It is hard to overstate how bad a movie “Nine” is. Ostensibly derived from Fellini’s masterpiece “8 1/2″, this musical piece of vulgar trash is an embarrassment to everyone involved in its making. There is not a single memorable song or dance number which makes one wonder what did Harvey Weinstein ever see in the original Broadway production that made him think he could repeat the “Chicago” success? Poor Federico Fellini–rolling over in his grave.

What is even more confusing is why the Hollywood Foreign Press would award this travesty any Golden Globe nominations? Why not just give one to the Victoria Secrets TV special? These clowns are more bought and sold that I imagined.

Did I not predict the return of Award Season Harvey? Yesterday, the Weinstein Co. netted the most Golden Globe noms of any company — and while the proof in the pudding will be the prestige hardware his movies rack up — it does appear Weinstein’s once again ready to mix it up.

“Hold onto your hat. Harvey’s back,” the NYT observed.

Only a couple years ago, Weinstein, who elevated campaigning to an art form at Miramax, sounded detached from the process, telling the same paper “you leave when you’re ahead.”

Now, however, the company is singing a different tune; Weinstein is much more hands-on; he was intimately involved, for example, in the decision to send the “Nine” cast to an “Oprah” taping. Weinstein has particularly high hopes for “Inglourious Basterds”: “We’re going to do a big Academy charge for the film and for Quentin,” he told the NYT.

Everyone: You’ve been warned.

Earlier: What is Harvey going to do? Chase those little gold men.

When I was reporting this Variety story, everyone wondered about Harvey: Will he revert to form this awards season? Can he still pull it off? Can he afford to?

One thing the Weinstein Co. does have is four hopefuls — “Nine,” “The Road,” “Inglourious Basterds” and “Simple Man.” And if anyone will go for it this constrained awards season, Bob Berney predicted, it will be Harvey Weinstein.

Weinstein execs, meanwhile, compare the company’s prospects — and Harvey’s focus on it  – to the Miramax days. We’ll see what happens when push comes to shove.

The MacManus brothers are back after almost a decade! I am surprised the filmmaking universe has given us another Boondock Saints movie. I am very excited to see the new edition of this cult classic because of how awesome the original came into existence.
“The Boondock Saints: All Saints Day” is now showing in theaters, which I think is a surprise in itself. Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus have returned to raise hell on the evil doers of the world. Three exciting casting choices are 1) Judd Nelson 2) Peter Fonda 3) Billy Connolly RETURNS.
However, I am more surprised of how Troy Duffy is still alive. Godfather Weinstein gave Duffy an offer he could not refuse, but than Troy refused it and shoved it up Harvey’s ass. Before you go see Boondocks 2, YOU MUST SEE the documentary about the first Saints film, OVERNIGHT. Your interested and respect for this cult classic will reach a whole new level.

..with Olivia Wilde’s dress at the 2009 GQ Men of the Year Awards. The simple architectural lines and shapes simply looked stunning on her. To no surprise it was a Marchesa dress from the bridal collection. I’ve always loved Marchesa’s dresses and she rocked the dress even when it was created for a blushing bride. Though I would’ve paired the outfit with more interesting shoes,  she was still a showstopper. It also helped that she is incredibly gorgeous. If only I had a botttomless bank account and endless glamourous events to attend, I would wear Marchesa forever. Mark my words.

Unfortunately, Marchesa’s success sparked controversy as co-founder of Marchesa, Georgina Chapman, struggled to prove herself within the fashion industry because of her marital status. Married to mega producer Harvey Weinstein, press publicized that actresses only wore Chapman’s frocks to seal movie deals with Weinstein. Lucky for Chapman, cream always rises to the top, and so she did with her intricate and stunning dresses. In fact, her dresses became more and more breathtaking each season. A woman I greatly admire for her tenacity and creativity.

Former Gucci designer Tom Ford on the set of A Single Man, his new film, to be released later this year by the formerly Excellent Harvey Weinstein. Image approved by the newly Excellent director Tom Ford

Text excerpted, with permission, from TOM FORD: The Repressed Biography (2005) by the Excellent Anonymous.

