Roman Polanski began his career in Hollywood as a bright and promising auteur, making such memorable films as Knife in the Water, Rosemary's Baby, and Chinatown. His marriage to the beautiful but tragic starlet Sharon Tate, who was brutally murdered by the Manson family in their home, only further placed him in the public eye. However, in 1977, a conviction of rape changed his career.
In March of 1977, Roman Polanski was charged with the drugging and rape of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. At the time of his arrest, he pleaded not guilty, but eventually accepted a plea bargain for a lesser charge. Before a sentence could be declared, Polanski fled to Paris in February of 1978, and has stayed there ever since, living in exile. Geimer testified that she went over to Polanski's house on the pretense that he would take her picture. When she arrived, he provided her with champagne and a quaalude, she said, and performed nonconsensual oral, vaginal, and anal sex acts on her. Geimer insists that the acts were nonconsensual, but Polanski maintains that she was consenting and that there were no drugs involved.
The case has divided many in Hollywood, as indeed, Polanski has continued to make films, and those films have continued to receive acclaim. It also raises the question of the bearing of a moral act on the merit of an individual's artwork. In an article about Polanski's enduring influence in the field for The Guardian, Hadley Freeman writes, "Sigourney Weaver, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kate Winslet and many more have appeared in Polanski movies in the decades since his conviction, and questions about why they were working with a convicted child rapist were seen as tacky, proof of a rigid mind more focused on gossip than art. When Winslet was asked last September whether she had any qualms about working with Woody Allen, another director accused (but, unlike Polanski, never arrested and never charged) of a sex crime against a minor, she replied: “Having thought it all through, you put it to one side and just work with the person. Woody Allen is an incredible director. So is Roman Polanski. I had an extraordinary working experience with both of those men, and that’s the truth.”
Freeman goes on to try and better understand why public support for Polanski continues, despite allegations that he raped a child. She writes, "It’s remarkable how much energy Polanski’s supporters have expended defending him, given that the director himself has always been extremely clear about why he did what he did: he is sexually attracted to ‘young girls,’ and he has never seen this as a problem. After all, when he was told he was being arrested for rape he was genuinely shocked: “I was incredulous; I couldn’t equate what had happened the day before with rape in any form,” he writes in his autobiography." Freeman suggests that Polanski's completely un-ambivalent relationship to his own act should perhaps give people more pause about supporting him, but it seems to have the opposite effect. His remorselessness in relation to his own pedophilia, Hadley suggests, seems to have marked him as beyond rebuke.
Still, there are many who believe that Polanski, though a gifted filmmaker, must be held accountable for his past crime. While many of Hollywood's most elite players have expressed their support for him—he received a standing ovation for his Best Director win for The Piano—Asia Argento, Emma Thompson, and Natalie Portman all spoke publicly about their regret about signing a petition to release Polanski from arrest in 2009.
