Oscar award winning Director Roman Polanski is being honored by the European Film Academy with a lifetime achievement award. The good folks over at monstersandcritics.com give us this:
WARSAW, Poland (UPI) — The European Film Academy will honor film director Roman Polanski with a lifetime achievement award at a ceremony in Poland.
Polanski, 73, will receive his award for his ‘impressive contribution to the world of film’ in December at the European Film Awards in Warsaw, BBC reported.
The famed director made ‘Rosemary`s Baby,’ ‘Chinatown’ and ‘The Pianist,’ which won an Oscar.
‘The Pianist’ is the story of a Jewish musician’s escape from the Nazis. Though Polanski was born in Paris, he lived in Poland as a child, surviving atrocities in the Krakow ghetto during World War II. His parents were sent to concentration camps, however, and his mother was killed in a gas chamber, BBC reported.
Polanski moved to Hollywood to direct films, but there was charged with having had underage sex with a 13-year-old girl. Rather than face trial, he fled to Europe.
Thus, he was unable to accept the 2002 Oscar for best director in Hollywood without risking arrest.
‘The Pianist’ also won the Palme D`Or and British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards for best film and best director.
So some people are not going to like that a guy who slept with a thirteen year old girl is getting more awards and yes Polanski probably shouldn’t be left unattended near middle schools but he’s still a good director. In fact he’s more than that, he is an artist. And artists are jerks sometimes, more than that once in a while they break the law. Should they pay for this? Yes.
Do I think Polanski paid for his dirty deed? Yes.
Even though Polanski never went to jail for sleeping with a minor he was and still is being punished by never being able to step foot on American soil. To never visit the places where his dead wife Sharon Tate and he fell in love and to be unable to personally receive an Oscar is a punishment that will be with him for a long time.
Does this man deserve a lifetime achievement award? With films like Rosemary’s Baby, The Pianist, The Tragedy of Macbeth and Frantic I think most people agree that he does. It’s just a shame that he will never get to realize his directing potential in America. But when he started playing patty cake with thirteen year olds he gave up that right.
The choices we make for art, love and lust are often much larger than we imagine at the time.
