Marina Zenovich’s documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, explores the circumstances and aftermath of the the 1977 criminal case against the lauded director which notoriously led to his fleeing the U.S. never to return. Polanski was essentially charged with the statutory rape of a 13-year-0ld girl whom he had been hired to photograph for a fashion magazine, and if you were like me and assumed he immediately absconded to save his skin, you’d be wrong. 
Instead, the film presents a fascinating and disturbing story of a bizarre and unhealthy intersection between Hollywood fame, a voracious press, and the delicate and inflated ego of the judge assigned to preside over Polanski’s case. No one comes off well here, but in the end, the natural object of our sympathy is, surprisingly, the former child rapist.
It turns out that Polanski and his lawyer were fully cooperating in his prosecution, to the extent that Polanski entered a guilty plea to one of the central charges against him. And to understand the series of events that followed, Zenovich presents interview footage from an impressive array of those involved: the defense lawyers, the prosecutors, the late judge’s colleagues, various members of the press, Polanski’s friends and colleagues, and even the victim herself (who years ago publicly forgave Polanski his crime). We don’t hear directly from Polanski, and although that is certainly a disappointment, the story really doesn’t suffer from, well, his absence. The film is capable of stirring discussion about a number of topics, but one of the largest questions the Polanski case presents is whether immediate, direct public access to high-profile cases serves the American justice system well. It’s now 31 years since Polanski bought his one-way ticket to France, and to my surprise, most of those interviewed (in the film and in the numerous additional interviews on the DVD) feel that, for one reason or another, Polanski will never return to American soil. While there are innumerable stories which would rank higher in importance, I think this one doesn’t reflect well on a system which takes the name Justice.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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