P.S. on “The Polanski Whitewash”
John Cooper writes:
I’m unconvinced. Bill, you wrote in your first post on this subject that it was irrelevant that the judge had two girlfriends - you even went so far as to say that if the judge were married, it would still be irrelevant. So how are the facts of the judge’s achievements early in life any more relevant?
Likewise, how is it fundamentally dishonest for the film to present what is essentially a defense case for Polanski? You make the point repeatedly that the film doesn’t offer a raw description of what Polanski did with the girl, but your other criticisms seem to center on the tone of the movie, that Polanski is treated with a respect you think he doesn’t deserve, and that figures that you respect, such as the judge, are ridiculed. But there’s nothing dishonest about taking a tone. As for the nature of the sexual act, it’s only relevant if you believe, as you may, that illegal sex that involves the anus is worse than, and should be considered separately from, illegal sex that involves the vagina. That’s something that many would agree with you on, I’m sure, but it’s more of an emotional position than a reasoned one. Let me be clear: sex with a 13-year-old is, and should always be, criminal. But actions that are considered to be aggravating (in the legal sense) should be considered so because of they are cruel and additionally traumatizing, not because they’re outside of the sexual mainstream.
I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see the film, so I can’t defend it. I’ll just say that based on what you’ve said about it, I can’t tell that it’s dishonest. In the legal system, the prosecution presents its case, and leaves out details that could lead the jury to sympathize with the defendant, such as a 60s bomber’s fifteen years of charity work before apprehension. Likewise, the defense omits details that might sway the jury the other way. The case against Polanski has been covered in the media - anybody in the US who’s heard of Polanski knows that he fled the country after having sex with a minor child. Until now, I don’t think the defense case has been presented. I suspect that your great revulsion toward Polanski’s crime, Bill, may cause you to condemn any defense case that’s made for him.
The trouble with having to write about such stuff is that one can sound moralizing, when I really just care about the journalism. My complaint isn’t with Polanksi; it’s with the film and by extension the coverage of it. So thanks for taking the time to write and I’m sorry if it sounded like I was het up about the crime itself.
There are some tonal issues; it’s fair comment to question them. In regards to the judge, the movie seems to be making the comical point that here was a rapscallion ladies’ man sitting in judgment of a randy European. But the issue is the abuse of an under-age girl; in that context, doesn’t the comparison verge on the offensive?
The judge’s qualifications are certainly more relevant than the rather benign details of his personal life; that they are also so interesting makes it even more suspicious that the filmmaker didn’t include them in the film. He goes from high school to the NYU law school at 15, and then goes to Harvard because he’s too young to take a bar exam and it doesn’t make it into your film?
In other words, the director, Marina Zenovich elided the most positive thing about the judge’s life and the most prejudicial thing about Polanski’s.
She is welcome to be on Polanski’s side but there’s a point beyond which a documentary maker can be said to be being dishonest. I think she passed it.
The rest of what you’re talking about, again, has more to do with my thinking that the coverage of the movie didn’t give the full story. It’s not that one sex act is worse than another when the victim is a girl; but it is interesting how, in this supposedly vulgar age, we never seemed to hear what happened. The image of the debonair intellectual shifts radically; that’s why it needs to be mentioned. It’s hiding the facts from readers.
That was the subject of my first post, The Ick Factor. People like Polanksi and R. Kelly end up getting, perversely, a pass because folks just don’t want to think or talk about the facts of their cases.
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Bill, thanks for the considered response. You’re right that my response was triggered by the moral outrage I detected in your posts. I’ll grant that your outrage was directed at the film rather than at the film’s subject.
But is the film journalism? It sounds to me that the Polanski movie overtly advocates a defense take on the case, rather than the even objectivity that’s the modern journalistic standard, at least in the US. The filmmakers seem to have said to themselves, “Here’s a case that’s been tried as much in the court of public opinion as in the judiciary system, but there has been no defense case made in that court. Let’s make it.” If so, then maybe their movie should be judged by that standard.
In regard to the judge’s early life, it seems no more relevant than Polanski’s terrifying history as an orphaned refugee survivor of the Nazi genocide, then a widower at the hands of the Manson family. Polanski’s background is no secret, but neither has it generally been trotted out to excuse his behavior. Maybe the film does do this–as I mentioned in my first reply, I regret that haven’t yet had the opportunity to see it–and if so, yes, fairness would dictate that the judge’s background should also be mentioned. But I find it hard to fault the filmmakers for leaving it out, because I don’t know that they should be required to be scrupulously fair unless they represent themselves as independent, unbiased investigators of the case. I disagree that a bias that includes a selective presentation of the facts is dishonest. If that were true, every legal defense, every prosecution, and every history lecture given in school would be dishonest.
Were Polanski and Kelly given a pass because people don’t know how icky their actions were? I’ll turn that around and ask whether they should be judged and convicted based on ickiness. You are right that the disgust factor has largely limited the way that these cases have been written about. But I’ll add that another, more reasoned factor is that it is far from clear that details that are guaranteed to trigger strong emotions should be introduced into a case when the relevance of the details is not central. The central details of these cases involve issues of underage sex and abuse of power, not of the particular sexual acts. I think it’s to the credit of our supposedly vulgar age that in the court of public opinion, these acts haven’t been seized upon as falsely central to their cases. If they had been, I’ve no doubt that the defendants would have been convicted on the basis of the “Ick Factor” alone.