are called cynics, or Polanski excusers, and of course paedophiles themselves. Make up your minds. Of course, what is ‘rape’ in general varies from case to case already, even one US state to the next, let alone between countries, and is legally controversial where one might consider only physical trauma as rape, while another considers a mere touch to a breast as sexual assault already and face years behind bars while murderers get away with fines. It happened often enough in the UK. Legal definitions of rape have no doubt changed since then and cannot be seen in today’s views or laws. It simply wouldn’t be fair to judge anyone by today’s standards or apply current laws, which is in fact illegal, as per several applicable statutes prohibiting that. Yet, people want him to face more years behind bars than any terrorist or serial killer they couldn’t care less about planning their next attacks. Astonishing.
The case never went to jury trial to reportedly spare the girl most of all the proceedings according to the plaintiff’s attorney, and that’s why the plea bargain was struck and Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor, which was another count. Many question/ed this move was to prevent further distress to the girl, no matter in those days many statutory rape cases were signed off as plea bargains, but because there was the significant possibility that if this had gone through all the cross examination, the jury would have quickly realised that this was not drugged rape foremost. The attorneys knew they had no rape and sodomy case at the bare forensics not corroborating crucial accounts of her conflicting statements, and that’s why they ‘bargained’ on the wishes of her mother. The girl expressly refused to be cross-examined, and they declared that they did not want Polanski incarcerated. They also had expressly rejected any therapy offered by the courts. You simply don’t press for such a ‘bargain’ if your daughter was just ‘brutalised’, you press for jail time and demand a jury trial and most certainly require therapy.
One thing informed people also decry is that others blindly state, she was ‘brutally raped’, when she herself had stated that he hadn’t been forceful, and therefore is an inaccurate accusation in itself and a clear sign of ignorant defamation they want others to believe. Just as I read today in a small-town newspaper of all things (November 4th, since I’m re-editing this constantly to update, so check back) that the female writer seriously believed/stated that he had penetrated her orally, [while unconscious], when no such testimony was ever brought forwards by her to support that. Have these people ever read the transcripts? Evidently not. That’s simply sickening slur purely in order to make this the most ‘disturbing’ crime possible suddenly to gain an audience. And those who commented on it went along with it blindly. THAT is disturbing. They don’t really care about any ‘victim’ either, only venting their bigoted garbage using her as an easy soundboard.
But I for one know where these people get their more than dubious ‘information’ from; in 1980 some highly sensationalistic hackery disguised as credible biography stated that – amongst other more than lurid fantasies, complete with bogus dialogues to fill in the gaps and reads just like a very bad B-movie. The author most certainly savours his own greatly invented details of Polanski’s life and the terribly distorted ‘case’ like a voyeur, and is nothing more than a salacious hit job which is beneath serious consideration to any intelligent mind. The trouble with this sort of cheap pseudo writing is, since it mixes facts with graphic fiction, the ill-informed reader inevitably believes all of it, and then pictures it in the ugliest colours. Needles to say that the writer is American and sounds like all these trashy paperback novelists intent on his leering ‘efforts’ to make us retch. He even managed to invent ‘minor bruising to her anus’, just so to cover the sodomy, while no such official findings ever existed, and other ‘reputable’ writers blindly repeated that. Oddly enough, he invented a handy pot of lube to facilitate anal sex, and then still comes up with bruising. And, according to the fact that people still today take his fantasies as facts, means he has fully succeeded in that character assassination. His nauseating book alone has caused so much damage to Polanski’s reputation that it is simply criminal and was of course his sole intent.
Coming back to reality, the fact that the girl told him to have an asthma attack in order, to her words only, to leave the Jacuzzi, was found a lie she asked her mother to maintain once back home and he only heard of in court. When he asked her what medicine she needed, she had no clear answer, and if you had asthma, you would carry your inhaler with you. She later stated she only said that because she was afraid of him, while he had no such impressions and was surprised once he found out she had lied to him. After he helped her from the Jacuzzi, to her words only, he asked her to swim a lap in the cooler adjacent pool to get back her breath and not stay in the Jacuzzi’s hot vapours to aggravate her asthma. After she had asked if he would come in and he said no because the Jacuzzi was too warm and took to the pool, according to her, she didn’t go inside [the pool], after she got out the Jacuzzi herself to his words, because it was [according to him] too cold for her once she tested the water with her toes. While in another version, she said she swam the length of the pool, got out, went to the bathroom, put on her underwear and started drying off. Should be the other way around really. She also stated in later interviews that she had left the Jacuzzi herself, after she had told the court that he had helped her, as if that’s needed, and he said he had never touched her at that point, and suddenly would in fact corroborate his side. Curious inconsistencies.
Both drying each other off in the TV room [not bedroom as people keep repeating, and Polanski had explained], according to him, he advised her to lie down as the concerned adult. Then, after she assured him later to feel better, he started to kiss and caress her, and to her words engaged in oral sex with her. To his words, she was very receptive, ‘spread herself and he entered her’ and said nothing about oral. To hers, she had said not to feel better, and felt the situation was ‘scary’. Yet as we saw, never made any serious attempt to stop him. More than curious contradictions. Another thing that’s puzzling was this; after she was returned home, she didn’t tell her mother about the sex or any drinking or drug taking. Many suspect/ed not because she was ashamed of having done any of it, but that Polanski would find out that she had lied to him about having asthma. In fact, she told her boyfriend that Polanski had sex with her, [note, again: ‘sex’, not ‘raped’ her] who in turn didn’t believe her. Odd too, that she never mentioned, that she wanted to rest after the hot dip, and, if she might pass out, [while he still was in the pool before they entered the TV room to towel off] that he should revive her by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
All this strongly suggests that Ms Geimer wanted to continue her relationship with Polanski, and again strongly points to that the sex was consensual on her part not wanting her mother to know, simply for her unharmed state and only partly contradictive statements many like to ignore. If that sentimental idea is however true or not, only two people know and what really happened and both should have their say now. That possibility cannot be discredited since it would support the findings, and cannot be a based solely on the idea that many feel ashamed and don’t desire to go through a court hearing. Many rape victims were not believed in those days, true, but others in contrast saw men convicted on lies or of course were pointlessly incarcerated for consensual underage sex. Today’s much more advanced forensic and sympathetic approach enables trials to more effectively prove innocence or guilt, on either side. Or rape. The fact that she constantly wavered in her later statements, or said that she didn’t want to do the second [Nicholson] shoot, nor take off her clothes, that it became scary and she found herself in a precarious situation with him she never wanted, while the other witnesses thought them behaving like lovers, and he never had such an impression, is more than at odds or logic.
How only could he [or her family] have missed her suddenly being so unwilling for so long while she accompanied him, or to do any of it, and if so, why did she not once say so? Apart from the fact, that she herself could have shown better judgement, declined to do any of this and not just let it all happen, making him believe she ‘consented’. On closer examination, the pictures he had taken of her at any given time or in the Jacuzzi do not give the impression that she was ‘afraid’ of him either, contrary to what she had stated, nor are they full nude shots. It was stated by several concerned parties that she looked older, but that obviously is of irrelevant subjective perception and Polanski had never said he didn’t know her age, or that she looked older at that time. When Polanski was invited the first time to her mother’s house after her sister’s boyfriend had asked him, the mother’s boyfriend produced a copy of Hustler [the still published porn magazine], he in fact never heard of before then, for Polanski to ‘assess the great photos of female and male genital’. Polanski dutifully passed on any more explicit expressions and didn’t seem too impressed with them [the family, or the girl, flashing a copy of Playboy], before he left the house. Curious initiation process, or of course, deliberate ‘preconditioning’ him.
Polanski wasn’t into crude porn magazines, he took artful still photos, and that since the Fifties for more aesthetic art connoisseurs. When he showed them later his own pictures he had taken of the girl, after the glossy shots he took of Nastassja Kinski for Vogue a year before they expressed great interest in, they seemed to have liked them. While the girl later testified that this was not the case suddenly, yet, the older sister’s boyfriend, who had asked him to photograph the girl in the first place, found them beautiful and didn’t understand their apparent dislike. More curious contradiction. Telling the court that she had said ‘no’ to him, when no one can verify that, means nothing after the facts being one of the very few word against word counts at that point. She appeared not distressed according to several witness statements, yet seemed tense while giving her testimony. Differences of mis/perception again or something more complex. She stated to have asked him to stop which he couldn’t confirm, yet didn’t once attempt to fight him off or simply leave. Word against word. So which is ‘fact’, when her statements are only in part contradictive to his own explanations of events. When she stated it was non-consensual it could well mean for her saying not ‘yes’ either, but rather ‘nothing’ and was because she simply let him do what he did ‘passively’.
One thing that is clear, though, is that it cannot be substantiated she was brutalised in any form at her physically sound state. Of course, the blood lusting public would rather stone someone for being famous and so much older than her than believe his words over hers, which could not be corroborated by medical evidence and other findings. So who ‘lied’, and why did she later say it wasn’t rape. Because it wasn’t, by legal definition and act. Another thing of course can be, that she later regretted having taken the drug, or the alcohol, saying she felt ‘dizzy’ and had miscalculated the effect on her after all, but she was not found impaired in any form not to be able to walk or talk, shout for help or run away. When her attorney asked, “Why did you take it [the pill]?” she said, “I don’t know. I must have been pretty drunk or else I wouldn’t have.” From a few sips of champagne when the average size bottle was still half filled and three people had a drink from it? That hardly makes one glass each.
What’s even more curious, is that she apparently had returned to the kitchen to eat something according to some sources, which Polanski however never mentioned, except that she nibbled on sugar cubes for the photos. In that case, there’s even less chance to be ‘drunk’, ‘feel dizzy’, and the tiny amount of Quaaludes she took doesn’t make one dizzy, it makes one euphoric, confident and sexually aroused. These are all curious contradictions born from reasons unclear to us and should be addressed finally in a proper trial, or, a full evidentiary hearing to bring in all testimonies and findings. But, there are certain parties that simply don’t want that, and it’s not Polanski’s, and each time he came too close to see the case dismissed or reopened, Ms Geimer petitioned to drop it. Another thing is, while in some later interviews she had stated that he had ‘taken out the drug’, from where is another question, after she left the Jacuzzi herself, when she told the court she took it before and that he gave it to her in the bathroom, that also seems to be rather contradictive.
One thing they missed doing then was to take blood tests, to establish how much both had ingested in alcohol or drug form. Serious neglect that. Some say, maybe she was forced to state she repeatedly said no, since no physical findings would support that he had brutally forced himself on her. He said she was willing, she stated not, but neither tried to escape him. Of course, she could have regretted it and then said she didn’t want it, or didn’t enjoy the apparent anal sex as an acquired taste, while she however even let him perform on her [to his words vaginally once, to hers anally] twice. Besides, anal intercourse requires certain [and/or previous] preparations, or you might hit on some brown matter, which can lead to infections in both partners. A spur of the moment ‘dry sodomy’ (which she implies) is most unlikely since it would show and hurt, and be unpleasantly messy, unless you use waterbased lubricant. Vaginal fluids are not sufficient to avoid friction since they dry up very quickly once outside the moist vagina, resulting in tearing no matter how willing each partner. If she had been afraid of him or of the sex or even to her words anal intercourse, she’d done her best to get away. Only these very few and curious ‘mis/interpretation’ of ‘he said she said’ lie at direct odds, while all other statements between them match perfectly.
On another note, one thing we don’t know for sure concerning more forensic issues, is that, when they had retrieved the girl’s underwear for examination, and found semen, who in fact can be sure it was his, then, in the days of pre DNA testing? ‘Where’ exactly were the semen stains found on the garment? Were they on the back, inside of it, seeped through, to support her claim that he had ejaculated all over her back? She never said she actually had cleaned herself up at that point, and I’m sure the average person would want the sticky stuff gone after sex, let alone after rape, not only put their underwear back on to soak it up as she said she had. While, according to her, he said that she should clean up. She stated she didn’t have a shower afterwards (at home) and no traces of semen were found inside her vaginal cavity or rectum. Or, were the stains found inside the inner gusset of her panties, after semen leaking from her vagina? So, who’s to say it was ‘his’ semen? Unless he had ejaculated over her back to get there, after vaginal [from the back, or to her anal] intercourse, or of course, never were the same panties.
It is noteworthy to add that the girl had fetched them, NOT the cops according to the officer himself, and that two days later. So, if seminal fluid was found anywhere else on the garment, as some image sources claimed inside the crotch essentially, it wouldn’t substantiate anymore that it was the same (or her) underwear or his semen. In fact, it would be utterly compromised evidence which wouldn’t be admissible today, and I shudder to think how many men were convicted for underage sex, or rape, on ‘semen evidence’ before the days of DNA proof were able to make sure whose it was. Or how old it is. That’s just another point that needs investigating yet no one cares about, especially the judge, who dismissed the evidence and therefore possibility of deliberate [prosecutix (as the judge called the girl) and of course police] tampering with it. Oddly enough, in a later interview Ms Geimer stated that she had gone into the Jacuzzi in her underwear for the lack of a bathing suit, while in the courts she said she had undressed fully and later put the panties back on, twice, after sex. More inconsistencies.
How did one of the more impartial probation officers put it; the life of Roman was filled with a ‘seemingly unending series of punishments’. I would recommend examining the psyche evaluation findings of his dismissal reports, since it might shed light on what was the man who had suffered extreme traumas and loss others hardly would have survived, sanely. Many self-righteous people generously delight in ignoring these important findings, and rather deem them as lies and him the greatest monster of them all suddenly he never was, one that finally needs killing rather than healing. While they believe other ‘offenders’ should be given all help to be rehabilitated, yet in his case this is simply judged as inappropriate. So much for equal rights for all.
If he were a nobody, they surely would try to give him all support available and a break. Or wouldn’t care either way. One of the psyche doctors talking to Polanski during his evaluation sessions, reported that Polanski might benefit from psychiatric treatment, but what he had in mind was not related to any sexual [deviation or otherwise] problems he might have, but to him [Polanski], ‘unresolved state of depression’, ‘stemming from a series of traumatic incidents in his life’. He never met Polanski or had any insight into his life before then, yet recognised that instantly, and thought it would only make it worse were he to be incarcerated and recommended to let him be, and that’s what the prosecution decided on. But of course, others think it was a whitewash when it’s not – while allowing or even demanding everyone else’s and their own past ordeals to be recognised and/or treated. But no, in Polanski’s case he’s only allowed to suffer more.
Another probation officer had said the following about Polanski: “This particular offence doesn’t have the connotation of rape. It’s not even an offence, a criminal offence, in about thirteen of our states and in many places of the world, this is a crime that’s been committed by policemen; it’s been committed by probation officers assigned to counsel girls at a detention school; it’s a crime that’s been committed by people that have a far higher trust to their victims than did Roman Polanski. I feel he is a criminal only by accident; and that there are many complex social and psychological factors that were involved in this situational event which otherwise was a complete departure from his normal mode of conduct.” I.e., sleep with an underage girl. Maybe all those hyperbole crazed haters wishing his slow and painful demise, should actually listen to those who were there and of unbiased professionalism. Of course, since he is an actor, whatever he might have to say or do, will be taken as an act, and nothing sincere, so even his genuine defence would always be seen as an act. He simply doesn’t stand a chance of a fair judgement passed on him.
Many engage/d in consensual sex with willing minors, and never were or ever will be done for statutory rape, since no one called or will call on the law to declare it that. The flower power Seventies was all about free sex and drugs and THEIR morality play, NOT ours of today. I frankly don’t think our morals are any better today in general (not only for seeing all these self-righteous and vindictive comments), and it was a sign of the times we have no right to vilify. Or them. We lived it. I was there, I know. Today’s political climate in contrast is hypocritically out of touch with reality, as seen with his arrest, while outstanding warrants for political criminals and brutal murderers and rapists are binned. They waste tax payers money on the efforts to catch a harmless filmmaker, but leave other violent offenders roam the streets freely.
What is very detrimental in general to any case unlawful sex or rape case, is the legalistic labelling of ‘acts’, making them sound so much more perverted suddenly. As in, a lewd act (one of the counts), or sodomy (another), or ‘perversion’ (another), when in the bedroom they’re called, caressing, anal intercourse and cunnilingus, the latter two of which he had not admitted to in his statement and medical evidence does not support either. That’s ‘law’s’ hypocrisy to make an entirely needless emphasis by deliberately defiling sexual acts like that to make the public regard them as wholly ‘filthy’ suddenly, just so to satisfy the moral high ground that all sex is dirty and must be punished. In that case, we’re all sinners and all humankind is born from evil flesh. It’s nothing but a pathetic morality play or to allow for sex only under matrimony, and that obviously only in regards to non same sex unions since all homosexual or lesbian sex is even more immoral to them. Sad.
She also omitted that she wanted to head for the Jacuzzi straight up, and that the water in fact was too hot, after he had turned it on later. That’s why he entered the cooler pool only, and she most likely came up with the asthma idea feeling rather too hot than ‘afraid’, wanting to appear in control of the situation, since he also thought it was too hot, and said he wanted and did take some shots of her first clothed. So for her to say, that he asked her to come down his end in the Jacuzzi and she refused, ‘feeling afraid of him’, seems more than dubious when he in fact never was in the Jacuzzi with her. Apart from that, she equally failed to mention that they were disturbed by some hoodlums outside [who left again] on their first shoot at her mother’s house, and he told her to cover up to show his concern, and she said she didn’t care [to]. Oddly enough too, once at the Nicholson house she was keen on a drink, while being at the house of Jacqueline Bisset they had visited just before to take some shots of her there first, she had refused a glass of wine she had offered her.
Once she was away from her mother, she was much livelier and incessantly talking, and there was no miscommunication as to her sister or her present girlfriend to come along, he turned away as she later stated, since the mother quickly had gathered her new clothes and the two hurried off before the sun would fade. Another curious thing was, when he had turned on the rheostats for the Jacuzzi in the bathroom and she followed him on his heels, where he had found the Quaaludes, she had stated that ‘he had broken them into pieces’, which implies something he had done prior she witnessed, when he never said so and only found them in that broken state and didn’t in fact know if they were Quaaludes, yet she said they were. Which makes most of that dubious grey area of this in/famous case, concerns the question, what parents (or rather her mother and her mother’s then boyfriend) let their underage daughter go to a famous director, if they had no intentions of allowing (or even wanting) her to engage with him in other things than taking pictures to further her as a model or actress, and of course to promote themselves through her and his fame most of all.
Apart from that, who would accept any ‘payouts’ (so popular today, see the Jackson case) after someone had seriously raped or molested them. Polanski didn’t silence her with the money after reportedly both parties having come to a ‘settlement’ in 1998, with the DA’s office having filed suit against Polanski, claiming that he had siphoned off [$619,000] refunds of value-added tax instead of turning them over to the completion guarantors who financed his Ninth Gate film, and ‘brazenly deposited into a private account’, refusing all requests for its returns. Evidently, it was her account. That DA’s suit was amicably settled soon thereafter, while the US still cavilled over a three decade old misdemeanour. After Polanski had fled, she had broken up with her boyfriend, and they soon had moved to Hawaii never to be heard of again. Before she suddenly resurfaced in the climate of ‘victim friendlier’ treatment, and the settlement. Ms Geimer in fact was giving her first interview just prior, stating that he neither had raped nor harmed her.
Many think it was on the behest of her mother we in fact never heard of in all these years, who apparently had received some of the money according to some sources. That wasn’t seeking ‘compensation’ to many, but simply trying to milk the Hollywood system after many years suing him suddenly. Why so much later many wondered already then and believe/d all she wanted was his money. Other sources stated that the mother had nothing to do with the lawsuit, since she could have sued Polanski on her behalf the moment he left the US, and is more than curious for Ms Geimer to wait a whole ten years to sue him suddenly. And mind you, not for rape or any of the original counts he did not plea guilty to, nor anything the findings could not substantiate like most of the counts. The entire case hinges on her words alone, and the civil suit claimed ‘assault’, ‘battery’, ‘false imprisonment’ and ‘seduction’. The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, sought damages for ‘physical and emotional distress’.
