Polanski is rape claim ‘victim’, says female director
Filmmaker faces protests at screenings as supporter says he is innocent because he has a ‘beautiful wife’
A ROW over rape allegations against Roman Polanski deepened yesterday after a well-known female director cast doubt over the claims because the controversial French-polish filmmaker had a “beautiful wife”.
Mr Polanski, 86, has been under fire from feminists since last Friday when a French photographer claimed he raped her in 1975 when she was 18 after beating her “into submission” at a chalet.
His lawyers say he denies allegations that he tried to make Valentine Monnier swallow a pill when he pounced on her after they had gone skiing in Gstaad, Switzerland. “I thought I was going to die,” she wrote in an open letter published by Le Parisien.
However, Nadine Trintignant, a French television director, leapt to the defence of Mr Polanski yesterday, telling BFM TV: “I tend to believe him over a woman who took 44 years to denounce him. People should leave him alone after all this time.”
Calling him a “victim”, Ms Trintignant, 85, added: “His wife is very beautiful. Why would he look elsewhere? … If it wasn’t Roman Polanski, he’d be left in peace.”
Critics said her defence was all the more surprising given that her daughter Marie, a French actress, was beaten to death by Bertrand Cantat, her rock star boyfriend, in 2003.
“What dishonesty! If he wasn’t Roman Polanski, he’d have been in jail a long time ago,” wrote one commentator on Twitter.
Ms Monnier said she felt impelled to speak out after Mr Polanski appeared to compare himself to Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer who the French army wrongly persecuted as a spy at the turn of the 20th century, and who is the subject of his new film An Officer and a Spy.
Women’s rights supporters blocked a special advance screening of the film, which is due to be released today, shouting “Polanski rapist” and brandishing banners saying “Polanski persecutes women”.
The critically acclaimed director has been a fugitive from American justice since admitting the statutory rape of a Samantha Geimer, aged 13, in 1977.
Mr Polanski has long enjoyed staunch support from the French film establishment, but this time most of his powerful supporters inside the industry have remained silent.
Predatory sexual behaviour in French cinema came under the spotlight last week when Adèle Haenel, the acclaimed actress, said she was sexually harassed by the director of her first film when aged 12.
Ms Haenel is so far the only star to speak out in support of Ms Monnier, saying: “I believe her. Her stand is all the more courageous because her aggressor is powerful.”
However, Ms Geimer criticised Ms Monnier for not speaking out earlier, asking on Twitter how she could have “sat silently while I was called a liar … knowing they may have prevented it.”
Mr Polanski was charged over Ms Geimer’s rape but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.