7 Excellent But Morally Problematic Movies

It’s fairly common knowledge for people familiar with Roman Polanski’s work that he can’t work in the United States because he’s wanted for statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl dating back to the 1970s. There’s all sorts of complications surrounding the case that are laid out nicely in the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired but the truth remains, from the facts I can gather, that what he did was pretty awful. Really, really awful. So it puts those of us who are fans of his work in an awkward position when we eagerly anticipate his next film, which he makes overseas in fear of being extradited to the States. I love The Pianist, The Ghost Writer, and Carnage to pieces, they are brilliant pieces of work, but the moral dilemma remains that they’ve all been made under some morally tenuous circumstances.

I can’t determine how much that actually takes away from the quality of the works made by Polanski, or any of these film examples. Considered objectively, it would seem like it would be easy to just say they’re excellent and end the discussion there. But it’s impossible to consider them objectively if we’re honest with ourselves. A film whose morals we completely agree with and get excited about because they’re so right will always be judged more positively than one whose morals we find deplorable. Is this right when evaluating art? Or even when evaluating what entertains us? The impossibility of answering the question one way or another for me supports the notion that it’s one of those paradoxical cases where the beauty put into the world by an artist or entertainer cannot be completely cancelled out by a context of advocating morals we disagree with, but to some degree it compromises them. This is appropriately unsatisfying I think.