INTRODUCTION: The Silence of the Lambs

“He controlled everything, not just the design, not just the runway shows, but the stores, the advertising, the packaging, the bags that people carried out the doors, he was a complete control freak, and that’s what made the company successful.”–Patrick McCarthy

“Tom doesn’t want the book to happen.” Someone who was accustomed to, and who enjoyed the luxury of saying no uttered these words authoritatively, with a certain casual threat of impending finality. Lisa Schiek, the former worldwide director of communications at Gucci Group NV, was calling from her London office early one frosty morning last winter to inform me that Tom Ford—the about-to-depart creative director of Gucci and (more recently) Yves Saint Laurent—had declined my request to be interviewed for this book. When informed that the project would move forward with (preferably, hopefully) or without (regrettably, sadly) Tom’s corporation, Schiek’s reply was swift, cordially dismissive, yet matter of fact. “What if Tom calls the publisher?”

“Why?” I asked.

“To tell them not to publish the book,” Schiek said.

“What if Tom called me?” I countered, trying to avoid conflict and explaining that the book was meant to be inspirational to readers and would focus solely on Ford’s work history for Gucci. No hardcore personal details (Just the facts!), no Kitty Kelley-ish prying. Silence. Or was it a snicker? Then: “He’ll just tell all of his friends not to talk to you.”  End of discussion. The Guru of Gucci, the King of Cool, the Lord of 1990s Luxe, had spoken, his wish and command delivered by one of his highly paid disciples.

Tom Ford in book form.

And so it came to pass that mum was the word from a host of “Friends of Tom”: fashion industry professionals and power brokers contacted to comment on his stellar and illustrious career at Gucci. First to refuse was Cathy Hardwick, the woman who gave Ford his first break as a young would-be designer in 1986 (“What I saw was Heaven,” Hardwick said of Ford in 1995 when he received his first International Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. “He had such a fantastic presence, a beautiful face, and elegant hands. I hired him 10 minutes later!”). Tim Blanks, host of Fashion Television, when first contacted, enthusiastically agreed to be interviewed, offering both his office and personal cell phone numbers, but a few days later emailed to say that he was saving his thoughts and comments about Ford for his own Tom Ford project. Kal Ruttenstein, fashion director of Bloomingdale’s and Scott Tepper, fashion director of Henri Bendel didn’t return repeated calls. Kate Betts, a former editor of Harper’s Bazaar, now editor of Time, Inc’s Life and Style magazine offered her expertise as someone who had written extensively about Ford, but once she found out it wasn’t a Ford-sanctioned project changed her mind, as did many others.

Harold Koda, chief curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum  of Art, which in 2003 mounted the very well attended and profitable “Goddess” exhibition, sponsored in part by the Gucci Group, was unavailable when contacted. He was traveling in Europe, where he was surely to see Tom, from whom he would, possibly, seek permission to speak with me I was informed. “He and Tom are good friends and unless Tom aggress, he won’t be able to speak to you,” said a spokeswoman for the Costume Institute, which has a sizable collection of Tom Ford for Gucci pieces in its permanent collection. Dawn Mello, who was brought in to help revive Gucci back in 1990, and who is widely credited with hiring Ford (although later disposed of “Kremlin-style” by Gucci in 1994, according to a fashion journalist with knowledge of the situation) first checked with Ford and, after being warned, refused to speak.

Tom Ford

Former assistants and design team colleagues of Ford also wouldn’t go on the record.  Francisco Costa, the new head designer at Calvin Klein and formerly an assistant to Ford at Gucci demurred through a company publicist, though he was kind enough to wish me the best with the project. Photographers Mario Testino, Terry Richardson, and ad man Doug Lloyd, who conceived and worked on many of Gucci’s most iconic advertising campaigns followed suit. Andrea Gonzalex, alumni director of Santa Fe Prep, the New Mexico preparatory school attended by Thomas R. Ford (Class of ’79) refused to comment, after at first offering to supply me with a a copy of Santa Fe Prep Magazine to which Ford had recently granted an interview (‘It’s in the public domain,” she had originally said. “That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll mail it to you.”). The offer was kindly rescinded after she phoned the Gucci offices in London. “I’ve spoken with Tom’s office and we cannot take part in any project that is not approved by him,” was her official statement before quickly hanging up the phone when I called to check on the estimated arrival date of the promised magazine. The list goes on. Hundreds of phone calls where made, as many faxes were sent, emails languished in the ether of the chicest computer networks in the top fashion capitals of the world.

