Here’s Kate Winslet in black and red formfitting Stella McCartney, hugging up on evil troll justice dodger Roman Polanski. If that dress looks familiar it’s because she wore a black and white version of it a couple of months ago to the Venice Film Festival. Now that I’m looking at that earlier dress, I see that it featured a weird white boob shelf thing that this dress lacks. Let’s revisit that earlier dress in all its glory.

See, this red and black version isn’t half as bad. I still really dislike it. It’s a blatant attempt at an optical illusion that makes the wearer look smaller. As Kaiser wrote when she covered the other version of this dress, it’s tacky like a tuxedo t-shirt. Again, at least this one doesn’t emphasize her boobs too. It has the same stitching under the boob area but it’s all one color across the front.

Kate was in Paris at a screening for Carnage, a Roman Polanski-directed film also starring John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster and Christoph Waltz. It’s out December 16th in the US. I hate to say it, but I watched the trailer and it actually looks good. It’s about two couples meeting to discuss a fight their 11 year-old sons had at school. Polanski shouldn’t have a career to speak of, but that doesn’t mean his films are total crap unfortunately. Is there a big difference between showing support for Polanksi by starring in his films vs. kissing him on the red carpet? Probably not.

Getting back to Kate’s look, I was going to say that she even wore the same shoes but she didn’t. Her earlier shoes were similar black platform peep toe heels, but they didn’t have an ankle strap. They’re both too clunky-looking for this type of dress. Mix it up, Kate!

Also, you can tell me she hasn’t had anything done to her face but I’m not buying it.

Photo credit: WENN and Fame

These are new photos of Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly at the NY Film Festival premiere of Carnage. I suspect that Jodie is wearing Armani, just because she almost always wears Armani for red carpet situations. I don’t love the dress, or the shoes, but I really like her haircut. She’s still a very beautiful woman, and I buy that she’s un-tweaked too.

Enough of the superficial stuff! For whatever reason, Jodie Foster has just gone completely and totally crazy this year with her career choices. Earlier this year, she was out and about, promoting the hell out of The Beaver, that dumb film she did with Mel Gibson. She not only agreed to work with her spiritual soulmate Mel, actor-to-actor, she DIRECTED the p.o.s. too. And then for her follow-up to Bad Career Choices 101, she worked with Roman Polanski, who directed Carnage, the film adaptation of the play, God of Carnage. To be fair to Jodie, other actors made the bad decision to work with Polanski – John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and of course, Kate Winslet (who looks like the over-wrought, bad-accented weak link in the trailer).

So why does Jodie get so much grief? I think it’s because she’s so vocal in her support of Mel AND Polanski. Where many prominent actors work with Roman Polanski, they rarely try to publicly defend him, and perhaps it can be easily explained as a one-time mistake in judgment, or an actor just having blinders on regarding Polanski’s considerable talent as a director versus how sucky and terrible he is as a person. You can’t explain it away with Jodie, because she just seems to have consistently horrible taste in men. Plus, the fact that The Beaver and Carnage have come out within months of each other probably doesn’t help her either.

Sigh… at least her hair is cute.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are some photos of Roman Polanski and his son, out and about in Paris a few days ago. Since the Swiss courts refused to extradite Polanski, he’s been free to travel to pretty much whatever European country he wants (well… I don’t think he could go to England, they would probably extradite him). So Polanski went back to France, where he has lived for the most part for the past 31 years, since fleeing America. Meanwhile, here in the USA, we’ve got another Polanski sexual assault story brewing. Previously, we’re still raking over the coals of Polanski’s rape and sodomy of a 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, back in 1977, and then, back in May, actress Charlotte Lewis came forward and claimed that when she was 16 years old, Roman Polanski forced himself on her in 1985, in Paris. Charlotte Lewis is being rep’d by Gloria Allred, by the way. So the new story involves a woman named Edith Vogelhut, and an eerily similar story of Polanski drugging, raping and sodomizing a young woman.

Edith Vogelhut spent a night with Roman Polanski in 1974 and claims she was brutally raped by the famed director at Jack Nicholson’s house.

“He said, ‘Turn over, get on your stomach,’ and I’m handcuffed within minutes,” Vogelhut told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive video interview.

Vogelhut, a former model also known as Shelli Paul and Glamor magazine editor, is the most recent woman to come forward and accuse Polanski, who remains free abroad. She has reported the alleged crime to Los Angeles District Attorney, who interviewed her in May. In an exclusive interview, Vogelhut tells RadarOnline.com it started on a November night she spent with Polanski in Hollywood, explaining she met him at a star-studded dinner party hosted by The Godfather producer Robert Evans and attended by actor Warren Beatty.

