House commenter and contributor Brendon Bouzard speaks from the heart about the Roman Polanski situation. An excerpt:
"As I saw from an e-mail this morning, and I see in this post on Jezebel, a bevy of major international and Hollywood filmmakers have signed various petitions in support of Roman Polanski, asking for the Swiss government to release him. The argument this petition seems to make is that Polanski is a great artist, and how dare they use his lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival to arrest him, and so and so forth.
"Many of the filmmakers who have signed this petition are people whose work I’ve greatly admired over the years – people like David Lynch, the Dardenne Brothers, Pedro Almodovar. It’s so difficult for me to reconcile the Lynch who made Mulholland Drive, a cinematic criticism of the way that Hollywood and the film industry mistreats and abuses women with the Lynch that would sign a petition like this. Or the Almodovar who made Volver, a film about the strength of women in the aftermath of sexual molestation. Or the Dardennes who have made such strongly moral films about crime and the need for absolution and repentance."
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3 comments:
Or, of course, Polanski himself, who's made a number of films about women and abuse: Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Tess. I suppose what one says in one's art does not necessarily carry over into the artist's own life.
I completely agree with Brendon. It disheartens me to see so many directors whom I admire and respect-Scorsese, Lynch, Aldomovar, etc.-sticking up for a man who raped a child and then fled the country to avoid being punished for his crime. While he's undoubtedly an important and greatly talented filmmaker(Chinatown is one of my favorite movies of all time),that doesn't excuse his reprehensible behavior as a human being and he needs to face the consequences of his actions.
I have to agree with the others.
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