It’s understandable, perhaps. It’s predictable, certainly. After all, with Ford’s career in flux and while tout le monde contemplates his next move, no one wants to offend him by saying anything good or bad (unless whispered sotto voce) about him. After all, there are photo ops to be had at the next fashion awards show, there are private dinners to attend in Paris, London, Los Angeles, New York, New Mexico or other locations where the jet-setting Tom Ford might find himself on any given day. There are front row invitations to the next Ford fashion show to covet and consider –all important matters to a true-blooded fashionista.

So, how to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? This book is a look at Tom Ford the way that he, perhaps, would, most likely, prefer it, a look at his career and work history through his eyes and the words and images that he has projected, through his collections and advertising campaigns for Gucci. This work has propelled him into the pop culture lexicon. It is a brief study of “Tom Ford for Gucci,” as the magazine credits mysteriously (yet purposely) began to read a few years ago. Now that all the post Gucci hubbub and the backstage, backbiting whispers about him have somewhat  died down; now that the heartfelt and bitter tears over his departure from the Gucci Group have dried up, it is now time to examine the fashion legacy of Tom Ford. Not Tom Ford the man, but Tom Ford the icon. The following words will do just that.

TO BE CONTINUED…

My two favorite quotes of the day:

“Having a free online ‘printing press’ doesn’t turn you into a journalist anymore than your laser printer did.”

and

“Citizen journalists are almost as good as citizen dentists.”

…both come from a funny little thing here about “saving journalism,” and while I don’t fully agree with the criticism of bloggers/blogging/bloggery, I do find it funny. Personally, an insecure girl in middle America who takes naughty photos of herself and writes online about her secret fantasies and finds that her medium is the internet, not verbal communication with the “real world,” is just as worthy of internetting as a licensed and certifiable hipster who writes about bands that have more novelty value than listenability. But everything is different for everyone and the world/the internet/reality is a big enough sandbox for all. If you read the internet, read what you read. If you write on the internet, write what you write. Journalism will live or die as it needs to.

Though that “citizen dentists” line is still hilarious to me, sorry.

You know, I pretty much slept through the entire balloon boy story today, but it sounds like it was really interesting for a few minutes. Like a childhood fantasy gone crraazzzy. For the kid, I mean. As a new story, it seems kind of annoying.

What Whoopi Goldberg, Harvey Weinstein, etc. are saying in their outrage over the arrest of Roman Polanski.

Oh, and following in the illustrious footsteps of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and… Ben Affleck, the new Captain Kirk is Jack Ryan.

from here.

By Alexa Milan

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard about filmmaker Roman Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland on Sept. 26.

Polanski was initially arrested in America in 1977 on charges of rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act on a child under 14 and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor after he drugged and raped then 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. Geimer’s attorney offered Polanski a plea bargain, and he pleaded guilty to engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

Afraid of imprisonment, Polanski fled to Europe, settling in France where he held citizenship and consequently avoided being extradited back to the U.S. He has been living there in exile for 30 years, escaping being sentenced for his crimes. But when he was finally arrested in Switzerland a few weeks ago, Hollywood mostly responded with outrage.

Swiss filmmaker Otto Weisser immediately jumped to his defense, saying “This is for me a shock. I am ashamed to be Swiss, that the Swiss is doing such a thing to brilliant fantastic genius, that millions and millions of people love his work. He’s a brilliant guy, and he made a little mistake 32 years ago. What a shame for Switzerland.”

A little mistake? I’m sorry but I honestly don’t get the uproar in Hollywood surrounding Polanski’s arrest. To me, rape is rape, no matter how famous you are and no matter how old the charges. Millions of people may love his work, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s a rapist.

Mere days after his arrest, 130 filmmakers and actors from across the globe signed a petition demanding Polanski’s release, including industry heavyweights like Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Ethan Coen, Harvey Weinstein, Darren Aronofsky, Pedro Almodovar, Penelope Cruz and Tilda Swinton.

Actress and Zurich Film Festival Jury President Debra Winger said “We stand by and await his release and his next masterwork.”

The argument of most of his supporters is that a) he’s a brilliant filmmaker, b) the case is 30 years old, c) he’s served his time by living in exile and d) he’s had a terrible past, including the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by followers of Charles Manson in 1969.

I agree that he’s a great filmmaker. I do feel sorry for him for the loss he has experienced in his past. But I find it a bit disturbing that so many people in the film industry think Polanski absolutely deserves to get off for raping a 13-year-old girl. A few celebrities have spoken out against Polanski, like Kirstie Alley and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but his supporters have been much more vocal.