A country that doesn’t allow a defendant to face his accusers in efforts to ‘spare the victim’, resulting in allowing credence to her words alone, making it impossible to hear his side to prove himself innocent, but cannot force the actual accusers to in fact appear in court to make their case personally in a cross-examination, resulting in plea bargains and many men sent down unable to in fact exonerate themselves, this by now more than notorious case is a classic example and entirely based on her never seriously impugned testimony, and no one ever challenged this fact. I really wonder where assault and battery, (which both connote/d violence that was never proven or even brought forward by her at the time of her testifying) false imprisonment (which was certainly never the case either since she simply could have left but never did) and seduction come from, when no such counts were ever part of the original indictment or therefore were never proven.
She never declared any ‘physical and emotional distress’ even at that time, since she officially rejected all professional therapy and help, and to do so after ten years is more than suspect. At the time of her lawsuit she was getting married in fact, and to many it is most unlikely that she suffered any of her claims by then anymore. In addition, after she sued him she publicly declared, ‘she would not call it rape, and that, ‘the word ‘rape’ for her always brings to mind a level of violence that wasn’t there’. Why then cry rape and sodomy first, then sue him over ‘violence’, and then refute these allegations ever more altogether? Even the media already then had noticed these curious contradictions and gaps in her statements, even that ‘hackery’ author picked up on before Polanski would give his own version of events in 1984. Of course people who never saw these developments take place ever since, simply won’t know or understand his defenders’ rightful scepticism of her claims.
It is noteworthy to add, that in a footnote, it said that she had asked Polanski for admissions that he ‘gave’ her the champagne and Quaaludes, had oral sex with her and sodomised her, before she gave increasingly equally ‘amicable’ and varying event account interviews and later petitioned to see the case be dropped altogether. Polanski obviously asserted his 5th Amendment right not to admit to that on the grounds that the answers ‘may tend to be incriminating’, since of course, whatever he would have said would not be believed, and really unwise to even engage such a ‘request’. But, that equally does not imply his guilt, since a lawsuit is always the last resort for people to get back at others, rightly or wrongly, and general practice for lawyers to demand admission of guilt for the plaintiff to make their case more credible, and the accused of course would simply deny. It’s nothing but a money machine set into motion, and as with the infamous case of Simpson, once he was found ‘innocent’ of his wife’s murder, faced a massive lawsuit of $46 million in all, that were eventually awarded – But, of course, was never executed at no such riches and is nothing but greedy exploitation of a tragedy.
Court papers document/ed efforts by her lawyers to garnish residual and payments owed to Polanski by the Screen Actors Guild, movie studios and other Hollywood businesses to pay her instead. This type of money grabbing ‘effort’ is more than dubious, since the one sued has hardly any rights to stop such dealings to withhold and/or shave off monies from his legally earned royalties. It is based on a clause found in the very old ‘fugitive disentitlement doctrine’, which [also] allows courts to seize [part or all of a] fugitive’s assets, with its rights, title and interest of the property transferred to the government. This clause is rather called ‘asset forfeiture’ which has two types of applications, since there is the original doctrine not related to any fugitive’s property. A civil asset forfeiture is intended to confiscate any property used or acquired in violation of the law, like through money laundering, drugs trafficking etc., which in Polanski’s case cannot be applied since he legally made/distributed his films and the studios still owe him. A criminal forfeiture is imposed on an offender as part of their punishment following a conviction, which is not applicable either, since Polanski never was officially convicted by any final sentencing.
So in effect, they simply [could] steal his rightfully acquired earnings just because he’s a fugitive, which evidently seemed to have failed. In fact, after he had left the States, the courts had tried to pressure the UK he had gone to first, to seize his property he had, since he had none in the US anymore once he had abandoned his bloodied home he had shared with Sharon. They had tried to force the courts to gain proceeds of his flat in London he had owned ever since he had married Sharon, which he wanted to sell in his move to settle in France, knowing that the UK could extradite him any day. But one merciful English ‘official’ in fact had warned him of such intentions, and that the deportation authorities were already in the course of paying him a visit. But he managed to sell his mews home and received his rightful money to leave the British Isles unhindered and with enough means to recover himself. At least financially, and to prepare for his film Tess with Kinski, since Sharon shortly before her death had given him the Hardy novel she said he should make into a film, and so he did, on a grand scale.
Once Ms Geimer said what he did to her was gross, then she said it wasn’t rape. Then she again said in an interview it wasn’t consensual and in another, it was ‘creepy’. I never heard anyone call sex and least of all rape, ‘creepy’. So which was it? Why negate the apparent double rape first and then sue him. Apparently then it was her ‘fault’, while over the years her ‘temptress’ status had shifted and today no one would bad mouth her anymore. True, today Polanski is the one more than bad mouthed, he’s being viciously shredded, and she’s the ’saintly victim’ suddenly, while no doubt both have to be held responsible. In another interview, she had stated, “He had sex with me. He wasn’t hurting me and he wasn’t forceful or mean or anything like that, and really I just tried to let him get it over with.” That to some could be considered as leading him on, since she had testified before that she had told him to stop while he said she hadn’t, and then suddenly said she just let him get it over with, in effect making him believe she consented when she just could have walked away.
She also claimed that the event had been blown all out of proportion. That’s for sure. It is most curious how she went from claiming he sodomised and raped her to publicly ‘forgive’ him and contradict herself in various ways. She always maintained that he shouldn’t face prison, (obviously, since she said, “I wouldn’t call it rape”, and Whoopi Goldberg for one was facing a barrage of accusations for trying to explain the difference) and you certainly don’t say that about your rapist. In the interview with Larry King, she completely omitted the part where Huston had apparently interrupted them in her breakdown of the events, so that Polanski could sodomise her again, which evidently didn’t take place, and she later kept explaining things inconsistently, saying she couldn’t remember the incident clearly. No rape victim wouldn’t ‘remember’ the exact details no matter the passage of time, and she more and more equalised her accounts with his version, playing the ‘assault’ down in effect.
But she also flat-out lied in reference to how Polanski came to ‘choose’ her. She said, “I guess he must have seen a picture of me and came by to meet me and then asked, you know with the pretense that he was interested in photographing me from the beginning.” ‘Pretense’? It was her own sister’s boyfriend who had besieged him to take her on as a model for his Vogue assignment, telling him what as stunner she is while Polanski didn’t share his enthusiasm once he met her. Her mother was more than happy to receive him, after he had met her and the older daughter at a bar a year before through him already. The boyfriend had given him her phone number, Polanski called her some time later to arrange a meeting, and she was eagerly awaiting his call he made a few days later. In fact, her mother had tried to get hold of him before, but couldn’t. Plus, Ms Geimer had later stated hat she was very excited to be photographed by him and then suddenly said it was ‘pretense’, when THEY had asking HIM. So there is no chance that Ms Geimer never knew he would be coming by to meet her when even her sister knew.
On their first shoot behind their own home she had posed topless already, and then some time later again at the Nicholson house, after which she suddenly said it had become uncomfortable, when she had said before she didn’t care to be seen topless. Then, she stated no one liked the photos, when they all had approved them before the second shoot. All very curious inconsistencies. No one ever said he saw a picture of her which triggered him to ‘choose’ her, making it sound as if he wanted to get to know her, under the pretext of this assignment, when he wasn’t really interested in her once he saw her and surely had no need to ’select’ someone to sleep with in this complicated manner. Many say that was his intent from the onset, and the Vogue assignment merely a ruse to ‘lure’ her away, when this is more than ludicrous in the face of his disappointment and a planned string of events from THEIR end that eventually made him engage in the spontaneous decision to sleep with her. Everyone knew he probably would do so as per his reputation, and many say this was a classic set-up.
The argument that some women forgive their vile rapists is up to them and only shows compassion, and is a clever way of ‘making’ him the rapist in this when stating so, NOT proof of the man’s guilt. More grey areas leaning more towards his own words and that it was indeed consensual, yet people are so adamant to invalidate her own words when it suits them to invalidate his own through that. Or maybe they have reason, since many thought and think again today that she simply lied, which could only have been proven had the case gone to trial at the bare forensics not corroborating crucial accounts of her highly contradictive statements. But someone pressed for the plea bargain and that was that. Nothing in this case is clear, since he wouldn’t be the ‘typical’ rapist or she the typical ‘victim’. Curious to many too, that she is so keen on having the case dropped suddenly and had filed several petitions to that effect, which, just like Polanski’s lawyers’ own motions to dismiss it, failed just as often. That point to the very likelihood that it is ruthlessly being exploited as means for certain parties to gain political ground.
These people don’t care who gets hurt, as long as they can play their political games with others’ lives to advance their dubious careers. Many simply ignore Ms Geimer now as then, apart from the wrangling courts, and him even more today suddenly than anyone had ever done before. That’s curious and very malicious morality play people maintain either way based on today’s dissimilar morale codes, resulting from different eras and personal experiences, laws and attitudes that can never be applied to such an old case. And most of all, different political ‘machinations’, individual social backgrounds and circumstances, certain over/emotional states. Or of course, lies. Political lies, personal lies. One of them lied. Or did s/he? Nothing is as it seems. Yet, many would like to see it that way ignoring these discrepancies, and is just another illustration of today’s sexual crusade led by ultra feminists out to mis/use him, or her, for their own ends without the slightest chance of his defence.
One of the truly amazing arguments of accusers is, that Polanski had put so much pressure on her by now that she is openly campaigning for him – as if any true rape victim would do so or she ever said that he had – or of course, was paid to do so. Or, that her rising support was part of the settlement, forgetting that this cannot ever be stipulated as condition. It’s illegal. Just so to maintain their idea that he is a rapist, and has thoroughly corrupted her by now with his money, which suddenly is acceptable she would in fact do, rather than see what her real motives are and that corruption and damages have nothing to do with it. Whatever he does or not, will be turned against him, and his silence will always be held in his disfavour as a sign of guilt, rather that see that whatever he would say, will mercilessly be misinterpreted and thought an excuse rather than explanation, not allowing him one shred of credibility.
Their best argument lies with the following blanket reaction, that they simply believe her for her age and rape is rape and she said no, absolute in their ignoring his side of the story for his own age and profession, or that given evidence would discredit her words and rape is different with each case, they keep on ignoring even more, just so to so revel in their rape and sodomy fantasy world and that all men are rapists, than give him any credence and see both sides more objectively. Another ‘emotional’ appeal tactic is, ‘what if that were your daughter’, or even yourself, while they reject the notion of others’ counterargument of, what if that were you being accused of all that by someone, regardless of either’s age, since many wouldn’t in fact want to or do sleep with younger women, or at least not advertise they’d do or want to, and then the racist judge wants to send you down for decades. This argument they too love to ignore to be a daily occurrence and emerging fact, but would believe it to befall any other Tom Dick and Harry. The double standards are astonishing.
In effect, people think they are entitled to judge someone based on their own life’s experiences and mental aptitude, while in the same breath they deny others to do so or him to defend him/self, which simply dehumanises not only him, but others and themselves by doing so, in the same breath nullifying their own statement and past, but would never see it that way. Then there are those who turn it all around saying, that, while he was a child during the war and then a teen in the ghettos, he was systematically mentally raped and physically sodomised by the enemy [or even his own folks], which ultimately made him into a rapist, to excuse or explain [away] his [rape] action, on a more ‘psychological’ level. He never actually claimed anything to that effect outside a few punishments by too strict uncles who didn’t really want to take care of him, rather than support his way of coping with his bleak life by forming interests in bicycles and film. As if such behaviour would suddenly erupt to rape someone after thirty odd years, or that the raped will always rape others. Rapists on the other hand hardly strike only once. Another favourite say is, that he’s a loser and those who defend him are too and then some – while it is more than obvious that he was more than successful in his life, despite all the terrible odds set against him. It’s nothing but pathetic jealousy and feeling small compared to such a revered man who survived many traumas.
And then there is the perverted idea that the Kapos (a prisoner who worked inside the concentration camps) had trained him to sodomise everything in sight, as if that would need ‘training’, or of course became a Kapo himself, forgetting that only useful adults were recruited as Kapos and he never was in any camp. The only thing he was interested in was film on every level. What most accusers do is in fact similar to the psychological framework of a rapist and abuser. Such people attempt to psychologically degrade their victims [defenders], not only hurt them physically, since rape has nothing to do with sex, but power they need exerting over their victims, and is just a tool to manipulate/pain them where it hurts and humiliates the most. If such degradation is successful [by calling them all sorts of names and accuse them to be paedophiles], the rapist [accuser] ends up creating more victims [haters] in their own image who feel angry, hurt and vengeful toward others [who dare defend him], not seeing the wider picture, which they then express in their ‘powerless’ attacks on his defenders unable to get to him, (or their own abuser) not getting the idea that they give him his rightful voice of defence through them, not only blind hatred, just because they had been violated. It’s nothing but helpless projecting their own powerlessness towards a group who are able to separate personal experiences from other cases, while in fact many rape victims are defending him, since they know what rape is, and hers was not, to her own words.
At that point, Polanski had been a widower for eight years after Sharon Tate’s brutal murder, and many say he was looking for a new embrace in his life. Many like to forget that Sharon was a mere ten years younger than him, and his first wife was his own age besides. So much for the inane paedophilia allegations, which could never be substantiated, and many make the mistake to picture the older Polanski of today with the young girl of then, thinking it’s even more depraved to see them together, while forgetting that he was much younger then and never short of girls and in no need to violate that particular one. Yet of course, if it doesn’t suit certain people blindly believing her, or a certain cop stating that he ‘confessed’ that he had screwed younger ones than her, they would even try linking him with other ‘crimes’ just so to satisfy their warped ideas of him. If only they could. Laurence Harvey commented on Polanski immediately after the murders, saying, “This could destroy Roman. Marriage vows mean nothing to him but few men have adored a woman as much as he adored Sharon.”
Indeed, it had destroyed him, and many suspect/ed that he wasn’t quite himself ever since then and that he immersed himself in work after too many fits of weeping at unforeseen moments. Footage of him crying, suffering her sudden loss openly like any man would, is as heartbreaking as it is to read the most revolting smear they can attach to them. To laugh about someone’s agony, make it dirty and sordid, simply nullify the person’s grief in inexcusably bigoted hypocrisy, is simply unethical. No one should suffer added abuse after such shocking tragedy. But no, in his case he is a free for all to be tortured some more. Reprehensible. Many deem/ed him deeply depressed, haunted by his recurrently tragic past, and no wonder. Some people retreat into themselves, while others outwardly stable, are inwardly very vulnerable and such fragile mental make-up can be compared to the post traumatic stress disorder.
Let’s not forget, some sufferers of PTSD think themselves as coping well with their trauma, are usually very strong willed, outwardly very still and composed as if caught in a perpetual state of shock, and many surround themselves with even more people, more work, more hunger for life to forget. Or have more sex. This is what Polanski did to ban those recurrent memories, when all the horror returned. He dived headlong into sexual adventures, never even noticing that many used him to advance their questionable ‘careers’, gain publicity in the glare of ‘scandals’, and he made a thorough fool of himself. After all the vile public abuse already. Many lesser men kill/ed themselves, others fall into drug and alcohol abuse to cope. Polanski never did. He went on to make films, gained more friends, and true old friends never deserted him. Apparently, a journalist once asked him while he was inside, why he kept making ‘cold’ films, to which he replied, that he had lived for too long in the dark, hence, many of his films don’t have any happy ends, simply to reflect reality. Quite.
We know he gave away all possessions of Sharon’s no to be reminded of her brutal end, and that of several more of his friend in fact, and we can only imagine what he must have thought how she had suffered, after seeing the reports and crime scene photos, or indeed the bloodstains left inside and outside his home. The fact that some had thought he had committed the crimes himself, the police had forced him to take a polygraph test, or believed that he had ordered Manson’s ‘Family’ to kill his wife and friends once known to be the culprits over dubious reasons, was the epitome of insensitive treatment and damnably vile defamation. Polanski was constantly made guilty of being a victim, conveniently accused of everything. Even moderate talk show host Larry King the other week managed to make him her murderer in an interview with her sister, and he never even apologised. In fact, Polanski himself was so paranoid, thinking some of his ‘friends’ were responsible, he admitted that he had desperately tried to find the perpetrator/s himself, before it became evident who they were, only to be attacked by the vicious media hounds to eat away on his life some more in a most degenerate form unheard of. In Europe, they would have been more tactful.
In effect, his wife and friends only became the victims of Manson, because Doris Day’s son, who had lived at Polanski’s home before, had severed ties with Manson who had a bone to pick with him over their broken agreement to further him musically, and he sent out his young killer brigade to teach him a lesson. Tate even saw Manson only days prior while he accosted the son visiting her, and thought him a creepy guy. Her sister only evaded the murders wanting to visit her, because Tate said she was too tired. Another friend who wanted to visit only escaped the slaughter for missing his baggage at the airport and never showed up. After that deeply scarring nightmare, Polanski abandoned the place as it was bloodstains and all, and never returned to it. The point of this analysis is simple; how can a man survive such ordeals sanely for so long, after his childhood and adolescent days were already of unprecedented traumas leaving him with a fractured skull twice over, only to face the horrors of the loss of his wife and unborn child. And finally, the charge for rape of a minor, and another media lynching. Several more close friends had died around him before and after in various shocking ways, in car crashes, through suicide and under mysterious circumstances like martial arts master Bruce Lee.
Few men would have survived such nightmares, but Polanski had become an expert in survival. He simply had to. And that’s what he is accused of too – to be so strong to prevail time and time again. I find it absolutely bewildering and in fact obscene, how people can state that all that has no meaning, not the slightest bearing or effect on his life, most of all on his work, and should simply be ignored. It might have triggered something before buried deep insides his psyche and that he might have immersed himself too deeply into the girl in the Jacuzzi. Was he entirely himself? Was the girl entirely honest? Maybe all he wanted was some affection in the wrong form, maybe all he wanted was physical gratification from the wrong partner. Maybe it was indeed consensual and much points to that rather than not as a simple case of sex, no matter she legally could not consent to it, and that’s why we have this case still sitting in the courts. When it comes to others, we preach that all facets of life must be taken into consideration for someone to heal, all circumstance, all emotional state, after years of flawless conduct, decades of not one slip-up and extreme distress. Yet in his case, this is simply all taken away suddenly by ignorant and pious double standards that are simply staggering.
She had stated that she didn’t remember him saying anything from one day to the next, yet seems to have come up with all sorts of ‘explanations’, and he remembered every word and that he did not prevent her from removing herself from him in any form. A man can endure only so much for so long, and by beginning an affair with Nastassja Kinski in 1976, this might have been his one consolation not to be alone, he always needed his work and people around him. What he could not get on mental satisfaction he might have sought in physical form and many satisfied it. That’s why he much later stated that he thought what he did then was not to harm anyone by sleeping with her, he never deliberately hurt the girl, which she later said herself he hadn’t, had expressed concerns for her wellbeing and showed remorse at the time as findings documented. He lived for his work, and his artistic creativity. Even sexual gratification as many do it. He was known to be sexually very active with willing females, though he’s nowhere near Warren Beatty’s over ten thousands of conquests with one girl a day over the same period of time.
Apparently, he even tried speaking with her [family] after bail was granted to make her admit it was consensual, but while waiting in front of their home, cops spotted him and told him to leave. This however was never mentioned in his autobiography. Curious how he was allowed to go free after such serious allegations, while today the much older man has to be kept under house arrest and millions in bail bond. One could argue because he’s a fugitive, but he could have easily absconded already then before he in fact did. But of course, he thought himself innocent, that a trial fair would find him just that, and trusted in the US justice system. That seems to have gone very wrong with more than shameful judicial transgressions and unacceptable racism. There are some who keep living in their preferred rape and sodomy fantasy world by saying he never denied her accounts, when that never was the case and is sheer wishful thinking. The degenerate Manson Family received as ‘fair’ trial, but the one survivor of their brutal murders never did.
