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September 29, 2009
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Free Roman Polanski now, demand France and Poland | Film | guardian.co.uk
Free Roman Polanski now, demand France and Poland | Film | guardian.co.ukFree Roman Polanski now, demand France and Poland
Diplomatic war brewing as politicians and filmmakers lobby for release of Oscar-winning director after arrest on 1978 US warrant
A diplomatic war was brewing today over the arrest of the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was detained in Switzerland on a decades-old warrant relating to the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail and said they would be lobbying the US government all the way up to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
Frédéric Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said the arrest was proof of the "frightening" side of America.
"In the same way as there is a generous America which we love, there is also a certain kind of America which is frightening, and it is this America which has now shown us its face," he said.
Reports this afternoon said the director had refused to voluntarily go to the US to face charges, raising the prospect of a long and drawn-out legal saga.
Despite being held in Swiss custody for two nights, Polanski remains "totally combative and determined to defend himself", one of his French lawyers said.
Hervé Temime told France Info radio a request for bail would be made today and that he would be "surprised and disappointed" if permission was not granted.
"We are going to start by requesting he be let out of detention, which should in theory happen today," said Temime. "There is no reason ... to keep Roman Polanski in prison.
"I hope we can very quickly bring to an end this situation which seems to me to be totally grotesque."
Polanski is in good spirits, his agent said today. "His voice is strong ... he's very anxious to get this resolved and go home," Jeff Berg told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Berg said the film director's arrest on a 1978 US warrant as he arrived in Switzerland from France was a surprise because he has had a house in the country for more than a decade.
"It is surprising because Roman, for the last 12, 15 years, has lived in Switzerland. He has a home; he travels there; he works there," he said.
"His presence there is well-known, as it is through much of Europe, so this came kind of as a shock, given the fact that he was invited to Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award."
Polanski, the director of Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, had travelled to Switzerland to accept an award at the Zurich film festival. The event's organisers expressed "great consternation and shock" at his detention.
He has hired the Swiss lawyer Lorenz Erni, of the Eschmann & Erni firm, to fight any extradition charges.
The Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda and other Polish filmmakers have appealed to the US, Swiss and Polish authorities for the Paris-born Polanski to be freed.
Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Filmmakers Association, said Polanski had spent all of August at his house in the German-speaking village of Gstaad, south-west Switzerland, working on his latest movie, The Ghost.
"Nothing happened" to him during that time, Bromski said, adding that in the eyes of the public, Polanski has already "atoned for the sins of his young years".
Polanski has strong links with Poland, having moved to the country with his Jewish family as a child shortly before the second world war.
His mother died in a Nazi concentration camp but he avoided capture and spent his youth in Poland before moving to the west.
The director has held French citizenship for many years and is married to the French singer and actor Emmanuelle Seigner.
He has spent much of his life in France since fleeing the US in 1978 but regularly visits countries that do not have extradition treaties with the US.
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to see the director reunited swiftly with his family, Mitterrand said.
Polanski pleaded guilty to the assault in 1977 but jumped bail and fled the US the following year to avoid a lengthy prison sentence.
He has spent more than three decades in exile in Paris, refusing to return to the US even when he won an Oscar for The Pianist in 2003.
Zurich police said he had been detained in the city on Saturday night at the request of the US justice department and was in custody awaiting extradition.
"There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," Guido Balmer, of the Swiss justice ministry, said. "That's why he was taken into custody."
Polanski was 44 and already a twice Oscar-nominated director when he had sex with Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old model he had hired for a photoshoot, at Jack Nicholson's home in Los Angeles in 1977.
He claimed the sex was consensual, saying the girl was "not unresponsive", but Gailey said he drugged her with painkillers and champagne before carrying out a "very scary" assault.
In recent months, Polanski's lawyers have been seeking, through the US courts, to have the rape charges against him dropped after saying new evidence had emerged in a documentary to show he was the victim of "judicial misconduct" at his original trial.
The documentary showed a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney admitting discussing the case with the trial judge while it was ongoing.
