Roman Polanski Will Next Stick 'D' in Theaters

As we all know, sometimes a man is found guilty of a crime and later declared innocent, and convicted sexual offender wanted by the U.S. government Roman Polanski would like to now remind everyone of that with a new political thriller titled D.

With a screenplay from Polanski's Ghost Writer scribe, Robert Harris, D reportedly focuses on The Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal that occurred in turn-of-the-century France and has nothing to do with Richard Dreyfuss. In the scandal, one of the few Jewish members of the General Staff of the French Army, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was sentenced to life in prison for passing secrets to the Germans; soon after, the head of French counter-intelligence came forward with evidence of Dreyfus's innocence, only to himself be framed for crimes in part of a massive government cover-up that kept a wrongly-charged man in prison for a dozen years. Quoted in the official statement, Polanski pointed out--without naming names--the similarities to modern scandals, noting, "the age-old spectacle of the witch-hunt of a minority group, security paranoia, secret military tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, governmental cover-ups, and a rabid press." It's pretty easy to draw some comparisons to Polanski's own legal situation, but you'll find it's even easier if you slip it some quaaludes and go at it from behind.