What’s most alarming is the fact, that these high horse moralists suddenly call for his head so willingly not even knowing the full facts, after he had led an exemplary life that suddenly doesn’t count for anything either, whilst today’s morals are no more improved in any form. When people state/d things like, ‘take him out and shoot him’, this is a typical comment right in the league with fascist lunacy coming from the Nazis. How dare people comment on others like that who never had faced their traumas, never saw war and destruction, brutal murder and media attacks of exactly such contemptible statements that would be a case for libel otherwise. The fact alone that they speak like this, is proof enough that they in fact have no morals, no sympathy, no empathy, no scruples, not one respectful bone in their bodies. Public perceptions are split in half where personal feelings dictate to drop their rationale, intent on destroying another’s life blindly.
But what makes a life, a puzzle with many holes others punch/ed mercilessly till the picture is completely distorted as we saw so often in history. Polanski the Holocaust survivor, Polanski the wife’s murder survivor, Polanski the media hounds survivor, Polanski the rape allegations survivor, Polanski the life survivor. Polanski the insatiable libertine. Polanski the brilliant auteur. Polanski the caring family man. Polanski the vile monster. Monsters are those who keep calling him a monster. Today’s attitudes are even more narrow-minded, dangerously over PC and too many are too overeager to quickly condemn, proclaiming their self-righteous ‘morals’ on others not their business. I certainly won’t counter argue any of that. Random violence and degenerate gang rapes are a weekly event captured on mobiles (or cellphones if you’re outside the UK) with passives bystanders cheering, all committed by youngsters, no one cares about in contrast at the desensitised moral fabric of our oh so ‘enlightened’ and dehumanised era.
Yet no on gives a damn about that, but bother with an aging artist who had to flee the US after a disgraceful judge misused his position, and is entirely vindictive in itself. Yet of course, if all they want to see is a very young girl and a much older man engaged in sex even if they were to dismiss rape as not medically proven, coercion as not corroborated, leading to innocent seduction, that is their ethical burden entirely. The psychiatric report echoed the probation report. “There was no evidence that the offence was in any way characterized by destructive or insensitive attitude toward the victim. Polanski’s attitude was undoubtedly seductive, but considerate. The relationship with his victim developed from an attitude of professionalism, to playful mutual eroticism. Polanski seems to have been unaware at the time that he was involving himself in a criminal offence, an isolated instance of naiveté.”
There even was a motion to have the girl examined by a psychiatrist and the judge was about to order it, until her lawyer intervened to determine whether or not this was a fantasy to determine, whether or not she was psychiatricly well balanced, weather or not she invented any of it, or lied for whichever reason. This was within the right of the judge, but as we saw, when it came to ‘her’, he gave her exception as the apparent ‘victim’, but not when it came to ‘him’ the apparent perpetrator, who ultimately was found a stable man with no ulterior motives or intent on harming her, by an unbiased body of officials, and ultimately dropped the psyche evaluation option. Maybe they should have, and we’d be a lot more informed about her own lack of judgement not to engage in sex with him. But of course, today’s child protection agendas see this in a very different light, and he suddenly is made guilty by today’s changed attitudes regarding such matters that were of no great concerns in the Seventies. He cannot be made guilty of the times, but people simply do so, unable to rationalise the huge era and behavioural differences.
I find it amazing that people keep giving her credence alone simply because of her age, and her [apparently to some oh so harrowing] accounts. To many on the other hand they simply don’t make any sense at the best of times who bothered reading it logically, while others keep blindly condemning him and those who don’t believe her simply for who they are [celebrities,] and for standing behind him. It would never occur to them that their belief in him is simply based on their better knowledge of the case and him as a person, knowing he is not capable of drugged rape and/or sodomy. The haters easily keep calling them [rape and Polanski] apologists just so to feel better about themselves, when in the same odious breath they demand perverse punishments they’d love to execute themselves. Fame and earlier Hollywood notoriety have most certainly proven a greatest disadvantage to him, having caused irreparable damage to Polanski’s reputation, and with the passage of time and much overblown falsehood can only become more distorted.
Polanski never was convicted of what people would love to see him hanged, or a [repeat] sex offender, since he never was required registration or officially declared guilty. Unlike other [American] celebrities who never saw such hatred and kept on having stellar careers [like Rob Lowe and others], who played around with underage girls and even filmed it. Hence, regardless of Polanski’s original [and broken] plea, he has still not been convicted of any crime, so legally he is not a rapist or criminal, just a fugitive of the law. He pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor of thirteen after five months of deliberations, but since she was underage, it was called statutory rape when it’s not genuine rape by legal definition. It is a very unhelpful misnomer people get hung up on ignoring that it means NOT rape but underage sex. The fact that the law thinks they have to protect children and teenagers, makes no allowance however that they still would do what they want, able to or not, and are much more knowledgeable in many areas than most parents/adults want them to be in any era. Many are much more mature than the law allows them to be, while others are not.
As the law currently still exists, statutory rape undermines the rights of both minors and adults to consent while costing the taxpayer thousands of dollars every year in the prosecution of senseless ‘sex crimes’. It is criminalising consensual sexual acts between different age groups, while truly shocking child abuse or rape cases find no vital funding to prosecute any offenders as we speak. Within this legal framework intended to protect a certain vulnerable section of the population, the conception of sexuality and of the relations between teen and adult sexuality is purely based on individual moral beliefs that are unresponsive to evidence on a case to case base. It is analogous to the dictated beliefs of a ’society’, not the fact of two people’s unconditional rights to have sex without others’ intolerant moral and legal intervention. It is patronising and leaves no room for individual choice. Many European countries don’t suffer such rigorous intrusions into their private lives. But of course, they’re not based on the repressed Puritans that actually left the Continent to settle in the US to be. After they had slaughtered most of the natives there.
For the sake of argument, if a thirteen year old girl has sex with an adult male irrespective of age, why is she considered unable to make that decision, while, if the same thirteen year old kills another human being, the courts say she is an adult and should be tried as an adult because she knew what she was doing. The unlawful sex law robs the adolescent of the ability of having sex consentingly, yet otherwise puts the onus of guilt squarely on her shoulders to know that killing is wrong. Apart from that, they can acquire a driver’s license with sixteen, yet cannot have sex ‘officially’ before the age of eighteen with an older man in California, when that might be easier to accomplish than obey any highway codes. In Germany, the age of consent was always fourteen no matter the age of the partner, and yet to be able to get a license is impossible before being eighteen. I’m sure it is clear which is the better arrangement.
Besides, why should only the adult be punished for ‘consensual’ underage sex, when the minor could just have said no, resisted temptation. Why should only the adult carry the onus of guilt to have fallen under the spell of nubile sex, while otherwise the minor is rightfully punished for any other offence. Technically, the law allows the minor to lead the adult into belief of consent, while in the same letter stipulates inability thereof, yet faces no punishment once breaking the law, but the adult alone. Funny thing is, underage teens can get married in the US, but not have sex under a certain age, differing from state to state, and if either the bride or groom is underage, at least one of the minor’s parents, or legal guardian, must appear with the couple before a court to decide. Certified copies of birth certificates are required, the couple must schedule an appointment with a counsellor and then appear before a superior court judge. Voila – married – and then what? No sex because you’re [still] underage but married? Preposterous.
Many felt safer in the Seventies than now, and the only difference is that women and ethnic minorities have more rights these days, yet are treated even worse in places. Or according to others, even women, overdo their feminist and politically correct views that have become absurd crusades by now. Many women were empowered since then to finally voice their victimisation against the powers of men, but equally many men were vilified and imprisoned without ever having done the deed of rape. That’s not justice, but misuse thereof, distortion of facts and what rape really is. It betrays the real rape victim. And I include much ignored male rape too. Such blanket law lets the victims down terribly, apart from enabling others to cry rape when it never happened. In the UK alone, the true rape and violation numbers are alarming in contrast to then, are mostly committed by those the victims knew and rising child abuse is a very dark chapter hardly any other ‘civilised’ country can match. Good old England. I live here, so I can say that.
One thing that is for certain however is that Polanski wasn’t in any form violent with her, according to her own words, and that he had shown consideration to the possibility of her falling pregnant, after, according to her, he asked if she had had her period and had anal intercourse with her, while he maintained to have ejaculated outside her for not being on the pill and never mentioned or engaged in anal sex. Some call this a solicitous act like his attorney had stated in his plea argument to avoid pregnancy, while others would call it despicable buggery if he had had anal intercourse. Many people engage in anal sex and then it’s suddenly not called sodomy, but in his case of course, despite medical proof there was no anal sex let alone brutal sodomy. Rapists, let alone serial rapists, don’t concern themselves with their prey becoming pregnant. Otherwise Polanski would in fact have dozens of illegitimate children. You can’t simply condemn the man on half truths now and hypocrisy when it suits you, or twist things because you don’t like anal sex for whatever reason, while others do it without being called a sodomite.
The medical evidence as taken from the court records showed that there was no [vaginal and or] anal trauma, but according to her statement, he even took her anally twice. That certainly doesn’t make any sense or sounds like the girl was unresponsive, no matter if it was only vaginal intercourse or anal he never admitted to, nor could it be proven. I find it amazing that so many people take this [double] sodomy for granted not having the first idea about anal intercourse. I suggest a look at Wiki’s entry, and not just blindly take her [uncorroborated] words for fact. Or here, to make it easier. The anus produces no sufficient lubrication for comfortable anal sex, [i.e., not even for ‘dry finger or sex toy play’] anal tissue is very delicate and easy to damage, resulting in generalised ano-rectal trauma and anal fissures without the use of waterbased lubricant in sufficient amount or can make it especially painful and injurious.
Damage is more likely to occur if intercourse is forcible or aggressive or if alcohol or other drugs have dulled sensitivity. Despite the fact that she claimed alcohol and drug use, none of the physical findings backed up her allegations. Ergo, no anal penetration occurred. Only three weeks later she would have been fourteen, and the count of sodomy had been dropped, since it was only unlawful then to engage in anal sex with someone under that age when being more than ten years her senior. So, someone her own age may anally penetrate her, but not someone much older. Where the logic is in that eludes me. But of course, it is to prevent pregnancies rather than teach safe sex, and when men in fact resort to that kind of sex, are punished for it. Safe [spur of the moment] sex to Polanski was to withdraw before ejaculation, and not to sodomise anyone, there’s no logic in that. It’s called coitus interuptus, and the fact that he didn’t have any condoms on him, unlike otherwise ever since being a late teen in fact, should also prove that this was a spontaneous act of casual sex.
The argument that older men might have used coercion falls flat, since I doubt there never was any youth who would have done the same. This is true in all relationships in life and all power between partners must be negotiated, regardless of their age. Many people do truly horrible things to their own kids no matter their age as we speak for years and get away with it, while he never did anything like that nor denied having intercourse with her. If he really had ‘raped’ her, she’d not ever forgiven him in the first place, asked not to see him incarcerated, and then later pleaded repeatedly the case be dropped. Many think she might have been a pawn in this game her mother (or even in collusion with her mother’s boyfriend) had staged for her all these years back, and Polanski fell right into that ‘honey trap’ as some had called it. To many she was made to play the sex game with a very permissive mother behind her, and he paid for it after the law was called on him to make big waves in the end drowning them all.
What’s most likely is of course, that she wanted to get into the movies, and Polanski was just the right stepping stone. Ms Geimer had often enough said so herself later, and that this was the whole arrangement with her modelling to begin with. Her mother was a struggling bit part actress, and it was perfectly clear to others that she wanted to become a movie rather than small screen star, just like her daughter. When she was introduced to Polanski, her prospects of gaining better foothold for both in the industry seemed sealed, asking for a better agent to start with, which he obliged her with. The only problem was, Polanski didn’t think Ms Geimer serious model material as so recalled in his autobiography, nor her mother a talented actress, resulting in her vindictive response that she proposed her youngest daughter to Polanski knowing of his taste for younger females.
She testified to that in court in fact, and her pushing her ‘innocent’ daughter into Polanski’s lap to be photographed on the sister’s boyfriend’s ‘suggestion’, aiming straight at where it would hurt the promiscuous film director most: his known taste for sex. Many people today still think this was the most plausible reason of their sudden ‘illogical’ turn against him, and Polanski himself said that their sudden coldness towards himself after the last shoot, was most peculiar, only to find himself accused of rape and whatnot else the next day, which could never be proven. Many others however make the mistake to reject that this is what Hollywood was and is all about: you scratch my back and I scratch yours, in the context of the media and prestige driven times to become rich and famous, and not see it as an excuse for his or their actions, but to educate oneself of the highly competitive times of then and how to make it in the film industry at all costs. His costs.
The parole officer pointed out a noticeably provocative air on the girl’s side, which might have been another trigger factor of wanting to bed her. Many call/ed this sexism or of course accusing the girl of being promiscuous, which she apparently was according to some who knew her, or of course is just another excuse for him when stating things like that. That doesn’t make her in any form immoral, just very mature, at the very time for women to finally break free from [sexual male dominated] conventions and explore their own rights to sex. People who weren’t around then, should keep their pious sermons to themselves. Maybe it was just simply a fact and they should keep their overemphasis of her virtue in the closet. His attorney had done his own investigations into her [sexual] history, and, after having unearthed more than the two people she had mentioned in her testimony she had sex with, he asked for this to be admitted as evidence. But of course, the judge had no intentions to support Polanski’s cause, and refused ‘to serve his pathfinding mission’, utterly ignoring the fact that she would have committed perjury. Nice justice.
Especially after the mother’s boyfriend, who was oddly never part of the witnesses, once picked up the girl after she was brought in for questioning again, and they both were in fact spotted by a clerk of the prosecution in a very compromising embrace in the prosecutor’s office, engaged more in what lovers do, with his leg between hers embracing with erotic connotations. Looks like the boyfriend had not only interest in her mother, but designs on the young girl too. So much for an innocent thirteen year old just having been raped. The clerk in fact was so taken aback that he reported it to the judge. But of course, nothing ever came of it, at the judge’s ‘discretion’ not intent on helping Polanski’s case with such an important incident. Such report could have thrown out the case right there, especially after the medical reports and testimonies didn’t support five of the six counts, no matter Huston’s most helpful own statement was (of course) not admissible for the defence. The girl was spotted frolicking around with her mother’s boyfriend in the DA’s office, and after ten more years surely had no claims on ‘compensation’ anymore either after she had rejected all help for ‘physical and mental distress’.
Had Huston however been forced to ague against him had they gone on trial, his attorney would have motioned it to be disregarded as compromised witness statement since it was unlawfully coerced and rendered inadmissible. I wonder why the cop could in fact go on in his job, after basically threatening witnesses, and accepting corrupted evidence. It is noteworthy to add, that, had Polanski been ‘advised’ to pleading guilty to the one of the others counts, it would have given him a few months or years only depending, and for sodomy the most he would have received was one month on probation. So to say he pleaded guilty to the ‘lesser’ count of unlawful sex, is incorrect, since it was the one punished harshest. But, since he had admitted intercourse with her, they decided on unlawful sex once rape and sodomy was excluded, and he knew exactly it could entail as many years as twenty at the judge’s final decision. So much for being a coward not wanting to face any punishment. He effectively had no clear idea if it could entail anything between one to twenty years as he was ‘advised’ of then. However, it is more than dubious why his attorney didn’t tell him that he actually could have faced as many as fifty years, had the prosecution demanded it, and that nobody at the hearing corrected him when Polanski pleaded to it. Another severe setback for justice and deliberate misleading.
His plea clearly states that he believed the maximum sentence was twenty years, and I’m certain, had he known it would mean the rest of his life, had not pleaded guilty but insisted on going to trial for believing himself innocent and much pointed to it at the mere findings. This more than obvious failure to let Polanski know what punishment he might have been forced to endure, shows very unprofessional counsel and Rittenband obviously had no intentions on correcting them, which is clearly unlawful to leave the defendant in false beliefs of his coming sentence. Under Californian law, a plea may be withdrawn at any time before judgement, and of course, there never was any formal sentencing of Polanski and he still could withdraw the plea statement today since Rittenband’s absentia sentence was unlawful at any rate and the resulting arrest warrant unsound. Maybe a certain DA should explain why his office had accepted it in the first place and that it should never have been allowed. More grave judicial misconduct in Polanski’s disfavour.
Many thought the officials tried their best to paint him a foreign sex monster, but they never did. Polanski was found a mentally stable man without violent or devious tendencies or premeditated intentions. Their unbiased reports in contrast are a positive revelation. Ms Geimer had stated often enough to leave her mother out of it, and, to many this suggests that what she did was on her own accord, while others say she had coached her daughter to lie in court. Neither can be discounted after all the curious inconsistencies and more than dubious ‘fear’ allegations. What is fact however, that Polanski was declared not a paedophile or pervert by definition and evaluation, nor had groomed and abused her the way classified. Many people keep tagging him with these labels, obviously not quite familiar with their actual meanings. I suggest a dictionary.
Or, let me help you out; a paedophile is an adult or older adolescent who sexually abuses prepubescent children, i.e, anyone under puberty, not post-prepubescent and/or adolescent teenagers. In short, girls who don’t menstruate yet. Their sexual interest is toward prepubescent youths only and does not include teenagers. Most paedophiles harm children mentally and/or physically, systematically ‘abuse’ them for various reasons and is often based on an abused childhood, not simply ‘sleep’ with them, which is not a paedophiliac marker. Paedophilia has certain psychological characteristics, such as low self-esteem and poor social skills, which in Polanski’s case is obviously more than null and void. Paedophilic men have lower IQs than most, and I doubt Polanski will fit that picture either, or he’d not be a genius film maker who does everything himself before and behind the camera. Regarding disinhibitory traits, paedophiles demonstrate elevated sociopath and tendencies for cognitive distortions, i.e. show anti-social characteristics Polanski never displayed either, or no one would have worked with him. Paedophiles gravitate towards children because they find their company less threatening than that of adults, and if that were the case with Polanski, he’d not be able to function in an adult world he has occupied since decades and worked with mostly adults on his films.
He liked sex in general with females that suited his personality and they all look alike too, he had a certain type that attracted him, and his current wife fits that picture as well, unless it was casual sex in the heydays of the Sixties and Seventies everybody engaged in. He conveniently is made guilty of things by today’s fanatical minds he was never accused of nor was ever sentenced for even then. They keep accusing the Polanski of today of acts as the Polanski of then he did not ever commit either way, or since then. He’s guilty of whatever they like him to be at this stage, not ever thinking he could in fact be innocent, and simply redefine these words to ensure that he has become guilty of all of them, even then. The bigoted public has successfully managed to turn him into a multiple criminal who never was convicted of anything. Staggering.
While she later went off the rails with other wild teenage boys and became pregnant with eighteen, and married with nineteen, Polanski had tried his best not to make her a mother and would have helped her into the industry through modelling despite her not being true model material. It has to be added that she underwent these more than intimate examinations in no distress unlike rape victims display, unable to suffer more intrusive violation, according to the male physician who examined her, present at the Grand Jury hearing. No rape victim lets herself be touched let alone ‘examined’ by a man, or afterwards goes across the road get some fast-food as if nothing had happened, while the adults decided on what to do next. Ms Geimer admitted to having taken no shower, no bath, no enema, no douche, this according to her testimony, yet the physician couldn’t find anything indicating semen or saliva, let alone vaginal or anal penetration. She also claimed she had called her boyfriend, who came over and went into her bedroom. No rape victim wants to be near any other men, not even their own companion.
When Polanski unexpectedly left the judge’s jurisdiction, her guardians’ idea of getting her into the film business had backfired massively in many eyes, and for some to say, that ‘experience’ with him had robbed her of her childhood is bare nonsense since she seemed quite happy with her mother’s boyfriend. While the mother was at home with her apparently double-dealing boyfriend, the only thing the girl was robbed of while with the famous director, was the easy fame her parents had tried gaining through him, at her own costs of basically ‘selling’ her to the Hollywood system with Polanski at the receiving end once the law was brought in. Now she tries to get this entire drama behind her after she got over it all long ago to her own words, and had asked plenty of times to leave her alone. She seems quite adept in the glare of (his) limelight by now and every time she is seen walking the red carpet, smiles brightly. That’s not really someone who suffers her fame or detests that kind of lifestyle. But that’s not the issue.
