After 12 years in a lock box, former Los Angeles County prosecutor Roger Gunson’s conditional testimony in the Roman Polanski sex case was unsealed by court order on Thursday, and copies of a transcript were made available on Sunday night.
What the several hundred pages of testimony—taken over three days in 2010—finally delivered was not a series of bombshell revelations. Since Polanski fled the country before sentencing in 1978, constant examination of the case has left little room for surprises.
Rather, Gunson’s testimony provided a long, highly detailed, deeply informed recap both of Polanski’s crime—which involved the rape of a minor—and of alleged judicial and prosecutorial misconduct that followed it.
Perhaps the most striking details—other than blunt descriptions of the crime, which would surely be repeated if Polanski ever came to trial—involved Gunson’s account of having been blocked by superiors in the Los...
What the several hundred pages of testimony—taken over three days in 2010—finally delivered was not a series of bombshell revelations. Since Polanski fled the country before sentencing in 1978, constant examination of the case has left little room for surprises.
Rather, Gunson’s testimony provided a long, highly detailed, deeply informed recap both of Polanski’s crime—which involved the rape of a minor—and of alleged judicial and prosecutorial misconduct that followed it.
Perhaps the most striking details—other than blunt descriptions of the crime, which would surely be repeated if Polanski ever came to trial—involved Gunson’s account of having been blocked by superiors in the Los...
- 7/18/2022
- by Michael Cieply
- Deadline Film + TV
An Op-Ed
by Jon Zelazny
Critics, artists, and intellectuals the world over took last month’s release of The Ghost Writer as a fresh opportunity to proclaim both Roman Polanski’s genius and bemoan his despicable treatment by Los Angeles County and the Swiss government.
Don’t be fooled. The Ghost Writer is a perfectly capable adaptation of a rather pedestrian political thriller, but one can feel the maestro pouring thought and energy into every tiny nuance while either ignoring or disdaining the fact that the work as a whole is brittle, hollow, and often just plain silly. Ewan McGregor, a trouper, is saddled with playing a protagonist who seems less of a human being than an automaton tasked with carrying the plot; he reminded me of poor Sean Connery in Hitchcock’s Marnie… another case of a dynamic actor left stranded by an old director who didn’t seem...
by Jon Zelazny
Critics, artists, and intellectuals the world over took last month’s release of The Ghost Writer as a fresh opportunity to proclaim both Roman Polanski’s genius and bemoan his despicable treatment by Los Angeles County and the Swiss government.
Don’t be fooled. The Ghost Writer is a perfectly capable adaptation of a rather pedestrian political thriller, but one can feel the maestro pouring thought and energy into every tiny nuance while either ignoring or disdaining the fact that the work as a whole is brittle, hollow, and often just plain silly. Ewan McGregor, a trouper, is saddled with playing a protagonist who seems less of a human being than an automaton tasked with carrying the plot; he reminded me of poor Sean Connery in Hitchcock’s Marnie… another case of a dynamic actor left stranded by an old director who didn’t seem...
- 4/15/2010
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Roman Polanski being mobbed by the press in an early court hearing in 1977.
Editor's Note: In light of Roman Polanski's arrest for his 1977 charge of statutory rape in Zurich yesterday, we thought we'd re-post this June, 2008 piece Terry wrote on filmmaker Marina Zenovich and her documentary on Polanski, his infamous trial, and subsequent flight from the U.S. to avoid sentencing. Regardless of how you feel about what Polanski did, it's a great read.
By Terry Keefe
There are few figures in Hollywood history more controversial than Roman Polanski. One the one hand, he's the undeniably great filmmaker behind Rosemary's Baby and, Chinatown and on the other….he also was charged with sodomizing a 13-year old girl in 1977, faced a host of related rape counts, and ran to exile in France, where he remains to this day and is regarded as a national treasure. At the time of the rape proceedings,...
Editor's Note: In light of Roman Polanski's arrest for his 1977 charge of statutory rape in Zurich yesterday, we thought we'd re-post this June, 2008 piece Terry wrote on filmmaker Marina Zenovich and her documentary on Polanski, his infamous trial, and subsequent flight from the U.S. to avoid sentencing. Regardless of how you feel about what Polanski did, it's a great read.
By Terry Keefe
There are few figures in Hollywood history more controversial than Roman Polanski. One the one hand, he's the undeniably great filmmaker behind Rosemary's Baby and, Chinatown and on the other….he also was charged with sodomizing a 13-year old girl in 1977, faced a host of related rape counts, and ran to exile in France, where he remains to this day and is regarded as a national treasure. At the time of the rape proceedings,...
- 9/28/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Despite his filmmaking prowess I am sure the one thing everyone knows about Roman Polanski is that in 1977 he was charged with unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. In 1978, after a severely confusing and seemingly bungled trial as documented in the fabulous 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (my review here), Polanski left the United States failing to appear at his sentencing on the statutory-rape conviction. He hasn't returned since. Today, it was reported Polanski was taken into custody in Zurich this morning and faces extradition to Los Angeles. He was in Zurich to accept an award at the Zurich Film Festival. In a statement received by the "Los Angeles Times" three Los Angeles attorneys representing Polanski indicated the arrest came as a surprise. The lawyers have been representing him in an ongoing attempt to have the case against Polanski dismissed on the grounds of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. "We...
- 9/27/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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