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EXCLUSIVE: I have obtained the email which is going out tonight imploring Hollywood and world moviemakers to add their names to a petition protesting Roman Polanski’s Swiss jailing and possible extradition to Los Angeles.
Dear Friend,
Thierry Fremaux told me the shocking news of Roman’s arrest in Zurich, which by now the whole world is attuned to. We are all incredibly distressed and disappointed by this turn of events, particularly as Roman was en route to receive an award, for his career in film, in a country where he often visited and even had a home.
In Marina Zenovich’s documentary “ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED”, it clearly showed that a plea bargain was made with the judge; the District Attorney and Polanski’s lawyers too acknowledged that a deal had been made. Roman however got a tip that the judge had recanted his decision and planned to double cross him, causing him to leave the US to which he has not since returned.
While he is not above the law, Polanski received his punishment and served his time, and the deal is not being honored. The idea of Roman Polanski incarcerated is an anathema and a situation that we, who have the privilege of making movies, cannot tolerate. We must lobby against any move to bring him back to the US where he could face jail time. Unfortunately, some believe that a man, considered by many to have suffered enough, has in fact not and has another uphill fight ahead of him.
I urge you to add your voice to this fight. Thierry and the French artistic community are beginning an extraordinary battle to bring justice to this situation, including reaching to the highest corridors and President Sarkozy. We as Americans, and as part of the global film community, must be prepared to stand together and lobby against the governing bodies of this case.
If you would like your name added to this petition, please email [private address].
I also support you forwarding this email to others in our community to enlist their help and support.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Here is the list of names signing the petition:
1. Woody Allen
2. Woody Allen’s stepdaughter/wife
3. Fatty Arbuckle
If I make a movie you like, can I come over to drug and rape your daughter?
I can’t help but wonder what kind of response you would receive from some of the people who have already signed this absurd petition if this had happened to their 13 year old daughter. I look at some of those names and would expect a full on war to apprehend and sentence the rapist. I can’t imagine the case just going away because the man in fault was a talented filmmaker or because the victim wanted it to go away. The girl was a child and said no, more than once. This petition is ridiculous. The victim 100% testified she was raped and drugged. Just because its been years and the man won an Oscar, has some fancy friends – we should give him a pass? What are these people thinking? If one of their kids were molested, their wife, a family member…they might be signing something different… perhaps documents with the toughest, meanest lawyers in town or maybe hiring a mercenary… Makes my stomach turn.
Agrees with Anonymous.
If it were a Catholic priest who molested a child do you think they would be signing a petition to free Polanski?
I doubt it.
Hollywood is so hyprocrytical sometimes. I just don’t get them.
But it is good to hear that at least 1/2 the people in France are for him being extrodited and returned to the USA to go to jail if need be, and the govt of France is rethinking their support of him.
I think too many people who support Polanski did not read the transcript of what really happend. And now that the trial transcript has been released on the internet people are reading it, and they are getting a better idea of what really happen.. not of what Mr. Polanski or his PR people want you to believe.
We have the rule of law in the USA. He commited and admitted to a crime. He should be punished. And as he jumped bail, and has been gone for 30 yrs, he should be given the max. sentance of Jail time allowed.
Where is the one we sign to make sure he doesn’t get away?
I’m really confused by this strange logic people seem to be using. Well, he successfully avoided jail for 30 years, so we just let him go now. Is this like a game show? He evades for long enough so that means he wins?
Polanski’s main contention for why he ran was that the judge was dishonest. Uhhhh, okaaaay. The judge is dead now. So you can come back and get a fair trial right?
Good analysis from commenter Meg (“this case has a generational component to it”).
In the meantime, “Welcome back to L.A., Roman. Some things have changed while you were away…”
Vick didn’t “mistreat” dogs, he tortured them.
Funny, I never saw this kind of petition when Victor Salva was sent to jail for molesting 12 year old-boys. But then again, Salva isn’t nearly as talented as Polanski, so I guess that’s okay.
For the life of me, I don’t understand how anyone with half a brain would sign a class justice-fostering petition like this. Publicly expressing your support for a sexual predator… Good Lord. I’d expect this sort of lily-livered behavior from the likes of ‘holier-than-thou-arthouse-favorites’ like Schnabel, Argento, Wenders and Salles. But Scorsese? Aronosfky? I thought you’d know better.
Brilliant!!!
If this were a petition for clemency from the judge then ok, it would be an acceptable action to take if you genuinely believe his past sufferings, alleged judicial misisconduct, the victims own wishes etc etc mean he shouldn’t be punished more than the 45 days he has already served. But its not. In my opinion anybody who signs this is essentially stating that a rapist should not have to face justice and account for the crimes he committed because he is a great artiste. How can that be right?