After a night of dancing and booze, Vogelhut, who was 21-years-old at the time, says the two ended up at Jack Nicholson’s house for a night-cap.

“I kind of knew that we’re going to have sex, but I didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary…I did not expect to be sodomized,” she said.

Vogelhut says that after drinking some Brandy together Polanski gave her an MDMA — Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, commonly known as Ecstasy — and told her: “It’s a really good drug. It will make you feel good, it will mellow you out. It’s like a stimulator.” (Ectasy was not as widely available in the 1970s as now, but it was in circulation.)

When they eventually made it to the bedroom, she says Polanski handcuffed her and raped her.

“He grabs me by the hair, jerks my head up, snaps amyl nitrate under my nose [which when inhaled has a psychoactive effect] and enters me anally,” Vogelhut recalled of the horrifying night.

“I hurt. This was rape. I was anally raped repeatedly.”

As RadarOnline.com first revealed, Vogelhut reported the incident to the Los Angeles District Attorney.

“I kept quiet for many reasons,” Vogelhut explains.
“I was humiliated, I had absolutely no one to tell and with this group that I told you about at this dinner party that ran Hollywood, they weren’t going to believe me.”

In 1977, Polanski was arrested and charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion and sodomy against 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, who also claimed the assault happened at Nicholson’s Hollywood home.

In an attempt to avoid jail time, Polanski fled the United States to his native country of France where he was protected from extradition.

After being taken into custody by Swiss authorities in 2009, the 77-year-old remains there because the Swiss freed him on July 12 instead of extraditing him to Los Angeles for sentencing in the Geimer case.

In May, 2010 British actress Charlotte Lewis came forward as well claiming Polanski assaulted her in his Paris apartment when she was just 16-years-old – a move Vogelhut says prompted her to finally come forward with her story.

She is also planning to release a tell-all book — tentatively titled Audacity– detailing her life in the world of modeling, magazines and her search for love. There is also one chapter dedicated to her alleged encounter with Polanski.

[From Radar]

Jesus. So, basically, Roman Polanski is a violent bastard who likes to drug teenage girls and young women, then rape and sodomize them. And he’s gotten away with it all his life. Disgusting.

And yes, I think this woman could be making the whole thing up – but it fit’s his pattern of behavior, and I for one buy her story.

Roman Polanski on July 25, 2010 & January 15, 2009. Credit: Fame.

Roman Polanski has just been freed from his Swiss house (chalet)-arrest after the Swiss government just rejected the American government’s extradition request. Polanski was caught last year when he was attempting to attend a film festival in Switzerland, and since then, it’s been a f-cking circus. To their credit, the Swiss authorities didn’t give Polanski much in the way of respect at first, although they eventually allowed him bail and detainment at his Swiss ski chalet, where he stayed with his family. All of the American charges Polanski would have had to face stemmed from his 1977 drugging, rape and sodomy of a 13-year-old girl in LA. Polanski has been “on the run” from American justice since 1978.

The Swiss government declared renowned film director Roman Polanski a free man on Monday after rejecting a U.S. request to extradite him on a charge of having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

The Swiss mostly blamed U.S. authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about Polanski’s sentencing procedure in 1977-1978. The Justice Ministry also said that national interests were taken into consideration in the stunning decision.

“The 76-year-old French-Polish film director Roman Polanski will not be extradited to the USA,” the ministry said in a statement. “The freedom-restricting measures against him have been revoked.”

Polanski’s lawyer Herve Temime said the director was still at his Swiss chalet in the resort of Gstaad, where he has been held under house arrest since December. Switzerland’s top justice official said he could now leave.

“Mr. Polanski can now move freely. Since 12:30 today he’s a free man,” Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf declared.

Approving extradition had seemed the likeliest scenario after Polanski was arrested on Sept. 26 as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. Polanski had also suffered a series of legal setbacks this year in California courts.

Widmer-Schlumpf said the decision was not meant to excuse Polanski’s crime, saying the issue was “not about deciding whether he is guilty or not guilty.”

The Oscar-winning director of Rosemary’s Baby,Chinatown and The Pianist was accused of plying his victim with champagne and part of a Quaalude during a 1977 modeling shoot and raping her. He was initially indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy, but pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.