How did the law catch up with Roman Polanski? | Film | The Guardian
How did the law catch up with Roman Polanski? | Film | The GuardianHow did the law catch up with Roman Polanski?
The film-maker's libel action and a very public trip to Switzerland may have been his downfall
Film director Roman Polanski leaving court in October 1977. Photograph: Nick Ut/AP
For a fugitive from US justice, Roman Polanski seems not to have given as much thought as he might have done to the consequences of travelling outside his adopted home, France. There, his French citizenship ensures him protection – France does not allow its own citizens to be extradited to the US.
Presumably, though, he felt safe going to Switzerland, as he has long had a chalet in the luxury ski resort of Gstaad and, according to one of his lawyers, travelled widely in continental Europe.
Los Angeles county authorities have had a warrant out for Polanski's arrest since he fled the US in 1978 while awaiting sentencing after admitting having sex with a 13-year-old girl. But they have only sought his arrest around the world since 2005, when they issued an international arrest warrant.
Their renewed interest may have been sparked off by a well-publicised libel action he brought that year in the high court in London against Vanity Fair, over an article about his earlier private life. He testified by video link for fear of being arrested if he set foot in Britain, with its easy extradition arrangements with the US.
Since then, the LA county district attorney's office has instigated moves to have him arrested at least twice, after learning that he was preparing to travel to a country with an extradition treaty with the US, but in the end he decided not to travel. This time the authorities got lucky, spotting that he was due to accept a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich film festival. Unlike his private holidays in Switzerland, this trip was publicised, ensuring plenty of warning to make sure a valid arrest request was in place.
The district attorney's office sent a provisional arrest warrant to the US Justice Department, which presented it to the Swiss authorities last week. Polanski was arrested at Zurich airport and taken into "provisional custody" in a Zurich jail.
Previous cases indicate that challenging his extradition is likely to take many months. Suspects usually remain in custody throughout the process, although bail is not ruled out. The US state department has 60 days to file a request for Polanski's transfer to LA. The request first goes to the Swiss ministry of justice and appeals are possible both against the arrest warrant and against any decision to extradite. Appeals would go to the Swiss federal penal court of justice, and any rulings there can be appealed further to the federal court of justice.
Alvino Rey Talking Steel Guitar Puppet Video - Missing
Missing: 1 Alvino Rey Talking Steel Guitar Puppet (goes by 'Stringy') - Will be performing 'St. Louis Blues' with Alvino and Co., and Skeets Herfert on Clarinet and Vocals. This Video from the 1940s film 'Jam Session' is very friendly, and should come if whistled for.
If found please contact nichopoulouzo here or at my blog - http://www.visualguidanceltd.blogspot... -
Reward: 1 Pete Drake - Forever - talking steel guitar
Martin Amis London Fields - Nicola Six Imagined
or (how i dream of liz van den berg) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Fields_(novel) - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/LondonFields.jpg -
Nicola Six, a 34 year old local resident, of uncertain nationality, who has entered the pub after attending a funeral, a hobby of hers.Sam sees Nicola dramatically dumping what turn out to be her diaries in a litter bin outside the flat where he is staying (it belongs to Mark Asprey, a wildly successful English writer).The diaries tell Sam that Nicola believes she can somehow see her own future. Nicola is a self-styled "murderee", who manipulates the entire cast of characters to bring about her own murder so that she will not have to face ageing, a natural process that she hates as she fears the loss of her attractiveness and power to manipulate men, as well as the indignities of decay and old age. She describes herself as a failed suicide, who must find her murderer if she is to successfully end her life. She spins a different story to each of the three male characters (Sam, Keith and Guy). Nicola insists that Guy leave his wife and son in order to consummate their relationship, and Guy does so, destroying his family life. To Keith, Nicola styles herself as a