First, I want to say that
The Pianist is one of the most moving, beautiful films I have ever seen. I've seen it multiple times, and I have it on DVD. Having seen some of his other work, I would venture that this film was probably the finest of his career.
The fact that the victim, now an adult, has offered her opinion on this does not change the matter. It is the media who keeps dragging her into this, not the county prosecutor. He plead guilty and fled sentencing. There have been attempts, perhaps not terribly serious, to arrest him in other countries over the last 30 years. The prosecution was The People vs. Roman Polanski. I think, possibly because of television and movies, that the general public thinks it is the victims' right to decide whether or not to prosecute. This is not so. It is the decision of the prosecutor, based on myriad factors (including, sometimes, whether or not the victim decides to cooperate in giving witness, but prosecutions can and do go forward all the time without the assistance of victims).
Failure to apprehend him in a timely fashion can be chalked up to myriad factors, and I would not be surprised if there isn't some sort of investigation into this as well. It's important to know that law enforcement agencies in real life are not backed with the sort of power, money, and resources that you see on
CSI and
Law & Order. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, which presides over the most populous county in the country, sees almost 3 million cases a year, half a million of them criminal cases. There is a well known backlog of evidence in LA County, and it can take 2 years or more in some cases for DNA results in rape cases to come back to investigators. In fact, a recent investigation found that several hundred of those untested kits were related to cases in which the statute of limitations had already passed. I would not be surprised at all if the failure to apprehend him in a timely fashion isn't partly related simply to a lack of resources, as well as available resources being diverted over the years to higher profile or more urgent cases. Sad fact is that even in this day and age, a lot of cases involving rape victims and crimes against children are not given the urgency that other cases, like drug trafficking, are given.
He drugged and repeatedly raped a 13 year old girl over the course of an afternoon. The victim cooperated at that time. She gave testimony. He later pled guilty, and claims that he fled due to what he charges was the "erratic, vengeful" behavior of the presiding judge. Why? Because the judge wasn't going to treat him with kid gloves at sentencing? Because the judge indicated that he might actually serve some real time for what he did, instead of letting him off easy with a 40 day psych evaluation? Heaven forbid someone who rapes a child actually go to jail for it, especially when he's rich and famous. Do you know that fleeing and failure to appear is a further crime? Polanski does. His attorneys do. He committed two more crimes to avoid having to take responsibility for the first one - after prosecutors were already offering him a nice little plea where they dropped the most serious charges against him. (Contrary to what television and the movies tell you, in 90% of cases where investigations lead to charges being pressed, a plea deal is reached and the case does not go to trial. It is not at all uncommon.).
Read her testimony. It is sickening. It illustrates the methodology of a man who was behaving as a predator - he didn't just happen across her that afternoon and decide to rape her. He did what many predators do - he primed her, coached her, tested her, gained the trust of the girl and her mother to the point where he was left alone in Jack Nicholson's house with the girl (AFTER he and a woman I presume is Angelica Huston served the 13 year old child alcohol). You know, personally, I just wonder what the woman (she wasn't named in court papers, to my knowledge) was thinking when she saw Polanski at a bedroom door naked, knowing that the girl was either in the room or the house, and she turned around and walked away? How much excessive behavior can simply be chalked up to "Hey, it was the 70s" before we're excusing seriously deviant, harmful behavior?
It's interesting that, despite the one-sided propaganda produced by his friends in Hollywood, the current presiding judge has said that he may have grounds for some sort of appeal, even though normally, one cannot appeal once one has plead guilty. But you have to wage your appeal from within the system.
Just a question. If he was, say, a teacher or a mechanic who drugged and raped a 13 yr old girl and then fled the country after pleading guilty to reduced charges to avoid having to serve his time, would so many people say "It's not a big deal?" If you read the testimony of the victim of that mechanic where she says that she repeatedly told him "No" and said "I was afraid of him", where she pretended to be having an ashtma attack so she could get away from him (it didn't work), would it be "What's the big deal?" You know, even if it wasn't a forcible rape, what do we, as a society, usually say about 44 year old men who have sex with 13 year old girls? Don't we normally call for the punishment of such men?
Crimes of this nature are crimes not only against the victim but against the society as a whole. A failure to prosecute and punish crimes of this nature weakens the societal fabric, and exposes the most vulnerable people to further victimization. In the past 30 years, American society has come to regard crimes of this nature - whose victims are almost always women and children - as serious, as detrimental to the society as a whole. We have come to recognize the nature of those who carry out such crimes. Should we look the other way simply because this man is talented, conflicted, and has lived through some really, really shitty stuff in his life? Does being a victim justify you victimizing others?
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/polanski.phphttp://jezebel.com/5369395/whoopi-on-roman-polanski-it-wasnt-rape+rape
Topic: Polanski