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By Associated Press
LOS ANGELES – On Tuesday, a sentencing rejected Roman Polanski’s request to reinstate his club in the Oscars two years after being expelled from the organization for raping a minor.
The fugitive director filed an action in April 2019, asking the court to require the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to reinstate him as a member of law.
A year earlier, the academy had taken the infrequent resolution of expelling Polanski and Bill Cosby, months after finishing the job of disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Polanski appealed and in January 2019 the academy downplayed his appeal.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Mary Strobel ruled Tuesday that the academy had the right to expel Polanski, gave him a fair hearing, and gave him sufficient knowledge of his expulsion. He followed an interim resolution he had issued on the previous Tuesday as his final order.
Harland Braun, Polanski’s lawyer, the 87-year-old director, had no purpose in Strobel’s attractive decision.
“Roman’s club at the academy is insignificant and we wouldn’t waste the legal prices of a purposeless appeal,” Braun said in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Roman is one of the greatest stewards in film history. His art will be long after the academy is a forgotten relic.
An email requesting comments from academy officials was not answered without delay. In 2019, the academy said in a statement that “the procedures followed to expel Mr. Polanski were fair and reasonable.”
Polanski, who won the Oscar for Best Director for “The Pianist” in 2003, remains fugitive after pleading guilty to being illegal with a minor in 1977 and fleeing the United States the following year. Since then he has lived in Europe.
He had been a member of the academy for nearly 50 years at the time of his expulsion and his films had been nominated for 28 Academy Awards.
But for a long time he has been one of the most conflicting members of the organization. At the 2003 ceremony, Polanski’s victory, the first, earned a standing ovation of status. He’s not there. He had already been nominated for writing his adaptation of “Rosemary’s Baby” and directing “Chinatown” and “Tess”.
After Polanski’s expulsion from the organization, he can no longer vote for the nominees and winners, but he and his films can still win Academy Awards.
After expelling Weinstein, the academy implemented revised conduct criteria for its more than 8,400 members. By criteria, the organization is a position for “people who abuse their status, strength or influence in a way that violates the rules of decency.”
The criteria allowed the academy’s board of administrators to suspend or expel those who violated the code of conduct or “compromised the integrity” of the academy.
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