The “Dwarf” and His Masterpiece

Playing off the fact that Chinatown, the brilliant and haunting 1974 film starring Jack Nicholson as a private detective in 1930s Los Angeles, is the “latest DVD release in Paramount’s Centennial Collection,” Salon critic Andrew O’Hehir today tries to tease out the complicated relationships between that movie and the men behind its production. He’s especially interested, of course, in the picture’s possible reflection of its director, Roman Polanski, who was arrested last month in Switzerland, and may be deported to the States in association with his 1978 conviction for “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.” Writes O’Hehir:

I am not claiming that a work of art has nothing to do with the person who made it, since that’s a stupid idea, and I’m certainly not claiming that the work of art is somehow co-guilty of its creator’s crimes, since that’s an even stupider idea. (Wagner’s music will always be identified with fascism; it can’t be reduced to fascism.) I am certainly not speaking out in defense of Roman Polanski, who apparently did something that was both heinous and illegal, and should long ago have faced the consequences. I guess I’m saying that it’s hypothetically possible to learn something from a movie, and totally impossible to learn anything from the sordid private lives of celebrities.

The whole essay can be found here.