Roman Polanski's lawyer on Sunday provided the press with a status update for his client. It's pretty much what you'd expect a defense attorney to offer: The 76-year-old is "tired and depressed," Herve Temime told a Swiss newspaper, adding in another interview that "Polanski was in an unsettled state of mind" when Temime visited him in his detention cell in Zurich. That said, the director appreciates all the support he's received -- or almost all of it, with the possible exception of the French culture minister trying to explain away that passage in his autobiographical novel about paying for sex with "boys."
Of course, "garçons" can be interpreted a few ways -- an ambiguity Frederic Mitterand (right) is thankful for today as he swats away allegations that he wrote about sex with underage male Thai prostitutes in his memoir-ish 2005 novel The Bad Life. "Money and sex, I am at the heart of my system, that which is functioning at last, because I know that no one will refuse me," one related passage reads. "I can at last choose. The Western morality, the endless guilt, the shame that I drag with me, shatter." Sure, Mitterand told a French TV audience last week, he patronized young men in Thailand, but all of them were consenting and of legal age. Because if there's anything Thailand is known for, it's a carefully regulated sex trade. Just ask David Carradine
Mitterand is fighting for his job, meanwhile, which is neither here nor there for our purposes but admittedly doesn't make him the best character witness for Polanski. (Mitterand called the fugitive director's Sept. 26 arrest on an outstanding warrant "absolutely horrifying".) Temime seemed to agree without naming names, telling reporters, "The filmmaker is very touched by the support he has received. ... He also knows that some of it is counter-productive." Seriously. Time to revise those petitions! How about the additional clause: "If your lover was born after this date in 1991 and/or only takes cash, you may not sign." Or something.
· Some Polanski support 'counter-productive': director's lawyer [AFP]