Since she had sex before with others, it was apparently considered acceptable as we saw, and then it falls under the term, that, if the adult is less than three years older than the minor, no crime has been committed. These are called ‘Romeo and Juliet’ laws, despite the boyfriend actually having been four years older than her at that time. Curious that no one had held him responsible or at least fined him as the penal code had allowed. But of course, we’re not charging any boyfriend but the older man. That’s all double standards so many see and so many don’t want to acknowledge, or of course know of and simply don’t care. The fact that Polanski was so much older is purely based on one’s own ‘ideal of morality’ thinking it’s depraved. Many suddenly say, why is his wife so much younger, when’s she’s in her forties in fact, but other celebrities can have sexy young/er wives, or old/er husbands and then it’s not immoral. Double standards.
Many suspect/ed Ms Geimer wanted to continue her ‘affair’ with him, but when the law was dragged into it against her will by the mother’s boyfriend, since she learned of the sex (not rape) from the sister, it all went terribly wrong for both of them, her promising future career in the movie industry destroyed and his reputation forever tainted. Some suspected the bit-part actress mother since her overtures towards Polanski, or even her boyfriend at his own designs on the girl, were not too happy with that idea and he advised her to call a lawyer, and declare it rape. Why should she ask for the charges being dismissed, if he had seriously hurt her? Is she really the purely ‘forgiving’ type, or does she have other reasons to see the case closed? She stated it wasn’t rape, so it wasn’t, end of story. But no, the greedy public has their own twisted ideas as usual. Just think of a teen seducing an adult, and then what? She’s a harlot suddenly when it pleases you? You’d be surprised how often that happened. Or how many Hollywood moms tried to ‘get an agent’ for themselves or their ‘promising daughters’ at all costs. But of course, in this case that cannot ever be. More double standards .
The one thing that really hurt Ms Geimer to her own words, was exactly this kind of public hypocrisy shown to both by the media hounds and malicious public, twisting it all out of sane proportions, and now the renewed spectacle is making it all even more perverted and worse for the both of them. The most brutal rape of the century. Of course, one can say he should have known better not to sleep with such a young girl, but it was found a spontaneous act on Polanski’s part and according to him showed no reservations. We may not ignore that fact and that they all did it and still do it. But that’s fine then. So what about a case where the adult is a woman and the willing teen male, then what? The woman is suddenly the perpetrator? I thought sexism is out. So how about calling it simply ageism since we’re so keen on labelling things these days. I shudder to think what it would be in their eyes with same sex pairings and each could be the ‘seducer’.
What was sure however is that the girl was found in no danger, and he didn’t injure her in any form as per medical findings, and to her own words, and no one ever said that he was sexually violent. Surely the signs of a brutal serial rapist. We cannot condemn him for another mindset of the day after he pleaded guilty at no other choice, which fell in fact right on the day of his wife’s 8th death anniversary, August 9th. One can only imagine that this date was set deliberately to pain him some more, or was mere macabre coincidence. He did his time, and regretted the entire affair at the sudden nasty turn neither in fact wanted. When Polanski slept with Klaus Kinski’s daughter of fifteen and had romantic relations with her for some years, that was suddenly fine then and not rape anymore. Indeed, he had met her mother too and she was perfectly aware as to the nature of their relation, treating it with the usual more mature Continental approach to such intimate matters.
Unlike in the repressed US, choking on their typical outrage where such liaisons are deemed immoral, but do it anyway. Fine, live in your im/moral double standard world, or that it’s ok to have sex ‘officially’ and teenagers are suddenly allowed to consent and judge for themselves from one day to the next. Hooray. If they can or not is another question the law suddenly doesn’t care about anymore. Or in fact, if they could have long before that, while so called adults told to control themselves might not do any better in fact. The unlawful sex law as it stands is too relative to be universally applied and should be based on individual circumstances with more common sense. No child or adolescent develops at the same maturity rate and should have a say in things no matter their age, not the parents, or the law, alone. But I’m paraphrasing.
This entire case is a question of vastly dissimilar cultural views, era differences, personal situations and very shady legal wrangling foremost we cannot go by from our today’s standpoints. Europe was always more liberal and open to many things in contrast to the prudish and repressed American way of [sexual] life, and then still did/do it behind closed doors anyway the bigoted hypocrites they are. Let alone being guilty of incest, including underage, anal and oral sex, consensual or not. And in Hollywood too. But that’s a different world anyway in any era. And of course, for those seeing it all their own twisted way, say Kinski was just another rape victim and Polanski a serial paedophile. Many men like younger women. But then that’s ok then with others, fine. Or maybe in her case they thought she was a slut suddenly when it pleases them. I highly doubt Nastassja had ever thought to be a rape victim or him a child molester and certainly was not immoral either out to gain fame. She was a classy young actress already and didn’t sleep with him to get the role of ‘Tess’ or have her photos taken by him, before Ms Geimer in fact. Shame she in contrast never made it into the same league for the interference of ‘adults’. And ‘laws’.
In an interview Ms Geimer once stated that she was angry at her mother for calling on the law, but then had accused him of all sorts of things of which most could not be substantiated, said that she cried after the sex, and that he had told her to keep it between them. Polanski on the other hand refuted that, and if one goes purely by logic, there’s hardly any room for his misreading her continuous unwillingness after many women to call on able to read their signals just fine, and then suddenly seemed to have failed with her? I highly doubt that. In another interview she had said that she was ‘starstruck’ and therefore never said anything as to her reluctance to do any of it, which in itself is utterly contradictive, let alone in reference to her being ‘afraid’ of him. None of this makes any sense, and he said that she never gave him any indication of her unwillingness, or he simply would have let her be at that point. He had enough self-control and prospects of other offers, so there was no need to take advantage of this particular girl. Curious that all these accusers simply cannot see that perhaps simple attraction was the name of the game, and that many of those who slept with him might have fallen for him, even loved him. Or vice versa. Or of course just indulged in casual sex. I wonder why his wife is still with him after twenty-five years. But no, in that case, they’re all whores or golddiggers and any female virtue is out the window as it suits them. No, he’s just an ugly dwarf no one can find sexy or love. You’d be surprised how many still do today. I call it jealousy.
While Europe was willing to see it both ways, the high and mighty US was of the typical prejudiced mindset we saw applied often enough in various forms, and today again. Still only mainly the States were delighted (other than many in Hollywood obviously or more liberal folks) that Polanski was arrested, while in Europe most are still appalled. Why? Huge cultural and social differences, dissimilar political views and more liberal individual perceptions the puritanical gun-obsessed States cannot accept, simply condemning others in their bigotry when they are of no more moral standards than them. Many mitigating circumstances were at work that day, most people don’t want to know of either. Europeans say the US is the biggest moral hypocrite, and have no rights to judge other cultures. That much is always true. This case was simply never that clear cut to begin with and cannot ever be judged by today’s cultures, politics, laws and personal views, or sociopolitical changes. And certainly not by fanatical prejudices or blind ignorance in general.
And what about all these petitions against his release? Don’t you have better things to meddle in or concentrate on issues that are MUCH more important? Most don’t even have the slightest ideas about the wider implications of this case, yet are revelling in their own motives to support his incarceration, thinking, it’s a good deed to backstab your friend suddenly by removing your name from another petition to free him. Obviously we think at this point Emma Thompson did it on the behest of this one student, as widely publicised as possible, but she hasn’t spoken out against him publicly either. Of course, if she wants to garner serious support in her current campaigning against the sex trade, cannot openly support a colleague accused of being a child rapist. But it could well be that she dropped him knowing exactly he isn’t, simply to give her campaign better credibility, or it would be seen as double standards. The one friend sacrificed in favour of the countless sex slaves. What an irony that would be. Besides, no petition has any legal significance in any form.
We know, Polanski only fled the law after the racist judge wanted to lock him up for decades suddenly to make an example of him as a famous and most of all foreign, admired and ‘Jewish’ or ‘Polish’ celebrity (the ‘Polack’) he wanted deported, while truly vile rapists face/d an average sentence of three to twenty years for violent or multiple rape depending on the degree of physical and/or mental harm done The judge was removed by both parties’ attorneys and officially discredited after filing a statement of disqualification, listing down his unprofessional bias and plenty unlawful code violations, which even included an incident, that he seriously considered a call by a friend, that a UK paper claimed that a similar incident had happened to Polanski some time before in London. When the prosecution of all had already looked into that and found it a deliberate lie to goad on the judge, they had no other choice left to see him step down. Too late, since by then Polanski had fled, when they could have helped him better by challenging the judge’s misconducts at any prior obstruction of justice.
After a colluding DA had pressured the mood and attitude fluctuating judge already to send him down for the diagnostic study, to establish if he’s a mentally disordered sex offender, and use it as punishment, following his spotting Polanski in a photo taken during the Oktoberfest, he finally resorted to renege on the plea bargain they had agreed on just to save his public reputation, declaring his ‘show’ sentence in absentia in a media spectacle worthy a Hollywood film. This was therefore postponed and Polanski was never formally sentenced, so technically, he is still on [a very long] probation. That was serious abuse of his powers instead of explaining things to the leering public, keep to the truth, the whole case reeked of deliberate misconduct, mock arguments even Polanski then was aware of and that the manipulative judge was intent on spinning out the case as long as possible to save his face at his Club, and was/is a very bad example of the in/famous US ‘justice’ system of then per se. Let’s hope it has improved today. Many have no faith in it and I doubt they are wrong.
Many people however still don’t know Polanski had served 42 of 90 days behind bars after the judge had allowed him to finish his new film abroad within a year to stay in the money. He had lost the previous project already over his arrest when the studios dropped him, and was about to lose the one he worked on. Another minor factor to avoid a costly trial was that Polanski had needed to carry all expenses, and to keep paying his legal staff. He also didn’t want to put the girl through the cross-examination wringer. So in effect, Polanski was forced into the plea on several levels and grudgingly agreed to it, since he in fact wanted a trial. He was effectively on probation during that time, but was recalled back to LA after ten months before he was released early on the recommendation of impartial probation officials, and his attorney had guaranteed him that was it. I read somewhere that people think he didn’t ‘want’ to finish his 48 days of psyche evaluation, but I doubt he had any say in that and could just walk out the door of Chino.
It is noteworthy to add that this sentencing was in fact also illegal, since such diagnostic period is specifically precluded from serving as a prison sentence. But, because the 90-day detention was mandatory and could not legally be appealed, it was the only way to insure Polanski would spend time behind bars the judge fully exploited. The ruling was opposed by both attorneys who argued that it was illegal to use the diagnostic detention as punishment for a crime, but Rittenband, who had ties with the mob and was known to be a loose cannon, obviously didn’t care much for the law and no one challenged him. In fact, he seems to have been under the impression that playing around with his attorneys and most of all Polanski, leaving them in the belief that the plea bargain was to be upheld, was for his personal fun and games since he never wanted to honour it to his own words but send him down for good. As we saw.
Polanski was suddenly faced with the prospect of many more years behind bars for this judge ‘changing his mind’, when he believed the minimum sentence was a year on probation he had been on for the best part already, to twenty years maximum in jail for unlawful sex. The probation officials found Polanski of no threat and said that he should go free, and that is where he lost it and fled since no one had advised him it could entail years beyond his death and surely had pressed for a trial instead. Of course, he read it in the papers but was told it wouldn’t be that long, and he could have appealed once Rittenband was removed. But, all he saw was another political persecution, false assurances and decades behind bars with violent criminals who would have (had) him for breakfast. When he became prisoner B88724Z, all he saw was another Nazi camp no matter he put on a brave face and was kept separate from other hardcore convicts. The man never was, or is now even less, of any threat or challenge physically for any determined wo/man, and I’m sure even a ’scared’ teenager could have done him serious harm. They are known to be able to brutally kill and rape adults. But no, Ms Geimer wasn’t really scared.
Polanski has proven that he never was any danger in all these years, yet many want him to have committed more heinous and obviously covered up crimes, pulling nonsensical phrases like ‘he’s a danger to society’ out of thin air suddenly. They don’t bother with current rape crimes but want to see him behind bars out of sheer spite, desperately in need of a reality check. Many say, why should he receive ‘special treatment’ now, when he never asked for it, but surely was gifted with it once the judge, who was a confessed swinger himself mind you, wanted to incarcerate him on public pressure and then deport him BECAUSE he was a Hollywood celebrity, BECAUSE he was an ‘unwelcome’ foreigner, BECAUSE of the impartial probation officials findings saying to let him be. Funny how people ignore these facts. Or say, he played the legal system. Oddly enough, Ms Geimer stated in one of her dismissal pleas that she thought the 42 days at Chino were excessive and should not face any more, while the US thinks he deserves that measured in years. I wonder what makes them think they know better.
Had he been some unknown poor American he’d been sent home with a slap on his wrist for underage sex and/or fined, like they in fact did with a few dozen ‘offenders’ right at the very same time. They would love to see him incarcerated like a terrorist, who in contrast are running around freely to do real damage. It’s all mind-boggling lunacy, manipulated by rightwing politics feeding moralists’ and feminists’ power hunger next to irrelevant child abuse/d voices gone completely out of hand by now. He’s the proverbial scapegoat being slowly slaughtered for public entertainment to satisfy their misplaced agendas, which cannot ever be applied to an old case like this in the fist place. But of course, he’s a much easier target to malign than dangerous criminals or true paedophiles hiding out amongst us right now. Most likely at home with their abused children, who will never be heard because it’s much more important to catch and bring a harmless old man before any sanctimonious ‘people’s court’. Since it was, ‘people vs. Polanski’, they think it’s their ‘right’ now to demand his ‘severe punishment’ and even death penalty after all these years, with most not even alive at that time. Truly alarming.
Polanski was nothing but railroaded by a media hungry lawmaker then already, others called a ‘sociopath’ [Rittenband], who had a twenty year old partner being in fact in his seventies and was into even younger girls than that too, according to people who knew him. Fact. He was seventy-two then, and died in ‘93 aged eight-eight. But such truly giant age gap and ‘activity’ in his case was or is acceptable, I guess. Polanski’s sudden arrest in Switzerland was a disgraceful pacifier titbit thrown into the right-wingers court wielding too much powers on politics in the land of no hope and little glory. It suddenly proceeds with strident fanaticism when it comes to an old man wanted for an outstanding warrant over some unlawful sex even the now grown woman doesn’t want to hear of anymore, repeatedly asking the case be dropped. Any warrant should have been torn up right after the case was declared a mistrial, while political torturers and other criminals are shielded right now by the same mob and no one clamours for their extradition. How did someone put it so aptly: “Polanski is not accused of being guilty, he is guilty of being the accused.” Quite.
If one can believe reports, then a certain DA wants his head for personal advancement by locking him up again, while ironically, the US Congress harbours more criminals guilty of various crimes including spouse abuse than Guantanamo Bay. No wonder Polanski’s lawyers think he’ll never receive a fair hearing, or that he absconded, which even the prosecutor then didn’t find surprising and would have done the same too. Any man in his right mind would have bolted and to state differently is nonsense. Polanski wanted to continue working in the States and with the unlawful deportation threat simply thought enough is enough. Even funnier is the fact, that the now retired colluding attorney from the DA’s office happily recalling how he had rallied and coached the judge against Polanski to psyche evaluate him, suddenly recanted all he ever stated in a certain documentary, and would in fact be in Polanski’s favour. But of course, since Rittenband is dead, he can just state he had lied with no one to corroborate his words, least of all the judge who surely would have denied them. The documentary helps make it absolutely clear that the rearrest of Polanski in Switzerland is not a case of justice being served, but political vengeance, after he had complied with all the orders of the court until the judge’s actions became so egregious that he could no longer afford to do so, and fled.
Another curious thing is, each time Polanski gets badly stuck in the shocking news feed, it’s the dying end of the decade. And, that on Friday November the 13th, (!) it had marked exactly the 90 days he had spent in prison. 42 in hellhole Chino, and 48 days in a well reputed Swiss remand prison purely designed for pre-trial cases posing no threat to his personal safety. Unlike it would be in the US. No wonder Polanski by now is so paranoid to end up in a US jail where his safety could never be guaranteed unlike then – but deliberately jeopardised to the delight of many twisted (US) minds just so to torment him some more. Every time Polanski was asked in interviews if it wouldn’t be better to face the music to get it over and done with and move on, they simply cannot understand that he has not the slightest belief in their fairness with him anymore and would never step foot back onto US soil, not because he tries to evade punishment, but to end up in danger from the mob and inmates. His three decades of misplaced public abuse was enough. And proof that he was right.
I have watched this spectacle from the day of Tate’s murder, and as demonising as it was already then, it by now has escalated or rather descended into sheer insanity. Typical of people seriously stating slander like: “Polanski, who has spent a lifetime plying young girls with alcohol and drugs before sexually abusing them was a threat to young girls long before 1977 and continues to be a threat today.” Wow, how does he know? Was he there? Has he seen any evidence? No, just the usual wishful thinking garbage again. Or did he mean Gary Glitter by any chance? Glitter spent a mere few months behind bars for multiple obscene sex act offences on plenty girls over many years now and was never hounded like Polanski. Nice double standards either way. Of course, the next best argument would be, Polanski’s rich he can ‘buy’ himself silence from more potential ‘victims’. Whatever he does or say, he doesn’t stand a chance of fairness, while those who believe/d in him, simply keep quiet, since they would just meet the same ignorance.
What Rittenband had stated about Polanski prior and later in public to justify this decision to renege on their deal, was found mere inflammatory racism and defamation and was/is simply unacceptable in general, and in fact unlawful. He kept asking journalists and others what he should do with the ‘Pollack’, which in itself is unlawful, let alone to discus any case outside the court room. The man thought he was above any law, and good enough the more intelligent attorneys didn’t think so after he had overstepped his jurisdiction they didn’t find sound nor legal and saw him taken off the case. The fact that other judges agreed to proceed with his removal is proof enough that he had acted dishonourably, and the judge who took over would have done a much fairer job, who, on the other hand still missed to perform his duty to investigate and most of all correct these unethical proceedings people of today love to ignore, and simply put the case on ice. Even he had failed to act on his own rules, but of course, other much more important cases had to be dealt with.
Polanski had fully cooperated, he had done all they had demanded from him, he had endured looking over his shoulder day in and night out once inside, and yet he found himself forced to flee the impending injustice engulfing him. Everyone would have done the same. The judge had effectively threatened him with either spending the rest 48 days behind bars and then self-deport himself, or will be sent down for decades and then deported which was not his call. The judge had forced Polanski waive his right to any future deportation hearing in which the director could challenge any attempt by US authorities to expel him from the country, which is unlawful to force on any defendant. If he had said, he wanted him to finish the duration, though hardly anyone was kept in for that long, to ‘recheck’ on their findings with different probation officers or psychiatrists, that had been within his authority, but not blackmail him into self-deportation, for ‘moral turpitude’ – as if none of the US citizens showed that. Even Ms Geimer’s lawyer had said that the judge acted unlawfully at no such rights given, or to force someone into deportation.
Rittenband issued a legal finding declaring that Polanski is not a mentally disordered sex offender after independent assessments and the medical findings not pointing to forcible rape/sodomy. But, despite the already issued recommendations of the probation department and the findings of two court-appointed psychiatrists, Rittenband ordered him to Chino state prison to undergo a ‘psychiatric examination’, after many months of being on probation to determine appropriate ‘sentencing’. He went against council, his limited legal authority, and many wondered how many more Rittenband might have convicted harshly for nothing. But since he’s passed on, cannot be held responsible anymore for the wholly dishonourable dealings with the ‘Polish’ director. Shame. Years later, Polanski had described the events as, ‘an abominable cat playing with [him as] a mouse for sport’. The callous cat is dead, but now even more vicious hyenas want him for dinner.
