I am loath to bring up the arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland on an old U.S. warrant, because I generally find that referring up the director's legal history in this country accomplishes very little besides giving a certain number of individuals the opportunity to puff up their chests and get humoungously righteous. I will note, for the heck of it, a commenter on a Facebook thread who, apropos the arrest, giddily pronounced "...we've all been waiting for justice here in America!" This struck me as funny, because recently I've been reading about that dude in Texas who was, like, totally put to death by the state despite being all, like, not guilty of a crime and stuff. And I wonder where's the frothing at the mouth about that? But that's just me. It probably really only has something to do with my pathetic inability to include myself in the "we" that's all been waiting for justice in America. Sad.
UPDATE: Kim Morgan's consideration of Polanski's art—specifically his practically-feminist Repulsion—is well worth checking out, its slightly in-your-face title notwithstanding. When I wrote about Criterion's great DVD of Repulsion back in July, I noted: "I'll leave it to others to ruminate on the irony of Polanski having made two of the best, most sensitive pictures about how a patriarchal society can crush women: this one and Tess, filmed in 1979 after Polanski's departure from the United States."
I think Mr. Merk's is an apt comment on which to close this thread. Although I do want to reassure DUH that I'm not taking his first comment personally. I mean, I did take it personally, obviously, but I don't at all hold it against him. And that will be that, here, for now.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | October 01, 2009 at 02:14 PM