The list of those in the Hollywood community who are rallying around Oscar-winning fugitive rapist Roman Polanski is growing, with new voices being added to the chorus seemingly by the minute. Now, emboldened by their peers' courage in speaking up in defense of the man who pleaded guilty to drugging and raping a 13-year-old in 1978, but who also made cinematic masterpieces Chinatown and The Pianist, several of filmdom's most beloved movie characters are now making their voices heard in support of the gifted auteur/criminal. Their pleas are below.
J.J. "Jake" Gittes, Chinatown
"I've worked with Roman Polanski. I know he's a man who cares about his art. What happened to him on his path, it's downright tragic. Most guys, they would have collapsed. Instead, he became a great artist, he continues to make great films. Life may have taken a few chunks out of his nose, but he just keeps coming.
Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski's served his time. A deal was made with the judge, and the deal isn't being honored. The word going around is that the reason Switzerland rolled over and acted on the extradition order this time was because of their own dirty laundry in the financial crisis. Or maybe something with the water. I'm still working through it, but something smells here, pal. I'm not too shy to go get in the face of the Governor of California, that Arnold Schwarzenegger, and to ask him once and for all to look at this. He'll ask me what happened to my nose, if somebody slammed a bedroom window on it. And I'll tell him Maria Shriver crossed her legs a little too quick. I used to say, 'Let sleeping dogs lie', that sometimes you're better off not knowing. I don't say that anymore. Someone's gotta kick the sleeping dog and fix this. It's not like he fathered a kid with his own daughter. Even if the girl he had sex with was young enough to be his daughter. Granddaughter, even."
Richard Kimble, M.D., The Fugitive
"I know what it's like to be unfairly accused of a crime you didn't commit. To know that sometimes people have no interest in the truth when the truth sounds more than a little crazy. Try telling the cops, or a prosecutor, or a judge, that a one-armed man killed your wife in your own home, even if that's exactly what happened, because the idea of a one-armed man, that sounds crazy. Sure, pal, there's a one-armed maniac murdering doctors' wives. So what are you supposed to do, rot in jail while the truth is ignored? Or are you supposed to run like hell-- across the country, to France, to wherever -- to go find the truth yourself? Roman Polanski spent the last thirty years pursuing his one-armed man through Europe, right into a clever trap in a film festival in Switzerland. He'll never find his one-armed man, his truth, if he's sitting in a Swiss jail while they sort out extradition. I'm a free man because I found the truth and I brought it straight to everyone who didn't believe me, even when they told me they didn't care if I was guilty or innocent. Free Roman Polanski so he can do the same. Hold on. He pleaded guilty? Really? Oh. Well, I'm sure he had his reason. Like lulling his one-armed man into a false sense of security by admitting to the crime himself, then catching him off guard on a beach in Cannes. I'm sure that's what he was up to."
Humbert Humbert, Lolita
"I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape. To put it another way: There's 'rape' and then there's 'rape.' It was a consensual matter. And I know from consensual sex with a minor, a nymphet. What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet, of every nymphet perhaps, this mixture of tender, dreamy childishness and a kind of eerie vulgarity. I know it is madness to put this on this livejournal, but it gives me a strange thrill to do so. Roman understands this. His beautiful movies are his livejournal. Free Polanski. Free him now."
David Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
"Roman, man. That's what we love about them high school girls. We get older, they stay the same age. Huh? Thirteen? Thir-teen? Whoa whoa whoa. That might be a little young for this here fella, but to each his own. The older you get, the more rules they are going to try and get you to follow. Roman knows. You just got keep on fleein', man. F-L-E-E-I-N. Oh, they caught him? Not cool. Let 'em go. But thir-teen. Damn. I dunno, man. I dunno. Middle school, I might not be into that."