The problem with ‘information’ is, that the media feeds the public a mix of overexposed Hollywood glitz versus Hollywood blitz defending or killing off their own as they see fit, with fragments of facts or indeed fabrications as it suits them. On the one hand, people say they don’t believe anything the media feeds them, yet happily do so in his case and then call others hypocrites, rape apologists or even paedophiles for standing behind him unable or unwilling to separate these issues. For people to still ignore these facts or disregard that Polanski was a victim of wilfully illegal transgressions, or to say how many more Polanski has abused and raped, when no such thing ever happened and no one else ever came forward to substantiate anything like that, this sort of lynch ‘justice’ attitude is just as inexcusable as it is dangerous. It’s simply repulsive. And it’s obvious why they’re hounding Polanski now [again], and none of their own [celebrity] criminals; he’s not ‘American’. It has always been a racial issue people simply don’t realise.
The man factually never committed any crimes and led a perfectly law-abiding life in open daylight for decades, and I’m sure some wanted him to slip badly. But did he? No. He’s a great humanitarian and has supported many newcomers to find foothold in the field of filmmaking, who obviously didn’t think him a capable of any of it, and when one points to these insiders people think it’s emotional blackmail and that they all must be immoral to work with him. But that’s exactly the point; they know better and certainly are not morally corrupt. Unlike too many, he is a very moderate drinker and doesn’t smoke cigarettes either – or gambles his money away in the questionable company of prostitutes, and no one ever stated that he ever paid for sex. Sex outside his longer relationships people love to ignore he had, to him was a one-on-one occasion and no commitment for either side. After the trauma of his wife, the disaster with the Vogue assignment, he began to change, and once separated from Kinski on friendly terms, he was more careful with whom he engaged, and when he met his current wife, he once more settled down to have a[nother] family.
Many wanted him [and Sharon] to have engaged in lurid [drugged sex] orgies and [him later] group sex, when he only ever had a threesome with Kinksi and a friend, and tried LSD twice with the first trip ending in a not too pretty nightmare, and the second he shared with Sharon during their first lovemaking. I’m sure that doesn’t impress those who don’t pay hookers, have group sex or take drugs either, and those who do, and there are just too many addicts and binge drinkers and all very young, no doubt think it irrelevant when it comes to mapping Polanski’s character. But who cares about stuff like that the public hardly know of anyway, or that he supports several charities unlike plenty other much richer folks. In fact, Sharon had told him on one of their early dates that she had been raped once at the age of seventeen, and though it didn’t leave her emotionally scarred and with no sexual inhibitions, how could he ever do it to someone else. Rumours, fabrications and half truths, harnessed by the merciless power of the sensationalistic media, creates a distorted image that clings to people forever, a caricature that soon passes for reality, and whatever that person might say or do in real life, if it doesn’t fit into their own distorted views, they would always prefer the caricature to the real thing, the scandalous libertine, the maker of bizarre cinema, the depraved rapist.
Extraordinarily gifted yet otherwise ordinary and decent people it seems are not worthy enough to admire or denigrate, they first must be raised to the status of infamy to become an eligible pariah, and then of course, destroyed. After losing his pregnant wife and their child to the insanities of the Manson Family who were in fact all very young, and he fell apart, suddenly being a widower from one second to the next, had to deal with monstrous accusations and alarming media abuse on top, then the ‘Quaaludes affair’ and more ill-treatment, this is nothing more than a sad and dangerously self-perpetuating witch-hunt by now driven by changeable politics, the same twisted media sensationalism feeding still too many willing ignorami black and white horror stories, which are simply not correct or indeed is utterly acceptable. Especially after his traumatic childhood already, many simply try to ignore on top now, or of course have no finer details of, saying it cannot be taken into account.
How nice to disregard something so fundamental that was forever imprinted in his psyche, marked his entire life. But I’m sure they would like their own past taken into full consideration to form a better understanding of their overall character. He might have put on a brave and rebellious face to get on with it, was a bit of a pain on his film sets at times to get the right results in occasionally rather unorthodox ways some ‘divas’ didn’t find amusing, but it surely dictated his entire evolution as it would be with everyone else on this planet. On the other hand, people preach that all experiences make a wo/man and must not be ignored, except of course in his case, thinking it’s all irrelevant suddenly and that any ordeals have no meaning. Astonishing. Every time someone approached him in regards to his ‘crime’ on a more hostile level, provoked him into any kind of reaction, all he did was coldly regard the person, till the coldness froze the other party into submission to retreat, when he could have taken up a fight, explain himself, which would only have served the aggressor, not himself. The fact that Polanski distanced himself from his past traumas by saying, “I’m not interested in [any of] it,” is his one way of coping with it all, never having been free of [underserved public] abuse ever since Tate’s murder.
What is even more repulsive, that some seriously state/d he should have been butchered along with Sharon and their friends, or better still, be incarcerated in the same prison with his wife’s and friends’ killers to be finished there. If he isn’t being attacked and gang raped to death beforehand, and I know many would like him to face such horror while saying no such things about true criminals. But it would not be at the hands of the inmates (only) anyway, oh no, no, the guards. Most of the rapists at any given time are inside a prison, not outside, and they all wear nice crisp uniforms, with colleague X looking the other way, before he has his own go. Recorded facts. So where is the rage about such atrocities done to inmates irrespectively of age, gender and ‘crime’, when people call for Polanski’s head who would be a special target simply for who he is as a trophy. And mind you, the killer who had murdered Sharon herself, only died two days before his arrest. Good. And that his mother in law had relentlessly campaigned that none of them ever be freed on parole. None of them ever will.
Ironically, the US has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world at 738 persons in prison or jail per 100,000 (as of 2005). A report released February 28th 2008 indicates that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States are in prison. The United States has 5% of the world’s population and 23.6% of the world’s prison population. India and China making more than half the world’s population don’t come anywhere near that statistic. A substantial amount of the prisoners are pointlessly pursued statutory rape case victims, who end up being raped as a special target (amongst other inmates no matter their crimes or even mere misdemeanours), and some turn into real rapists once released. The incalculable damage done to these men is viciously self-perpetuating lunacy. No wonder they’ll return soon as ‘repeat offenders’ to bump up that statistic even more and Polanski doesn’t wanna know.
I suggest watching the documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired from last year, to get a new perspective, watch some old interviews and then mouth off against him again, if you still can. (This not being an endorsement and I wasn’t paid to recommend it. It’s free to watch on YouTube anyway.) He’s certainly not a child molester by legal definition and to many probably more virtuous, to the praise of his countless colleagues’, friends’ and neighbours’ own words who surely don’t all lie in his favour or are depraved to do so, than those trying to continuously smear him after this arrest simply ignoring the bare facts, and that it can never be ‘brutal rape’ no matter how much they want it to be. Either of their words didn’t mean much then, and don’t mean anything now. Even less. Funny thing is, some deluded soul stated that: “As far as that documentary is concerned, it is pure rubbish being that it is through the eyes of a paedophile.” And there I was thinking it was made by a woman who never even met him until after the screening. Unless he meant the female director is a paedophile. Poor soul needs some serious help.
Bizarrely, the public usually expresses sympathy for the family of the ‘offender’, the ‘poor wife’ and ‘poor children’, yet in his case simply erase them like they don’t exist, if not even say that he had abused them too – or indeed his wife to be an immoral colluder. Suddenly the female is equally evil. Make up your mind. This is all simply appalling vindictiveness and twisted lies pervaded with unbelievable odium simply unheard of and no wonder he was near cracking through all these years already. Let’s knock him some more before he can rebuild his life a fourth time now, lose another beloved family a third time, and that’s that. Hooray, we finally killed off little Roman, the old Pole, for our sanctimonious self-absorbed agendas. But they’re not mine. Never were, never will be. People should concentrate on current affairs and express their dismay over war criminals like Bush, not any old sex case they never even heard of before.
Where’s the human capacity to express understanding and sympathy for him suddenly, like in fact his so called victim had demonstrated year after year. But no, for some mysterious reason other ‘celebrities’ can assault their spouses, deal in hard drugs, repeatedly cause drunken disorder, evade taxes and end up inside, attack paparazzi, do all kinds of drugs, sleep around with teen groupies, prostitutes and porn stars, or even kill people, yet find no such condemnation. Who are these people to blindly apply such blatant hypocrisy, or ignore Ms Geimer’s repeat efforts to see this finally ended. Go ahead, victimise them both some more, forget about compassion and spread more contemptible lies about him and be happy to be of such ‘holier than thou’ moral integrity. If you can seriously say to be free of any ‘sins’, than cast that first stone, but make sure it won’t come straight back to hurt you very badly. Or in fact, get all the facts first to ‘understand’ this case and rethink very hard, read between the lines, especially after Ms Geimer herself even then as a teenager realised this case was, and still is now even more, a total travesty of justice.
Every time Polanski talked about what happened, he fell to pieces not out of ‘guilt’, but simply for not understanding the double standards applied to him so harshly, while others around him could do it and still do so as we speak, and oddly, no one seems to come to harm but him. Or her most certainly for other reasons. Many realise/d that ‘special treatment’ only happened because he was/is famous and rich, a holocaust survivor and most of all, a ‘Jew’ that again needs punishing relentlessly. Or of course, they simply revile/d him because he was utterly different and absolute in his pioneering artistry and hedonistic lifestyle, many rejected with bile-spewing envy. Like genius freethinker Oscar Wilde was, amongst other great artists of our more olden days, who paid for it in equally terrible disproportion, and was simply destroyed by another bigoted ‘law’. Nice people to condone that sort of behaviour and selective thinking today, yet go all sympathetic when someone else [comes] forward telling his/her heartbreaking story they had suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
They let others off the hook no matter how corrupt and much more degenerate and dangerous a criminal they are even operating as we speak, but call him a depraved monster never having harmed anyone. That’s why many rallied to his defence over this sudden arrest, defended his actions to flee, while others think he deserves to be shot, knowing nothing about him or the case let alone realise what is happening here. Nice world we live in. Am I surprised? And wasn’t there a film called Repulsion? I know that many feel just that; repulsion. And what’s worse, they don’t even want to be educated to know better, just so to maintain their sickening delusions of his monstrousness, finally made an example of far beyond any moral or legal justifications. Since of course, this is Roman Polanski, the notorious master of the tortured and twisted mind cinema, and not Star Trek, to boldly go, where no filmmaker had gone before. What happened to benefit of a doubt this case has demonstrated more than once, or that people rather prefer someone found innocent than guilty believing in the good of man. Except in his case of course, despite many signs pointing to his innocence. Or of course, because.
And what about the statute of limitations? According to Californian law then and now: ‘it [only] permits prosecution of unlawful sex within one year of the date on which the identity of the suspect is conclusively established by DNA testing or within ten years of the offence. Furthermore, retroactive application of current statutes of limitations violates the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution, and thus should eliminate any possibility for prosecution of a crime committed before the implementation of the extended [ten year] statute. Or, if it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in at the time it was committed.’ Ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the Unites State Convention. Furthermore, article 11, paragraph 2 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights provides, ‘that no person may suffer any penalty heavier than what existed at the time of offence. It also adds that, if a lighter penalty is provided for after the offence occurs, that lighter penalty shall apply retroactively’.
I really wonder how all that is applicable to a thirty-two year old case, which never saw any positive DNA ‘identification’, after Polanski submitted his guilt under the rules of the plea bargain, which was legally unsound to begin with [at no maximum term declaration of his coming sentence and] once it was reneged on, when a certain DA wants to pursue this case intent on applying current laws, plus ignored the SOL to begin with. Furthermore, once Polanski pleaded to one count, all other counts become subject to the statute and not pursuable anymore after the ten years. But of course, in his case, they can make another exemption, and I’m sure the DA will hit on massive [il/legal] obstacles soon, since he of course never bothered to seriously study the case properly. Other than wanting to exploit the case, the legal transgressions and ignorance shown throughout the decades he never knew of, will seriously put a wedge into his intentions. When Polanski once stated that he had faith in the US judicial system to rule fair, convinced to be innocent, he sure as hell found out just how victimising the oh so civilised US could be towards ‘unwanted’ foreigners. Or ‘Jews’.
The fact that Switzerland of all ‘neutral’ places decided to sell out Polanski after its own Zürich film festival had invited him to receive a life achievement award, was more than disgraceful and calculated to humiliate him suddenly, treating him like a dangerous terrorist. The authorities could have pulled him at any other time in his own Swiss Chateau several times a year, and apparently had tried to apprehend him a mere five times in all these decades. Despite feigning offence at Polanski’s absence from California, the DA has never sought extradition or other relief, knowing, of course, that such relief would require litigation of the misconduct in this case. So much for this being a major manhunt. Until now. The Swiss even contacted the US first to basically mis/use him for their own political reasons, since Switzerland’s real motives for its extradition move was apparently to get the US to be more lenient in its IRS investigations of a major Swiss bank (the USB), which allegedly helps Americans tax-evade in Switzerland. Nice political shenanigans and many won’t buy any Swiss chocs for a long time, while others say, well done and buy even more. Their prerogative, but be careful no to choke on them.
Oddly enough, the French and Swiss people right now are celebrating his art to demonstrate their support, so, are they all degenerates? Surely not. I wonder what others would think if they were railroaded and vilified like this, mercilessly exposed to the wiles of ‘fat cat’ politicians with young hookers left right and you know where. They should picket the DA’s office and demand him to tackle current rape cases. But of course, it’s only the US ultra feminists calling for such self-defeating actions, betraying real rape victims in the course. So much for branded Polanski having been right never to trust authorities then, and now. Today he again is a powerless pawn of wider politics way out of his control. When we thought he might have been unable to finish his current film, The Ghostwriter, he seems to have managed that during his prison spell, and it will be shown in February at the Berlinale as planned. I’m sure many love brilliant Polanski to suffer a very bleak future, after what hell he had endured already and many will lament exactly because of that.
It is also very curious that this film is a political thriller, telling the story of a former British Prime Minister who is hiding out on an island off the US, writing his memoirs. When his long-standing aide is found drowned, a ghostwriter is sent to help him finish the book. The ghostwriter is quickly drawn into a political and sexual intrigue, involving the ex Premier’s wife and another aide. With the threat of a war crimes trial and a mysterious secret from the past looming over him, the entire affair begins jeopardising international relations. It’s the perfect food for all those conspiracy theorists. Not the film, but that Polanski was arrested before he could finish it, just prior to receiving his prestigious award, and might have come too close to some ‘truth’. By all means, he could be a pawn in even greater shenanigans than some thought after the Swiss bank tax allegations already. I read several times now that some think so, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he were, after his ‘Kafka’ style arrest already. I wonder if his award in fact was not a ruse to get him there.
What is fact however, that Ms Geimer is openly pleading by now to stop t/his persecution insanity. But who listens to her anyway. Or him. She has her own reasons to see this ended which might not be so clear, and if one is blunt, rape victims would never campaign for their rapist. But then of course she had said it wasn’t rape, and each time he came too close to having the case reopened, she filed a new petition to drop it. While others commit atrocities and then get a pardon, Polanski is made another mockery of in the most Orwellian manner. Since Switzerland had done the dastardly deed, many have turned against the country and its reputation for ‘safe’ banking is out the window. Serves them right, you don’t play wager with people’s lives for others to evade taxes no matter what. Now it seems the same rich who pull our strings have to pay them after all. Serves them right too.
So much for shameful politics at the costs of its own law-abiding citizens having paid his own taxes all these years without fail. In contrast to many other people in public offices hanging out with prostitutes in no clean vests either. While some infamous hate-monger turned it all into a degenerate near murder case already then, and now again in the most lurid and despicable form many took for fact, based on that nauseating ‘biography’ she had embellished on in an even more revolting form, to ‘preserve their precious American way of life’ bent on vilifying all sex, not even self-important Rittenband stated such preposterous lunacy. It is alarming to know that she in fact was a former principal investigator for the US Department of Justice, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. These sickening people should be held accountable for wilful libel and put away in an asylum. Shame Polanski never bothered suing such nut cases or he’d be a truly rich man.
I personally am a great advocate of Polanski’s and my sympathy for his personal ordeals is deep, his impressive body of expressive work, and justice per se, I hope he will receive finally and this entire shambles of a case is laid to rest after full investigations of all facts. And most of all the disgraceful judicial misdealings, everything explained, shutting those up who want his head on the block like the pathetic lynch mob they are still today. Maybe they should have a new trial to expose the lying party and make a clean slate. The one thing Polanski is ‘guilty’ of, is exactly what he pleaded to. And admittedly having not been too wise in the choice of his bed partner’s age. But then again, her mother’s boyfriend was his age. But that’s ok then and no one dragged him before the court for underage sex.
Hollywood always was and will be an alien entity with its own set of laws and rules we simply cannot ignore not to live by our own moral values, and in fact have the higher morale put into their contracts to adhere to or get fired, and to apply our wishful thinking and ill-informed or indeed purely self-serving and vindictive views to this old case, is just as unhelpful and very troubling. They don’t really care about Ms Geimer either using her as a label for ultra feminist movements and child abuse to fight all ‘man kind’, applying their own biased laws, while he is made the personification of Satan at zero chance to be even heard. It is staggering how the public regarding this case has gone out of sane kilter by now while they ignore current offenders. But I’m paraphrasing again. But then again, some people need reminding.
Odd too, that none of the parents of the plenty teenagers or children he had met privately or worked with on his film sets over the years, had no reservations of leaving them in his company. It never was a question that he would ‘abuse’ them, no matter how many out there want him to be a paedophile, and I’m sure they had the better insight as to his trustworthy conduct with them. It’s amazing how people simply ignore these facts, delighting themselves in throwing around these accusations not ever having met the man. All they see is that he was the brutal predator out to drug and rape her from the start when that never was the case either, and wasn’t the only photoshoot they had done together after he had known her mother for a year already. It is indeed ludicrous to say he lured her there, since this was part of an official assignment for a French magazine, no matter they denied it after the fact of course to distance themselves from any scandals, but Polanski hadn’t even seen any contract or payment for his 1976 Vogue edition until the glossy jet set mag was on the newsstands. Polanski had no need to violate anyone no matter his reputation to be a ladies man and to like sex, and it was the Vogue Hommes editor who had pestered him to do another feature, and they decided on young girls from all over the world.
I in fact own the Polanski Vogue Christmas edition from 1976, which has a special feature on himself as the artist with childhood portraits. While his artful pictures of Kinski within a lush Pirate setting taken on the Seychelles, to promote expensive perfumes, jewellery and other luxuries, right at the very end there is a double page ‘Vogue promotion’, of four extremely young girls far below the age of consent contributed by another even older photographer, who, in contrast to Polanski, had a reputation of being incredibly demanding and the cruelty in which he treated his models was well feared. All these girls are standing next to each other utterly naked safe for a fig leaf substitute of a pink flower with it’s distinct yellow curved stamen pointing out in place of a miniscule penis, and serves no other purpose than to promote anything but some overly pornographic images of headless nubile girls for a ‘respectable’ fashion magazine not even directed at men unlike Hommes. So, for today’s Draconian minds to think this was unheard of, or that was child abuse or meant for paedophiles when even published in the US, they have to rethink very hard. People of today seeing these provocative images give them a lot more serious thought than they were given by the magazine editors who initially ran them, more concerned about how much revenue would be generated by featuring nubile teens.
Polanski’s was part and parcel of this libertine spirit of then, and his own considerable and well-documented success in photography and film, or of course with women, had a lot to do with the fact, that he hardly appeared older than a teen himself throughout his early to mid years, for his sprightly vivacité and diminutive stature, his general charms and naiveté. And what seems most curious, is that no one else ever came forward to cry rape over the decades after plenty of women to call on. But of course, the lesser he’s what today’s public wants him to be, the more they are the judge and jury over something and someone they have no relevant concept of, lock stock and barrel in their self-righteous calls for ‘justice’, and to ‘pay his debt to society’. What ‘society’? ‘This’ corrupt and hypocritical society, who lets others get away with truly disturbing acts? Where even more alarming online paedophilia is rampant, now that these ‘respectable’ magazines have outlawed harmless nude photography, comparing him with mass murderers and depraved long-term abusers like American Garrido and monsters like Fritzl? The perverted mindset of these people is truly astonishing. None of this can be judged by today’s views.
