I appreciate your passion with regard to Polanski’s crime and evasion of sentence, Mr. Moto. I agree that if he committed the crime, he should accept punishment. I just think you’re getting the OP completely backward. The question was not whether Polanski’s artistic merits should be used as a defense against any crime he may or may not have committed, but if said crimes should be used in critical review of the art. I haven’t seen any work of Mr Polanski’s of which I am aware, but I would be certain to watch them with an eye toward his personal history.
I do not think an artist’s personal history, even a criminal history, casts a shadow on his work: it illuminates it.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that yes, the personal lives of celebrities are essential to understanding the art they create. We should be considering the personal successes and failures of the artists. We shouldn’t feel guilty about doing this and we shouldn’t pretend that it’s unfair. What would “The Ballad of John and Yoko” be without an understanding of Yoko Ono’s influence on the Beatles? What would “Garden Party” mean without knowing the background of Nelson’s appearance at Madison Square?
Billy Joel wrote a song called “Temptation” that describes how hard it is for him to go to work and concentrate on his career knowing there is someone waiting for him at home. When you find out he’s writing it about his fatherly obsession with newborn daughter, the song’s meaning changes completely.
And I have to admit, I listen to Michael Jackson’s music with a new ear for meaning and symbol and theme, knowing the of crime which he is now accused. (Mike seems to write a lot of songs that are grounded in childhood conflicts: bullies, girls, scary things, etc. It makes me wonder about his emotional development.) When Pete Townshend of the Who was apprehended on child pornography charges—which Townshend claimed were related to his research into his own childhood molestation—Who fans combed over Pete’s music with alacrity, looking for new meaning.
How do you interpret “Alice in Wonderland” while knowing that Dr. Dodgson often asked to photograph the prepubescent daughter of family friends?
How can you imagine listening to Beethoven’s 9th without reminding yourself that he couldn’t hear the performance, or Mozart’s Requiem knowing that he died of mercury poisoning before he finished? How can you look at “Water Lilies” without remembering that Monet went blind while painting it?
I dunno. I feel like I can never know enough about how and why an artist has created something, or the nature of the mind that invented it, or the time and place that gave it inspiration. This sometimes means I know more about the artist than I wanted to know, or have new insight into a piece which now makes me squirm, or it means with this insight I want to avoid that artist entirely. I guess it’s worth it simply to have some understanding.
Yeah, it is a novel view. So novel, even I don’t hold it.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I absolutely agree that Polanski deserves some prison time.
But I also think that in our society, women–including teenaged girls–are reasonably expected to see when they’re approaching a sexual situation, act accordingly, and take responsibility for that action. Young girls are given a pass on this responsibility, because they’re presumed to be naive (Samantha Geimer had just been in a sexual relationship at her surprisingly young age) or not too bright (She’d skipped one or two grades in school–how many 13-year-old ninth graders do you know of?–so I think we can infer some degree of scholastic achievement here).
She saw cameras, champagne, drugs, a hot tub and a rich foreign guy in a Speedo who she was alone in the house with, and didn’t anticipate he’d try to have sex with her? Didn’t slip out a side door and call her mom from the corner payphone? Something’s not adding up here.
Did someone assert that Nicholson was a lawyer? He related a conversation he’d had with Polanski.
To be fair, he was living in a town and a studio system that had enabled Charlie Chaplin and Erroll Flynn (to name just two) to have affairs with teenagers with minimal legal consequences. Perhaps he assumed it was an entitlement?
He never directed a feature film, but according to the IMDB, he directed 112 cartoon shorts from 1922 to 1945, including “Steamboat Willie” and about 50 “Alice” cartoons. According to Jack Kinney, a Disney animator and author of Walt Disney and Other Assorted Characters, he was pretty bad at directing and knew it. When he got hyper-critical with Kinney once too often, Kinney mentioned a particularly awful cartoon Disney had directed. Uncle Walt got purple with anger and said “Don’t you ever mention that name again!”
Regarding Polanski- 13 year olds do not have capacity to enter into sexual relations. To do so, regardless if it is her first or five thousandth time, is a felony. He’s a scumbag, and I won’t patronize his films and support his lifestyle. He deserved to get the Oscar about as much as Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
Back to the question, yes we’re only human so an artist’s personal lifestyle, political views, etc. do impact your opinion of their work. I personally think less of an artistic performance or athletic feat if done by a person that I know to be of dubious character.
hmm … thanks for pointing this out, I brought it up because this example always turns up when I have these discussions. I have always wondered about it myself, it may well have been a second-hand report from a friend about the bookstore in Toronto (I have lived here all my life). I am thrilled that y’all have done the sleuthing work and debunked this little legend, as I adore Roald’s books.
I’m not sure, can you clarify for me, Krokodil, are you blaming the 13 year old child for being raped? Are you saying she has even the slightest bit of culpability in her own rape?
No one asserted that Nicholson was a lawyer. You, Krokodil used the Playboy article to imply that the age of consent in Poland or France was met when Polanski raped the girl. clairobscur refuted that implication with the ageofconsent reference.