What kind of message are these widely respected and award-winning filmmakers and actors sending to people? That’s it’s perfectly fine to commit a crime as serious as child rape as long as you’re famous and talented? That if you’ve avoided arrest for a serious crime for years people should just drop it? I don’t see his exile in Europe as a substitute for serving time in prison – I see it as Polanski being a coward, too afraid to own up to a serious crime. Maybe I’m naive, but I just don’t understand how Hollywood can look the other way at child rape.

Maybe one day Polanski will finally be extradited and arrested. Or maybe he’ll be another name on the list of celebrities who have avoided jail time any average person would have had to serve immediately because he’s famous and talented.

What do you think? Should Polanski finally go to jail for raping a child 30 years ago? Or has his time in exile been punishment enough? Sound off in the comments section.

Who ever thought Kirstie Alley would be the voice of reason?

The actress has slammed the deluge of Hollywood stars that are supporting acclaimed film director, Roman Polanski, following his recent arrest on the 1976 charges for drugging and having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Polanski, 76, who is currently being held in Switzerland and facing extradition to America, has garnered the backing of the Hollywood elite, including Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, Harvey Weinstein and Whoopi ‘rape-rape’ Goldberg. 

Alley condemned both the ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ director and her Hollywood counterparts in a series of impassioned rants via her Twitter account:

“JUST FOR THE RECORD….RAPE IS RAPE…this is one HOLLYWOOD STAR who does not CELEBRATE or DEFEND Roman Polanski..his ART did not RAPE her.”

“THERE is NO SUCH THING AS CONSENSUAL SEX with a 13-year-old girl..it is RAPE and Polanski is a Coward. HE made 2 bad choices RAPE and FLEE.”

“Now HERE is a MOVIE.a Director who is still revered and defended after RAPING a 13-year-old girl.who still is awarded Movies highest honors.”

“And what makes ANYONE think this was his ONLY offense? pedophiles [sic] NEVER strike once..may ONLY be CAUGHT once..guarantee not 1st offense.”

“You can always tell when you have pedophiles on line..they covertly defend the perpetrators..YOU are not unseen and you are NOT forgiven.”

“We are NOT in the barter business of trading BRILLIANT movies in exchange for heinous crimes against children..NOT the point. NOT HOLLYWOOD.”

CO-SIGN! I think Kirstie is my hero. It’s about time someone in Hollywood stood up for what is right.

Drugging, raping and sodomising a child is apparently acceptable in LaLa Land where allowances are made for ‘genius’. I am disturbed by those defending this pedophile, I wonder if they would feel differently if it was an average 45-year-old man raping their 13-year-old daughter? 

Nikki Finke, as imagined by The New Yorker

I’ve previously posted at length on Nikki Finke and her divisive role in New Hollywood — see also Alisa Perren’s nice take on the strife (and lack of public attention) around the war between Finke, Variety, and industry bloggers David Poland (The Hot Blog), Sharon Waxman (The Wrap), and Kim Masters (The Daily Beast).

My earlier post was incited by a short by succinct article on Finke by The New York Times.  Yesterday, The New Yorker went live with a new article, available here (don’t worry, it’s not behind the pay wall), that has incited a bit of a Hollywood shitstorm, most of it fueled by Finke’s own incendiary rebuttal.

The article was authored by Tad Friend, a NYer staff writer who often pens the “Letter from California” or “Letter from Hollywood” section of the magazine.  The article, available on newsstands today, is part of the magazine’s annual “Money Issue” — and explains why the piece takes the tact that it does, reporting on Finke’s leverage within the industry of Hollywood (as opposed to, say, a gossip columnist’s leverage in celebrity culture).

For me, there are several salient points of the article:

1.) Nikki Finke is not, or at least is no longer, a journalist.  She feels no need to heed journalistic ‘ethics,’ however one defines them.

2.) Nikki Finke is not a gossip columnist.

3.) Nikki Finke does not care about movies, per se.

4.) Nikki Finke cares about power, reputation, and melodrama.

In other words, the comparison between her and the “unholy three” gossip mavens — Friend enumerates them as Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, and Sheilah Graham — is, like the New York Times‘ comparison to Walter Winchell, off the mark.

We love to tell stories — and write profiles — by evoking the personas of others:  George Clooney is the new Cary Grant (I did that one myself); Lady Gaga is the new Madonna; Angelina Jolie is the new Elizabeth Taylor.  Journalistic profiles especially take this tact: either by photographing the celebrity/persona in a manner evocative of other historical figures (one of Annie Leibowitz/Vanity Fair’s favorite traditions) or dropping specific allusions throughout the article.