What happened after that is a subject of dispute. The defense says the now deceased judge, Laurence J. Rittenband, had agreed in meetings with attorneys to sentence Polanski to a 90-day diagnostic study and nothing more. The judge later changed his mind and summoned Polanski for further sentencing — at which time he fled to his native France, attorneys say.

[From USA Today]

My guess is that France won’t extradite either, considering they never seemed interested in it before, and considering that Polanski is friendly with influential people in French society, including many French politicians. So now Polanki has free reign to live out his days in France and Switzerland. But what of other countries? Is there any other country who has the balls to extradite, if Polanski ever came into their country? Eh. Something tells me that Polanski might keep it simple from here on out – just France and Switzerland.

Are you shocked by this? CB and I were wondering if Polanski greased a few palms in Switzerland to get this decision. Is it about a pay-off, or is it something else? It’s not like the Swiss government has never profited from “doing business” with scum (like, say, the Nazis). But I don’t know. All of it seems like a colossal waste of time for the Swiss government to detain Polanski all of this time, only to release him.

Header: Polanski file photo, courtesy of WENN.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the infamous “Polanski petition” – of which many major American, British and French celebrities have already signed – is being circulated around the Cannes Film Festival. I suppose the petition’s instigator, Bernard-Henri Levy, hopes that the petition finds it’s way in front of someone else high-profile enough that his or her name will make the difference? Ugh. In any case, Polanski does have many defenders who are already speaking up on his behalf while they attend the Cannes Film Festival. One of those people? Woody Allen, who was involved in his own sketchy, gross scandal, although it wasn’t with an underage girl. It was with his step-daughter Soon-Yi, and she’s now his wife. Woody says that we should be over this whole Polanski thing at this point, because Polanski “did something wrong and he paid for it.” What?

Woody Allen has restated his support for fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who is in house arrest in connection with a 33-year-old sex scandal.

Allen said Polanski “was embarrassed by the whole thing,” “has suffered” and “has paid his dues.” He said Polanski is “an artist and is a nice person” who “did something wrong and he paid for it.”

Polanski pleaded guilty in 1978 to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. He was taken into custody in September and is currently under house arrest in Gstaad, Switzerland.

Earlier this week, new allegations surfaced when a British actress claimed Polanski had sexually abused her when she was 16.

It was not clear whether Allen was aware of the new allegations when he made the remarks in an interview Saturday with France Info radio from the Cannes Film Festival. Allen had previously signed a petition calling for Polanski’s release.

Allen’s relationship with actress Mia Farrow ended in scandal and New York tabloid headlines in 1992, when she found out he was having an affair with her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, then 22. Allen married Previn in 1997.

[From Huffington Post]

Apparently, Charlotte Lewis’s claims have made little to no impact on the Polanski-love felt in Cannes. Although I think it’s popular opinion that all of these people have signed the petition because they feel the same way as Woody Allen – that Polanski has already “suffered” et cetera – I really think many of them signed because they consider Polanski a genius, and that genius should be made certain behavioral allowances. That’s just my theory. Because I think the other argument, the one that Woody is making, about Polanski suffering and already paying for his crime(s) is bullsh-t.

On Friday, we previewed an upcoming press conference featuring Gloria Allred, one of her clients, and accusations about Roman Polanski acting skeevy towards yet another underage girl, this time in 1985. Well, the press conference went on, and I’m sorry I’m just getting to it now. The accuser is a British actress named Charlotte Lewis, which, incidentally, is the name of a character on Lost, so that threw me off initially. I kept expecting to see photos of a redhead with “flash” trauma. But this Charlotte Lewis, the real Charlotte, worked with Polanski when she was 16 years old, on a film he directed in France called Pirates. During the press conference, Lewis claimed that Polanski “sexually abused me in the worst possible way when I was 16 years old.” Here’s more:

A 42-year-old British actress is alleging that “she was victimized” by controversial director Roman Polanski when she was 16 years old, RadarOnline.com has confirmed.

Charlotte Lewis, who starred in the Polanski film Pirates, spoke at a news conference Friday saying “he (Roman Polanski) sexually abused me in the worst possible way when I was 16 years old.” Lewis is represented by high-powered attorney Gloria Allred, who said she if Charlotte’s allegations are true, they “are relevant for his sentencing.”

After being a fugitive from justice for more than 30 years, Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in September 2009 for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1978. He is under house arrest and is fighting extradition to the U.S. where he faces up to two years in California state prison.

