BY DAVID KRONKE >TV CRITIC

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Time has swept away the particulars of Roman Polanski’s life, honing it to a single sentence: His wife was murdered by Charles Manson and he fled the country after being arrested for having sex with a 13-year-old, which torpedoed a promising career as a director in Hollywood.

Which, you’d think, would be more than enough for a biopic.

“Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” instead, is a documentary by Marina Zenovich that turns back the clock and reminds viewers of all the complications that got excised in the Cliffs Notes version of his life. It paints Polanski as a sympathetic figure, without ever speaking to him (a smattering of archival interview footage is employed), which makes it a little thin in providing a psychological portrait of an enigmatic character.

Polanski’s mother was murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust; he survived by hiding out in the Polish countryside. Success in Europe as a filmmaker brought him to Hollywood, where he made two wildly successful movies, “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown.”

But in 1969, the savage Manson family murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, who was pregnant at the time, transformed Polanski from an auteur anticipating fatherhood to a partyer who liked being in the presence of very young women. He was involved with Nastassja Kinski when she was 15 (and later cast her in “Tess,” which he had hoped to make with his wife).

In March 1977, Polanski was arrested in Los Angeles; counts included “rape by use of drugs” and “sodomy.” The victim was Samantha Gailey, who was 13 at the time and is interviewed in the documentary. Also interviewed are Doug Dalton, Polanski’s defense attorney, and prosecutor Roger Gunson.

Both agree that the trial went off the rails due to the behavior of the presiding judge, Laurence Rittenband, who loved working the publicity that came from high-profile cases. Polanski was set to be placed on probation when a series of public-relations glitches stirred public opinion, causing the judge to renege on their agreement and opt to sentence the director to jail time. At that point, Polanski fled the country in February 1978.

He has not returned to America since, winning his 2002 Oscar for “The Pianist” in absentia. At one point, another judge offered to place him on probation if he returned and allowed the courtroom proceedings to be televised; Polanski declined. The behind-the-scenes manipulations are fascinating and bizarre. “Wanted and Desired” was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (and won an award for its editing).

Zenovich intersperses clips from Polanski films and trailers (one boldly declares, “No one does it to you like Roman Polanski!”) and archival footage (including the director’s appearance on Hugh Hefner’s “Playboy After Dark”) amid the interviews to comment on the era.

But, without Polanski on hand and his friends reluctant to participate in any armchair psychology, it’s difficult to really work up a lot of sympathy. Was Polanski’s pathology for younger women and crime the result of a decadent sense of entitlement, a perverse attempt to connect with a youthful innocence his own life denied him or some combination thereof?

Alas, Zenovich doesn’t attempt to answer that question, so in the process of trying to restore his reputation, she leaves some important questions lingering in the air.

David Kronke
(818) 713-3638
david.kronke@dailynews.com
www.insidesocal.com/tv/

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>review

ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED

>What: Dissection of the Oscar-winning director’s tragic life, including the murder of his wife by the Manson clan and his trial for having sex with a minor.
>Where: HBO.
>When: 9 p.m. and 12:05 a.m. tonight; also 9:30 p.m. Thursday, noon Saturday, 11 a.m. June 17 and 3:45 p.m. June 22.
>In a nutshell: Handles the curlicues of Polanski’s trial well enough, but doesn’t adequately explore his pathology for underage women.

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