Sparrow
Veteran
... Chinatown would get my vote, Tess too ... but also has some baggage with it despite Nastassja Kinski coming to his defence during the rape allegation and trial
Roman Polanski shoot with a screwmount Leica
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... Chinatown would get my vote, Tess too ... but also has some baggage with it despite Nastassja Kinski coming to his defence during the rape allegation and trial
goamules
Well-known
True, but you should also define him as someone who used his fame, money, and adoring fans in popular culture to go on the run and never face his crime. Just as today people are saying, "can't we all just forget the past?" people were saying that 1 year after he ran from the USA. And he kept his freedom, money, and continued to make movies and do whatever the heck he wanted. It's BECAUSE of his money and fame and "talent" that he got away with his crime, so yes, those factors are important to define him too.
People can define someone however they want to. Jane Fonda is still defined by Vets for a few anti-war visits she made to N. Vietnam. Yet she's been wildly successful since. Now I see Gen Petraus is being heckled as he tries to recover from his affair, and start a new career. Being heckled as a baby killer for being the General that got us out of the Iran quagmire? Being heckled as he tries to teach his extensive command and strategic skills to our next generation? Being heckled by the same blind, mindlessly adoring fans of Polanski and Fonda. Because a Hollywood star can do no wrong. Right?
Rodchenko
Olympian
Is this thread a flame war? I don't see it as particularly confrontational. I see some interesting points of view about a talented man who has been charged with, but not tried for, a horrible crime, and how that should affect our view of the person or his output.
Interesting that he was depicted using a screwmount Leica, certainly. He has been noted as a keen photographer in the past, and his cinematography would suggest that he retains such an eye for a striking or moving image.
I doubt it's his camera - probably just a prop for the photos - but I'd be pretty confident he knows how to use it.
Interesting that he was depicted using a screwmount Leica, certainly. He has been noted as a keen photographer in the past, and his cinematography would suggest that he retains such an eye for a striking or moving image.
I doubt it's his camera - probably just a prop for the photos - but I'd be pretty confident he knows how to use it.
Highway 61
Revisited
Of course - see what happened to Winona Ryder for something not very serious afterall.
OTOH most of show-biz people don't live on the same Earth as people waking-up early in the morning and working until sunset to make their modest livings and pay their taxes (and second hand cameras 😉). After a while they all live in some kinda parallel universe where the rules quite differ from those which regules yours and mine.
Yet modest people seem to need and like stars.
Panem et circenses.
That 1978 Polanski case is now over, whatever may happen onwards from it'll be quite hard to know what happened exactly back then.
Quite frankly when I began to read that thread my naive mind didn't even come accross the rape fame, I first thought that we would have a thread discussing Polanski as an actual regular user of the pictured SM Leica, or just being a poser for Vanity Fair.
Well it seems that SM may sometimes mean something different than "screwmount". 😛
Sparrow
Veteran
As a point of fact, I believe he reached something called a plea-bargain with the prosecutors, pleaded guilty and was gaoled for a couple of months for psychological reports.
He absconded only when the prosecutors reneged on their agreement at the point of sentencing.
Rodchenko
Olympian
The warrant is still valid, and the charges still pending sentencing. It sounds like he misunderstood what had been agreed by way of plea bargain.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Garret,
Or, conversely, if he weren't a Hollywood star (using the term loosely) everyone probably would have forgotten about it by now. Or they might never even have heard about it: "Man rapes 13 year old girl" is a depressingly common headline, and I'd be quite surprised if some of them didn't get away with it, precisely by going on the run.
I'm slightly puzzled about the way he hasn't been extradited, but then again, that's a question of international law. Apparently, though, it is not unusual for states to refuse to extradite their own citizens, and as far as I can see, Polanski is a French citizen.
As for "blind, mindlessly adoring fans of Polanski and Fonda", are there many such?
Cheers,
R.
telenous
Well-known
His early films, perhaps "Knife in the Water" in particular, provide ample evidence Polanski was aware and had command of framing techniques deriving from Soviet modernism. This is less evident (though I think it never completely abated) in his later films, e.g. in his American period, where framing became subservient to the fluidity of the cinematic narrative.