Allred says “If Charlotte’s allegations are accepted as true; then Mr. Polanski was able to victimize another child while he was a fugitive from justice.”

The legal age of consent in Paris is 15.

Allred says she has taken the case to the Los Angeles Police Department and the LA District Attorney’s Office. While Lewis would not give specifics, she said “In addition to the fact that both myself and his previous victim were underage, I believe that there are other similarities in the crime that he committed.”

She continued, “Mr. Polanski knew that I was only 16 years old when he met me and forced himself upon me in his apartment in Paris. He took advantage of me and I have lived with the effects of his behavior ever since it occurred. All I want is justice.”

Through her 20 year career, Lewis was on an episode of Seinfeld and multiple TV shows. When asked if she was shopping a book deal, Allred responded by saying “next question.”

[From Radar]

It’s unclear what Lewis is trying to achieve. Obviously, by doing the press conference in Los Angeles after so much time has passed, it looks like Lewis isn’t interested in any criminal charges Polanski could have faced in France. Perhaps Lewis really is just interested in influencing the sentencing for the California case, and perhaps changing the conversation about Polanski in general. Personally, I don’t doubt Polanski had sex with a 16 year old actress – I think he likes to rape/have sex with teenagers in general, and he was only charged the one time.

Radar is also running two other pieces about Lewis. One is this interview with Lewis’s friend Jon Jacobs, who is basically acting as her character reference. Jacobs tells Radar: “I’m not going to doubt her. She’s not a liar.” Radar also ran a piece about who else Lewis has dated in the celebrity/Hollywood community. Allegedly, she dated Charlie Sheen in the late 1990s, which would have been pre-Denise Richards. She’s also rumored to have dated Eric Clapton and Eddie Murphy. Oh, and she posed for Playboy.

Promotional images of Charlotte Lewis from Polanski’s ‘Pirates’ in 1986. Credit: WENN.

Radar is reporting that another woman is about to come forward at a press conference today and claim that she was the victim of a sexual crime perpetrated by Roman Polanski. I think. We don’t know this woman’s name, but Radar says that she’s got Gloria Allred representing her, so I really don’t know what to think. Good Lord, is it Rachel Uchitel? Does Uchitel have a tape of Polanski telling her how much he loved her? Of course I jest. We all know that whatever happens, Polanski is the real victim, right?

A new woman is coming forward with sexual charges against Roman Polanski, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively. In what is sure to cause an uproar, the new alleged victim will hold a news conference Friday with famed attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles, RadarOnline.com is reporting exclusively.

The shocking twist to Polanski infamous story comes as legal wrangling over his 1977 case has heated up with the filmmaker under house arrest in Switzerland, fighting extradition to the U.S. where he faces up to two years in California state prison.

In 1978, Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. He reached a plea bargain deal but when the judge in that case said he would renege on the deal, Polanski fled to France. He has been a fugitive since then.

He was arrested in Switzerland on September 26, 2009.

It is not yet known if the new woman will charge that she was underage when she was allegedly the victim of a sexual crime by Polanski.

Polanski has long been a controversial figure, celebrated for his art and demonized for his actions with an underage girl and subsequent flight from the United States and avoiding punishment.

Now, with new sexual charges about to be leveled against him, the controversy surrounding Polanski is certain to erupt and grow. RadarOnline.com will continue to update the story as it develops.

[From Radar]

This is kind of a non-story until we know the exact nature of what this woman is alleging. It could seriously be anything from sexual harassment to statutory rape to infidelity to bullsh-t. I can’t say that having Gloria Allred for an attorney at this point really gives this whole thing an air of credibility, but I’ll save my judgment until I hear this woman’s story.

Roman Polanski has decided to speak out about his detainment of his house-arrest at his multi-million-dollar house Swiss ski chalet. In an open letter to his friend, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy titled “I cannot keep quiet” – that was published in French and Swiss newspapers – Polanski lays out what he sees as the wrongs done to him. He claims he’s “not going to try to ask you to pity my lot in life” and then continues to lay out why one more day confined to his luxurious ski chalet would be the greatest legal travesty ever. Yes, it’s all quite ridiculous:

Filmmaker Roman Polanski, breaking a months-long silence, said Sunday that the U.S. is demanding his extradition from Switzerland on a 33-year-old sex case largely to serve him “on a platter to the media.”

Polanski, who is under house arrest in his Alpine Swiss chalet, laid out his case against extradition on an online magazine run by one of his staunchest supporters, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.

