The Angry Exile: Polanski supporters surely can't argue with this.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Monday, 5 October 2009

Polanski supporters surely can't argue with this.

Simon Heffer is one of those journos that I sometimes find myself agreeing with but who usually comes across as having an authoritarian streak a mile wide. He seems rabidly anti-drugs for example, and I reckon might clutch his chest and collapse at the idea of legalising them. Ditto prostitution and porn and drinking as much as you feel like at whatever time someone is prepared to serve until and so on. On the plus side he thinks Gordon Clown is a tool, has apparently little but contempt for much of Laborg, and seems pessimistic that Cameron will turn out to be much better. Still, broken clocks and all that, but what he's said about Roman Polanski is spot on for me.

Roman Polanski's crime doesn't cancel out his art - and vice versa.

One film of Polanski's especially strikes me as a masterpiece – The Pianist, the superbly told, filmed and directed true story of a Jew who managed to escape Hitler's genocide and emerged, in one piece, from the ruins of Warsaw as the Russians moved in late in 1944. He did a good Oliver Twist four years ago – helped by a superb screenplay by our greatest living playwright, Ronald Harwood – and I don't doubt that while some of his other work leaves me cold, it has its merits.

But if a Polanski film comes on the television, do we put out of our mind that he has admitted to the horrific treatment of a 13-year-old girl, and just enjoy his work? Or is the deed he was accused of – drugging, raping and further sexually assaulting a minor 30 years his junior – so foul that we should abjure him altogether?

... I fear he must have what is coming to him. It is not just for his grave offences against his victim, but for the way he jumped bail and has avoided, until now, the long arm of the United States authorities for 32 years. It is this that makes a mockery of the rule of law, and those who call for bygones to be bygones fail to understand that the law is bigger than any of those who break it, or their victims. When I next watch The Pianist, I fear Polanski's crimes will be at the back of my mind: but in a separate compartment.

Seems reasonable. Crime isn't like going overdrawn on your bank account and great philanthropic works, much less recognition for arts and entertainment, shouldn't act as if it was some kind of credit that had been overlooked from the balance. But equally the philanthropic works would still stand even if it turned out they were done by someone who was a secret bastard. Personally Polanski's films don't flick my switch any more than Gary Glitter's music does, so in the same way that I'll remember him as a kiddy fiddler first and only incidentally as the Leader of the Gang I'll think of Polanski as a dirty old man who took the whole casting couch thing waaaaaaay too far, but who also made some well regarded movies. If they're the sort of thing you like then the movies are as good as they were before, just as drugging and anally raping a girl barely in her teens is pretty vile even if it was done by a heart surgeon and charitable fund raiser who'd personally saved hundreds of lives and helped improve numerous others.