Roman Polanski taken into custody

So much for Switzerland remaining neutral.

They will find a way not to extradite him. Poor form on his part to go to a country that could extradite him.

Seems like if they didn't want to extradite him, they wouldn't have bothered arresting him in the first place.

This is going to be big news for a while, and I hope the whole thing finally gets some legal closure.

Devin's great editorial on the case, and the Emmy-award winning documentary Wanted and Desired (a must see), here.

Wanted and Desired is pretty much a must-see for anyone interested in this case.

I mean Polanski's lawyers. And maybe Switzerland wants something from the French in return for finding a loophole in denying extradition.

Once again, western civilization's priorities are in the exact right place.

Let's see if they go after the American-bred yokels who strung up the census fellow with this much fuckin tenacity.

Gospel.

*sigh*

Sure, because the US system is known for always hounding the rich and famous instead of the people who can't afford rich lawyers.

Good.

Seriously, is there any other response to this? If you rape a teenager (or anyone for that matter), you deserve what you get.

nigga made chinatown he can rape a bus fulla toddlers for all i care

You need to read Devins opinion on this case. You're on the righteous side of anger, which is pretty much the lynching side.

I've read Devin's opinion. You're right, you're all right, Polanski has been screwed over by the system and it isn't right. You know what else isn't right? Rape. What he did is evil and fucked up and although in an ideal world he deserves justice, not vengeance, I think there are people who deserve sympathy and he's not one of them.

I'll admit now to a little bias - my best friend in highschool was raped by her stepfather and it seriously screwed her up. But you know what, I think you people have a little bias as well. Polanski is an amazing film maker, and this is a film discussion forum. I can't imagine anyone here would care about defending him half as much if he wasn't who he is.

Seeing as how Polanski survived the Holocaust and his pregnant wife was murdered in what is the most famous serial killing of all time, I think there's some wiggle room with empathy.

The rape survivors message boards: Probably not so much on Polanski's side. Not condemning, just thinking out loud.

They decide to get him after 31 years? The whole thing is just bizarre.

Or because he's a talented director who's made iconic films. Roman the School Janitor Who Rapes Teenage Girls doesn't get the same "empathy" irregardless of his background.

Let's not pretend that the "debate" over his guilt, innocence or punishment isn't directly linked to his artistic and celebrity status.

L.A. prosecutors confirmed they had planned this arrest.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-mew-p...tory?track=rss

If Polanski agrees to come back to the U.S. he'll be here in a couple of days. If not, it will take months.

Odd that the woman (Adkins) who butchered his wife and child died a couple of days ago and now this.

And no, there is no correlation between the two incidents.

This trial is probably to set some kind of precedence.

I just posted this on Devin's facebook update:

Part of me is glad he's been arrested - not for any sense of justice but because maybe the whole thing can get finalized now. It's still possible that he gets back to the United States, and he gets a minor sentence. I have to imagine that the court takes the wishes of the victim and the prosecutor at the time into account.

I know, and pigs will fly.

Wonder if this will affect his new movie getting distribution.

Salon.com; "Whitewashing Roman Polanski"
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/200...i_documentary/

Have you seen the documentary, Cap?

Of course you haven't. This is what you do.

I read devin's excellent article on the documentary (mentioned here) when it was first published and was part of that discussion. Since I saw people mentioning it I thought it might be a good idea to link at least one criticism of it, I guess that's the horrible stuff "that I do".

Yeah, but you haven't seen the documentary.

The article makes some good points, and I say that having seen the documentary, but it also discounts the fact that the victim herself has asked the case to be thrown out. And it's kind of unfair to the director of the movie -- "a more feminist-minded filmmaker?" Really? Really?

No, although I wouldn't mind seeing it.

I fail to see how that invalidates the criticisms of it in that article.

I've seen it. Can I post the link?

This discussion has been had, Phil. I'm afraid that "sure, fucking children is bad, but he's an artist!" tends to be the predominant opinion expressed in these parts.

My point -- and I'm still pretty conflicted about this case, mind, although not as much as I was the year Polanski won the Oscar and I was pissed off for days -- was that Cap was doing his usual holier-than-thou-look-at-both-sides thing without really thinking for himself.

And having read it, that article is as biased and angry in the opposite direction as the documentary is. So, yes, Phil, you can post it.

I wasn't asking permission; I was curious about the rules for posting (and shouting down) dissenting opinions.

Also, wicked awesome irony ganging up on someone in this thread because they're unpopular.

All right, all right. Sorry if I was harsh.