But such comparisons leave much to be desired, especially as all four of the classic gossip columinsts were working in classic Hollywood — and the stakes, not to mention the ‘rules’ — were incredibly different.  Winchell dealt with New York cafe society and, to some extent, Hollywood; the others were concerned with the studios and the stars employed by them.

By contrast,  Finke writes about money, agents, deals, and massive media conglomerates with international holdings across film, television, print, new media, and hardware.  The old school columnists wrote for the public at large; Finke writes specifically for the industry — and does not deign to modify her style to an Entertainment Weekly/Tonight-style industry news.

Finally, Finke is ridiculously brazen.  So were the other columnists, but none would have dared to have posted the following:

I’m too superficial to read The New Yorker because it’s so unrelentingly boring. Even the cartoons suck these days. So back in 2008, soon after the writers strike ended, I said no when The New Yorker first approached me to cooperate for a profile. Fast forward to this summer, when the mag was desperate to liven up this week’s dullsville “Money Issue” with some Tinseltown mockery.

Or further indict the publication for collusion/hypocrisy:

I found Tad Friend, who covers Hollywood from Brooklyn, easy to manipulate, as was David Remnick, whom I enjoyed bitchslapping throughout but especially during the very slipshod factchecking process. (Those draconian Conde Nast budget cuts have deflated the infamous hubris of this New Jersey dentist’s son.) But I wasn’t the only one able to knock out a lot of negative stuff in the article without even one lawyer letter, email, or phone call. I witnessed how The New Yorker really bent over for Hollywood. NYC power publicist Steven Rubenstein succeeded in deleting every reference to Paramount’s Brad Grey. Warner Bros and Universal and DreamWorks and William Morris/Endeavor and Summit Entertainment execs and flacks and consultants also had their way with the mag. (They were even laughing about it. When I asked one PR person what it took to convince Tad to take out whole portions of the article, the response was, “I swallowed.”)

Or, for that matter, drop the C-bomb — first by putting the word in Weinstein’s mouth, and then by appropriating it herself:

At Harvey Weinstein’s personal behest, his description of me as a “cunt” became “jerk”. (Then the article would have contained two references to me as a “cunt” in addition to its four uses of ”fuck”. Si Newhouse must be so proud…) And so on. Now remember, readers: you, too, can make The New Yorker your buttboy. Just act like a cunt and treat Remnick like a putz and don’t give a fuck.

Of course, all of this is, as my former adviser and secret gossip aficionado Michael Aronson pointed out, part of Finke’s own plan to a.) direct massive amounts of traffic to her site and b.) reify her image.  She’s already known within the industry as cutthroat and crude — the article, and her response to it, simply amplify that image, making it available for (quasi) popular consumption.

Finke will never be Perez Hilton, but she does live and report on Hollywood, which has enjoyed a long and spirited feud with New York.  Indeed, as Anne Thompson, Finke, and others point out, Friend’s “Letter from Hollywood” only highlights how out of touch even a reporter tasked with knowing the business really is.  He’s an outsider — and will remain so.  A tourist on sunny vacation, believing what’s whispered in his ear as truth.

Interestingly, I think both Hollywood (embodied by Finke, Thompson, Variety, and all the other industry bloggers and journalists) and New York (represented here by The New Yorker) are suffering from inferiority complexes, perhaps rooted in the fact that neither industry (Hollywood or New York Publishing) have figured out how to monetize their old media forms in the new media environment, perhaps best evidenced by Variety’s plans to move back to a pay wall, The Hollywood Reporter going from a daily to a weekly, and today’s announcement that Conde Naste was eliminating Gourmet.  Even Finke, who sold her site to mail.com for a reported $10 million, gets relatively little traffic — granted, most of it is very loyal, but we’re not talking huge ad dollars.

This brings us back to Alisa Perren’s interesting observation about the non-hoopla over the ‘brawl’ between these entities — sure, Finke, Thompson, Variety, and all these other players hate each other; sure, Ari Emanuel colludes with Finke and alienates other parts of Hollywood; sure, Finke said she ‘bitchslapped’ the editor-in-chief of one of the nation’s long-established high brow weeklies.

