There are a number of ideas in this world that should never be introduced to each other.
“Christian” and “rock” is one example. “Movie” and “wholesome” is certainly another. And, really, one thing we’ve always been able to count on is the boundless depravity of Hollywood. For this, I used to be grateful.
Obviously, those of us with even a tenuous grasp of decency or respect for the rule of law understand that filmmaker Roman Polanski — who, need we be reminded, alleged loaded up a 13-year-old with alcohol and Quaaludes before raping her in 1977 — should find himself putrefying in prison. Even actors must believe this, right?
No?
The subsequent skirmish over Polanski’s arrest — not exactly a momentous international incident — isn’t between right and left or blue state and red state or secularist and social conservative. It’s between a gaggle of actors and directors against everyone with a moral IQ above Woody Allen.
Harvey Weinstein, the noted producer of “Pulp Fiction,” has been one of Polanski’s staunchest defenders, claiming that the Polish director had already served his time (directing movies in Europe) and that we should trust his take on the situation because “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion.”
Imagine, if you can, the impenetrability of this man’s iron-clad bubble. Weinstein’s success is predicated on dispensing tales from the darkest, twisted corners of the imagination. Don’t get me wrong, for this I am also grateful. Some of Weinstein’s ethically magisterial works, for instance, have included: “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead” (tagline? “They can die quickly. They can die slowly. But they must die!”) and “Death Proof” (plot? “Two separate sets of voluptuous women are stalked at different times by a scarred stuntman who uses his “death-proof” cars to execute his murderous plans”).
Now, I ask you, if Weinstein possessed even a scintilla of decency, would he have subjected this nation to “The Nanny Diaries”?
When Weinstein began circulating a pro-Polanski petition after the director was apprehended in Switzerland, Allen — a man who, somewhat prophetically, carried on an affair with a teenager in his film “Manhattan” — immediately signed.
As did Martin Scorsese, a true giant of cinema, whose depiction of psychotics, mobsters, teenager prostitutes, drugs, mayhem and crass violence can only be called genius.
But moral? Compassionate? Not exactly.
Polanski himself made a name directing “Repulsion” (Plot? “Left alone when her sister goes on vacation, a sexually repressed young beauty goes insane with surreal fantasies of seduction and rape”) and “Rosemary’s Baby,” wherein a housewife is imbued with the devil’s spawn (co-starring Charles Grodin!).
I enjoy many of these charmingly decadent films for what they are: fantasy, titillating, coarse, absurd and escapist. There are few people who possess the talent to send us to a world where violence is without consequence; where serial infidelity is patched up with a couple of witty sentences; and where middle-aged men (often, incredibly, resembling the ones directing the film) can secure companionship from lithe 20-year-old beauties as effortlessly as they can jump from building to building chasing would-be terrorists.
The problem is that apparently many of these people have a problem distinguishing between art and reality. As well-known blogger Allahpundit recently twittered, “Word on the street: Polanski’s next film is so good, Europe’s going to let him (redacted) an eight-year-old. It’s THAT GOOD.”
Where are the average, serial-marrying, middling Hollywood immorals as their profession is sullied by the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, who asserts that Polanski wasn’t guilty of “rape rape” or Debra Winger, who calls the rule of law “Philistine thuggery”?
What is the average American to make of this incident? Despite the coverage, not much.
1. Hollywood denizens are extraordinarily out of touch.
2. We send them to jail when necessary.
3. Always, always ignore them unless they have a script in hand.
David Harsanyi can be reached at dharsanyi@denverpost.com or 303-954-1255.
