ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED – The Truth Matters

Marina Zenovich’s film, despite what the date of its Polish premiere might have suggested, was not an attempt to capitalize on the sensation surrounding Roman Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland on September 26, 2009. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired had its world premiere in January 2008 at the famous Sundance Film Festival. It is a paradox that reality itself decided to write an epilogue to the story that Zenovich tried to tell from the distance provided by the time that had passed since the dramatic events of 1977. The core of the documentary is the facts that led the director to flee the United States.

We often forget who Polanski was when the fateful events took place. For Poles, trapped in the darkness of communism, he was just another refugee who managed to stay in the West. What set him apart from others was that he achieved a success of such magnitude that, apart from certain circles, no one could fully appreciate it at the time. By 15 years after Knife in the Water, Repulsion, and the American successes of Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, he was no longer an unknown figure from the second rank of European filmmakers. With 11 Oscar nominations for Chinatown just two years earlier and a nomination for the Palme d’Or for The Tenant in 1976, Polanski was at the peak of his professional career and creative possibilities. Film studios were fighting for him, and he could have any actor and any available budget at his disposal. In short, the entire film world lay at his feet.

Directors, even the greatest ones, almost always remained in the shadow of the stars appearing in their films. But not Polanski, not since 1968, when Rosemary’s Baby hit theaters. He was then recognized as the enfant terrible of the Hollywood film scene and became public enemy number one for conservative circles. First, he was the “mumbling dwarf” from behind the Iron Curtain, and second, he had an appetite for life that was unparalleled even in Hollywood, as his friends euphemistically put it. Additionally, after the premiere of Rosemary’s Baby, accusations arose about his links to Satanism. In the 1960s, the Church of Satan, led by the famous “black pope,” Anton Szandor LaVey, was at the peak of its popularity in the U.S. Rosemary’s Baby caused a hysteria that, in hindsight, could probably only be compared to Orson Welles’ famous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Polanski was accused of belonging to the Church of Satan, and it was alleged that he hired LaVey himself to play the devil in the rape scene involving Mia Farrow’s character.

He became a synonym for decadence and corruption in Hollywood. The media “got to know” him better than any other director, also due to another tragic event in his life – the death of Sharon Tate at the hands of the Charles Manson family. Zenovich also refers to this event, outlining the backdrop for the media spectacle that followed. The press, “carried away” by Rosemary’s Baby, wrote about this macabre event in Roman’s life as if he alone were responsible for the massacre, and even as if he were its perpetrator. The director himself bitterly recalls this in his bestselling autobiography Roman by Polanski. On this fertile ground, prepared by years of media activity, the seed of a moral scandal was planted – the accusation of having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl, which is defined as rape under California law.

From that moment on, he became not only a tabloid figure but the embodiment of Satan himself, onto whom all the mass media pounced, from society columnists to New York Times reporters. Zenovich reminds us of the huge sensation this scandal caused, the madness that took over the media for weeks, and how the lawyers of the three parties involved (besides the prosecutor and Polanski’s lawyer, also the representative of Samantha Gailey) and Judge Rittenband, who was tasked with making a decision in this case, had to act under tremendous public pressure demanding crucifixion. The media behind-the-scenes of events from over 40 years ago are crucial to understanding Polanski’s motivations and the decision he ultimately made.

However, it is hard to say that Zenovich’s vision is perfectly impartial, that it is a cold analysis of facts, after which the author allows the audience to decide whether we will stand by the director’s side or join the chorus of moralists demanding his head. It seems that, in accordance with the art of documentary filmmaking, on one hand, we have direct quotes from interrogations, a list of charges brought against him in court, details of his sexual encounter with Samantha Gailey, and on the other, frequent references to Roman’s wartime experiences, his lack of personal role models, life under communism, and the tragic experiences of his later life. The balance seems to be maintained, but Zenovich subtly lets the audience know, through small gestures, that in the life of such an outstanding creator as Polanski, the art he creates should take precedence and, to some extent, justifies and balances his reprehensible private behavior.

It is also hard not to get the impression that the documentary as a whole nudges the viewer toward a resolution; it gently pushes them toward understanding and forgiveness. Whether intentionally or not (given the timing of the film’s creation, most likely the latter), this fits into a discussion currently taking place. However, Zenovich does this with great sensitivity, without manipulating the viewer, not distorting the facts; by trying to present the arguments of both sides of the conflict, she points to the reasons why Polanski had to leave the U.S., while not justifying his actions. She uses the interrogation protocols bluntly, which may even be shocking in their obscenity.

Zenovich shows equal respect for both the victim and the accused. In doing so, she wins the viewer’s sympathy, distancing herself from the media grandstanding that has recently been seen in documentaries by Michael Moore. The author is to be credited for meticulously going through both the facts of Polanski’s private life and the details of his trial. On screen, we see statements from the victim, Samantha Gailey, her lawyer, Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson, who served as the prosecutor, but also Roman’s friends: Gene Gutowski, Andrew Braunsberg, Anthea Sylbert, Hans Mollinger, Mia Farrow, and comments from his defense attorney, Douglas Dalton. There are also references to Polanski’s work: Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Tenant, Repulsion, The Fearless Vampire Killers, and his short film The Fat and the Lean.

The film does not include a single statement from the director, recorded specifically for the documentary. Polanski, while the main subject of the film, stands somewhat to the side, functioning almost outside the boundaries of the story; pervading every minute of the screening, he is simultaneously absent from it. The director uses a large amount of archival material, interviews conducted by others, photographs, and even courtroom sketches, but does not speak directly with him. Polanski, on one hand, cannot (or perhaps does not want to) defend himself, yet, by doing so, he allows the facts gathered in the nearly 100-minute film to speak for themselves.

Leaving aside all the considerations about whether Roman was/is guilty of a sexual crime, whether Zenovich remained objective in her deliberations or was seduced by the director’s charisma or his art, the main impression that emerges is that the true protagonist of her documentary is not Polanski – the director, the artist, or the deviant, but the media, who never allowed the case to be definitively resolved, nor even to be concluded, creating such an absurd uproar around it that eventually, it even influenced the judge, who should have remained objective. Their influence on the artist’s career and private life, especially since his arrival in the U.S., became so overwhelming that one could say without much risk that, on one hand, while shaping his legend, on the other, they hunted him down and, to some extent, deprived us as viewers of the talent of one of cinema’s greatest creators.

It is hard to speculate where Polanski would be professionally today if he had been able to take advantage of the financial resources of American producers over the last 40 odd years, but judging from a comparison of the two only films he made there and what he accomplished later, his talent, for many years after leaving the U.S., did not find comparable conditions for development in Europe. It is difficult not to perceive Zenovich’s documentary through the lens od September 2009 and later events. The unexpected turn of events from over forty years ago, especially at a time when the director was still working on the post-production of  TheGhost Writer, once again cast a shadow over his great artistic comeback, initiated by the Oscar-winning The Pianist and the directing award. One can only hope that this chapter in his life, however traumatic and ambiguous, will eventually be definitively closed, and that he will continue to astonish us with his cinematic achievements, works that will make even masterpieces like Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown pale in comparison.