MovieChat Forums > Roman Polanski Discussion > Who are you most disappointed in for sig...

Who are you most disappointed in for signing the "Free Polanski" petition?


For me it's Martin Scorcese. Here's the list:


Fatih Akin
Stephane Allagnon
Woody Allen
Pedro Almodovar
Wes Anderson
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Alexandre Arcady
Fanny Ardant
Asia Argento
Darren Aronofsky
Olivier Assayas
Alexander Astruc
Gabriel Auer
Luc Barnier
Christophe Barratier
Xavier Beauvois
Liria Begeja
Gilles Behat
Jean-Jacques Beineix
Marco Bellochio
Monica Bellucci
Djamel Bennecib
Giuseppe Bertolucci
Patrick Bouchitey
Paul Boujenah
Jacques Bral
Patrick Braoudé
Andre Buytaers
Christian Carion
Henning Carlsen
Jean-Michel Carre
Patrice Chereau
Elie Chouraqui
Souleymane Cisse
Alain Corneau
Jerome Cornuau
Miguel Courtois
Dominique Crevecoeur
Alfonso Cuaron
Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Jonathan Demme
Alexandre Desplat
Rosalinde et Michel Deville
Georges Dybman
Jacques Fansten
Joël Farges
Gianluca Farinelli
Jacques Fansten
Etienne Faure
Michel Ferry
Scott Foundas
Stephen Frears
Thierry Fremaux
Sam Gabarski
René Gainville
Tony Gatlif
Costa Gavras
Jean-Marc Ghanassia
Terry Gilliam
Christian Gion
Marc Guidoni
Buck Henry
David Heyman
Laurent Heynemann
Robert Hossein
Jean-Loup Hubert
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Gilles Jacob
Just Jaeckin
Alain Jessua
Pierre Jolivet
Kent Jones
Roger Kahane,
Nelly Kaplan
Wong Kar Waï
Ladislas Kijno
Harmony Korine
Jan Kounen
Diane Kurys
Emir Kusturica
John Landis
Claude Lanzmann
André Larquié
Vinciane Lecocq
Patrice Leconte
Claude Lelouch
Gérard Lenne
David Lynch
Michael Mann
François Margolin
Jean-Pierre Marois
Tonie Marshall
Mario Martone
Nicolas Mauvernay
Radu Mihaileanu
Claude Miller
Mario Monicelli
Jeanne Moreau
Sandra Nicolier
Michel Ocelot
Alexander Payne
Richard Pena
Michele Placido
Philippe Radault
Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Raphael Rebibo
Yasmina Reza
Jacques Richard
Laurence Roulet
Walter Salles
Jean-Paul Salomé
Marc Sandberg
Jerry Schatzberg
Julian Schnabel
Barbet Schroeder
Ettore Scola
Martin Scorcese
Charlotte Silvera
Abderrahmane Sissako
Paolo Sorrentino
Guillaume Stirn
Tilda Swinton
Jean-Charles Tacchella
Radovan Tadic
Danis Tanovic
Bertrand Tavernier
Cécile Telerman
Alain Terzian
Pascal Thomas
Giuseppe Tornatore
Serge Toubiana
Nadine Trintignant
Tom Tykwer
Alexandre Tylski
Betrand Van Effenterre
Wim Wenders

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Gotta admit there's a LOT of names I've never heard of there.

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Of course Woody Allen is defensive, lol

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You are a zero

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It is very concerning and disturbing how many well known filmmakers and actors signed it in support. One that is the most disgusting is a name that is not on the list: Natalie Portman. She claims that she is a huge METOO supporter, but she also signed the list. When a reporter took her to task for it, her only response was "it was a different time." If I were the reporter I would of laid into and said "So admitting to drugging and raping a 13 year old was okay back in 2003 (when she signed it) or 1977? Let's be honest, you are a hypocrite and an appalling person and need to be held responsible for your defense of this person."

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Here's the thing though, it was a different time. Was it despicable? Yes. But if Polanski should be punished, then so should have David Bowie (14 yr old), Jimmy Page (14 yr old), Jerry Lee Lewis (13 yr old), Bill Wyman (14 yr old), Iggy Pop (13 yr old), Don Johnson (14 yr old), and numerous others who were 15/16. Now were they all drugged and raped? No. But it can be assumed that drugs were involved with a number of these incidents. Most of this happened before the 1980s, so Portman isn't exactly wrong.

So I guess one question is, are people still mad because he raped her, or because of her age?

She sued Polanski in 1988 and got a settlement. So why is it that Polanski is still vilified, when so many other rapists are victims of the #metoo movement. If a woman sues these days she's a money hungry bitch and the man is innocent.

I mean I think what Polanski did was revolting, and I think he should do his time. I also think that rape culture is so prevalent in society, and I find it so weird how some men have no issues getting away with it and are revered, and others not at all.