“I have had my share of dramas and joys, as we all have, and I am not going to try to ask you to pity my lot in life,” he wrote. “I ask only to be treated fairly like anyone else.”

Polanski suggests the case against him is unjust and riddled with problems. Each argument begins with the phrase: “I can remain silent no longer.”

One of Polanski’s complaints is that Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, “who is handling this case and has requested (the) extradition, is himself campaigning for election and needs media publicity!” Cooley is running for California attorney general.

The district attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said the office “will withhold comment until the Swiss make a decision on his fugitive status.”

Swiss authorities are trying to decide whether to extradite Polanski to Los Angeles for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl. Polanski was arrested seven months ago as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival.

The Oscar-winning director of “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown” and “The Pianist” was put behind bars for more than two months before being transferred on $4.5 million bail to house arrest in the luxury resort of Gstaad. Polanski wrote in the online magazine, La Regle du Jeu, that he had mortgaged his apartment to pay the bail.

Three decades ago, Polanski was accused of plying his victim with champagne and part of a Quaalude during a modeling shoot and raping her. He was initially indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy. He later pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.

What happened after that is a subject of dispute. The defense says the now deceased judge, Laurence J. Rittenband, had agreed in meetings with attorneys to sentence Polanski to a 90-day diagnostic study and nothing more. But the judge later changed his mind and summoned Polanski for further sentencing – at which time he fled to his native France, attorneys said.

Polanski claimed the judge “betrayed” him and wanted “to gain himself some publicity at my expense.” He said the request for his extradition is “founded on a lie.”

Polanski said retired Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson, who worked on the case three decades ago, has confirmed his take on events under oath. The director’s lawyers have argued that unsealing transcripts of Gunson’s secret testimony would show the extradition request is based on false and incomplete statements by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

Polanski added: “I can no longer remain silent because the United States continues to demand my extradition more to serve me on a platter to the media of the world than to pronounce a judgment concerning which an agreement was reached 33 years ago.”

The filmmaker has kept largely silent under house arrest. In December, he released a message thanking his supporters for their letters.

[From Huffington Post]

Look, I know I’m going to make Polanski’s harshest critics angry, but there was and is something wrong with the way Polanski’s case was handled. I could conceivably buy that the California prosecutor was trying to get a big fish, and that certain people in the justice system throughout the case were trying to use Polanski because he was a big fish. That being said, Polanski should be extradited and should deal with all of this head-on, in America. The crux of Polanski’s argument seems to be that he will not be treated fairly if he is extradited, when the history of this case shows that he’s consistently gotten special treatment. Plus, I’m not sure if “sanctimonious” is the reaction I would go for if appealing to the general public. Polanski is a big fail.

I wasn’t even going to write about this, but then I looked at these photos very carefully, and I grew disturbed. This is Renee Zellweger at the closing ceremony of the Berlin Film Festival, where she was a judge. Previously, we’ve seen photos of Renee in Berlin where she seemed to be sporting some kind of bump/bloat/baby/extra poundage. I had high hopes that Renee was stopping with the emaciated look and actually eating the occasional carb, but it seems that within a week in Berlin, Renee dropped whatever that “extra” weight was and she’s back to looking very, very thin. So thin that the oversized sleeves on her dress look to be about the same width as her chest. For goodness sake, Renee!

The Daily Mail calls this a “batwing dress” but I think of it more like a throwback to the 19th century of something. I just don’t get the movement for such disproportionate volume in dresses. Everything’s happening in the sleeves, and nowhere else – just Renee’s tiny little waist, hips and legs looking dwarfed by her enormous arms. It’s strange. Also, if you’re going to wear something so fashion-y, why not take the time to do your hair? From the neck up, Renee looks like she was just running around, doing errands.

Oh, yeah, and about the Berlin Film Festival… Roman Polanski won Best Director at the festival, for his film The Ghost. Obviously, he was not there to actually accept the award, but it’s just one more signal that the film community is pretty much on Polanski’s side. I wonder if Renee voted for him? I wonder if Renee knows where she is?

Renee at the Berlin Film Festival on February 20, 2010. Credit: WENN.

Oh, screw you, you sexy bastard. I won’t fall in love with you again, even if I do love your crinkles and your crooked smile and your sexy beard. You’re screwing around on your wife with Melanie Laurent. You defend Roman Polanski. I can’t love you. You’ve already broken my heart.