Let’s not forget that the Seventies was an era of very relaxed attitudes towards sex and drugs, and nude pictures, having less conscious ideas about possible child abuse or [s]exploitation of women. Unlike in the US, where pictures of scantily clad girls in glossy magazines were the work of the devil, though they oddly did and still have explicit porn magazines like Hustler, while in Europe such publications hardly found such reactionary demonising reception. But of course, the Puritans had all left the continent. Polanski’s own attitude was integral part of the time and he simply had no idea to take pictures of nubile girls for a foreign magazine or to sleep with any was suddenly ‘wrong’ to OUR morality standards of TODAY compared to then, or of course the now even more repressed US ‘morale’, when many did it around him, and no one came to harm to their own words. Let’s not judge either of them by the here and now over something there and then many of today were not even part of. I was, being in my fifties. And, if anyone thinks teenagers of today don’t sleep around with older men, or women, should get a reality check.
Many are waiting already for some dubious party suddenly to emerge, claiming that he had raped her too, or to have his child. (Apart from that one disturbed young women claiming to be his and Sharon’s daughter while their killed child was in fact a boy.) But of course, all that can be easily laid to rest as a lie, with a bit of a blood test and no chance for any fabrications anymore. Just so to bleed him dry. Why not. He’s just a Polish dwarf who has a devoted family, many friends and dedicated fans standing behind him, prevailing time and time again. Unlike many not half his calibre. But no, it is very quite in the accuser court to the chagrin of all those who want/ed him to have raped more. Some men weren’t too keen on him for his sexual escapades, or prowess, while the women in contrast were, as we saw – it’s called jealousy and natural attraction. He was seen with stunning females, he had affairs with stunning females, and he married stunning females. It’s sheer envy, nothing else. Sexuality was an essential part of his very image, and is inseparable from the more artistic drives that made him famous in the first place.
Another fascinating facet I have noticed repeatedly being stated over the years, based on what appears personal opinions of him and insider knowledge of the case, that, having anal sex wasn’t Polanski’s thing at all, because it was too ‘homosexual’ to him and not his preference at all. Though he didn’t treat any non-straight person differently, he just didn’t like this sexual practise for himself, let alone do it to anyone. I’m sure many a woman could either confirm or refute that. And he of course never admitted to it. To his own words, he many times too, purely sought young women’s company while not engaging in any sex , just listening to music and chilling out. He was not the most famous man for commitment, but he neither mistreated his women unlike plenty others and many were swingers, and Sharon accepted this. Kinski was perfectly happy with him for years even during his ‘affair’ with Ms Geimer, and his current wife seems to be perfectly happy with him too, but this of course utterly defeats the haters’ delusion of him being unable to be a loving husband and father.
In fact, his first Polish actress wife was found not the most faithful after he couldn’t put her into his next projects, went on to have an affair with a more dashing blond German actor who could deliver, and put a severe distrust factor into his future life in regards to a female’s motives, and faithfulness. They divorced after three years in 1962 over Karlheinz Böhm and Polanski unfazed went on to better pastures without her. While they called/ed other virile men sleeping around with young girls and women playboys, or of course loose women, tarts, they curse him a paedophile suddenly. In Sharon he had found someone special he truly loved, she was cruelly taken away from him and he didn’t want any commitment anymore. He was the one who in fact had proposed to her, happy to settle down then. Until Kinski and then Emmanuelle Seigner came along many years later, he had a longer affair with Jill St. John, when she was in her twenties before he met Sharon, who in fact was first married with sixteen. Polanski’s first sexual encounter in contrast was in fact when he was seventeen, while others around him started much earlier. Funny too, that Huston in fact had a longer affair with a man twenty–three years her senior when she was in her late teens.
So much for who did what at what under/age or when older and that he wasn’t into younger women exclusively. But of course, what we are dealing with here by now is a case of blindly seeking vengeance and unloading a lot of misplaced anger and abuse rhetoric, and no one is really interested in any dispassionate analysis of Polanski’s character, his life, his art, his own words, let alone any justice. And all because of who he is. They seek to inflame self and others by twisting the particulars of Polanski’s case, his every film, his very past not with intelligent understanding, unbiased regard, but rather with the objective of getting their pound of flesh, which was never theirs let alone today. They attack others who believe that Polanski should not go to jail calling them anti rape victims and pro rapists and child molesters, while happily doing it themselves. Anyone trying to point them to the facts, all too obvious discrepancies and legal unsoundness of the case, is instantly called names behaving worse than the ones they in fact attack. What only has the world come to.
But of course, it’s not the ‘world’, no. The majority of people couldn’t care less either way, too absorbed with their own mediocre lives and daily chores, only trying to get food on the table while watching mind numbing soap operas. Most don’t even know what’s going on and have no full-fledged opinion wither way. They’ve long forgotten about him once out the news, never even noticed that he was arrested and don’t care either still watching his films. Except, too many in the bigoted US with their more than warped attitude and too much time on their hands spreading vile propaganda. Or indeed, in contrast, many others are as keenly aware as the knife they want him to face of what is really happening. Knowing fair well of the corrupt US legal system, the political power games and sad social affairs the country is in. In much of Europe like the UK, Switzerland and Germany or of course France, no one wants him punished any further, let alone dead, and only feel sorry for him.
One other thing they all failed to do then, was to bring in other witnesses to deliver testimonies as to either’s characters – and that of the ‘ambitious’ mother foremost. Even the girl’s older sister, the mother in fact didn’t ‘offer’ to him to her own words, but the underage, the innocent looking one, saying he would prefer the ‘younger’ girl. The ‘provocative’ and pretty one, knowing of his reputation. Of course, since the other daughter was over age. It is noteworthy to add, that according to some who knew her, the mother had decidedly signalled to Polanski that any romantic overtures from him [towards herself mind you] would not be unwelcome. Had they gone to jury court, the case would have been thrown out and the girl found guilty of perjury. Or the mother of perverting the course of justice. Many people don’t want to hear of such finger pointing, but on the other hand think everyone in Hollywood was/is immoral and sleeps around to get their next part, when it pleases them. But not in this case, of course.
Funny thing is, this ‘hackery’ author turned it into an affair between them – so much for people thinking that Polanski wouldn’t be interested in older women – and that the shocked mother believed her daughter only because of her own ‘experiences’ with him. Wishful thinking garbage either way at claims that he had based his book on the court transcripts. Another curious turn was; her mother, while being asked what the girl had said on the phone during their shoot, after Polanski had called her to tell her they might be late and that they were at Jack Nicholson’s house, she backtracked to add, “Before she went, she had indicated to me that she ‘didn’t like him’,” at which point her own attorney cut her off to strike her remark as hearsay from the record, and Ms Geimer in fact never said so in her own statement. Polanski had stated the girl was relaxed, that she had told her she was ok, and that she didn’t want her to pick her up, which she in fact said herself in court. Looks like the mother made things up as she went along, to give ‘credence’ to that curious development of her increasingly illogical being ‘afraid’ of him.
The first thing Rittenband in fact said when he heard of the charges, was, “What is this? A[nother] mother/daughter hooker team?” Maybe he was closer to the facts than were revealed. But alas, no, it never went to trial to establish any of that and public image obsessed Rittenband had Polanski plea guilty to what he did, after they had no case of rape he didn’t like at all and resorted to simply rescind their deal. She would have cracked under more rigorous cross examination, just like the poor rape victim girl Rittenband just had tormented with relish days prior the attorneys wanted to avoid. The judge had grabbed the case because it promised him more clippings for his scrapbook, and because it would give him plenty of grist for his daily lunchtime conversations at the Club. But after he began catching heat from his buddies over his jailing of the rape victim for a five-day contempt term on her refusal to talk, which was illegal under Californian law, but who cares about any laws, the pressure would only increased and he decided to made his own law, for this ‘victim’. And ‘the little Pole’ Polanski.
I’m sure she had more attention than she wanted ever since, or monies from her story. She kept shielding her mother, who, according to insiders, had a reputation of trying very hard to get her daughter a modelling and/or film career, and Polanski apparently was not the only man she had left her daughter with unsupervised and under dubious circumstances. Rumours of blackmail were rife and when Polanski came along, he was the perfect victim to be exploited. No one is sure if this is fact or factoid, but now it would be completely different and none of them would crack anymore, after years of practice in the limelight and carries a high likelihood. So much for justice. This entire mess has to be re-evaluated from an impartial legal standpoint now, since, had the disgraced judge played by the rules, Polanski wouldn’t have panicked for his very unpleasant past experiences we cannot simply ignore either, and we’d not be talking this case still today in any form. He had served his time and that was that, end of story. But no, someone in a black robe played god and we have to pick up the pieces of many deeply affected lives, again.
In fact, if you hadn’t been there in the Seventies, you have nothing to say. Even less without the will to grant him final justice, and not blind intolerance, not even considering of giving the evidence the slightest credit not corroborating the girl’s statement. Don’t make an inexcusable example of Polanski now while others did or do much worse as we speak. Nothing can be further from the truth at times than subjective perception, biased points of view dictating ones feelings resulting in the damaging irrational overreactions. Individual experience are known to blindly affect ones more objective opinion, based on different social backgrounds and life in general obscuring the wider picture, rather than demanding objective evidence with willingness to see all facets of the case leading to a better understanding and judgement of it. People of today seem to suffer from the delusion that salacious teenager photography was never heard of, while in the Seventies Playboy and Vogue featured several even younger girls in erotic poses, and even the US was busy touting films like Taxi Driver and Pretty Baby, both about underage prostitutes and older men. But that’s ok then.
Another problem with the persistent one-sided media coverage and most of all people’s blind acceptance of the ‘evidence’ given by the girl is, that they all treat it as incontrovertible facts of the case, when her version was never challenged in any jury court on the behest of the mother. The other five counts therefore still remain only allegations, not ever proven, and Polanski is guilty of nothing but fleeing. Furthermore, the questions asked to Ms Geimer in the Grand Jury, (which is a panel of ordinary citizens, very much as in a jurors trial but larger, open to prejudice against the accused since all they have are the accuser’s allegations and biased public/own opinion) don’t appear to have been asked by her attorney in a very ‘challenging’ way. The jury took a mere twenty-three minutes to decide this is a case for trial. Her mother’s statement was also cited in the probation report, saying, “I don’t want to see him in jail. I want an assurance of remorse. I want no unreasonable publicity. I want to keep our anonymity.” Sorry? She was a TV ‘actress’ people knew, and willing to sell her daughter to a fancy French men’s magazine, to become famous, be photographed by the celebrated Polanski, but didn’t want any ‘unreasonable publicity’? Curious paradox on how to keep your anonymity that way, when the girl had already one TV ad appearance to her own name.
In fact, this case was long closed until some ambitious LA judge reopened it some years back and the two parties came together to put it to rest. Of course, Polanski never returned to the States for a possible hearing and in 2003 didn’t pick up his Academy Award for his powerful masterpiece The Pianist either Harrison Ford accepted in his place and then handed it to him personally, for understandable fears of more judicial transgressions and the case couldn’t be settled. His international arrest warrant was only signed in 2005, and the celebrity bloodhounds started gearing up again with more media fabrications out to get him, each time they need/ed some celeb for the bored public to demonise. The original US arrest warrant outstanding since 1978 had failed to apprehend him at no urgency and judicial unsoundness, and the US formally requested his extradition on October 23rd 2009. Of course, if the States would succeed in their extradition efforts, which I highly doubt, Polanski’s lawyers would simply appeal and the case could drag on for months.
One reason the Germans never called on the US to seize him, is obvious – they had killed his mother during the war and don’t kowtow before the US, nor have any extradition treaty with them in regards to non violent or ‘political’ crimes this by now has tuned into. Besides, it would be really unwise to bite the hand that brings in revenue and employs people while he made some films there. The French of course don’t concern themselves with anyone who foremost had led a perfectly law-abiding life in his own country and made films in France predominantly. The more Polanski or even Ms Geimer pleaded the case be dropped for years now over many reasons, the more the LA courts simply won’t for more than dubious reasons, rather than prosecute violent criminals and tackle all the recent rape cases left ignored. It’s nothing but a mean political money machine set into motion to feed the scandal deprived public, and people lap it up with relish. No surprise there.
Another funny thing is, this judge fully agreed that the case showed ‘significant illegal misconduct’, yet did nothing to investigate, or indeed bother to dismiss it. Another Rittenband in the political making who wanted to conduct this case in the glare of live broadcasting à la Simpson and Jackson, and that is why Polanski declined to step foot back onto US soil. When he was arrested in ‘77, it was in fact against the attorneys’ wishes, who would have merely cited him before court. But the officer in question who has a less than clean record to show, didn’t care much and had two other plainclothes officers with him to apprehend him in public. When Polanski was arrested last year, it took a whole nine, yes nine strong and young officers to take the oh so dangerous old man into custody. Like a terrorist. Disgraceful.
What is also fact, that the following ‘moral outcry’ over his ‘devious act’ come to light again today is purely based on their outright denunciation of physical love between a minor and adult, looking upon their sexuality as the first sin. They rather impose infantilising sex laws to brand all men the original perversity while rendering the minor an automatic victim. She said it wasn’t rape, yet is utterly ignored still today. This is pure pathetic Bushmania all over again dragged into our bedrooms, just so to appease the repressed lynch mob sustained by media-fuelled hype while they don’t bother catching real rapists and murderers. I read several objective biographies on Polanski including one from only last year, his own from the Eighties, and none of them came anywhere near such staggering spite and contemptible hatred I have seen online ever since his arrest. But of course, Internet anonymity just about allows them to post anything to offend anyone possible in a decidedly fetid and viciously over-sententious tone.
The more they demand his crucifixion, the more it is because this case holds all the classic signs they love to hate: Jew=racism, [though he's actually a French national and his parents were agnostics, not Jewish] fame and money=envy, and most of all, ‘sordid sex’ they can drool over. According to insiders, it was a very different story at the time that doesn’t resemble anything we’re being told now the media can’t get straight. True. Plus, there’s the usual anti-Semitic swing of the press and the idea that this [‘pure American’] girl was being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people called him – the story is very different now from what it was then. During the 1970s, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and [Polanski’s own] producer Robert Evans were celebrated for lifestyles of sexual extravagance, see ‘playboys’. Unlike Polanski with the stunning females, these were never criticised for their sexual excesses, but Polanski was condemned even before he pleaded guilty and today is called a paedophile.
Anti-Semitism is [still] very strong and his prosecution was and still is motivating by anti-Semitism. And money. He was also a foreigner. He did not subscribe to ‘American values’ and to his ‘persecutors’ that seemed ‘unnatural’, while their own could do the same without being demonised. As we saw. It is noteworthy to add, that Errol Flynn stood trial for statutory raping two underage girls in 1943, and was acquitted. He was treated differently because he was a swashbuckling heartthrob, not a serious ‘psycho’ film director. Charlie Chaplin too, had several affairs with underage girls, and even married one. He was eventually ousted for being a Jew, though he actually wasn’t. Like Polanski. Jerry Lee Lewis’s third wife was only 13 years old, they had two children and stayed together for eleven years. Funny thing is, the Germans concentrate more on the legal misconduct side when talking about the case today, after they were the first to send him hate mail then, while the US plays hypocritical witch hunter out to burn him at the stake for political gain. What the French think about the sexually repressed US warmongers is obvious: vive la Polanski! What’s new.
Though the Swiss maintain that they have tried several times to alert the US, they never had noticed when Polanski was in the country? How only could they have ‘missed’ him family and all, while he openly visited there many times to stay for weeks. Just like Ms Geimer had missed calling on Huston for help. Funny thing is, Polanski owns his Swiss property since a whole forty years now, ever since Tate’s death. But someone obviously wasn’t too happy with his coming in fact very very close to having the case dismissed and he promptly was arrested. It’s about time this case is closed for ALL concerned, but not by locking Polanski up for more than he was ordered and had served then and now, or senselessly vilify him beyond any common sense and logic. So far, the States have failed to extradite him, and is most likely down to this entire case having been a legal sham once Rittenband had called for his head and other judicial ‘obstacles’. In mid October Polanski was reportedly removed from the Swiss remand prison to be taken to a public hospital for an undisclosed medial condition, most likely depression, and later returned.
On November 25th, the Swiss courts have finally granted Polanski bail, (4.5 million US Dollar, 3 million Swiss Francs or £2.7 million) and while the States have until December 23rd to force extradition, the Swiss Ministry of Justice has no intentions to appeal. Unlike in the States where bail money needn’t be paid in full, Europe handles this differently. Curious however, that in the US they let a finally recaptured murderer at large for years out on partial bail for half that amount only recently, a clear danger to society. Or, ex murder suspect and ex fugitive, and currently incarcerated O J Simpson, who was charged with multiple felony counts in 2007, including kidnapping, assault, robbery and using a deadly weapon, and had bail set at a mere $125 000 despite having fled before and only needs to serve nine years, while a thirty-two year old sex case requires full bond and house arrest after no repeat offence let alone gun point robbery, and could have looked at fifty years. So much for a more than very ‘special treatment’ of Polanski. His original bail bond was $2500 in 1977, ca. £1300 then. So much for a very steep increase of his ‘value’ to the States. Or at least the subservient Swiss in their name, who apparently have a more than conservative anti-Semitic right wing swing in their current politics. I’m sure they hope he’s going to flee again so they can keep his money.
I’ve read already that some think bail is just buying his freedom now, and is sheer stupidity to say that. Bail is everyone’s legal right and not an attempt at absconding, but to sleep in your own bed rather than your cell’s and prepare better for what’s to come. The Swiss authorities have seized his passport not to go other than home to his cherished family under electronic surveillance, and believing him a reckless ‘flight risk’ at his advanced age and responsibilities is ludicrous, since he has to think of his family and film and is simply too old to risk any of it. Besides that, he’s not that rich to forfeit such high bail bond, unlike many people think or want him to be, and most Hollywood actors have much more money to waste. For now, it seems the US courts are willing to accept a hearing set for December 10th, he wouldn’t need to attend in person. He’s safer where he is at any rate. Now, on December 4th, he was finally transferred to his Chalet Milky Way in Gstaad to begin his house arrest under private security. He is under no police protection or obligations other than stay within his property where his family has joined him without any incidents. Besides, the repetitively inane US argument that he needs to be present in person for any hearing is now moot, since he is under house arrest.
Ever since he was allowed bail, Interpol had issued a Red Notice alert, an international wanted persons notice, at the request of the US Department of Justice, urging the globe’s law enforcement communities to do all in their power to make sure that the Swiss judicial process is allowed to run its course, and if Polanski defies the conditions of his release, no country should welcome, offer safe haven to, or defend his conduct. How ‘noble’ of you Mr American Interpol Secretary General to be so heavy-handed, rather than bother with dangerous terrorists and murderers. Also, extradition must be refused if the individual whose extradition is requested has already been tried for the same offence, which is the case with Polanski, and stipulates that he shall not be detained, proceeded against, or sentenced for any offence committed prior to surrender other than that for which extradition has been granted. But, on November 30th, I found him on the list of ‘Red Notices’. If one reads what his ‘offences’ were, they are in fact noted as ‘crimes against children’. While that can mean anything, it is not only incorrectly plural, but his added reasoning for his immediate apprehension is as hyperbolic as it is heavy-handed, since it should state, single statutory rape charge, or of course one count of unlawful sex with a minor, since the term statutory rape is never used in the courts. But who cares about any facts.
Ironically, Mr overzealous Interpol was awarded the Légion d’honneur by the French President, who in fact had a hand in persuading the Swiss to grant Polanski bail. The fact that many knew of the case and suddenly fell silent, but not into his back unlike some, is more than curious. But, maybe the President knows something we don’t, especially since it needed a president with quite some clout to persuade them to grant bail, and has definite airs of political power games by now. After the three judges residing over his dismissal case on December 10th didn’t come to any conclusion, the Swiss have announced as of December 16th, that they put the extradition proceeding on hold until next year. They obviously don’t want to rush things, when it comes to deciding over the future of a law-abiding man who could face further illegal proceedings. Unlike the US asking for extradition fast-tracking at their command, who in contrast are notoriously slow to extradite a wanted criminal to Europe.
