There is no way I can “reasonably” pass judgment on the events here. I’m simply too fractured and fragmented in my reactions. But what is one who despises him here then obligated to do morally—never view his films again? distance themselves from those who support him?
ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED
A film by Marina Zenovich
[b]James: Anyway, that’s… - that’s fiction. And I think this probably may be still in the land of fiction, edging towards fact. When the… - when the newspapers and the magazines and the books talk about you and little girls, is there anything in it?
Polanski: Well, I-I like young women… - let’s put it this way… - and I think most of men do, actually.
James: Yeah, but the question… - the question turns on how young, doesn’t it?
…
Vannatter: He was, like, on a hyper high, and he’s constantly talking, constantly fidgeting. And he… - he didn’t perceive having intercourse with a 13-year-old girl as against the law. That… - that was not in his culture, that… - you know, “So what?” type thing. He didn’t… - he didn’t realize, I guess, the laws of our country as compared to other countries. I’m not so sure that Mr. Polanski was aware of what being arrested in America meant.
…
Brenneman: As the case progressed, I was struck… - you know, how could this same man be two different things to two different sets of press? The European reporters looked on Polanski as this tragic, brilliant, historic figure. Here was this man who had survived the Holocaust, who had survived the gassing of his mother and then had come here and developed his own voice, had maintained his integrity against the power of the Hollywood machine. And the American press tended to look at him as this sort of malignant, twisted dwarf with this dark vision.
…
Brenneman: They were the perfect attorneys to handle a case like this, where the evidence and the players were sensational, were dramatic, flamboyant. So you want two attorneys who kept an even keel. They were, in that regard, very strikingly different from the judge in the case.
…
Brenneman: At that time, rape victims’ names didn’t get reported in the press, much less the names of minors who were involved in sex cases. But with the European press there, her name would come out exposed in the press, her background exposed, the fact that she had had a prior relationship. She had taken quaaludes before. All of this had gotten out and would have forever haunted her.
…
Reporter: Once we knew her name, we knew where her school was, we knew where her house was, the French competition were after this girl. They were hunting this girl.
…
Samantha Geimer [victum]: It was awful. Everybody knew at school. People came to school with cameras and things were being said and printed. The worst part was, no one believed me. Everybody thought I was making it up.
…
Braunsberg: After Rosemary’s Baby, Roman had this reputation maybe having been a little bit in league with the devil himself.
…
Braunsberg: It was a Saturday, and the phone rang, and I picked it up, and it was our agent Bill Tennant who was on the phone, and I immediately realized that something was terribly wrong. I mean, he… - he was a very stable kind of guy. He was absolutely distraught. And I-I said, “What is it?” And he said, you know, something like, “They’re all dead. They’re all dead.” And I realized something awful had happened, and I gave the phone to Roman, and… I’ve never seen anything like it. You know, I saw somebody just disintegrate in front of my eyes.
…
Braunsberg: We flew to L.A. The next day. He was devastated, devastated to a point that I’ve never seen any other human being in that kind of condition…And I remember picking up Sunday newspapers. I was already reasonably aware of how the press functions, and their business is selling newspapers. The story was basically how Roman had flown to Los Angeles, murdered them all, and then come back. I mean, this was actually in the newspapers, in the headlines. The nature of the murders, you know, Satanism, Rosemary’s Baby. This is the guy who made Rosemary’s Baby. He knew so much about it. He couldn’t have known so much about it without actually being involved in it, and so he must have been part of the cult, and there was a cult, and they were murdered, and who gets murdered in this kind of way? And it was a typical example of the victims being responsible for their own deaths. It was shocking. It was truly unbelievable.
…
Polanski at news conference: The last day I talked to her was a few hours before the tragedy happened. You are suddenly curious about my relationship with Sharon within last few months. I can tell you the last few months, as much as last few years I spent with her… Were only time of true happiness in my life. And facts which will be coming out day after day will make a shame… - a lot of newsmen, who for selfish reason, write… - unbearable for me… - horrible things about my wife.
…
Polanski in an interview: …different people have different ways of seeing life and relationships. It’s not necessarily the same with you and me. And people, they react in different ways to grief. Some go to a monastery. Others start visiting whorehouses.
…
Gunson: The LAPD brought the evidence envelope to this courthouse building and brought it in, actually, to this room. There were about five, six, or seven men standing around, looking, peering down at this evidence envelope, and someone takes it and turns and opens it, and out falls these little girl’s panties.
…
Silver: And so there was this enormous court battle over property that belonged to her as to what was to be done with them. And Judge Rittenband decided to cut it in half and give half to the prosecution and half to the defense.
Dunson: The defense expert went over and put on his latex gloves and came back and then started operating on these copper panties.
Silver: If you can imagine the humor of about seven men sitting around a table…
Gunson: …trying to identify any stains and to make sure that the cut or the piece includes part of that stain.
Silver: And they were fighting and, "No, no, it has to be just a little to this way. “No, it should be over here. We shouldn’t cut that way at all.” So finally they… - they made the cut.
…
Mollinger: Roman called me; he said, “Listen, I mean, I’m here in Munich. Can we meet?” I said, “Of course.” And we decided to go in the evening to see the Oktoberfest. Roman actually didn’t want to go, but we said, "You have to see that, "because this is unbelievable. “You have never seen 10,000 people in a tent, drunken. I mean, you must see that.” And he said, “Okay.” He said, “I go with you.” So finally, we went to a special box. I was with my girlfriend and two other girlfriends, you know.
Braunsberg: Most unfortunately, he was photographed caught in a pose where sitting in between two girls. It was quite innocent. But, you know, photographs… - they say a photograph doesn’t lie. Nothing lies more than a photograph.
Semple: Roman always did have bad luck. And this is the kind of thing that a… - a cautious person would not have dreamed of doing. I mean, they would have had themselves photographed in the cathedral or doing something like that. That one photograph changed everything.
…
Gunson: I was quite surprised. Everyone in the criminal justice system is aware that 90-day diagnostic studies take less than 90 days. There’s not very many people, I would guess, who have had the experience of it only being 42.
…
Vannatter: That’s not a punishment. A punishment… - you know, he was charged with very serious crimes. You’re talking about crimes that… - that would incur state prison time, maybe 10, 15, 20 years in state prison…13-year-old girl, where he had sexual intercourse with her, sodomized her, gave her drugs, gave her alcohol. He got off with nothing.[/b]
Then the politics really begins.
Geimer: I was young, but the way I felt was, the judge was enjoying the publicity, and he didn’t care about what happened to me, and he didn’t care about what happened to Polanski. He was, like, orchestrating some little show, you know, that I didn’t want to be in.