 |
|||||||||
|
The question that is the title of this article isn't one many people ask these days, and to some, it may seem like a silly question entirely. Some movie fans have heard this director or that director is a pompous ass and a pain to work with but that doesn't affect their perceptions of the director's films. But there was REAL controversy when director Roman Polanski won an academy award for directing "The Pianist" in 2003. The deeply conservative Christian circles I ran in at the time decried the award, saying that it was more evidence of how our culture "hates and devalues children" that our country would award a director who fled the country to avoid being prosecuted for statutory rape. In their minds, awarding a man's achievement in directing a great movie was akin to awarding his actions in other parts of his life as well. Similar controversies surround director Victor Salva, whose first film, the eerie independent chiller "Clownhouse" garnered more negative publicity than anything else when Salva was convicted of molesting Nathan Winters, the young star of the film. Now that Salva has served his sentence and returned to making movies, the controversy of his past actions follows him from film to film. It's no question that the actions these men took were despicable and wrong, my concern is whether people really analyze the issue before making judgments about these men, their movies, and the real reason why their past actions are even an issue today, because as with everything, the issue is deeper than it may seem on the surface. The term "child molester" provokes a knee-jerk response of revulsion in most people and I understand that revulsion well, but despite this I took the time to research both Polanski's and Salva's cases when I first heard of them, and I've kept up with the controversy as it continued over the years. In Polanski's case, he set up a photo shoot with a young girl at a fiend's house in 1977 and he ended up having sex with her. He then fled the country to escape prosecution for statutory rape and has remained a fugitive ever since. The young girl, now a grown woman, says that the sex was not consensual and Polanski's actions were wrong, but she doesn't think the incident should affect his career now or the way people view his films. Salva's case was different.
I can feel you readers collectively shaking your heads out there, which shows me that you grasp that the issue isn't this simple. After all, Polanski never "paid his debt to society" but he certainly IS productive, as his provocative film "The Pianist" is a masterpiece of modern cinema, and Salva's films, though capable and sometimes brilliant (as with "Peaceful Warrior") leave a bad taste in the mouth with their leering shots of young shirtless boys slathered across nearly every frame even though he DID serve his time. The issues keep coming up even after all these years because we as a society don't like to see people succeed after committing heinous crimes, particularly against children. We might be able to enjoy Salva's films before we learn what he did but after reading about the crimes he committed, we associate that with every mention of his name. Polanski's crime was sufficiently long ago that we might not think it affects us as much, especially since the young girl, now grown, has expressed no hard feelings for Polanski now. Nevertheless, reading the details of the crime to refresh my mind before I wrote this article was an unpleasant experience. That young girl didn't deserve to be pressured into sex, and that young boy didn't deserve to be videotaped having oral sex with his director, and no matter of 20 years passing or an 8 year prison term being served erases how terrible these crimes were. I can say that with as much conviction as I say this: I for one am tired of hearing about it. If the movies these men make are brilliant, the films deserve to be seen and recognized as such, regardless of what their creators may have done.
But you know what? The movie is good. It's atmospheric and chilling, and while it's difficult for me to watch the young boy's performance knowing what happened to him, I can't deny that the movie is powerful and effective. The same goes for any Polanski film. I resent the implication that because his crime happened awhile ago it's somehow less important, it still happened, it's still wrong and he didn't even serve a sentence for his crime. If people are going to be sanctimonious about how wrong it is to abuse children, and preachy about buying films made by those who have abused children, they should do so across the board. But they don't. They apply their moralism selectively, and that bothers me, because if they can look at Polanski's films and see the brilliance there, they shouldn't begrudge me for doing the same with Salva's films. If they understand that a film can be brilliant in spite of anything its creators may have done, then we are in agreement on the issue. I'm not saying that what the director's did is excusable, I'm saying that their talent produced some good films that should be enjoyed without my having to feel guilty for buying the movie. I'm not opposed to viewers educating themselves about what Polanski and Salva did. In fact, I'm in favor of it, since most people I talk to have a vague idea that Polanski had sex with a young girl at a party and Salva molested a boy but people don't seem to know specific details.
When films transcend like that, it's a magical thing, and just as I don't judge people by their parents or their backgrounds, I don't judge a film by who made it until I see it... I'm too afraid of missing the magic. Sources
|
|||||||||
|
Have something to say about this article? Pop on over to Cinema-Lunatics
|
|||||||||
|
|