Oddly enough, many people see his extradition as a forgone conclusion, missing the fact, that there are several important issues currently still unresolved. First of all, by law, Poland and/or France should have been made aware in advance of any pending arrest. It seems in their overzealous rush to execute the international arrest warrant, the US failed on that part, and wouldn’t be the first time either, or, to tell her or her lawyer of their efforts to extradite/arrest Polanski. Representatives of both Poland and France and Ms Geimer have publicly claimed they were not aware of any such action. Not doing so may very well invalidate the arrest and deporting him would then constitute an act of [terrorism or] kidnapping (in UN terms). That having ‘succeeded’ as it was, he is neither in any pretrial remand prison any longer nor free as bail in fact allows even for captured murderers. He is under house arrest after bail was granted at an extortionate amount not even dangerous criminals need posting in the US. Did I mention special treatment?
House arrest has been used since ancient times as an alternative to criminal imprisonment when [their] safety could not be granted, often imposed upon people who were either too powerful [politically] or too influential to be placed in an actual prison. Rulers, religious leaders, and political figures, or today’s ‘celebrities’, whose imprisonment might spur a revolt by loyalists and/or of course the usual blind haters, would be confined to their homes where they could live safely but without any influence other than through their lawyers. House arrest also refers to electronic monitoring programs (paid for by the detainee in fact) in which an offender is sentenced to home confinement instead of prison, since this type of sentence is a cost-effective and humane way of detaining people who pose no threat to others and consequently do not need to be imprisoned at the state’s expense. Nice – but murder suspects can go free on bail.
Furthermore, there are the unclear passages in the Swiss-US treaty, since Polanski was made to sit out a pre-sentence [evaluation only] term of 42 days, but it never came to any actual sentencing for Rittenband’s judicial transgressions. Under the treaty, extradition requests can only be made for when the US wants to (a) prosecute someone, or, in case they fled, (b) for the escaped person to sit out the remainder of his [pre-]sentence in the US, as the US maintains. Since he had been successfully prosecuted, then that request would apply to the actual [pre-]sentencing [to sit out the remaining 48 days]. However, under the treaty, for judges to take the request into consideration, the detainee would have to be facing a jail term of six months or more. Polanski was never convicted, as only pleaded guilty, that was reneged on, his entire sentence would have been three months, and is unlawful to say one thing and then do another. Since he never was officially nor in absentia sentenced, we find ourselves with a legal loophole in the treaty that could be exploited and he could be extradited to face not his flight, but a retrial. Let’s see if the Swiss will spot it.
Or, seek a commuted 42 days US and 70 days Swiss jail time, which amounts to roughly four months, exceeding the 90 days Rittenband had in mind, whereas the by now (January 12th) over two months house arrest, apparently cannot be counted. While we know the prosecution didn’t press for any jail time on the family’s wishes, the judge in contrast was more than willing to send him down for the rest of his life, while violent rapists cannot be imprisoned for more than what Polanski in fact thought was the maximum he might face for his unlawful sex offence. In fact, they continue/d refusing to sentence Polanski in his absence. In 1997 a certain LA judge was preparing a deal with Polanski’s legal team, which would be based on the original plea deal, and see Polanski’s pre-sentence time turned into time served and he would be released. The deal fell through because Polanski refused to allow the proceedings to be televised. However, his legal representatives can bring this up with the Swiss judges as a sign that the US are not, seeking extra jail term. The treaty in fact disallows to even ask the Swiss to extradite anyone who was to be sentenced less than six months.
While a certain ambitious DA could argue, that his extradition relates primarily to the prosecution of fleeing justice, if Swiss judges would accept an extradition request for one crime (fleeing), when it is clear that the real reason for the extradition is the original charge brought upon Polanski, and is the one for which they truly would like him be extradited is another question. Even if the US were after him for evading justice, there’s the unresolved issue over the judge’s judicial misconduct, and that this then directly led Polanski, having had his right to fair proceedings denied, to flee US soil. The continued claims by the judge that judicial decision can only be made when Polanski himself appears in a US court, a decision which itself is currently being appealed at a higher court asking for the judge’s motivations as to what exactly prevents a judgement being made without Polanski being present – nothing in fact – will also weigh in Polanski’s favour.
Polanski himself was able to successfully sue a US magazine through UK courts conducted from a French hotel studio, which most likely triggered his international arrest warrant, so there is no reason why he could not be tried in a Swiss or even French court without him ever needing to re/appear in the US. Polanski had sued Vanity Fair magazine in London for libel after a 2002 article in the magazine recounted a claim by the editor of Harper’s, that Polanski had made sexual advances towards a young model as he was travelling to Sharon Tate’s funeral, claiming that he could make her ‘the next Sharon Tate’. The court permitted Polanski to testify via a video link, and he made English legal history as the first claimant to give evidence by video link. During the trial, it was claimed that the alleged scene at the famous New York City restaurant Elaine’s could not have taken place on the date given, because Polanski only dined at this restaurant three weeks later. Also, the unearthed Norwegian ex-model disputed accounts, saying Polanski had never spoken to her at all. Polanski was awarded £50,000 damages by the High Court in London.
Others have been deported to their native country by the Swiss to face proceedings led by the US. And, this in turn keeps a possibility open for France to later request for his extradition to continue the proceedings in a French court, or even possibly the Polish government to lodge such an [extra] extradition request to conduct any legal proceedings there. So now there are several appeal opportunities for the original verdict, which then go to the higher court, and then another higher court dismissing that, before it goes back to the lower court only to end up at the higher court again for an ultimate appeal. These will be highly technical and longwinded discussions, where it is likely that any lacunae in the treaty and in Swiss law will be heavily scrutinised. That’s a lot of lobbying, appeal possibilities, and in general, a very lengthy extradition procedure, which could take years beyond Polanski’s or even his original attorney’s advanced age. At this stage, Polanski is a political pawn trapped within legal wranglings between sovereignties, fuelling pro and contra lobbyist battles to satisfy the greedy public, while much more important cases are put on hold.
The legitimacy of the extradition request has major flaws to start with. The very aims of criminal law are usually stated as revenge, deterrence, punishment and rehabilitation. Revenge is accepted as illegitimate. In Polanski’s case, none of the legitimate aims seem applicable, since he has not committed any crimes in the three decades he had been living in France and Switzerland, no matter how many haters claim he had or will commit more heinous crimes. The objective of ‘deterring’ him from committing a future crime therefore carries no force either. Nor do punishment and rehabilitation seem applicable, since both are meant to be salutary, not vindictive. Their purpose is to enable the prisoner to return to society and to function in a social setting without committing more crimes. Since Polanski has been living in Paris and Switzerland for three decades as a law-abiding citizen, made films in open daylight in other countries and no one considered him any danger, those objectives do not come into play either. What remains is revenge.
The more than dubious circumstances of his sudden arrest after more than three decades, and the over-reactionary nature of the media campaigns against him, are clear evidence that the judge committed serious procedural errors and that this has become a politically motivated crusade. And of course, money. If the US succeeded to intimidate a country like Switzerland they bank with for tax evasion, putting pressure on the authorities so that it delivers an old man for an old sex offence, it wouldn’t be about justice, and thirty-two years after the fact, things have to be viewed very critically and through the eyes of the times, not today’s. Let’s not forget, the abuse of state power is always more dangerous to the wider public than the actions of any individual. That is how dangerous precedents are created, asking for arbitrary punishment of people by using unconstitutional sex-laws, and does not stop when Polanski finally would have been made a very ugly example of.
On the contrary, the power of the state would be enhanced with his fall and/or en/forced punishment. The prosecutors would be enabled to continue acting strongly against those who are truly defenceless just to appease the public, by saying, “Look at what we did to a rich and in/famous man like Polanski. What chance do you think you poor nobodies have?” It’s nothing but polarised psychological blackmail to keep the populace in check, playing right into people’s everyday problems and fears they have no control over – except their ‘family values’, and what better tactics than to bring in a high profile celebrity they can at least verbally lynch. While outraged petty little middle-class feminists keep demanding Polanski’s head to keep the real criminals and homegrown torturers and assassins left untouched, Polanski of all people truly poses a potential threat to any social cohesion, US or otherwise. Did I mention double standards?
After it had been reported that the three judges who rejected his dismissal on December 10th on the grounds of the ‘fugitive disentitlement doctrine’, which effectively prevents fugitives to argue their case without re/appearing in the US courts, that was a very sly way of getting around any dismissal for good and only dragged it out even longer. He also apparently cannot appeal against extradition either once it was granted because of that doctrine. However, as of Christmas, after certain parties had a closer look at the shameful backroom dealings and broken promises by the late judge, said they were ‘disturbed’ that the attorney’s office had not addressed these and other accusations of ‘profoundly unethical conduct’ by a certain former prosecutor Rittenband had colluded with, they expressed their dismay and suddenly offered him a possible ruling to be sentenced in absentia, where the integrity of law and justice are more important to uphold than to seek any individual’s punishment after all these years for his offence or his fleeing, who had already served his agreed time. Lo and behold, a full 360° U-turn.
If Polanski accepts this deal many indeed welcome, he would have to write a letter asking the supervising judge to proceed without him. In effect, now the 42 days stretch at Chino could be accepted again as part of the original sentence, since Rittenband had ‘mis/used’ it as punishment rather than ‘diagnostic’ already, plus, his 70 days stay at the Swiss remand prison, and will even exceed the original 90 days by three weeks. Suddenly we’re back in 1997 when the judge had offered him the same, had he only not wanted to play Rittenband – live – and it all could have been resolved long ago a second time over. Less painfully, damaging and vindictive. Let’s hope that certain DA will be prosecuted for his reprehensible misconduct then, and his ambitious modern day version thoroughly humiliated for his heavy-handed arrogance. Maybe then he’ll finally get cracking with the current rape cases to keep him in office.
If any case was as controversial as tragic for both parties, then this is the one. Good for a very melodramatic movie too, right in the vein of his own films’ poignant themes of overwhelming tragedies, political intrigue and corruption. If he’s lucky, he can do it himself and I for one wish him all the best, his family, and Ms Geimer. If you however cannot share that graceful sentiment, maybe you should think twice before calling for the noose by understanding both parties wanting to pull together to end this, you have no right to deny them, or again the wider picture they haven’t painted is bound to let them drown for the same reasons of shameful ignorance, scandalous political manipulations and detrimental public hatred we have enough of in this indeed so corrupt and bigoted world already. Of course, the haters ‘hate’, it’s their life, void of love and compassion. Funny how Polanski himself never became a hater, having been exposed to much hatred throughout his entire life, all expressed in his films, which the haters hate even more. Or his success.
And while you’re at it, just burn his films why don’t you, like in the good old book and art burning days of the Third Reich he barely had escaped. In fact, after he had received his Pianist Award, some Deep Southerners thought it a good idea to burn his film and poster of it in a typical show of brain-dead lunacy, before the small-town Sheriff pointed them to the fact that this was a pro Holocaust film and would entirely defeat their objective of blind retaliation with dumb hypocrisy so famous down there. Such could never happen in any civilised part of the world. On a more absurd note, Polanski has been ordered by the courts not to ‘poke’ anyone on Facebook once under house arrest at his Chalet and smells of clear double innuendo. Or of course, just a joke thrown out into the gullible blogosphere by some satirist. I wonder how many fell for it. Or all the other more serious allegations and downright vile garbage.
The very strong-willed entity which has survived many tragedies and shocking public abuse since the murder of his second wife that is Roman Polanski, must be kept separate from the tormented artiste besides, no matter his deeply psychological and uneasy films are the creative and painful mirrors of his personal, his very traumatic past par excellence, showing the perverse powers of man over man and their traumas suffered. His powerful portrayals of rendered powerless people being sucked into uncontrollable terror and ensuing paranoia, is of pure genius and a clear reflection of his and all our lives many cannot escape or control. Next to black comedy and absurdist cinema filled with perfectly picked bizarre characters, thrown together by circumstance as a brilliant concept of situation voyeurism, which has surreal allures to the later Monty Python genius. As a filmmaker, he is exceptional in his ability to produce works with a disturbing mood and atmosphere of suspense that is impossible to replicate. His hallmark is to utilise seemingly everyday events and situations and then expose the undercurrent of evil that lies beneath; he explores the thin line between madness and sanity with compelling expertise and intuitive mastery. Polanski once said, “Fantasy is always going to be successful, it keeps people’s minds out of an often painful reality”. That’s what so many do in his case – prefer their fantasies they have about him.
“I like shadows in movies, but not in my life.” The shadows that had engulfed him for so long in his life, have never left him. Unlike those in his own movies, one can simply switch off. His very early work marked by random violence done to random people in random situations, is as innovative as it shockingly realistic. Had he lived a less tragedy riddled life, his diverse art would no doubt be less absorbing and controversial. In that respect, we have to regard his critically acclaimed work with even more esteem, and that he literality suffered for it even onscreen besides. Even engaging in his very own stunts, or bloodletting. His visual trickery and unusual hands-on approach behind the lens left many breathless and with much deserved praise, to achieve a different, his very own cinema of black humour and black tragedy. His much inflated notoriety sadly having overshadowed his bold work at times, with recurrent themes of obsession exposing the dark side of wo/man many simply won’t acknowledge to exist, it all too often has been confused with his own character as it suits them in contrast. And to quote him: “My films are the expression of momentary desires. I follow my instinct, but in a disciplined way.” Indeed, and his moral integrity has been found more pronounced than in most people.
Of course, many scenes were undoubtedly taken from his own life, as seen in his gory Macbeth or the haunted Tenant and the riveting Pianist, but they don’t lend themselves to blindly ’mis/judge’ him as a person. Only what this person has seen and suffered. And he had seen rape, brutal and irrespective of age committed by the invading Russians, had seen brutal violence and death. He had seen dead bodies strewn everywhere, body parts, and killed and suffering animals half eaten, with screaming victims on both sides of the bloody war that was WWII. He had witnessed cold murder in front of his eyes as a child, and when he was eight, a Nazi soldier just passing, took a pot-shot at him just for fun, but missed him, maybe deliberately, maybe just to scare him since he could have ‘tried’ again, and he hid out in the fields deep into the night scared stiff. Then he was attacked by a fellow man as a teen out to rob him and left for dead in a bunker, with a fractured skull. And, if one might believe some sources having repeated this, has a metal plate inserted in his skull ever since. And, according to a journalistic source regarding, the attacker had in fact raped him for good measure, who was later hanged for multiple murders in Krakow and only Polanski had survived his killing spree.
Since Polanski only mentions the attack in his autobiography, but leaves out one or two other fairly important accounts he had stated otherwise publicly, one can only speculate this harrowing assault to be true, and maybe didn’t want to be reminded, let alone do it to someone else. Polanski saw what pain and violence was and did to people, he would never do it to others. And, he had seen and felt extreme pain and great hunger like many had then, and only endured it by escaping into his world of art and film. And, he had almost died again in a car crash with his driver friend in the Fifties leaving him with another fractured skull trauma, drifting in and out of consciousness once at a hospital. And he had seen blood. His own, and that of plenty others. He had smelled it all around him, even in his own home many years later after his wife and friends had been butchered, and every time one speaks of Sharon, the pain returns to his eyes. Yet he had survived these horrors, is a very private and loving, complex and tortured man, who expressed these experiences in his art to stay sane, protect his feelings. But then all geniuses do, or those who had experienced such atrocities unfolding before their eyes, only to be tormented some more by blind hatred and jealousy.
He is someone who reflects his inner world through the eyes of his pioneering and utterly uncompromising artistry, as he unflaggingly deflects his outer world through a face of inscrutable nonchalance, not to suffer its more than unjust and brutal dealings with him. After dodging Nazi officers, his mother was gassed at Auschwitz and father sent to an Austrian concentration camp but survived, Polanski bounced from filthy shelter to uncaring foster families, to hardly any school to film schools in a culturally restricted communism, the national and international events that influenced his rising fascination with film. His father had paid a family to look after Roman and he was moved from one place to another doing anything he could to survive. There were times of play amongst the ruined buildings of Poland with other children, yet he would always be a witness to brutality and depravity as the war continued witnessing scenes of inhumanity. He had to forage for food like so many, was left to his own devices, and later had recurrent nightmares of his traumatic past deep into adulthood. These scarring events inevitably created this intense and egotistical shelled up character to survive it from the ‘outside’, resulting in his inability to invest emotionally in [older] women and endurance of more abuse. He taught himself languages and everything related to film into absolute mastership. He fashioned himself into this pleasure-seeking artist obsessed with film making, perfectly cemented by his eternally youthful looks and diminutive stature, attracting the right followers with his immense sexual charms and ‘foreign’ joie de vive.
Women loved him for his love of women, his childlike fascinating with film and story telling, and his unprecedented talents. He is a tragic figure of his brutal childhood legacy forced on him, which he redesigned as best he could, played his charades as a youth to take himself out of the harsh reality. Only to end up with indifferent uncles who mentally abused and occasionally lashed him with a belt until he screamed in pain and tears, for his daydreaming to endure the misery around him only to receive more. He never really received any vital love from anyone when it was most important, let alone his cold father and shallow stepmother who never were around much later, while constantly seeking more casual sensual pleasures later as compensation, especially after Sharon’s death that had finally struck a fatal blow. His is an amazing example of the tragicomic masks and safety barriers of hedonism he set up for his self-protection to suffer no further ills, shrugged off all seen and felt horrors and pain not to hang himself one day, recreated his own world around the cruel world that never gave him a break from day one, lost in endless challenges and tragic tribulations. His is an incredible paradigm of shining survival, his keen instinct and iron will to defeat all odds that made him as expressive as an artist, as hypersexual as the man, so that no one could touch him deeper emotionally, or hurt him again.
His restless mind gave form to his disturbing celluloid fantasies to reflect his unprecedented experiences, as he gave his willing body to those who wanted it, to deflect his fragile feelings that could leave more invisible scars. He knew many exploited him, only to be used by even more shallow publicity seekers and the ever more abusive and downright nasty media. Even Huston said he’s a depressed man, and his probation officers. I’m sure they knew better. A current passionate discussion having erupted on the blogosphere concerning, if his defenders are in denial, one could argue, the only ones that are in denial are those who unequivocally deny him his voice of defence, since he never had the chance to exonerate himself in a trial. Ignorant people keep believing only her old story despite no hard proof and her later continuous pleas to forgive him. No, in fact the only proof they had already then was that the medical and circumstantial evidence didn’t even support her allegations she later more and more came to downplay, saying amongst other things, “He didn’t hurt me. (Indeed, since dry [double] sodomy DOES hurt and rips you apart, so much for that already unproven allegation.) He wasn’t forceful. (Just like his evaluation officials had stated.) It wasn’t rape.” Quite. But the philistine public knows better. Not quite.
I’m certain people instinctively gather that his past had shaped him, like it would any man, and that’s why they’re so adamant to dismiss it as important factors to explain his predilection for younger woman. If people keep denying him his past and/or ordeals, then NO ONE else’s have any significance either, and I’m sure no one would accept that for themselves. He is a visionary enfant terrible of past times everyone wanted and desired, and then simply destroyed once he broke their bigoted conventions and dared their narrow-minded morals. There are simply too many too quick to judge and too slow to walk in the other’s shoes not even being half his age, and it’s about high time to stop the public hangings and blood lust from ignorant and sanctimonious moralists, or obsessive ultra feminists who by now openly called to boycott his films in a pathetic show of McCarthyism witch-hunt fanaticism. One thing people say is, that she’s seriously disturbed for helping his case due to the ‘trauma’, and that he needs to be punished for that. Funny how Ms Geimer didn’t consider herself as traumatised, let alone today, and thought the abusive public ‘punishment’ he has suffered over the decades as excessive.