And he is a rapist. He was 42, she was 13 & he knew it. He got her alone in a house, took semi-nude pictures of her, gave her drugs & alcohol & then had sex with her. The only contested fact is whenther she said no at the end of all that. How can that be anything other than repugnant & morally indefensible I do not know. Unless of course we believe that children who do not say no to their abusers are really complicit and so its not a crime?
I agree completely. But for argument’s sake, and to take the position of some of his advocates (misguided though they may be) let’s just say that he had no idea she was underage. If you brought an adult woman to a house alone for a photoshoot, loaded her up with booze and quaaludes, then ignored her as she repeatedly said no and asked to be taken home (despite how insensible you had tried to make her), in this country we’d still call that rape. The fact that she was 13 just makes it far, far worse.
Another popular defense for Polanski is that he was psychologically tested and wasn’t really a pedophile and never reoffended. Am I crazy, or do I remember him having a “relationship” (let’s face it, with her age you can’t really call it that) with Nastassja Kinski when she was only 15? That’s enough of a pattern to at least say there’s some counseling needed, right?
Every defense people bring up just doesn’t hold water. It’s rationalization to defend someone whose professional work they admire. They need to separate the man from the work and acknowledge that good artists can do bad things, and when they do they need to pay for them.
Thanks for the connection to the court documents. Everyone should read those before posting any opinion about Polanski. How can you justify supporting a pervert like him?
Not much to add to the comments above. Anyone signing this petition is a scumbag. Where was the ‘artistic community’ when Theo Van Gogh was murdered for making a movie critical of islam?
Whoopi Goldberg may take the cake for saying on the View that this wasn’t “rape rape”. Thanks for clearing that up, jackass.
Yes, he had a hard life, but lots of holocaust survivors didn’t rape 13-year olds. People who’ve had their wives murdered didn’t go on to rape 13-year olds. No excuses, he could and probably did have sex with anyone he wanted, which makes this rape even worse.
Ah, but how many Holocaust survivors have ALSO had their wives killed?
And by Charles Manson at that?
A gifted filmmaker? Perhaps. A predator and rapist? Definitely. Off to jail with him.
Obviously Polanski didn’t do everything he was required to do under the law since he FLED THE COUNTRY *before* being sentenced. He wouldn’t be a FUGITIVE if he’d done everything he was supposed to do.
If Polanski felt the judge was going to double-cross him, he should do what everyone else has to do when they feel mistreated by the system: fight it FROM THEIR JAIL CELL if necessary.
Being a talented artist doesn’t make you above the law, no matter how much you may have suffered in your lifetime.
Polanski needs to come back and face this. If he’d done that in the 70′s, then this would all be behind him today.
Send his perverted, nasty arse to the pokey!! Do the time child molester.
Ah yes feel sorry for the rapist. What kind of world do we live in? This man has lived in luxury for over 30 years, he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Is anyone surprised Woody Allen would be supportive of having sex with minors?
Yes, let’s make this ALL ABOUT Roman Polanski…Come on, people. The victim has publicly stated that she wants to move on with her life, so can we respect THAT? So tired of reading about how RP is a perv, should do time, blah blah blah. Yeah, he should have. Yes, I agree he is absolutely despicable for what he did. But let’s take a second and think about the other parties involved and respect the victim’s wishes and NOT make it about RP, the police, the legal system, Mike Vick and whatever everyone else is talking about..OJ, whoever.
You mean the victim that received a substantial financial payment? The one who was 13 when this happened and therefore was incapable of consent? That victim. By the way, she is also not the victim in the new charges of fleeing prosection – that would be the People of the State of California and clearly we are not ok with it.
I don’t think in this case it is about what the victim wishes. Who knows what her frame of mind is, and how it was shaped by the crime, and the world she subsequently grew up in. Further, regardless of the victims wishes the perpetrator has to face the consequences of his admitted crime. If he pulled out a gun in a mall, shot a few people, and they said he should go free, does that mean the shooter should walk? Of course it doesn’t. He committed a heinous felony crime, and it is the state and people who sit on a jury who should decide his fate, and not the victim. The victims wishes should perhaps be taken into consideration at sentencing, but should not be the overarching deciding factor as his fate.
How has Polanski “received his punishment and served his time”? He fled the country, in order to escape punishment. Why is it OK for Polanski to flee, but the “creative” types aren’t making the same kind of arguments on behalf of the thousands of other felons who flee each year?