But does any of it matter when T-Mobile’s Sidekick service is down, one of the Real Housewives of Atlanta’s ex-fiance was murdered, and there’s sweet zombie movie in theaters?  This is great gossip for those of us interested in the machinations of Hollywood and media more generally, but rather banal for everyone else.  That’s why Finke is not Winchell, Hopper, or Parsons: those columnists had loyal audiences numbering in the millions.  Their subtle insinuations may not have always been legible to those not ‘in the know,’ but their gossip about clothes, romance, and betrayal was still readily consumable and spurred discussion in circles outside of The Ivy.

The question, then, is if Nikki Finke swears up a storm and no one, or at least relatively no one, really hears her, does it even make a sound?  I suppose the answer would be yes: posts Finke writes and deals she scoops have real ramifications on the types of media that we consume.  But I’m still dubious as to whether or not Finke is a gossip so much as a power-hungry, popularity-obsessed instigator.  She doesn’t make public appearances, but that simply ups her rep.  Again, I’m tempted to make the comparison to Lew Wasserman, who eschewed publicity and, like Finke, had but one or two photos of himself in public circulation — and still controlled Hollywood for much of the postclassical period.  But Wasserman was an agent, actually making deals and profiting off of them — and Finke is just writing about them and calling names.  Which doesn’t necessarily make her less influential — of all people, I celebrate and appreciate the tremendous power of discourse — but does, in some ways, put her in perspective.

She never stumbles,
She’s got no place to fall.
She’s nobody’s child,
The Law can’t touch her at all.

It’s taken 32 years, but the long arm of the law has finally caught up with Roman Polanski. Last week authorities in Switzerland arrested the infamous filmmaker as he arrived at the Zurich airport en route to a lifetime achievement award. The arrest clears the way for Polanski’s possible extradition to the United States in connection with three-decade-old sex case involving a 13-year-old girl, a bag of Quaaludes, a couple bottles of booze and a hot tub in the basement of one of the silver screen’s more notoriously lecherous leading men.

The drug addled evening resulted in Polanski being indicted on rape, child molesting and sodomy felony charges. But as salacious as the facts surrounding the case are, the act that has perhaps set off the most enduring indignation is what Polanski did next.

Fearing the judge was planning to renege on a plea bargain deal that would result in Polanski going to prison, the director fled the country, effectively embarking on a 32-year rebuke of the American judicial system.

As a result, Polanski has lived his life on the lamb for the last three decades, managing to remain just beyond the reach of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, who has never given up on bringing the dodgy director back to justice.

To hear Sandi Gibbons, a spokesperson for the DA’s office, describe it the pursuit of Polanski is not that far off from a plot line culled from the popular TV series, The Fugitive: “Any time word is received that Mr. Polanski is planning to be in a country that has an extradition treaty with the U.S., we go through diplomatic channels with the arrest warrant.” Unfortunately for Mr. Polanski, it would appear Switzerland has such a treaty.

Polanski’s unexpected detainment at the Zurich airport last week has re-ignited a firestorm around the controversial director. But in an ironic twist, the discussion has not centered on Mr. Polasnki’s guilt, forgiveness by the victim, or even morals, for that matter. Instead, the issue at the center of this maelstrom revolves around something far more complicated: celebrity.

Long before committing the egregious act of forcibly sodomizing a 13-year-old girl, Hollywood was a staunch Polanski supporter. Even after Polanski admitted to drugging and then raping Samantha Geimer, the 13-year-old ingénue in question, Hollywood remained firmly in Polanski’s corner. In Hollywood, it seemed the paradigm of justice apparently was seen through a different prism: Ignore the act, put aside the judicial wrongdoings, and look at the real tribulation here— Mr. Polanski’s own tragedy-laden life.

Throughout his 1977 trial, Hollywood came out in droves to support the disgraced director. To them—and presumably to us—Mr. Polanski’s decision to flee only made sense. After all, how could a man whose family fell victim to the annihilating horrors of the Holocaust, a man cast as the primary suspect in the murder of his own wife— how could a man so wronged and maligned ever trust the legal system to give him a fair shake?

Thirty-two years later, Hollywood has come out again. The list of supporters lending Polanski their support reads like the A-list from one of the town’s top talent agencies. And while dozens have come to Polanski’s defense, the comments of Miramax Chairman, Harvey Weinstein, and comedian, Whoopi Goldberg, were especially effusive.

Upon hearing the latest chapter in Polanski’s ongoing personal morality play, Weinstein claimed: “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion.”

