When Roman Polanski won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Pianist, he became the first filmmaker to win that Oscar while a fugitive from U. S. justice. In 1977, Polanski was arrested and charged with rape and drugging a minor after Samantha Geimer (or Samantha Gailey, as she was then known), a thirteen-year-old girl who he wanted to photograph for French Vogue, claimed that he had plied her with champagne and quaaludes and then assaulted her at the private shoot he had arranged at Jack Nicholson's house. Polanksi, who has always maintained that he was set up as part of a scheme by the girl's mother to blackmail him, arranged a deal to plea to a lesser charge, only to flee the country after being advised that the judge intended to set aside the plea bargain and throw the book at him. (He faced a possible prison term of fifty-years.) He hasn't been back to the States since, though Samantha Geimer, interviewed in the wake of The Pianist's release, said that as far as she was concerned, "Straight up, what he did to me was wrong. But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us."
All this and more is covered in the eagerly awaited HBO documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which had its premiere showing in New York this week. Jada Yuan of New York magazine's "Vulture" blog reports that one party of three that showed up for the event were: Samantha Geimer, accompanied by her mother and husband. Geimer, who lives in Hawaii, has three kids and works for a real estate developer, agreed to let the filmmakers interview about what happened thirty years ago because, ""Generally for me, it's just easier that if people want to talk to me, I talk to them. That way they don't sit out in front of my house and wait for me." Still, you might think that she wouldn't have been up to flying in from the big island to see it all gone over again onscreen. On the contrary, "We thought this would be really fun. We don't get many chances to come to New York, so I was really happy to come and see the city and do all this fabulous stuff. Got to be back to work on Friday or the boss will fire me."
As for the movie, she endorses it heartily, and maybe, a bit, to her surprise: "I didn't think somebody could make it that interesting."
