ZURICH – Hours after U.S. and Swiss authorities on Sunday cooperated to arrest iconic film director Roman Polanski on a fugitive warrant, French officials began beseeching American authorities to let bygones be bygones, and fellow creative artists expressed outrage over shabby treatment of a living legend.Polanski, 76, is a citizen of France, to which he fled after beating a hasty retreat from the U.S. in 1977. The Oscar-winning director (The Pianist, 2003) had just pleaded guilty to having sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl, and he expected to avoid a prison sentence in exchange for the plea. While Polanski was undergoing psychological evaluation in preparation for sentencing, the judge reportedly indicated he might renege on the agreement and imprison the director anyway. Polanski took off when he got word of the possibility and ever since has been at large in European countries with weak extradition treaties.
Thirty-two years after the sordid legal affair began, Polanski is awaiting extradition after being nabbed as he attempted to enter Switzerland in order to receive a lifetime achievement award at the prestigious Zurich Film Festival.
Upon hearing the news, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters he hopes “the affair [will] come to a favorable resolution” and U.S. authorities will “respect Polanski’s rights.”
French Culture and Communications Minister Frederic Mitterrand reminded “everyone that Roman Polanski benefits from great general esteem [and has] exceptional artistic creation and human qualities.” He added that French President Nicolas Sarkozy “shares [Mitterrand’s] hope for a rapid resolution to the situation which would allow Roman Polanski to rejoin his family as quickly as possible.”
Polanski’s professional colleagues indicated they believe U.S. authorities are being too hard on a brilliant, if troubled, artist. The Swiss Director’s Association reacted to the arrest with “shock and dismay,” calling the move “a cultural scandal.”
“He’s a brilliant guy, and he made a little mistake 32 years ago,” photographer Otto Weisser told CNN. “What a shame for Switzerland.”
British novelist Robert Harris, whose novel The Ghost is under movie development by Polanski, blasted Swiss authorities for living up to a 1990 treaty with the U.S.: “If [Polanski] was such a wanted criminal, why did they let him own a house [in Switzerland] and travel back and forth freely?”
In a letter posted online and read aloud during the Swiss festival, the European Film Academy protested “the arbitrary treatment of one of the world’s most outstanding film directors.” Noted academy members including Wim Wenders, Volker Schloendorff, Bertrand Tavernier, Victoria Abril, Peter Suschitzky and Jean-Claude Carriere were among the signatories.
Polanski’s legal odyssey is just one more event in what Mitterrand called “an already turbulent existence.”
Prosecutors in Los Angeles contend Polanski, then 43, drugged and raped 13-year-old Samantha Geimer during a photo shoot at the home of actor Jack Nicholson. Geimer — now a married mother of three who received an undisclosed settlement at the conclusion of a civil lawsuit against Polanski — confirmed the assault took place, but she since has said she would prefer prosecutors abandon the case, not only because she and her family would like to move on, but also because a 2008 documentary film, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, uncovered evidence of backroom deals between prosecutors and a media-obsessed judge.
“I am no longer a 13-year-old child,” she wrote in papers filed with the court in January. “I have dealt with the difficulties of being a victim; have surmounted and surpassed them with one exception: Every time this case is brought to the attention of the court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others. That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety: the continuation of the case.”
The Geimer case began nearly 10 years after the murder of Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, and four others by members of Charles Manson’s “family.” Susan Atkins, the Manson follower who admitted to stabbing the 26-year-old, pregnant actress 16 times while she pleaded for mercy, died Thursday of brain cancer. She was 61.
