Roman Polanski talks about the controversy that still surrounds him in the candid press notes for his new film "An Officer And A Spy".
Polanski's movie is set to debut in Competition at the Venice Film Festival Friday, though many — including some jury members — have slammed its inclusion, the Guardian reports.
Despite the filmmaker not attending the festival or doing any press, he did speak to French writer Pascal Bruckner ahead of the movie's unveiling.
Polanski, who pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor after being arrested in 1977 for raping a 13-year-old girl, talks about how his latest film takes place in 1984 and follows French Captain Alfred Dreyfus as he's wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil's Island.
Bruckner then asks the question, according to Deadline: "As a Jew who was hunted during the war and a filmmaker persecuted by the Stalinists in Poland, will you survive the present-day neo-feminist McCarthyism which, as well as chasing you all over the world and trying to prevent the screening of your films, among other vexations, got you expelled from the Oscars Academy?"
Polanski responds, "Working, making a film like this helps me a lot. In the story, I sometimes find moments I have experienced myself, I can see the same determination to deny the facts and condemn me for things I have not done. Most of the people who harass me do not know me and know nothing about the case. My work is not therapy.
"However, I must admit that I am familiar with many of the workings of the apparatus of persecution shown in the film, and that has clearly inspired me."
Polanski says his "persecution" started with the murder of his wife Sharon Tate.
"When it happened, even though I was already going through a terrible time, the press got hold of the tragedy and, unsure of how to deal with it, covered it in the most despicable way, implying, among other things, that I was one of the people responsible for her murder, against a background of satanism.
"It lasted several months, until the police finally found the real killers, Charles Manson and his ‘family'. All this still haunts me today. Anything and everything. It is like a snowball, each season adds another layer. Absurd stories by women I have never seen before in my life who accuse me of things which supposedly happened more than half a century ago."
Doesn't matter in the least, does it?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear Roman's reaction to what Tom O'Neill had to say about Polanski's friend Reeve Whitson having been to the crime scene before it was discovered.
Chaos, by Tom O'Neill, c.2019
pg201
"Reeve was my main person to help me," PJ Tate said. "He's been a friend of Roman Polanski and Sharon and mine and Jay Sebring... He was very, very helpful."
August 29, 2019 at 10:43 PM Starviegi daid:
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear Roman's reaction to what Tom O'Neill had to say...
With respect, doesn't it seem like a lot of extremely marginal players are trying hard to find relevance while TLB is a hot topic for a brief while? A second chance at 15 minutes of fame?
I mean, a few weeks back we had a barber who purports to have known Sebring opine that he never bought the Helter Skelter hypothesis.
What is his claim to any greater validity than that of any poster here?
Same here with Whitson...
How would Sebring opine on HS? He was dead
DeleteAccording to O'Neill, PJ Tate is the source of Whitson being a friend of the Polanskis, and may have even met Charlie. So I wouldn't label him a 'marginal' player.
ReplyDeleteAugust 29, 2019 at 11:09 PM starviego said:
ReplyDeleteAccording to O'Neill, PJ Tate is the source of Whitson being a friend of the Polanskis, and may have even met Charlie. So I wouldn't label him a 'marginal' player.
So we have to accept that O'Neill knows correctly about this AND that Whitson's existence had any effect, at all, on the crimes under discussion.
To me, it sounds like the housekeeper or Altobelli, whom I view as marginal players, have more significance than Whitson.
It's funny how similar Charlie and Roman were, both born in the early 30s, both with extremely troubled childhoods with very little family, both undersized little men with a taste for underage girls
ReplyDeleteFfs he is the worst kind of man. His wife was murdered at the filthy hands of men and he abuses young girls..but he has the absolute nerve to blame women and girls for HIS actions. Then tries like some kind of psychopath to gain sympathy off a woman’s death? I just can’t.
ReplyDeleteLastGirl...
ReplyDeleteThe term you're searching for is "chutzpah"...
She didn't ask for any "word", keep your "advice" to yourself
DeleteRead the account of his polygraph in Restless Souls. It speaks volumes.
ReplyDeleteJust because the guy was a womanizer doesn't negate his sorrow and grief over his wife, unborn son and friends being murdered
ReplyDeleteYou spelled teen rapist wrong.
