February 25, 2003

“He’s just a stranger to me.  I met his twice, three times twenty-five years ago.  He has nothing to do with me.”

I just can’t make sense of Samantha Geimer…

Suddenly she is not only out of hiding, she is everywhere.  And I keep asking myself, “Why?”

Last year, I programmed five screenings of Raw Deal: A Question of Consent at the Miami Film Festival that were attended by over 2000 people.   The film really pushed people’s buttons.  The film told the story of a stripper who ran from a frat house one morning after a party that she had been paid to perform at and told police she had been raped.  When the police questioned the frat boys, they found a videotape that showed many of the evening’s events.  The local prosecutor decided on the spot that the woman, compromised by her status as a stripper, was lying and charged her instead of the boys.  That made the tape, and a second tape of the evening found later, public domain under Florida’s Sunshine Law.  The film is made mostly of that footage.

Where was the line between consent, irresponsibility, and rape?  I’ve never seen any filmic question quite as challenging.

And now a cheerful, beautiful, laughing, stable Samantha Geimer is doing P.R. work for an Oscar nominee.  What she describes is, in this era, a rape by definition.  She said, “no.”  She did not fight it.  She was impaired by champagne and half a Quaalude.  But she said, “no.”  On top of that, she was 13 years old. 

But Geimer’s family and the L.A. District Attorney made a plea arrangement that they say, aggressively, was comfortable for them.  He served 45 days after the arrest.  What was agreed to was time served.

So where do we go from here?  Focus Features has been clear, in as simple and relaxed a voice as Ms Geimer’s, that they have nothing to do with this reemergence.  No one would ever ask Miramax whether this was their effort and expect a truthful answer of “yes” or believe a truthful answer of “no.” 

Yet there is one think I simply cannot believe… that this is a big old coincidence.  The first question one must ask is, “Who is doing the booking?”  After that;

Why Larry King and not Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer… in other words, a woman, and more importantly, a person who would ask harder questions?

Why right now?  It’s a question Geimer never really answered in the Larry King interview. 

If, as intuitive thinking would suggest, someone wanted this to happen now and pushed the agenda along, who was it and what was their motivation?  

As a friend suggested as we both watched the show, the whole thing is a double-edged sword.  Ms. Geimer and her associates have clearly painted Polanski, again, as a man who had sex with a 13-year-old, one who did not want it to happen. 

On the other hand, Ms. Geimer said that she has “no hard feelings,” that she doesn’t want him to be further punished, that she was a 13-year-old in 1977 who had already lost her virginity, that she consensually posed for topless photos, and that she has long moved on with her life.

Geimer’s lawyer even said that he feels that if Polanski were to return, that the plea agreement should be upheld – meaning no more jail time – and the flight should be forgotten under the circumstances, which hinged on a judge who was threatening not to accept the plea and to give Polanski 50 years instead of zero additional jail time. 

But most importantly, Geimer appears to be a strong woman and a mother of three sons who is not lying to us.  Her “testimony” is powerful.  She hasn’t even seen The Pianist, she told King. 

There was a settlement, “long after the flight,” according to the lawyer.  It could have been 15 years ago.  It could have been last week. 

The ghost has been released from the long-musty closet and no longer is living in the realm of the whispering campaigns that have tarnished Oscar in recent years.  America, any by extension, the Academy loves to forgive.  And unlike Elia Kazan, Polamski didn’t sin against his own, but against a beautiful stranger who has forgiven him.  This is not a town of Ellen Jamesians.

So what’s next? 

The next double-edged sword.   

Polanski coming back to L.A. for the Academy Awards would become the only real story of this year’s show.  Nothing would come close.  One can easily imagine a wave of “welcome back, we love your movie, you’ve done your time” emotionality from Academy members, led by the directors.  On the other hand, if a move like this was announced in time for it to effect voting, it could destroy the push for The Pianist, as an organized campaign to but Polanski in jail would surely be triggered.  If nothing is done in time to affect voting, most would assume that Polanski can’t win.  So what’s so great about this huge sideshow happening just to leave Polanski sitting in his Kodak Theater seat?  People would be rooting for him just because it would be the greatest Oscar story in years. 

It could be even more complex than that.  The conversation is now about a plea agreement that everyone was happy with and that a politically oriented judge, who said in a press conference after Polanski fled that his intention was to get Polanski to leave the country, decided to dump.  No matter what you think of the plea agreement, how can one argue that it is not fair for Polanski to be sentenced based on that agreement?  Easily, I imagine, if you are so inclined.  But how will the L.A. District Attorney, not an Oscar voter, deal with that?  How much political fall out – an issue of cynical reality and not justice – would there be?  If Academy members could be talked into forgiveness, that doesn’t mean that local politicians will.

