I write these words from a federal detention facility on the outskirts of Zurich. While my primary requirements have been met (a fluffy eiderdown duvet, filling meals with plenty of rosti, sparkling mineral water, and a medium-soft-bristle toothbrush), my cell is cramped. Clouds often scud across the sky in Switzerland; I miss my native France.
I am 76 years old. If, 32 years ago (and I say if), I consensually drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles, or if a 13-year-old girl somehow mistakenly felt that I consensually drugged, raped, and sodomized her, then, obviously, I have regrets.
I regret having to leave the City of Angels, which afforded me untold opportunities. It was there that I met my gorgeous young wife, Sharon Tate, had her brutally snatched from me while she was pregnant with our child, and there that I embarked on the five stages of grieving.
I regret the string of court cases my life has become. Imagine being unable to appear in a London courtroom to bring charges against those who have cruelly libeled you because you fear the British will extradite you to a nation where you will be cruelly prosecuted for consensually drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old.
It's like that scene in "The Pianist" (for which I won an Oscar I was unable to claim in person for the aforementioned reasons) when a man in a wheelchair is viciously hurled by the Nazis from his apartment window to the street below. I am the man, my fate is the wheelchair (to which I am inextricably bound), the apartment window is Switzerland (through which I will fly to my fate (provided my fate is, in this case, not the wheelchair to which I am bound)), and those who work in the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office are both the Nazis and the street below. Or, if you like, the Nazis may be both Swiss and American authorities who collaborate (and I use this word with full knowledge of its implications) to bring me to ground. In fact, the British are also metaphorical Nazis for they would be willing accomplices if given half a chance.
I fled America (for I am not currently nor have ever been wheelchair-bound) on the eve of my sentencing because I did not trust that country's judicial system. Daniel Ellsberg also mistrusted the American justice system, as did Bob Woodward, as did Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet I do not see those men in my Zurich prison cell.
I note that Daniel Ellsberg is now the subject of a flattering documentary: "The Most Dangerous Man in America," whereas the documentary released last year about me, "Wanted and Desired," was decidedly less complimentary. In that film, a now dead prosecutor discusses how he coached the judge overseeing my Los Angeles trial and describes the ways in which he attempted to influence the judge to view harshly my consensually drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl.
Is it fair that the country which failed to bring the killers of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, and Nicole Brown Simpson to justice continues to hound me? Was it right that I was forced to abandon a land with the world's most vibrant film industry for France, a nation which produces 36 films a year (33 of which are state-funded and must by law be screened in French cinemas regardless of whether they are of any redeeming value)?
Many in America have shown the capacity for mercy. The 13-year-old girl whom I supposedly consensually drugged, raped, and sodomized has publicly exonerated me. The Motion Picture Academy has honored my work. And the "Scranton Times" positively reviewed my 2005 version of "Oliver Twist." I am in continual exile: from Poland, from America, and now from France. Isn't enough enough?
I can certainly assure those who run the Zurich Film Festival that this will be my last such appearance here. I did not notice "being apprehended without warning and threatened with extradition to the United States" on the schedule of events I received earlier this year. Please know that while you claim to celebrate cinema, you have made it exceedingly difficult for me to focus on my latest work, "Ghost," and have very likely impeded its release.