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Well I agree with some of what you said. Out of the musicians you listed I think the only one that was really vilified was Jerry Lee Lewis, as he was at one point expected to be as big as Elvis, but once marrying his 13 year old cousin came to light he quickly fell from grace and never got close to the fame he once attained. The others I heard about but not until a few years ago and nothing really came of it, weirdly enough. All these guys should have to answer for what they did or have some repercussions due to their behavior.

The Polanski case was much bigger, because while dating or having a sexual relationship with girls that age is wrong and illegal, there have never bean any claims that the other guys you listed drugged and raped the underage girls. Also Polanski showed no remorse and jumped bail, where he is still a fugitive.

It still baffles me that so many well known people in the entertainment are defending a man who drugged and raped a 13 year-old, showed no remorse, and fled from prosecution. If this guy was a plumber and teacher they would be condemning him.

So no, I think anyone who does what Polanski does should be punished and Portman is only now backtracking, because of the METoo Movement. If she really cared about rape victims, she should have never defended a rapist. Rape is still rape no matter when it was committed.

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The problem is you would need to look at each one of those other acts and determine if a crime had been committed. It is possible in some cases there was a crime while in others no laws may have been broken. You would need to at the very least provide the time of each event and where it occurred because different states and countries have different ages of consent and the age of consent has changed over time.

What has not changed is the fact the Polanski not only committed illegal acts, but also entered a plea of guilty before fleeing the country.

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If the girls were the age that I listed, a crime was committed.

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No. While I don't know the specifics of all the examples that were tossed out, the one with Jerry Lee Lewis and the 13 year old was legal as twisted as it sounds. But in the 1950's when it happened in Mississippi there was no minimum age for girls to marry provided the parents gave consent. Lewis married the girl with the parent's consent so nothing illegal no matter how fucked up it was. So your 13 year old is proven to be bullshit, if you want to give the specifics on each of the other feel free and we can see if you were right on any of them. Just remember that laws have changed over the years and the age of consent has gone up from where it was in the past.

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I'm sorry, I got your comment mixed up with the one above yours and combined the two in my not very alert mind. I wasn't very awake when I commented.

You are correct, age of consent was different. In 1871 in Delaware it was lowered to 7 years old. It has been 14 in many places. So, I do agree that it may not have been an actual crime at that time.

My point with the ages of the relationships listed above are simply that Polanski wasn't the only man to have attraction to younger women.

I am trying to ascertain if the outrage towards Polanski is because of the age of the victim or that he got away with it. If it's the age, then I think that there should be outrage towards some of these other men too. If it's the actual rape, then I want to know why Polanski is vilified, if his victim has received a financial settlement (I still don't know if she was given what she was awarded) when so many others it's the victim who receives the backlash and not the accused? Why is Polanski the bad guy (I mean he is) when so many others, who have been accused of rape no matter the age of the victim are not? That's what I want to know.

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The age was a factor, but the part that made it more over the top was that he plied her with quasudes and alcohol... basically getting her so fucked up that she couldn't fight back. As I recall in the interviews that she did with the prosecutor at the time she tried to fend him off and say no but because of the drugs and alcohol couldn't. That moves it into a completely different level of fucked up compared to the rock star that simply has a willing girl give him a blow job.

I suspect if Jerry Lee Lewis has simply gotten some random 13 year old drunk, fucked her and walked off that he would have been in prison and the world would have never heard of him again. It is the violent part of what Polanski did that goes beyond the other examples you brought up.

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Polanski admitted to having sex with an under aged girl (illegal). The victim claimed he gave her alcohol, drugs then sodomized her.

Did Bowie, page, Lewis, Wyman, Pop and Johnson drug and sodomize their underage victims? If they did, then they should have gone to prison.

Polanski drugged and raped a girl, she said no. He admitted to it. End of story. he needs to be in prison so he has less of a chance to keep on "fucking young girls" as he puts it.

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Also I do not know why everyone of these person's career's have not been tarnished especially after the Weinstein scandal and all the sexual abuse stories having come to light.

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Here is the way I see it. The actors who excuse Polanski probably do so because the young girl he raped was not "one of them". Weinstein was accused of raping, in their eyes, "actual people"; real actors. So he had to go as he was putting Hollywood in a bad light.

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Interesting. The way I see it, the actors who excuse Polanski realize he didn't do anything wrong, and he didn't rape anyone.

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Some of these people who say Polanski did nothing wrong are part of the #metoo movement and condemn Weinstein for his rapes.

They know what rape is, but they clearly feel that some people (like themselves) are worthy of being protected by the law when they report a sexual assault. But a "nobody" like Polanski's youngest victim (as far as we know) is only worthy of their contempt.

