Polanski film reverses preconceptions about the fugitive director

If I were R. Kelly, I'd want documentary filmmaker Marina Zenovich to make a movie about me - as soon as possible.

Zenovich's documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" makes its TV debut at 8 p.m. Monday on HBO, and it reverses almost every preconception one might have about Polanski's child-abuse case from 30 years ago. That it does so without letting him off the hook for the crime makes it even more impressive as a piece of filmmaking.

Make no mistake: Polanski did the deed. Although he faced more serious charges for plying a 13-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol and having sex with her in 1977, he pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. And he's been unrepentant about it ever since, especially since fleeing for France in 1978. "Wanted and Desired" unearths a later TV interview with a British journalist in which Polanski says matter-of-factly, "I like young women, let's put it that way."

Yet from that near-monstrous introduction emerges a remarkably sympathetic profile. I never thought I could possibly feel sorry for Polanski, but "Wanted and Desired" produces just that effect. That's skillful documentary moviemaking.

"Wanted and Desired" depicts Polanski not just as the victim of a cultural divide between Europe and America - a dubious proposition where statutory rape is concerned - but as the victim of his own fame and a grandstanding judge, where it makes a much stronger case he was mistreated.

"He didn't perceive having intercourse with a 13-year-old girl as being against the law," says Philip Vanatter, yes, the same detective who would later make a name for himself helping to botch the O.J. Simpson murder case.

Yet Polanski did have genuine ameliorating circumstances, not just as a talented director here and abroad - the filmmaker behind "Knife in the Water," the excellent underrated "Repulsion," "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" - but as someone who lost his mother to the Nazis in World War II and later his wife, Sharon Tate, to the Charles Manson family.

The giddy good humor of his filmmaking in "The Fearless Vampire Killers" with Tate (in which a Jewish vampire is impervious to crosses) led to the "only time of true happiness in my life" when they married. When she was murdered while eight months pregnant with their first child, Polanski was "devastated."

"Roman was different when I worked with him on 'Chinatown,'" five years later, says producer Andrew Braunsberg. "He still loved life. There was just this dark shadow he dealt with every day."

That doesn't excuse the liberties he took with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles, but "Wanted and Desired" goes on to point out Polanski faced justice and served his time by the legal standards of the era - a detail commonly forgotten now - before fleeing prosecution.

Polanski wound up in the court of Judge Laurence Rittenband, a jurist with a penchant for celebrity cases. Polanski pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, and both the family of the victim, Samantha Gailey (now Samantha Geimer, interviewed for the film, who has since forgiven Polanski), and the Probation Department said there was no cause to send Polanski to jail. Yet the American media were making this a cause celebre (while European media turned a more jaundiced eye), so Rittenband came up with the idea of having Polanski placed under psychological observation for 90 days, in effect incarcerated at the Chino, Calif., prison, even though that was not the intent of the state statute.

Polanski probably wouldn't have served even that time if he hadn't been photographed with a woman in a German beer garden while working on a movie in Europe. Still, he returned home, was sent to jail by the judge for observation and served 42 days before psychiatrists declared the tests complete and he was freed.

Yet still more media pressure prompted the judge to break the negotiated plea deal and threaten Polanski not just with more jail time but deportation hearings - an area the judge had absolutely no jurisdiction over. When Polanski asked his attorney if they could trust the judge to hold to this new deal, he replied, "No, we can't trust him." Polanski left for France without informing anyone else the next day.

"I'm not surprised that he left under those circumstances," prosecuting attorney Roger Gunson says.

Polanski went on to make "Tess" with Nastassja Kinski and win an Oscar in 2002 for "The Pianist," all the while enjoying a celebrated life - eventually with a new family - in France.

Zenovich lays all this out with skill, from the original police testimony being printed on-screen in typewriter type (the movie won an award for best editing at the Sundance Film Festival) to drawing on Polanski's films to illustrate themes in his life and work.

And it finishes with a largely overlooked detail. Given the judge's behavior, Polanski has since been offered to come back and close the case for time served. Polanski declined when the new judge in the matter insisted the proceedings be televised. Remember that the next time you consider Polanski a fugitive from justice.

In the air

Nickelodeon brings its national Slime Across America tour to Navy Pier, where the 18-wheel Slime Mobile will stop from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. The Nick Live! Slime Edition show takes place at 2, and Menudo performs at 2:30. See nick.com/slime for details. The Naked Brothers Band presents a new 90-minute movie, "Polar Bears," at 7 p.m. today on Nick.

Still the frontier

The Discovery Channel celebrates the 50th anniversary of the U.S. launch into the space race with "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions," a three-part documentary miniseries running at 8 p.m. Sunday over the next three weeks.

Second tour of duty

"Army Wives" returns for its second season with 19 new episodes starting at 9 p.m. Monday on Lifetime. It's the most popular series ever on the cable channel.

Role reversal

The Wayans brothers turn the table on blackface comedy with "White Chicks," in which Shawn and Marlon, under the direction of Keenen Ivory Wayans, play disgraced FBI agents out to protect a young (white) woman by becoming, yes, "white chicks" themselves. It's at 7 p.m. today on WFLD Channel 32.