Wait ... I'm unpopular??? :-)

RathBandu, I actually think I expressed my opinion on this in the thread discussing devin's article. I didn't think I needed to redo that here.

No, no, you're popular equally on all sides.

I think people on both sides of this argument feel pretty impassioned and are not likely to be swayed by an opposing view, no matter how expertly argued. I read Devin's article and could see where he was coming from, and I also saw the HBO documentary. With that said, I'm glad he is being made to face an American court of law. I think that is the best outcome possible at this point.


Oh, and to the people who cite the HBO documentary and the Devin's Advocate , I would point to (like other Chewer's have done) the Salon dot com article "The Whitewashing of Roman Polanski" as a good summation of why some people feel the way they do.

So are we back in high school again?

What Bancroft said. Yes, his past with the holocaust and his wife being butchered by the Mansons is horrible, no argument. But that, combined with his talent, shouldn't allow anyone wiggle room to rape a kid (or to rape anyone for that matter).

This and this.

Eileen,

I actually think it will cost the city and state of California quite alot of tax payer money to prosecute this. All the hours state employees will have to work to prepare the case because they know he will try to out spend them on his lawyers. I think it's important that it's done though

I do not see what relative fame of the serial killer who killed his wife should have to do with my empathy for him. If a nobody killed his wife, I'd feel equally bad for him. With that said, I still would not forgive what he did.

Survive the Holocaust and get a FREE RAPE! Barely-teen upgrade available with a punctured spouse!

I think the whole thing is bullshit not because he's a brilliant artist but because there is nothing to be gained by prosecuting him:he's pushing eighty,he poses no threat, and the victim in the case wants the whole thing to be dropped. And that's main thing, this isn't some escaped war criminal, but a man who did horrible things to 13 year old girl who grew up and now is saying this case shouldn't go forward. Seriously, Devin's point in his article sums it up nicely; this is case is less about justice and more about vengeance.

Request: please stop bringing up the "the victim no longer wants Polanski prosecuted" argument as a reason not to prosecute him.

Everything else aside, that argument fails on multiple levels.

Why does a victim need to want prosecution pursued for the legal system to do its job? If a man hits his wife, does the wife have to want charges to be pressed?

A man is being stabbed. A police officer approaches. The victim says, "Everything is cool here, officer, I LIKE being stabbed" or "I forgive this guy stabbing me, he's probably just having a bad day." The police officer should just walk away, right?

Perhaps more importantly, though, are the psychological ramifications of being raped. Ever hear of self-blame? Lots of rape victims (and victims of other acts) go through it. It is a coping strategy. The end result is often that they forgive their aggressor. They become psychologically traumatized enough that they end up blaming themselves and forgiving the actual responsible party. This is known and well-documented. Therefore, no, what the victim thinks should not be of primary importance.

Also... he's pushing 80? He poses no threat? I don't know if he poses a threat or not, but being 80 doesn't stop someone from being a threat. I know of victims who were abused by grandfathers in wheel chairs.

There's a difference between committing a wrong action and being morally blameworthy for it. Nobody is saying what he did was all right. They are simply saying a person who survived one of the worst atrocities in human history and then was one of the victims of one of the worst violent crimes in US history probably suffers from psychic trauma that is sufficient to diminish his understanding of right and wrong. (This is aside from even considering that he did answer to these charges and only fled when it became clear that the judge was going to abuse his position in the case for the sake of publicity.)

From past discussions, I know you've lost people close to you. You know how much violence bereavement can do to your state of mind. Now, imagine that those experiences apply to your entire family and not only did you not get time to prepare for those losses but also that they were extremely violent and in the most traumatizing settings possible. You do not experience that and come out "right."

For Chewers in general who see going after Polanski as just, I would recommend renting and attending closely to Fritz Lang's M. It features a fascinating discussion on what blameworthiness consists in.

Well but this is a consideration for the courts of course, more reason to just settle this once and for all.

As for the victim, she obviously doesn't want the details of this case to be talked about again. She's made other statements, but this one to me really shows her core motivation;

It was absolutely not one of the worst violent crimes in the history of the United States Of America. There are plenty of worse crimes, it's just that this one happens to involve a confluence of serial killer and celebrity. There are all sorts of awful things that happen to all sorts of people, this is so noteworthy because of who it happened to.

How often do pregnant women get stabbed to death and have messages in their blood scrawled on the walls where you're from? The State of California apparently thought the crime was heinous enough to sentence everybody even remotely involved to death.