The fine or less fine line, depending on how you look at it, between an artist’s work and his private life has Roman Polansky not a unique case, but one that paved the way for all who would come to the present, with the explosion of #MeToo.
While US justice could not prove Woody Allen that he abused his daughter when she was a child, and acquitted him, it did convict producer Harvey Weinstein – and it goes on in another trial – of multiple rapes and sexual harassment.
But we said, Polanski was the first to be accused of rape on a minor, in the house of his friend and protagonist of ChinatownJack Nicholson. The Paris-born director, who spent his childhood in Poland, fled the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to having illegal sex with a 13-year-old girl. And, you will recall, he couldn’t be at the Oscar ceremony twenty years ago when the Academy awarded him best director for The pianist.
You cannot enter the United States, because you would end up in prison.
And he led a pleasant life in France. But, and often when not always, there is a but, the premiere of his film The officer and the spyOR J’accuse at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 (it won the Grand Jury Prize, presided over by our compatriot Lucrecia Martel, who expressed herself as “uncomfortable” with the inclusion of the film in competition) brought it back into the limelight. More so when there was the César awards ceremony in France.
French cinema protest
Is that Polanski, now 89, has faced new allegations of sexual misconduct, which he absolutely denies. When the French Film Academy awarded him the César Award for Best Director, the equivalent of an Oscar, for J’accusethe industry outcry was massive, giving rise to the #MeToo movement in France.
French actress Adele Haenel, star of Portrait of a woman on fire, was the one who drove it. And herself, a candidate for best actress, left the César ceremony when she heard Polanski nominated as the winner.
Director of Repulsion, The knife under water, Thess AND the dance of the vampiresamong other blockbuster hits, he’s now in the news not because of new allegations, but because his new film, The palaceis being evaluated by the selection committees of the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals.
Polanski is a regular on the festival circuit. In fact, his last five feature films premiered at Cannes (Based on true events, the skin of Venus); Venice (J’accuse, a wild god) or Berlin (the hidden writer).
Will the French festival accept the film? The palace It has a tentative release date in April, a month before the Cannes opening, which wouldn’t necessarily make it impossible for it to arrive at the Palais des Festivals in competition. According to the rules, movies don’t necessarily have to have their world premiere there; they can be issued in advance in their country of origin.
AND The palace It is a film mostly from the Italian capital, with RAI Cinema d’Italia at the helm. No French manufacturer wanted to participate in the project.
Similarly, clarified one of the producers of the peninsula Variety – Which is the means of diffusion that Cannes and Venice are evaluating in programming The palace– that the April release date can be moved. It’s just that if the Venice Film Festival wants to count on you, it can’t have come out in your country first.
The palace is a black comedy, set in a luxury hotel in the resort of Gstaad in the Swiss Alps on the eve of the new millennium, and takes place over the course of 24 hours.
The cast is international and ranges from the American Mickey Rourke to the British John Cleese (of Monty Python) and the French Fanny Ardant, as well as the German Oliver Masucci, the Portuguese Joaquín De Almeida and the Russian Alexander Petrov.
The film has a screenplay co-written by Polish Oscar-winning director Jerzy Skolimowski, whose film premiered at Cannes EO now she is nominated for an Oscar in the field in which she competes Argentina, 1985. The music is by another Oscar winner, Alexandre Desplat. And it features Polanski’s regular cinematographer Pawel Edelman and costume designer Carlo Poggioli (The young pope).
So like going to a festival, I would have what. The problem is cancellation.
Source: Clarin
