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People here in Park City are going crazy for Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. According to Variety, the film was courted by four buyers after its first screening last night (the Weinsteins nabbed international rights, but US distribution is still on the table), and not only was there substantial applause at this morning’s packed press and industry screening, but I don’t think I saw a single person leave the theater. For an 8:30 AM Sundance press show, that’s rare.
So the hype train is rolling full steam ahead, but what do we actually have here? For me, Wanted and Desired convinces that this seemingly trivial footnote in cinema history is actually a story about the media’s role in turning the very idea of justice into a farce. Zenovich goes some way towards crafting a valuable historical document, but its credibility on that front is weakened by its clearly imbalanced sympathies.
It’s an methodical but irreverant look at the legal quagmire and media scandal and that erupted in 1977, after a 13 year old girl accused Polanski of raping her in Jack Nicholson’s hottub whilst taking topless photos of her for Men’s Vogue. Polanski admitted to having intercourse with the girl, but said it was consensual; the film tracks how Polanski’s plea on a lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor was mutated by media-hungry Judge Rittenband, ultimately causing Polanski to flee to France in fear of being sentenced to half a century in prison.
Zenovich sets up Rittenband and Polanski as polar opposites in the realm of media-mediated justice. Polanski, a public figure due to his profession but a media star due to a combination of charisma, bad luck, and his admitted personal “recklessness,” is forced to face the reality that even in the anything-goes swirl of Hollywood in the 70s, absolute free will is an impossibility of public life. Meanwhile, hungry for his own taste of media attention, Rittenband drifted towards celebrity court cases (he previously chose to officiate Elvis’ divorce), and allowed his obsession with controlling his own media image to dictate his rulings. Ironically, Rittenband’s push for glory directly led to Polanski fleeing to France, where he was able to escape not just jail time, but the gaze of an unsympathetic media.
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