Something That Shouldn't Need To Be Said

Thirty-two years after it occured, Roman Polanski was arrested whilst travelling to a Swiss film festival for the infamous rape of thirteen-year-old Samantha Geimer which led to him cowardly running off to Europe. He is now in the process of being extradited to the US.

So what better response could there be from the European film community than to create a petition demanding his immediate release, on the grounds that to arrest him at such a time is unfair? There is no clarification of what would be a better time for him - whilst celebrating a friend's birthday? Whilst eating a poorly-made omelette?

But the crux of their argument, that the drugging, raping and sodomizing of a child should be overlooked if someone makes really really good films is one being made elsewhere.

It is easy to imagine rapists as bad people who lurk in alleyways and have no existence outside of their crimes. It seems ridiculous to consider them to be people who are good, even exceptional at their jobs and hold respectable positions within society, even when these rapists are the most difficult to prosecute.

Polanski is such a person. A man considered an auteur, with a tragic personal life, his crimes are now being trivialised when any average citizen would be gracing the front page of The Sun with the headline SCUM underneath an unflattering mugshot. There would be mobs threatening to burn his house down.

The fact is Polanski abused his position as a director to take pictures of a child, ostensibly to help her career, with the intention of raping her. But this does not make his films any less ground-breaking. For some, admiration of Polanski is problematic. But perhaps if we were to accept that exceptional artists are capable of awful acts, that someone's emotional and moral character is not automatically reflected in their work, it would be easier to accept that such a person should not escape punishment. Even if it is thirty years later.