ReplyDeleteLol
DeleteLook at it this way if it was the year 753 AD Polanskis age preferences in women would be considered middle aged lol
DeleteI dont agree , instead Id say the permissive environment allowed perverts to access victims
DeleteMatt - can you (or anyone who has Restless Souls) summarize the polygraph you are referring to?
ReplyDeleteThe polygraph Deemer gave him when he got back from London is online, if you Google it it should come up somewhere
ReplyDeleteprefeteria said...
ReplyDeleteMatt - can you (or anyone who has Restless Souls) summarize the polygraph you are referring to?
-------
The transcript is here-
www.scribd.com/document/232487572/Tate-LaBianca-Investigation-Polygraph-of-Roman-Polanski
ReplyDeleteMon Durphy said...
"It's funny how similar Charlie and Roman were..."
In more ways than one:
Juan Flynn testimony at TLB trial:
"Q. There was just you and Mr. Manson there?
"A. Yes. I wasn't watching him. I was watching the food, you know. Then he grabbed me by the hair, you know, and put a knife on my throat, and he said, 'You son-of-a-bitch, don't you know I am the one who is doing all these killings?
Papa John by John Phillips c. 1986
pg305
Suddenly I felt a powerful hand clutch my hair from behind and yank my head back with a violent jerk. I felt the razor-sharp edge of the cleaver pressed against my throat. ... Roman grunted, "Did you kill Sharon?"
OO-ee--OO!
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DeleteIn other news Sirhan Sirhan in critical condition after being stabbed in prison
DeleteI wonder if they put Sirhan into general population recently. He should have been in protective custody.
ReplyDeleteNo I'm sure he was in SHU, how could he not be? I was watching a clip recently if a mexican gang member who talked to Charlie a few times in Corcoran and he said they call high profile inmates "trophies" and the people who take them out are respected
DeleteTMZ is saying that Sirhan was stabbed in the prison yard. I don't think that SHU prisoners mingle with other prisoners in the yard, so I'm guessing he was in the general population. I looked for and could not find an address to send a letter to him, the address would say where he was housed within the prison.
ReplyDeleteHe has been taken to an outside hospital for treatment.
Last week there was a riot at that prison and six inmates were injured.
I have a hard time believing that a 75 year old inmate as famous as Sirhan would be in general population, it would be a death sentence
DeleteDidn't Sirhan have a famous murderer for a cell mate. Was it one of the Hillside Strangers?
ReplyDeleteAngelo Buono died in 02 and Ken Bianchi is locked up in Washington for murders he committed there, it's possible Buono could have been a cellmate but I thought he did most of his time at San Quentin
ReplyDeleteMon,
ReplyDeleteThank you for responding. I think I read somewhere that either Buono or Sirhan had a famous cell mate and I had it in my head they bunked together. Now, I can't find anything about it on the web and I could easily be mistaken.
orwhut typed:
ReplyDeleteI think I read somewhere that either Buono or Sirhan had a famous cellmate and I had it in my head they bunked together.
During his trial in December 1981, Angelo Buono was in a courthouse lockup with another infamous L.A. serial killer, "Freeway Killer" William Bonin, a homosexual whose 21 victims were mostly teenage boys. Buono and Bonin reportedly got along with each other, but a third man in the lockup with them, an Aryan Brotherhood leader named John Stinson, gave Bonin a severe beating. When questioned by investigators about the attack on Bonin (and obviously terrified of the AB, who despise and attack child or woman killers and homosexuals), Buono claimed he was sleeping during the beating.
It might have been Bonin I was thinking about I've kept an eye out for more information on the cell mates and never seen any.
ReplyDeleteMon, here is a quote from an AP article.
ReplyDelete"As a high-profile prisoner, Sirhan had once been kept in a protective housing unit at Corcoran State Prison in Northern California. After he told authorities several years ago that he would prefer being housed with the general prison population, he was moved to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility."
https://www.apnews.com/ebe7cfc1b97f4b4e9e56e19a9a697e47
Sounds like he was in the general prison population by choice.
Sirhanx2 is already out of hospital and, back in prison. I'd think it was not super serious...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/sirhan-sirhan-back-prison-surviving-stabbing-attorney/story%3fid=65327829
I f*cking hate this arrogant, selfish pr*ck.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone follow up on if Debra Tate was compromised by Roman Polanski hence her reason for being disinherited?
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