rich, knowing woman of the world, a former one-night-stand of the Shah of Iran, who recognises him for what he truly is - a darts prodigy and future darts and TV personality. She gives Keith Guy's money, which he spends on ridiculous clothes and accessories. Keith, a pornography aficionado (and addict) is kept keen by regular "home videos" created by Nicola, starring herself. To Sam, Nicola pretends to tell the whole truth, but in fact manipulates him as well, in a way that is apparent to the reader only when Sam himself realises - at the end of the story. - …left he grunted There she was There was Nicola Six …In this very British tale, femme fatale Nicola Six manipulates racist, sexist scoundrel Keith Talent and well-mannered, naive Guy Clinch as an omniscient narrator/novelist spies on the trio in order to develop his book. "Relentlessly bitter, often brutally funny, hypnotically readable, it may also be quite opaque in places to an American readership," said PW. Author tour. Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc. ... first meeting the image of Nicola Six began to work on Nicola's apartment That's the thing just did it Unlikesolaced Nicola Six Now if she could consider it as lips of Nicola Six Guy had checked into hospital…Amish's disappointing new novel follows the machinations of promiscuous Nicola Six, a psychic who senses that she is to be murdered by one of two men she meets in a London bar. She systematically humiliates both--prole darts champ Keith and posh, ineffectual Guy--only to discover that for once her powers have misled her. Set "at the end of the millennium" against the background of a vaguely defined political/ecological/cosmological crisis, this novel is far longer than its thin content warrants. What can Amis have against these minimally developed characters that he devotes nearly pages to demolishing them? There's disgust aplenty here--but little else. Previewed in Prepubescent Alert …'Will you do me the kindness' said Nicola Six 'of loeyes of Nicola Six What was she doing What was she Nicola had sometimes carelessly slipped the underwea'Sneezes like a cur ' said Nicola to herself It was six 'c ... at it the other way Nicola Six considerably inconvenient the dead end street cocktails with Nicola Six .. …Out on the street they couldn't talk about Nicola Six secerrand Guy spent an hour deciding not to call Nicola Sixand simpered at him in its dew Guy thought of Nicola Six Shebang her head This morning at any rate Nicola Six cocomedown thermoluminescence floor Nicola Six was a Nerf… Nicola and MA Nicola and Mark Asprey I have to know So I i Table of Contents … I The Concordance of Nicola Six's IsI start with the murderee with her with Nicola Six Butlittle since his last conversation with Nicola Six in fa… LONDON FIELDS By Martin Amis. And he may even be the all-time favorite lover of the novel's heroine, Nicola Six. He appears in her diary as the mysterious MA. (MA. Get it?) ''London Fields'' offers Dickensian complications - but don't worry, they all unravel. For the basic plot is straightforward. The ''murderee,'' the aforementioned Nicola Six (read that ''Sex''), has been identified by Sam, an easy chore because Nicola has already dreamed, on several occasions, of her own death, which she knows will occur on her next birthday. The two possible murderers, also identified by Sam, are Keith Talent, a low-life criminal who is also a dart-throwing champion, and Guy Clinch, a wealthy and appallingly honorable gentleman. The question is, who will kill Nicola? Mr Amis's characters bear the burden of a satire that turns them into caricatures. But once this has been said, we can move on to the fact that Mr Amis's language imbues these caricatures with a vitality and an erotic intensity seldom found in current fiction. ''London Fields'' is not a safe book; it is controlled and moved not by plot but by the density of its language. The author freely offends sensibilities. Indeed, it's difficult to think of anything he spares us when it comes to the concerns of the flesh. But his language is demonically alive. Mr Amis has a virtuoso's ear for street talk, and he gives his characters a rich bazaar of language - from the question Keith uses to end almost every sentence (''innit?'') to the complaints of one of his girlfriends, Trish Shirt: ''He comes round my owce. Eel bring boozer and that. To my owce. And use me like a toilet.'' Keith Talent represents Mr Amis's best creation in the book - a grotesque who is nevertheless both surprisingly vivid and desperate. It is a portrait done in verbal glitter. Yet Keith's