It’s true that he couldn’t have been a Nazi, but it’s also true that, like many Europeans of his time, allied or not, he wasn’t too fond of Jews. From here:
I like his books too, but from all accounts he was meaner than a sack of buttholes.
Just curious…how long will you punish him for his crime? Longer than the California penal system? I mean, he’d surely be out of jail now, had he done his time.
Again, we’re not judging his behavior at the Academy Awards. He is being judged for his cinematic talent. You may not be able to watch his movies knowing he committed this crime, but you shouldn’t confuse the art with the crime.
If a 13 year old girl is already having a sexual relationship with her boyfriend–under any circumstances at all–then she’s on a different planet than the children that Age of Consent laws are intended to protect. “Culpability in her own rape?” No. Responsibility for walking into the situation and not foreseeing the obvious direction things are going? Yes. She and her mom bear at least that much.
Level with me, Bone: Would you drop your young daughter off at Hef’s Grotto (or your young son off at the Neverland Ranch) with a peck on the cheek and a “Get back in time for soccer practice tomorrow”? Because that’s what happened here. Polanski did a vile thing, but he had a lot of help.
So, what does this “responsibility” mean? Is Polanski less responsible for his own actions because the girl should have known better?
Julie
He actually was willing to do his time. There was a plea bargain in place that would have put him in jail for 2 months, but the judge reneged on the deal and suddenly decided that he wanted to sentence Polanski to 50 years in prison instead.
How did we get this far in this thread without mentioning Victor Salva? Salva is a convicted child molester, having confessed in 1988 to having sex with a 12 year old boy. The film he was making at the time, incidentally, is Clownhouse, a well-directed and creepy film that contains entirely too many shots of boys running around in their underwear.
Unlike Polanski, Salva served the time set for his sentence, and he is now directing again. Among his credits are Powder and the two Jeepers Creepers films. The furor was particularly strong when Powder was released, since that film was produced by Hollywood Pictures and distributed by Buena Vista, which are owned by Disney, which greatly incensed people against the Mouse.
So. Anyone with strong feelings?
Krokodil, what bothers me is that you seem to be using the sexual history of the girl and the alleged neglect of her mother to excuse the crimes of Polanski. That just is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Read anything at all about pedophilia or abusive relationships, and you’ll learn that victimizers choose their victims carefully. The fact that this girl had been in a sexual relationship at a young age made her far more likely to be a victim of a seduction, not less likely. Far from being more sophisticated in sexual matters, the more likely explanation is that she was suffering from low self esteem and acting out sexually. This behavior is easily exploited by a bastard like Polanski.
I hate to perpetuate this hijack, but some of the things you’re saying really need to be addressed.
Another reason why I think a boycott of “The Pianist” is unwise: Polanski is not the only person involved with that film. Many other people worked very hard on it also. Refusing to see it means you are effectively “punishing” everyone else who made the movie because of what one man on the set did 27 years before.
I really don’t disagree with you. I was a teenager when this story broke in 1977 and as I recall, Polanski was made out to be some shocking new kind of monster who’d invented some new form of sexual predation. Facts in ready evidence today paint a slightly different picture. He’s a fairly common Hollywood type who is infamous mainly for being prosecuted (Studios have a long history of outright buying off victims and families). It doesn’t make him less evil, but it does explain why he was so surprised when the cuffs went on.
jsgoddess, I think I can explain what I mean by making an analogy to auto theft. Stealing an unlocked car with the keys in it is as illegal as stealing a locked one. Both acts fall under “grand theft auto.” The thief of one is as guilty as the thief of the other. But the owner of the unlocked car is negligent in a way that the owner of the locked car is not, and bears a responsibility that the other doesn’t.
But “bears a responsibility” for what, exactly? When people “bear a responsibility” for things, to me, it means someone else isn’t wholly responsible. But if someone steals my car, I consider that person wholly responsible for stealing my car.
And since this thread is about Polanski’s actions, I’m having a tough time understanding what the girl’s sex life has to do with anything unless you are saying he isn’t wholly responsible for his actions.
If he is wholly responsible, she doesn’t bear any responsibility for his actions. If he is NOT wholly responsible, then you would appear to be saying that she is to blame (ie is responsible for) her own rape.
Julie
Uh, do you know she skipped grades, or are you just guessing? Because I knew plenty of 13-year-olds in the 9th grade. The typical age for beginning that grade in the US is 14, but there’s some district-to-district and school-to-school variation as to when kids begin kindergarten. So a fair few kids (particularly those with autumn birthdays) end up as 9th graders at 13.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a 13-year-old, even a bright one, believed that “cameras, champagne, drugs, and a hot tub” were standard elements of Hollywood-type parties and that she’d look like she was just off the turnip wagon if she questioned it.
Salva meets my definition of vile human being, but unlike Polanski, actually served his sentence.
I have said I believe in forgiveness, but child molesters generally don’t turn from that path. I hope Salva is different. We’ll see.
I haven’t seen any of his movies yet. And, honestly, I don’t know if I could give them an honest appraisal.