Boycott every film with which these reprobates are involved. It is not okay to rape anyone much less a 13 year old child and it is disgraceful to suggest otherwise as Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodóvar, Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam, Julian Schnabel, the Dardenne brothers, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Wong Kar-Wai, Walter Salles, Jonathan Demme, Tilda Swinton, Monica Bellucci, Asia Argento and Harvey Weinstein are doing.
Disgusting human beings!
Hey Disgusting Pigs – Enjoy your Hannah Montana movies. Oh wait. Miley pole-danced at an awards show just recently. Better yet, turn off the TV and just read your Bible. Oh wait. The Song of Solomon has some pretty strong sexual content. Are you reading this on your computer? Do you know all the graphic content you can get with a few clicks of your mouse??? You should outfit yourself with one of those Tommy deaf dumb & blind kits.
Thank you for posting the names of those signing the petition.
I will boycott, like I boycott woody allen movies.
David Heyman (of harry Potter films) as well as Alfonso Curzon was on the Free Polanski peition list as well. they are amonst my favorite people, but I will boycott unless they retract their support. Because it is wrong to support a pedophile.
What’s wrong with these people? Are they crazy nuts for supporting a pedophile? People forget Polanski hooked up with (14-15 ) yr. old Nataski Kinski after he fled to France.
Sharon Tate was just a girl when he initially hooked up with her as well.
Does anyone see a “pattern” developing here regarding Mr. Polanski?
Why has the name of the email writer been redacted? Obviously this person wants all the names to be made public. It’s not a secret petition, is it?
Perhaps everyone who signs the petition will support Roman by sending their teenage daughters and grand-daughters for conjugal visits. He is a great film-maker after all.
The rest of these moral reprobates are surprising, but Martin Scorsese? Shame.
“An artist creates his own moral universe.”
“Polanski received his punishment and served his time”
Is that a fucking joke? He’s a RAPIST. Shut up, Hollywood. I have never been so disgusted and so ashamed to be part of this community.
His own lawyers, with his arrogant attempt to circumvent the fact that he fled the jurisdiction by overturning his conviction in absentia, brought this on. It would have been moribund if he hadn’t paid lawyers to revive it all. And to add to that arrogance, he now enlists every flaky actor, director and producer he can muster calling in every “festival” and girl and boy party favor he has. This really disgustingly disconnected behavior. Martin Scorsese and the rest of them are as misguided as Ezra Pound. Artists should stay way from influencing real life and stick to imagination.
Completely agree with all of those in favour of the extradition (and yes, I am under 35!). If a 76-year-old priest, for instance, was arrested today for sexual abuse crimes committed 40 years ago, people would not say that sufficient time had passed for his crimes to be forgiven. He did something despicable and fled the consequences.
Priests ask to be held to a higher standard due to their position within with their religious organization. Filmmakers do not typically consider it their job to minister to their audience’s spiritual needs.
The Hollywooders response to this is as expected from a bunch of pedophile loving scum they are. Its almost unbelievable that you are so enamored of the moronic films this guy has made that you will allow him to get off scott free from raping a 13 year old girl. He admitted it you idiots. A Judge is allowed to accept or deny a plea bargain as he or she sees fit. Maybe the DA was bribed by Polanski for a deal. Hey I’ll put you in a movie or buy a script from you. Oh no that would bever happen would it. I was willing to forget the whole thing but now that the hollywooders have reared their hypocritical side again I am for dragging this guy back kicking and screaming into court and throwing the book at him. I find it amusing that hollywooders will make a movie about pedophile priests but don’t make one about their own pedophie director. I am waiting in hopes that someone will decide to film the Polanski rape story and show how he lured the girl into his web though the “casting couch” or “photo-shoot” ruse. Lets see it all on the big screen as he raped her as she cried out “NOOOOO”.
We are talking about a fugitive child rapist here.
fugitive child rapist.
say it again.
fugitive. child rapist.
let it sink in.
ruminate here-
I’ll wait….
fugitive child rapist.
tell me again your excuses for this vile behavior.
FUGITIVE CHILD RAPIST.
that’s ok hollywood. now I know where you stand. I know where I stand. thanks for making yourselves known that you support a FUGITIVE CHILD RAPIST.
That you think that directors are above the law, that it’s ok to rufee, rape and sodomize little thirteen year old children. That includes little boys besides little girls. Because children are children.
And you want me to pay to see your movies?,- because making movies excuses a fugitive child rapist.
thanks for this-you make it so much easier for me to justify bit torrents and prolific downloading.
I think the people that signed this list should really think long and hard about what it means to support a FUGITVE CHILD RAPIST.
a little piece of humanity died inside every person with every signature… because by not punishing the actions of a fugitive child rapist- you are supporting this crime in our society.
Disgusting.