dispassionate cruelty is almost deathlike. Born into poverty and emotionally without resources, he seeks escape by becoming a petty thief and professional cheat. He yearns for the best that life offers, at least in his terms -a dart-throwing championship and television-celebrity status. As a criminal, Keith is a failure who is not clever enough to know when he is being cheated. So the taker gets taken. But there are limits to his badness: ''Although he liked nearly everything else about himself, Keith hated his redeeming features. In his view they constituted his only major shortcoming - his one tragic flaw. When the moment arrived, in the office by the loading bay at the plant off the near Bristol, with his great face crammed into the prickling nylon, and the proud woman shaking her trembling head at him, and Chick Purchase and Dean Pleat both screaming Do it. Do it (he still remembered their meshed mouths writhing), Keith had definitely failed to realize his full potential. He had proved incapable of clubbing the Asian woman to her knees, and of going on clubbing until the man in the uniform opened the safe.'' Keith's prodigious sexual appetite is multiracial, and followed by ample bragging. (''When it came to kissing and telling, Keith was a one-man oral tradition.'') He is a man formed by television cliches and tabloid headlines. His natural home is a grim pub called the Black Cross, where misogyny and cruelty rule. His true passion is not women but darts, a game in which, with a mindless flow of energy, he succeeds. Keith is a prodigious consumer of aphrodisiac ''porno'' beverages and burning curries, and Mr Amis gives us, all too often, a graphic account of Keith's bodily functions; repetition dulls the effects of the author's savagery. Keith as timeless hooligan mistreats both his wife, Kath, and their infant daughter, Kim. What will be his downfall? He will meet Nicola Six. Just ask Sam, who from time to time invites Guy, Keith and Nicola to his apartment - or visits them on their own turf. Nicola is a problem, though; she makes us yield to a sneaking suspicion that a misogynist lingers here somewhere. She is not truly satisfying as character or caricature. She seems to be another of Mr Amis's plastic women. Beautiful Nicola is years old and promiscuous by choice. In a world abloom with asthma, lesions and eczema, she is in the pink of health. Furthermore, Nicola is a repository of underwear philosophy and pornographic fiction - a sexual savant. ''They wanted,'' she says of her various patrons and suitors, ''the female form shaped and framed, packaged and gift-wrapped, stylized, cartographic, and looking, for a moment at least, illustriously pure.'' Nicola presents herself to Guy as a professional virgin just waiting for the right experience. To Keith, she is a social step up, an inaccessible woman in need of a man around the house - someone to fix things. As the novel proceeds, the Crisis approaches - and also the murder. Unfortunately, Mr Amis endows the former with some painfully obvious symbolism, a series of painted arrows to guide the simple reader through the allegorical overkill. To Nicola Six falls the unenviable task of carrying the message: Nicola has always had an imaginary friend named Enola Gay, who in turn has a child called Little Boy. In case the reader's memory needs refreshing, Nicola obligingly lends Guy a book, which explains that Enola Gay was the name of the plane that carried the first atomic bomb (Little Boy). Nicola also refuses to wear a bikini (remember Bikini Atoll?): ''Nicola Six disapproved of bikinis. She execrated bikinis.'' As a tale of nuclear warning, ''London Fields'' is unconvincing. It succeeds, however, as a picaresque novel rich in its effects. All the minor characters are full of life: Keith's women, from the classic whore, Trish Shirt, to the ever-pure Debbee Kensit; the patrons of the Black Cross; Lizzyboo, Hope's sister, who is gorging herself in preparation for Armageddon. Even the intrusive Sam knows how to observe the world: ''After its latest storm, after its latest fit or tantrum or mad-act, the sky is blameless and aloof, all sweetness and light, making the macadam dully shine. Sheets and pillows in the wide bed of the sky.'' Oh yes, the murder finally happens. But knowing who does it is somewhat beside the point, innit? "martin amis" "london fields" "Nicola six" NICOLA London Fields "liz van den berg" "scenic design" designer scenic "set dresser" "tinto brass" amis kingsley sa nichopoulouzo london_fields_(novel) wiki 6
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