Yes, so this Ewan McGregor (and Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams) at a press conference for the Berlin premiere of The Ghost Writer, a film directed by Roman Polanski before the Swiss caught up with him and placed him jail. It actually looks like a pretty decent thriller, very loosely based on Tony Blair’s post-prime-minister life. Brosnan plays the former prime minister and Ewan plays the “ghost writer” who gets hired to write the prime minister’s memoirs, which the prime minister hopes will be an effective white-wash of his war crimes while in office.

Unfortunately, most of the talk at the press conference was about Polanski. And even more unfortunately, Brosnan and McGregor had nothing but love for him:

Pierce Brosnan, star of Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer”, said he regretted the director could not be at Friday’s premiere at the Berlin Film Festival due to his house arrest, and called him a “great man.”

Brosnan and fellow cast members Ewan McGregor and Olivia Williams said they had jumped at the chance to work with Polanski.

“He’s an intense director, a man who’s lived an intense life. He was exhilarating,” the former James Bond star told reporters. “You wanted to be on top of your game for this great man. It was just a magic experience, one never to be forgotten.”

Polanski, the Oscar-winning director of “Chinatown” and “The Pianist”, completed the thriller at his Swiss chalet while awaiting possible extradition to the United States over a 1977 case of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

It features Brosnan as the former British premier who hires a ghost writer played by McGregor to help him pen his memoirs. But the hired hand quickly finds skeletons in the closet of his new boss, who is being probed for war crimes for involving his country in CIA renditions of terror suspects, and in the process stumbles upon a global conspiracy.

The picture is one of 20 films vying for the coveted Golden Bear top prize at the 60th anniversary Berlinale. The Hollywood Reporter called the movie “the hottest ticket in town.” After the screening, critics praised a suspenseful, often witty script and deft acting but said the picture lagged a bit as the final plot twists unfolded.

They also found certain parallels to the embattled director’s life, with a once-admired public figure who finds himself under fire, isolated and fighting to define his legacy.

McGregor said he had been intimidated at first by the notoriously short-tempered film-maker but had never learned more from a director.

“I think it’s a great pity he’s not here to launch the film with us because I feel that he’s as responsible for my performance in this film as I am,” he said. “I left having felt like I’d been really stretched and pushed and challenged as an actor.”

Williams said there was a fashion in directing today to coddle actors.

“After a take, they’ll say ‘That’s great, maybe you’d like to try it like this’,” Williams said. “Roman was the first director I’ve known that, when you’re actually acting, will stop the camera and say ‘No, no, no!’” she said, mimicking the French-Polish director’s accent. “It’s quite alarming when it first happens.”

Filmed in Germany, “The Ghost Writer” sees its prime minister in a kind of exile in the United States, fearing possible extradition to an international war crimes tribunal. Polanski himself had to flee the United States while at the height of his powers in Hollywood, unable to return without risking prison.

The movie, based on British writer Robert Harris’s bestseller “The Ghost”, had been considered as the festival opener until organisers got cold feet.

“It might have been understood as a statement about something that we didn’t want to get mixed up in,” festival director Dieter Kosslick said in the run-up to the Berlinale’s start Thursday with the Chinese drama “Apart Together.”

Polanski’s long-time producer Robert Benmussa said the director’s arrest in Zurich in September had created unexpected complications in finishing the film in time for its Berlinale premiere.

“Despite his incarceration, Roman continued to work on the film though courier packages that we sent to him in prison through his Swiss lawyer. Then, when he was in his chalet, he continued to work on the movie, putting the last touches (on) the final print,” he said.

[From AFP Via Google News]

In Ewan and Pierce’s defense, neither of them signed the Polanski petition, and neither of them offered a defense of Polanski the man, the criminal, the child rapist. They just seem to be defending him as an artist, which I can kind of understand, I guess. I can do that too – separate the artist from the scummy human being, but in Polanski’s case, it’s quite a tall order.

Ewan has previously discussed the Polaski situation, saying that he was “pretty upset” about Polanski’s Swiss arrest, and “I don’t like to think of him sitting in a prison cell. But I wouldn’t comment upon it because it’s a very complicated issue, you know? It seems odd. He’s been living in Switzerland for years and I’ve visited him there, so this is all very strange.” You know what else is strange, Ewan? A married man walking arm-in-arm with another woman. Just sayin’.

Ewan, Pierce and Olivia in Berlin for the ‘Ghost Writer’ press conference on February 12, 2010. Credit: WENN.