I must admit, against my better instincts, that the story has moved quite a bit for me this week.  It is hard to say that anyone who had sex with a 13-year-old who isn’t another 13-year-old (and even then…) deserves anything less than unlimited contempt.  But with every witness still alive insisting that there was a plea agreement to which all parties comfortably consented and that Polanski’s 25 years in exile was caused not by a willful intent to flee the law, but by one judge who was acting out of political expedience, I am ready to welcome this man back to America. 

I’m glad to say that my 12-year-old niece would break his fingers if he tried to pull this crap on her.  And I don’t think I want to break bread with the man… that’s a lie… I would break bread with the man… he is a historical figure in an industry I love and though most people will tell you that he’s a jerk and we all know he has pedophilic tendencies, I would love to spend an hour looking at him close up.  I’m not sure how I feel about what that says about me.   But it’s the truth.

As far as The Oscars go, I think he deserves to win and I think his film deserves to win. 

Looking at the other side of the issue, that another studio pushed Ms. Geimer out into the spotlight, the result is now out if their control.  She has put the ball in play.  Now it is up to Polanski & Co.  If someone started this expecting destruction in the film’s path, I would say that they failed and that The Pianist is in better shape today than it was last week, which is not to say they have a win locked up or that there is not a lot of heavy duty shit-skating to do.  But Harvey Weinstein could not have felt any better about Ms. Geimer’s Larry King appearance than he did the BAFTA Awards on Sunday.

The next play for “the competition?”  If I were in Harvey Weinstein’s shoes, I would publicly support Polanski’s return and instruct all of his nominees not to speak to the issue under any circumstance.  Eliminate the sense that he’ll use this against Polanski and then just keep pushing Chicago and Scorsese.  Don’t look like a basher.  But the disaster on that side about now would be a bunch of high-profile talent campaigning for Polanski’s return the same way Spielberg has campaigned for Scorsese.  That would be the turning point for The Pianist.  Momentum could shift fast and hard. 

So, those would be my marching orders for the Focus crew.  Go out and find every major name that is now leaning positively towards Polanski being allowed to come back to Hollywood. Get reporters to call those people, right away.  Page One of Sunday’s LA Times is the target.  Get an L.A. Times metro reporter to work on the District Attorney’s office.  Find out where John Powers is on this and if he’s with you, push for an L.A. Weekly story.  Try to start a standing ovation for Roman’s satellite appearance at the DGA event Saturday.  Get a major politician to do an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times.

Finally, there is a story worth following this awards seasons.  It could be a very bumpy two weeks to come.

READER OF THE DAY:  M&M writes:  “No way is "The Pianist" the Best Film nominated. Sure, it's a good movie, great even. But what did it offer that other Holocaust films have not offered? This film doesn't compare with "Schindler's List" or even "Life is Beautiful." Polanski sets up shots masterfully, but the film seemed detached to me, not nearly as personal as one would expect from someone who grew up in the Polish ghettos. There were just not enough personal moments with Adrien Brody's character; his long alone scenes didn't compare with Tom Hanks' similar scenes in "Cast Away." His family (the film's most interesting characters) goes, and there is no mention or hint about them again. That may have been the only way Brody's character survived, but the scene after scene of him struggling to survive dragged ploddingly along. The ghetto scenes were suitably horrific, but I didn't feel the movie transcended until the impromptu concert scene with the German officer. And even then, I was squirming in my seat because the previous half hour had seemed to go on so long.

I don't mean to diss "The Piano" too much, but I found it uneven. I'd still pick it for the 2nd best nominated film, though, after "The Hours" and *slightly* (maybe) ahead of "Lord of the Rings." I think "The Hours" is the most underrated film in years. I was transfixed, transported, and amazed through the entire running time, and I'm a 25-year old straight guy who's never read any Virginia Wolfe. That film should win, hands down, since "Bowling for Columbine" and "City of God" weren't nominated.”

JOHNIE E writes:  “I'm looking for answers on The Hours.  With the opening credits (classical music playing, interweaving scenes from different decades) we know we're in

for a mainstream art film.  Not an indie art film like Dancer in the Dark, but a well-budgeted well-timed art film like The English Patient.

But then as the movie went, I started slinking my chair.  Until now I thought I knew what women were.  Now they are foreign to me.  They're alien creatures among us.  I asked my wife if all women were really secretly suicidal bisexuals and she frowned at me.  My sister-in-law laughed in my face as I tried to explain that thanks to The hours I now know what makes her tick.

So as I interviewed more and more Womyn, I'm finding The Hours exists in a vacuum.  Yes the performances are very good.  I was drawn into each of the lead three, but with all the mopey misery, what is this film trying to say about life.  You can only find happiness through selfishness?  Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please?  The MASH theme (with its haunting words) would've been really appropriate over these closing credits.  And for my money, Stephen Dillane should've received a Supporting Actor mention over Ed Harris.”

E ME:  How would you handle Roman’s Choice?