It completely eludes me, how people can state, that, even is she wants the case be forgotten, it is ‘still upsetting’ to quite a few people and ‘justice must be served’? What ‘people’? Those who didn’t even know of the ‘case’ before he was arrested? Those who weren’t even born then? Those who think is it civilised to respond to one apparent wrong with an even greater wrong, rather than find the truth in an objective manner? You don’t dictate any ‘justice’ like that or by calling for him being gang raped, or that he should have been taken out to a field and burned alive years ago. Or, to top it all, that his daughter should be gang raped for his atonement. Such utterly revolting voices are beyond help, like those demanding such sickening punishment or even his death beyond any common sense, and are redolent of exactly such fetid Nazi sentiments. They must be replaced by sympathetic voices of reason and justice, not blind revenge. But that would be humane
You’d be like Manson and his degenerate Family in fact and in serious need of help when passing such unreasonable judgements, and according to the endless stream of such vile comments I alone have read, they are worse criminals than Polanski ever could be. It’s called race hatred and is punishable by law. Ever since Tate’s shocking murder, the US most of all suffer/ed from dangerous but typical delusion that Polanski was and still is fair game to be ab/used for any blind crusade of moral outcry, and believe that absolutely nothing of his life should be accredited, and to smear him mercilessly should be an honourable duty whenever possible in their gloriously self-righteous self/obsession. People saying, “Just tie him up in a prison for a year so he can be raped repeatedly and then kill him,” are simply put, scum, blindly condoning worse crimes than the one they think was committed. Alarming. And if one watches closely, the US will destroy itself soon, in a blazing show of gun-obsessed self-defeating Puritanism having declared another ‘legal’ [Internet] war on him. Or others
The sum of a man’s life has to be weighed by the balance of ALL he did, and any objective consideration of Polanski would more than qualify to make him eligible for clemency compared to countless other people, or those calling for his castration and whatnot other painful tortures. Whoever takes no charity in his life, his own suffering, speaks of and demands such insanities done to him, is all but void of the tiniest shred of kind humanity. All civility murdered by irrational hatred. Ms Geimer in contrast has that gracious compassion and important understanding they all desperately need to acquire, to let it finally rest and stop the insane demonising and persecution by people who have absolutely nothing to do with either of them. Let alone what they both had shared, and the only thing Polanski said he regretted, was what happened afterwards. Of course, as one might expect, none of the media reports ever mentioned anything to his defence, let alone that the medical evidence would throw serious doubts on the [double] sodomy claims, despite the fact that they were/are readily available online. The same applies to articles that claim that she never changed her version of him having all this done to her, but neglect to mention that she in fact went back on her own words more than once, is openly campaigning for him now, and is of course to maintain a one-sided picture.
It’s nothing but a concerted effort to mercilessly smear him, omitting vital facts, manipulated by the DA’s office that ‘allowed’ floating her testimony, to precondition the greedy public, which is blind enough not to question them, the timing, his sudden arrest, her continuous pleading and inconsistent interviews. With all the renewed attention, apart from the endless stream of incorrect and wishful thinking headlines and comments like, ‘convicted [and/or confessed/admitted sodomy] (and/or drugged child or even baby) rapist’ [or of course the favourite, paedophile] or the usual contemptuous slur not allowing any room for his side, of course some publication was bound to post pictures of his family out and about in Gstaad within dubious and the usual inflammatory context, and he is suing several French magazine now over breach of privacy. He might be immune to his own continuous public abuse, but when it comes to his children and wife he will strike out. According to the law he still has a right to privacy, especially since he is staying with his wife and their children. According to the editors the pictures were taken on public land outside his home, but French [or Swiss] privacy laws still prohibit paparazzi photos taken on public beaches [for possible nudity] and in shopping malls, other than their private property obviously. The lawsuits asking for ca. £700 000 ($1.1 million) will be heard January 12th.
As of December 28th, Polanski has finally broken his silence. Through a French friend, he published an open letter on his journal to thank his plenty supporters from all over the world, and according to the typical derisive comments, it looks like the dumb haters hate that even more. Poor souls. Ms Geimer stated often enough that she would like Polanski freed and forgiven, and so should you. For now, a court representative said an LA judge has scheduled another hearing for January 6th, to convene a status conference on the case. The judge did not say if he would schedule an evidentiary hearing, to determine whether there was misconduct by Rittenband or prosecutors and others during the original proceedings, but hopefully will if he doesn’t want to face the same allegations of procedural improprieties, or all those still alive got away with it. He suggested two legal options that could lead to his freedom now: file a motion to be sentenced in absentia, or drop the extradition fight, return to the US and be sentenced in person, most likely not resulting in additional jail time. I doubt Polanski will choose the second.
As of January 7th Polanski’s lawyer have presented a letter from Polanski, saying, “I request the judgement be pronounced against me in my absence,” which was dated December 26th and signed in Gstaad. The Superior Court judge accepted the letter, but said he wants to see legal briefs to be presented by January 15th, stating why sentencing Polanski in absentia would be appropriate, for the DA’s chance then to possibly appeal against that by January 19th. Now the next big question is, what his possible sentence could be, and another hearing is scheduled for January 22nd. And if he were to either sentence him for longer, Polanski’s team can in fact appeal against that again, or have the case reopened [if Polanski withdraws his plea], which no one wants, and while the Swiss still ponder his extradition, according to a spokesman, it could be January or even February before they will come up with any concrete decision.
This entire case is one big mess ever since Rittenband had his own ideas, and as of January 8th, Polanski’s lawyers are seeking a quick ruling on the absentia request, for a potential witness, who was not named soon to become less readily available to the court. Since only Polanski, 76, and his original attorney, Dalton 80, are both of very advance age by now, it can only be either. Unless it’s the colluding DA about Polanski’s age to die any day, Wells, or the original prosecutor, Gunson. But the judge also said that there is no rush, since any statement could be recorded ‘for posterity’. True, and a good sign that judge Espinoza takes his time and doesn’t want to repeat his predecessors’ ‘hasty oversights’. If that would be Dalton, his loyal fight to clear his client however has failed, unless the judge truly wants this retried to give him that very chance as he had stated, and in fact should. But Dalton has a son working on the case alongside him who could take over.
Espinoza has the ultimate authority to withdraw the court’s approval of Polanski’s guilty plea, whether or not Polanski himself requests him to do so, and can reject his absentia request the same. So let’s see if he does so, which is the only way to prove his innocence. If the dying party would be Polanski himself, which I doubt, it would be just another tragedy striking, if he were to leave us and his devastated family at the very event of a final ‘judgement’, left a most tragic figure of terrible miscarriage of racism fuelled in/justice, after dubious allegations by a girl sitting before a sympathetic panel giving her highly equivocal accounts that were never tried in any court to be substantiated, and the following disturbing public abuse hardly anyone has ever suffered. Funny how people vocally protest racism motivated treatment of others, but in his case of course couldn’t care less happily doing it themselves. Of course, it could be anyone else, since the ‘grave illness’ of the ‘witness’ is not necessarily age related.
According to a ruling as of January 13th, Polanski’s lawyer who handles the lawsuits, announced, his right to privacy was violated by photos in the French press, which showed his family and him upon his return to his Chalet in Gstaad. They were an invasion of his and his family’s right to privacy, since, under the house arrest terms he has the right to actually leave his home to venture out within his property, not only stay inside his Chalet, but of course, with the media vultures hovering around, that would only cause more trouble. The man is effectively a prisoner in his own home. Many delight themselves in that fact, while others find it more than disturbing. Funny thing is, no one cares about someone like the former President of Israel, who was accused of much more serious rape and sexual harassment, who committed two vicious assaults on his subordinate when he served as Minister of Tourism in 1998. Or of course anyone else, publicly known or not, committing serious crimes right now under their very noses.
As of January 16th, Polanski has been awarded one of the lawsuits against the French press, and the others will be ruled on later. The LA prosecution team has lodged their own brief as to why Polanski should not be sentenced in absentia, so let’s see how Espinoza will handle their arguments by the next week, since he can take them into consideration, but not as any directive. Time, and most of all too many people have not been kind to Roman Polanski, and in a most unsettling way, the once so human belief of innocent until proven guilty never occurred to many in this case, just because a less than credible thirteen year old, whose boyfriend had testified that she ‘always acted’, had cried rape and sodomy, both of which could never be proven by medical evidence even then, or in any trial that never was. And if Polanski will be really sentenced in absentia, those who believe/d her highly unsound statements, will never cease to see him as this sordid child rapist he never was, while those who don’t, will forever lament that he did not, or could no longer, take up a last chance and fight for a new trial to finally exonerate himself.
Now as of January 19th, after the Swiss had requested that the prosecutors’ account of the case be ‘totally transparent’, including a description of claims of wrongdoing by officials, which they obviously failed to do, no surprise there, the treaty between the US and Switzerland clearly states, fugitives who would serve less than six months in jail are not subject to any extradition. Looks like Cooley has no first clues after he thought Polanski’s plea was ‘airtight’ when it was not, or that the other counts are back on the table, when that would only be after his plea were withdrawn by a judge. Polanski has been in prison now far beyond his original 90 days pre-sentencing time spent, and his house arrest cannot be counted. Unless the Swiss let him go, he’s stuck in limbo. Cooley & Co is playing his sick game again – for reelection, and the prosecuting DA Walgren, is no better with his ‘child rapist’ rhetoric. So much for Polanski having once more been proven right, that the US ‘legal’ system is corrupt to its very foundations. It’s happening again. As of January 21st, Ms Geimer announced that she too wants Polanski sentenced for time served. As if that would make any difference. Let’s see what Espinoza will announce by the 22nd. But, whatever his ruling, it would have no immediate impact because either side would likely appeal his decision, ending in more time wasted.
As of the 22nd, Espinoza rejected a request by Polanski to be sentenced in his absence, just as I thought, for one being unable to judge on a case he never heard any defence of, and insisted that he must return to LA. After the usual mud slinging between the DAs, of which highly unprofessional Walgren complained that Polanski’s lawyer Hummel kept returning with arguments that had already been rejected, i.e. the failure to supply the Swiss with all the facts, and then some, he referred to Polanski with a litany of names. Calling him ‘this criminal’, which he so far hasn’t in fact been officially declared, ‘this fugitive’, which is the only thing he’s guilty of after his plea, and his favourite, ‘this child rapist’, which he of course had never been found guilty of in any form, he however drew a deserved rebuke from Espinoza finally, warning him, ‘that this [behaviour] is not helpful’, and rather not inflame this case. Quite. Of course, the next thing that’s going to happen is Polanski’s team will appeal, and then the prosecution will appeal, and then we’re back at square one.
Espinoza said he was acting to protect ‘the dignity of the court’ by wanting to see Polanski back in court, and there I was wondering why no one had done so in the three decades prior by tackling all the legal transgressions first, or why he even bothered offering him the absentia option when he never had any intentions of granting it. Looks like Espinoza is going through the motions of what the law allows him to do and doesn’t really want to see to any justice done, just stringing Polanski along like Rittenband had since two years now in fact. First he declined him the case be dropped, then he demands him to appear on the grounds of the fugitive disentitlement doctrine, then he turns it all around by offering him the absentia option once they noticed the shocking amount of judicial failings, then he refuses to act on it, and now he wants him back again ‘to preserve the integrity of the law’, which had let Polanski down several times now already to begin with – and nothing on how to solve the actual judicial improprieties of over three decades. No surprise there.
But he seems ‘competent’ enough by not rushing things, knows of Rittenband’s shady ‘intentions’ and the il/legal shenanigans back then, so let’s see what he’ll do next. Or not. Of course, if the Swiss will block extradition, and I believe they will, at the unsoundness of the request on several levels, his following arrest and US attempts to withhold vital details, Polanski has the freedom to go where he wants in Switzerland and France. On the one hand, it is in the Swiss’ vested interests not to block and let the appeals go through so they can more earn more interest from his millions, since on the other, if they let him go, they have to return the high bail money. Such may seem cynical, but scorn is well merited when one regards just how the courts have treated Polanski so far, abominably, and that by now this is nothing but a politically motivated money grabbing charade with little focus on any justice served, or of course any attempt to correct decades of judicial improprieties.
As one might expect, after his wife publicly spoke in his defence, saying, “My personal truth is that Roman is a marvellous husband and [faithful] man. He is an impeccable man and I have nothing to reproach him for,” there just have to be the blindly meddling voices out there thinking her delusional or trying to rationalise his rape, when of course she knows he didn’t rape or sodomise anyone, just so to keep believing he had, unable to see that she of all those who defend him simply know him better, and that the times were very promiscuous and crazy in general and sleeping with minors was nothing special. As it seems Polanski is never one to waste his time idly, for now stuck inside his Chalet, he is said to have plans on working on a film adaptation of the play God of Carnage, since of course all Roman Polanski ever did was motivated by his desire to please others, to create and show his art, and once believing in the good of man and any religion, or justice, after Sharon was murdered which was the only watershed in his life to this day, it had reinforced his faith in the absurd. Not people. Or the law.
The renowned playwright who wants him to direct her play, knowing him since decades and having planned it long before his arrest, standing by him, she has this to say in his defence. “People do not understand the complex and contradictory events or the real history of this case, nor the two people involved. What gives the public the right to condemn him suddenly? What distresses me is the vociferous outcry expressed without any legitimacy. Why a respected man for thirty years, our country was proud of to celebrate when he received an Oscar, a Golden Palm, a man we have decorated several times, who was made a member of the most prestigious institutions in French, while everyone knew the reasons for his exile, suddenly becomes a criminal because the wind blows from a foreign court having arrested him? There were biographies, films, articles, how is he guiltier today than yesterday? Mob justice and people using their freedom of expression, becomes immediately free of charge, without compassion, restraint, attempted understanding, which are all forms of intelligence?”
Quite. Which seem all suddenly lacking in these self-righteous, self-important little voices rising in a most unsettling way, thinking they are oh so right to know better, or this successful artist equally deluded herself, of course, when they know absolutely nothing. Johnny Depp in contrast does know him and is defending him publicly by now, saying, that this stinks pretty much of political shenanigans and dirty money exchanging hands to pursue this case. “Why now? Obviously there is something going on somewhere. Somebody has made a deal with someone. Maybe there was a little money involved, but why now?” Quite. Polanski’s lawyers had already alleged that Cooley made ‘mistakes’ in the extradition process, claiming, he was ‘directing or at least condoning his office presenting a false record of Polanski’s to the Swiss government, all in an attempt to extradite him without revealing facts that render extradition impermissible’. Quite.
For now, the future of this politically exploited case hinges on exactly these beleaguered and undoubtedly misled Swiss to keep the old man under house arrest, or not, and I for one, doubt they will extradite him. As of January 31st, a final decision on whether to extradite Polanski to the US may be a year away, the Swiss justice minister said. While the Swiss authorities are to decide within the coming weeks whether or not to comply with the formal US extradition request, Polanski can appeal to the Federal Penal Court and then the Federal Court, which then could take from several months to a year, as we have already seen. Others have died under house arrest, and if the Swiss simply drag it out, and then more appeals are lodged to drag it out even more, Polanski might join the list of ‘in/famous’ people who slipped eventually into controversial oblivion while being incarcerated in their own home. Which at one point, could lead to his bankruptcy – if US film distributors keep denying him his rightful royalties – and of course, the courts to drag it out for him to be forced to keep paying his legal staff over mounting costs, unable to get his bail bond back.
Her lawyer, having joined her more than serious efforts by now to see the case dismissed, based his calls, ‘to end this victim’s suffering’ on her apparent ill state of health – while no one seems to see the accused’s much greater suffering – when she could have simply chosen to stay anonymous. But, instead she suddenly declared her open support, ask him to be forgiven, filed all these petitions, gave all these conflicting interviews after an apparent ‘undisclosed settlement’ was reached, in which she more and more declared herself to his side, and now pleads to be left alone after all the renewed media ambushes. You don’t ‘campaign’ for your rapist, ever – unless of course, he isn’t, which she often enough had said, and is the only way to demonstrate her own ‘complicit’ part in it without directly perjuring herself after all these years. She’s trying her best to help end this nightmare. But the political money wheels are turning, and no one can stop them – except death, or the maiden.
As of February 1st, it has been exactly thirty-three years to the day Polanski had left US soil – during which time he made more of his acclaimed films, endured waxing and waning media and again rising public abuse, yet prevailed ever more, gained more friends and supporters, with still no justice in sight. If it ever shall arise. After a very popular Depp, classy actress Sigourney Weaver too declared her support for him openly, saying, “I have great affection for Roman. He is a man devoted to his family, a father of children. I am outraged, hurt by the way he is vilified. He is a victim of a witch-hunt. The violence of his arrest is scary. People see in him this devil because they are confusing the individual with the movies that he made. I am thinking of Rosemary’s Baby. But Roman has changed. I confess that I would love to see him freed to visit the United States and hug him.” Quite.
And then there is ex-Bond Pierce Brosnan, who stars in his political thriller The Ghostwriter, and will be attending its showing at the prestigious 60th Berlinale on February 19th, asking for closure of this old case. Let’s see who will be brave enough to come forward next – to make people realise what is happening here. A modern day witch-hunt indeed. Kim Catrell, starring alongside Brosnan, said the other day, “When I think of Roman. I think of his nose. He smells the truth. He is very intense. Sometimes because he’s French and Polish, the frustration to explain what he wants comes out and he’s like, ‘No, no! Terrible!’ And you think, ‘I’m more than terrible.’ In some ways it was very tense and in some exhilarating.” Polanski is known to provoke intense, or ‘terrible’ feelings in people, however they might regard him. He wanted to show the world his unrivalled art, his exceptional skills, his masterful achievements, his envied conquests, and he has succeeded all too well.
The lawsuit over Sharon’s slander had forced him to relive the horrors of 1969, his murdered wife and unborn child, his friends. He had faced the same old accusations of then, and the same old unrelated allegations from 1977. Many untruths had been published about him he simply ignored, thereby help self-perpetuating the grotesque picture people have of him, prefer to believe, but these lies could not go challenged, and he had won in the face of more fabrication. He adored Sharon, and she was brutally ripped from him, only to never visit her grave again, after one moment of thoughtless passion with a girl that wanted to become an actress, like Sharon, followed by a lifetime of unprecedented, unforgiving public lynching, while other repeat offenders having committed much more horrible crimes are forgiven. But never him. Except the woman who sadly never became that actress, for her mother’s own selfish agendas that permanently tainted both their futures.
Despite intense lobbying with the Swiss justice authorities, the organisers of the Berlin Film Festival have been unable to secure a 24 hour remission for Polanski that would enable him to attend the premiere of his political thriller The Ghostwriter. The Berlinale kicking off on February 11th 2010 and running until the 21st of, will show his film on the 19th. Polanski however has already seen the finished version based on the acclaimed Robert Harris novel, The Ghost, and pronounced himself delighted with the result like in fact many objective reviewers. He watched the film on DVD at his Chalet in Gstaad with Harris, who also wrote the screenplay and was more than happy that he is satisfied with his work.
While murderers and political criminals can receive remission to attend an important event, the harmless old Polanski is not even allowed to view his own film even if he were to be accompanied by clandestine security, held like a dangerous terrorist in his own home. The double standards are an insult to all human/e civility. Instead, he will probably watch the spectacle on TV, and the press conferences given after his film’s premiere. It will no doubt be a humiliating and depressing experience, after he was already dishonored in the most disgraceful form, when they arrested him just before he would have received his lifetime achievement award in Zürich. Polanski had stated that the officers had treated him with respect, just like the remand prison staff, unlike it had been in the US.
So let’s see what the general public and critics will make of his latest foray into celluloid corruption. Or his loyal supporters, and blind haters. But then again, they’re probably picketing the doors with pro and anti-Polanski banners shouting abuse at each other in an absurd show of high-jacking another festival. Let’s hope the German police are as efficient as ever to shut them all up. But until then, Polanski’s notoriety and the political nature of the film are likely to boost the profile of Berlin, which has come in for a critical thrashing in recent years as it struggled to compete with other major festivals like Cannes. That no doubt has changed alongside the man’s own the fate who is dubbed to have created another great masterpiece since his glorious Chinatown outing.
