That late-career American renaissance isn't likely to happen after all for Roman Polanski, the Oscar-winning fugitive filmmaker who refused Monday to return for a potentially name-clearing court hearing in Los Angeles.
That hearing is set for Thursday, when Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza said he'd consider overturning Polanski's 1978 sentence for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. If, that is, the director returns from France, where he fled 30 years ago to avoid prison. The 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired makes a strong case for judicial misconduct in his original trial, but the L.A. district attorney insists that the whole "flight from justice" thing demands some reconciliation before the 75-year-old Polanski can walk free for good.
Not going to happen, said his lawyers, who added in a court filing on Monday that the director's appearance is "neither necessary nor relevant" to the matter of determining misconduct. While the deadlock has been going on for months, this development has the unique feel of finality to it -- all the worse for Brett Ratner, who, for a moment, seemed thisclose to getting out of sending a Rat Press interviewer all the way to Paris to meet his friend. Tough break there, sorry.