Ms. Goldberg did Weinstein one better when she rationalized Polanski’s actions this way: “I don’t believe it was ‘rape-rape’.” Right, and when Whoopi was sexually molested at the age of 14 and decided to perform an abortion on herself with a coat hanger, she did that because she was only ‘a little bit pregnant.’

There is no question artists are held to a different standard. Considering the fact they possesses an incredible, almost intangible ability to shine a light on the parts of our lives that bring us vast joy and immense pain, in all fairness, they have to a large part earned that distinction. But pointing to Polanski’s brilliance as a film director does not dismiss the fact he is a pedophile, a pariah and a fugitive from the law.

Yes, Polanski’s lived the high life for the last 32 years by being permitted to travel throughout Europe unfettered and undisturbed; yes, he was all but canonized by his cohorts in Hollywood in 2002 when they bestowed on him the Oscar for Best Picture for ‘The Piano’; and, yes, he is a genius— tortured, tormented and tirelessly beset by demons.

And while Roman Polanski’s tormented past may explain his actions the night he lured a 13-year-old girl to Jack Nicholson’s Hollywood hideaway home, drugged her, and then preceeded to commit one of the heinous crimes conceivable— it in no way justifies it. Even if he is an artist…

She’s got everything she needs,
She’s an artist, she don’t look back.
She can take the dark out of the nighttime
And paint the daytime black.

The Boston Herald’s Margery Eagan and the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout got it exactly right:

Roman Polanski is a rapist.

Despite what his Hollywood posse might want to think is a “so-called crime” (thank you, despicable Harvey Weinstein), Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

And he should pay the price for what he did.

Period.

I’d resisted writing anything about the Roman Polanski situation because thinking about him makes me physically ill. Still, the only thing worse than what that man did is the so-called Hollywood elite riding to his defense. Harvey Weinstein — a man well known for the ethical and above reproach way he conducts his business — launched this little gem (as quoted in the LA Times).

“In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He’s not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion,” Weinstein said. “We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe.””

Oh yeah. When disaster hits, we can count on Hollywood to boldly rearrange their schedules and show up for a well-lit photo-op. Thanks guys. Don’t know how we did it without you.

As for Polanski himself, here’s a little thought experiment:

In a parallel universe, Father Roman Polanski of the Los Angeles diocese drugs and anally rapes a 13-year old altar boy. He then flees to Europe before sentencing where the powerful Catholic Church proceeds to shuffle him from parish to parish to keep him away from the law. All other facts of the case remain the same.

In 2009, he’s arrested at a Catholic Bishop’s conference in Switzerland.

Are we still defending him?

Where is Jack Webb when we really need him?

this is unverified. but according to a commentor on the deadline hollywood daily blog, the list of petition signers (hollywood supporters of polanski) just keeps growing. this is a cut and past job. perhaps a few of these people forgot to read the court case. the smoking gun has reposted the original documents and the victim’s testimony.

so forgive us for duplicating names from the previous post:

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

Barring the cursory link in yesterday’s edition of Eye Browse, I had meant to avoid the Roman Polanski affair altogether. In any case, I thought Amit Varma had said all that needed to be said on the subject in his post of yesterday: Polanski made some great movies, which we watched and admired; Polanski raped an underage girl, and needs to pay a price for it. The two are not connected, a capacity to produce great art does not inoculate you from the consequences of your illegal actions.

Apropos, Hariharan Rahul in course of an email discussion among friends posted a link to this essay by George Orwell, in course of which he makes this point:

In an age like our own, when the artist is an altogether exceptional person, he must be allowed a certain amount of irresponsibility, just as a pregnant woman is. Still, no one would say that a pregnant woman should be allowed to commit murder, nor would anyone make such a claim for the artist, however gifted. If Shakespeare returned to the earth to-morrow, and if it were found that his favourite recreation was raping little girls in railway carriages, we should not tell him to go ahead with it on the ground that he might write another King Lear.

Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill underlines the ridiculousness of the ongoing furor over Polanski’s arrest:

But the miles of newspaper commentary and feverish diplomatic activity that greeted his arrest in Switzerland have not really been concerned with the facts of the case, the question of legal precedents, or the issue of justice. Instead, Polanski has been turned into a symbol. For conservatives, still convinced that the Sixties are the root of all evil, he is symbolic of the perversions allegedly unleashed by the naked, hippyish, free-love liberations of the countercultural period, with his rape of a 13-year-old girl seen virtually as the logical end product of legalising drug use and encouraging people to be sexually experimental. For liberals he is a symbol of tortured European artistry, who is now being victimised by an ‘ugly’ and ‘prudish’ America which doesn’t appreciate great art (1). For American officials, Polanski is symbolic of European degeneracy and they fantasise that returning him to an American jail will be a victory for Reaganite decency over French moral turpitude. For French officials, meanwhile, Polanski is a symbol of Europe’s gallant recovery from its dark past (Polanski and his family, Polish Jews, were persecuted during the Holocaust), who is now being tortured anew by ‘the darker side of America, the side that scares us all’ (2). Just as Mia Farrow’s Rosemary was a vessel for the devil in Rosemary’s Baby, so Polanski has been turned into a vessel for all sorts of political jibber jabber today.

It is striking how quickly the discussion of what Polanski, one man, did to Samantha Gailey, one girl, in a bedroom in 1977 twists and turns into a discussion about competing moral values and even clashing national standards.

Salon’s Kate Harding put it with the brutal force it deserves at a time when the core issues are being hidden under a cloud of obfuscatory commentary:

Roman Polanski raped a child. Let’s just start right there, because that’s the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in “exile” (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never — poor baby — being able to return to the U.S.). Let’s keep in mind that Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she’d rather not see him prosecuted because she can’t stand the media attention. Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let’s take a moment to recall that according to the victim’s grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, “No,” then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Can we do that? Can we take a moment to think about all that, and about the fact that Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, before we start talking about what a victim he is? Because that would be great, and not nearly enough people seem to be doing it.

A simple call to make, you would think if you read the victim’s testimony at the time of the original trial. ‘Liberal’ Hollywood apparently has other ideas. Exemplar in chief of the ‘alternate view’ is Whoopi Goldberg, who on The View says what Polanski did was not actually “rape rape” – a supreme WTF moment if ever there was one. Here, watch:

That is a scary, alternate moral universe Goldberg inhabits, where rape goes from being an absolute to being parsed into several shadings, with the question of criminal culpability dependent on questions such as whether the victim was ‘aware’ it was taking place.

What, rape is not rape if the victim is aware that she is getting fucked front and back despite her constant cries of ‘No’?

Goldberg, too, advances the bizarre argument that it is perfectly valid for a criminal to skip the country if he figures the penal consequences of his crime are more than he wants to accept — which is if anything even worse than her “rape rape” rant.

Goldberg is not the only Hollywood celeb lured into loony territory – the list includes Debra Winger, Monica Belluci, Wong Kar Wai and others [Jazz Shaw in The Moderate Voice underlines the ridiculousness of Goldberg and Winger on the one hand championing the cause of women, and on the other suggesting that maybe Polanski raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl was a minor peccadillo not worth fussing over]. And then there’s Harvey Weinstein, first person, in the Independent:

Roman Polanski is a man who cares deeply about his art and its place in this world. What happened to him on his incredible path is filled with tragedy, and most men would have collapsed. Instead, he became a great artist and continues to make great films.

Harvey Weinstein [who incidentally produced the is presumably a man who cares deeply about the art and craft of film-making, and has produced some great films. So? How does that translate into immunity for rape -- or even, to use Goldberg's new formulation, "rape rape"? Weinstein further says:

It is a shocking way to treat such a man. Polanski went through the Holocaust and the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson family. How do you go from the Holocaust to the Manson family with any sort of dignity? In those circumstances, most people could not contribute to art and make the kind of beautiful movies he continues to make.

Everyone from Nietzsche to Kanye West say tragedy produces great art -- but to stretch that into 'tragedy produces great art and therefore excuses great crimes' is a reach that requires an extremely elastic moral code to make.

Weinstein, incidentally, produced the 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, that purports to investigate the 1978 case and inter alia, raises questions about consent laws and century-specific sexual mores [which IMHO is a whole other and possibly valid argument, but one that does not apply to the case in point -- what part of 'no means no' is so hard to get? Polanski would have been equally guilty had the victim been 18, or 28, or 48]:

The apologists harp on how the legal system treated Polanski unfairly, and why therefore he was right to flee as he did — an argument that, carried to its logical extreme, could as easily be used by a Dawood Ibrahim to justify hiding out in Pakistan, or indeed by any bail jumper who skips out rather than pay the prescribed price for his actions.

Hey, if you think the case was mishandled, or the judge got it wrong, isn’t that what the appellate process is for?