“To love a film by Roman Polanski, as I know from other irate readers, is to guarantee that you will be accused of going easy on a criminal,” writes Manohla Dargis in a 9.21 N.Y. Times piece that appeared in Sunday’s print edition (i.e., the day before yesterday).
“Some of this anger can be blamed on avid Polanski supporters who assert that he did nothing wrong, or that he’s an old man now and has suffered enough. And, true, that Swiss chalet of his where he stayed after he was arrested in Switzerland in 2009 while waiting to hear if he would be deported to America sure looked as chilly as a medieval dungeon.
“Some Polanski apologists repellently portray his victim as a culpable seducer rather than a 13-year-old who was drugged and marinated in booze. Others trivialize statutory rape, never mind that their opinions are legally immaterial. Some detractors remain insistent that he should return to America to face judgment, as do I.
“Mr. Polanski belongs to a long line of liars, adulterers, sadists and slaves, wife beaters, rapists, miscellaneous miscreants and even murderers who helped make Hollywood great.”
Am I reading this correctly? Manohla Dargis, film critic for the N.Y. Times, feels that the great Roman Polanski should man up and fly to Los Angeles and surrender himself to prosecutors, face the political-cultural music, and most likely do some time? 34 years after the offense? Despite his having already done 42 days in Chino?