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There is a likely a group of the idiots that signed the letter that don't even know the details of the case. It wouldn't surprise me to find that lots of them were handed the letter at some friends house and asked to sign it and they did it without bothering to even try to learn what the full story was. A bit like when you see people signing petitions for something in a mall, a lot of the idiots that sign don't know what they are signing they simply do it because they see someone else doing it.

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Lynch, Scorcese, Anderson & Aronofsky.

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John Landis: "Hey, at least he didn't kill her."

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None of them. He deserves to go free.

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Amen

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Indeed.

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Why?

He committed a crime. He even enter a plea of guilty. He deserves to show up in court and accept the sentence for what he admitted he was guilty of, or should no one ever actually be expect to serve time for crimes they admit to committing?

I suspect you are as ignorant as most of the idiots that signed the list and have no clue about the facts.

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He went to court, was sentenced to 90 days in jail, served 42 days and was released. At the last minute the judge decided to alter the deal, and put him back in jail. Polanski, wisely, wanted no part of that, and left the country. I don't blame him, and were I in a similar position, I would do the same. Wouldn't you?

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90 days doesn't suit the crime he committed to begin with. He deserved minimum 20 years. If he was really regretful for what he did, he would have accepted whichever new deal the judge decided on.

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Like most rapists (and their enablers both in the industry and here on MC), he thought she, like all women, "had it coming" and was just saving everyone the time by drugging and raping her directly. She eventually would have come around...

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And they usually excuse it because the victim forgives him.

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The main accuser did. Polanski has been linked to other similar rapes, although I believe there can be copy-cat accusations not based in fact. But still.


“Everyone wants to fuck young girls,”

“Judges want to fuck young girls,” juries want to fuck young girls — everyone wants to fuck young girls!” ~ Roman Polanski



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I bet you can't point to a reliable source for that quote.

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Reliable? Of course not, at least not to your satisfaction. Anyone who Googles the quote will be treated to a hundred sources, all of them unreliable to kiddie fiddlers.

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You dont have an answer coz he never said it. You lose. Sorry.

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If you're that lazy, let me help you a bit: it's from an interview Polanski gave to novelist Martin Amis in 1979. Google is your friend.

Only people who believe that 13 year old girls are fair game to be drugged and raped wouldn't bother finding the truth.

Sorry you're a child rapist.

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Once again you are completely wrong. The 90 days you are referring to was the time he was committed to in a psych hospital to undergo evaluation before he was sentenced. Standard practice at that time because in a crime like this the courts wanted to make sure that there was not some mental illness that was behind the illegal behavior. He only spent 45 days undergoing the psych evaluation and was release from the hospital. At that ime he was then scheduled for a return date to the court where he would be formally sentenced. Prior to his showing up for the sentencing he fled the country.

Now the internet loves to spout off bullshit about this case and you apparently have fallen for some of it. The simple fact is that when you enter a plea bargain which Polanski did, Polanski had an agreement that the prosecutor would recommend a specific sentence, BUT never ever ever does that recommendation actually mean that the judge has to follow it. In most instances a judge will follow a prosecutors' recommendation for sentencing but the judge have no obligation to and will sometime give more or less time than what the agreement was for. The judge will also tell the defendant when they are entering the guilty plea that they are under no obligation to follow the agreement between the defendant and the prosecutor.

Polanski's fans love to babble that he fled because the judge was going to go back on the agreement, but that is simply bullshit. The judge never handed down the sentence and so there is no evidence that he would or wouldn't have been sentenced to years in prison or let off with time served. That is just speculation. The only clear cut fact is he was never formally sentenced... and if he were to return no he would not only face the sentence for the original crime he pled guilty to but also be facing additional charges for his flight from justice.

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You are incorrect.

He was sentenced to 90 days, and released after 42 days. The agreement of the plea bargain was that he'd be free after that, but the judge changed his mind. I'm not claiming he didn't have the right to do so. Legally, the judge can do that. My belief is that Polanksi was wise to flee the country. He knew he'd be put back into jail, likely for much longer, and fled before the corrupt court could imprison him.

Now, 45 years later, it's time to drop it. Even Samantha Geimer, the so-called victim, has stated many times she thinks Polanski should be exonerated.

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Don't show your ignorance. I explained what the 90 days was and it was not a sentence for the crime it was a pre-sentence evaluation. Feel free to post the transcript from the court room, because it is available and at no time was the pre-sentence evaluation ever stated to be a sentence for the guilty plea. You can find no transcript of the proceeding that ever stated what a sentence was for the crime because the sentencing never took place, he fled the country prior to it being handed down. Learn the court system and how things work before you spout off anymore nonsense.

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Why do people like you become so rude and dismissive when proved wrong?

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I'm right you ignorant cunt. Stop trying to spread lies.

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