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Rodchenko
Olympian
It was Switzerland who arrested him, then set him free.
I suppose, if Pinochet gets off scot free, what Polanski did was of a much lesser scale.
Ftr, I support Jane Fonda for her courage in speaking out against the appalling US involvement in Vietnam. But I don't rate her acting.
I suppose, if Pinochet gets off scot free, what Polanski did was of a much lesser scale.
Ftr, I support Jane Fonda for her courage in speaking out against the appalling US involvement in Vietnam. But I don't rate her acting.
StefanJozef
Well-known
Roman Polanski was born in Paris to Polish parents. They moved back to Poland in 1937.
Sparrow
Veteran
... what! ... Barbarella was a masterpiece I'll have you know ...
Rodchenko
Olympian
Er....yes. I suppose I would have to grant you that, even with the collateral damage of Duran Duran's career.
aizan
Veteran
fonda's made some nice movies: they shoot horses don't they?, klute, coming home...
Sparrow
Veteran
... that's not the view the Swiss court arrived at when asked to extradite him
Rodchenko
Olympian
OK, there's still a warrant out, let's put it like that. The Swiss authorities didn't feel it met their thresholds for extradition. There are a number of interesting people living in Switzerland, and one can understnad their not wanting to set precedents.
Sparrow
Veteran
... true, had he been in the UK he'd be picking cotton in Angola by now
FrankS
Registered User
Mmmm, Barbarella. That was a coming of age movie for me.
DominikDUK
Well-known
Roman Polanski is an immensly talented director and knows more about framing than most top notch cinematographers and yes he has a dark side. After all he wanted to make a movie about the murder of his pregant wife (Sharon Tate). Interestingly both Saudek and Polanski were victims of the Nazis and both their works deals very openly with sexuality and taboos.
I also have to add that most greek philosophers and many romans were pedophiles by today's standard but nobody would say that he has to puke if he had to use Pythagoras, Sokrates, etc... . Charlie Chaplin is very popular as well not only a commie but also a pedo yet nobody seems to complain about him. Caravaggio was a murderer, so were Lully and Moliere the later ones enjoyed killing homeless people. Picasso was another moral cockroach great artist but as a human being he was less than stellar. And let's not forget Andy Warhol the great american Artist who had no problem coercing people into bed and would destroy some persons because they refused his coercion or broke up with him.
Most people who love art seem to be able to overlook the artists deficencies as a human being and very few famous artists were nice persons maybe Rubens but that's it.
I also have to add that most greek philosophers and many romans were pedophiles by today's standard but nobody would say that he has to puke if he had to use Pythagoras, Sokrates, etc... . Charlie Chaplin is very popular as well not only a commie but also a pedo yet nobody seems to complain about him. Caravaggio was a murderer, so were Lully and Moliere the later ones enjoyed killing homeless people. Picasso was another moral cockroach great artist but as a human being he was less than stellar. And let's not forget Andy Warhol the great american Artist who had no problem coercing people into bed and would destroy some persons because they refused his coercion or broke up with him.
Most people who love art seem to be able to overlook the artists deficencies as a human being and very few famous artists were nice persons maybe Rubens but that's it.
sevo
Fokutorendaburando
That sounds unlikely. The early thirties mark the breakthrough of the Makina (and Miroflex, and other "small format" 6x9 press cameras), which replaced the 9x12 and 10x15 SLRs and strut folders common in the twenties. And between the Makina and Leica age there would be the Rolleiflex age, which lasted into the fifties...
Besides, the Nazis were subject to many contradictory lobby groups out of the German industry, and accordingly lousy at standardisation (the resultant mess of arms systems is generally considered one of the reasons for their eventual military failure).
I suspect that setting up a official photo agency for the 1936 Olympics which promoted ultra-modern technologies, like fast superteles (Contax with "Olympia" 180/2.8 Sonnar) and "Hellschreiber" photo wire transmission stations, may have been overblown by later authors into a obligatory use of the same. In reality that was a showcase system - much like TV, which also was on demonstration at the same event, it did not become a everyday reality until after the war.
t.s.k.
Hooked on philm
... the twists and turns this thread has taken ...
Social psych in action 🙂
Social psych in action 🙂
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