What is "Hollywood," anyway? Is it simply a dot on a map? A town with a sign in the hills? Is it that town and all the lives, work and idiosyncrasies it comprises? Is it the idea of that town, or the idea of those lives and work? Is it an abstract institution leveraged a million ways from Sunday by politics, money, disloyalty, ambition, vice and more? Can it be all these things we've come to know, love and loathe it for, and yet still surprise us?
Oddly, if there's any long-term crisis to be resolved in the Roman Polanski Culture War, it's this one: Hollywood's identity. And once we've decided all of this, can we relate to Hollywood? Do we even want to? In an angry, defensive, and not entirely misplaced essay today at the L.A. Times, one screenwriter says yes.
Citing the overwhelming outcry against a notorious "Hollywood" petitions calling for Polanski's immediate release, Patrick Goldstein today called allegations of industry support "hogwash." The signatories were too diffuse, for starters. "There's no petition going around with the names of the real Hollywood elite -- A-list filmmakers and studio chiefs like Steven Spielberg, Alan Horn, James Cameron, Amy Pascal, Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer, Tom Rothman, J.J. Abrams, John Lasseter or Michael Bay -- because the real Hollywood elite isn't supporting Polanski," Goldstein says, hilariously covering his ass and shoving off blame to Europeans and New Yorkers who "clearly see the world in a very different light than the real Hollywood elite." (Yes, Patrick, clearly. That might actually be the light reflecting off the Oscars they keep winning, further splintering "Hollywood." But I digress.)
Goldstein then handed over his blog to Josh Olson (right), the History of Violence scribe whose previous op-ed foray, "I Will Not Read Your F*cking Script," famously parsed even smaller industry taxonomies, separating writers from hacks in convincing, indelible style. He applied a similar analysis to help break down the curious phenomenon of Polanski supporters, both defending and perhaps even defining Hollywood and its environs in the process. It's a fascinating read, emerging out of his displeasure with the LAT's reporting but finally pointing out the same insular, disengaged frame of mind in the haters that they themselves spot in Hollywood.
He accomplishes most of this by pulling those "Free Polanski" petitions to shreds -- literally:
Between the two petitions, there are approximately 650 signatures. Of those 650, I noted everyone who could conceivably be considered a member of the Hollywood community. My rule was, basically, if you've done substantive and recognizable work for a Hollywood studio in the last four decades, you get counted. I guarantee you, some of these people would not be thrilled to be labeled Hollywood players, but I'm trying to be accommodating to the opposition here.
You know what I was left with? You know how many of those 650 people I was able to fit into a box labeled Hollywood? Thirty-six names. [...]
Nonetheless, the Times describes the signers as "More than 100 industry leaders and prominent authors." This is a profoundly deceptive statement, bordering on being an outright lie. Obviously, you're meant to interpret that the industry being led is Hollywood, but at most, there are 15 names on the list that could possibly be defined as industry leaders, and that's being generous. Hell, there aren't even 100 Americans on the list. And if there's an industry leader among Patrick Braoudé, Dominique Crevecoeur, Jean-Yves Chalangeas, Didier Martiny, Petter Skavlan, Alejandra Norambuena Skira, or Zdzicho Augustyniak, then it is some other country's industry, and I'm not entirely sure that industry is film. [...]
[I]f you HAVE to try to read some sort of monolithic movement into this petition, you might want to take it up with the French, because there's hundreds of them on there. There's also a significant number of Spanish petitioners. (You might want to take into account that the age of consent in Spain is 13 before you drag out the pitchforks and torches, though.) But as far as Hollywood's concerned, we're not rallying behind anyone, and it sure would be nice if folks could find a way of discussing this issue without creating ridiculous and childish caricatures of people who have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Now see, that makes sense. France supports its own. And while it's not really Hollywood's responsibility to justify or explain why (the New York Times can manage fine, thanks), at least one guy will point out its plain inability to justify or explain why. Not necessarily because of the moral calculus involved, but because l'affaire Polanski gets to the very central issue of Hollywood not knowing (and never having known) what it is. It's refreshing to hear someone say it so clearly, confidently, and in such a crucially important context. It'll be even better when we can get back to that knowledge without a detained, 76-year-old Oscar-winning fugitive holding it hostage. Oh, but for the good old days.
· Is Hollywood really a hotbed of support for Roman Polanski? [LAT]