It’s time to welcome back Kevin Spacey.

Yes, I said it. It’s time for filmmakers to start casting him in movies. And it’s time for him to resume his career.

Do I believe he’s a nice person? No. Do I need to believe he’s a nice person in order to enjoy his work? Again, no.

The one thing I do know is that Spacey is not a criminal. I know this because juries on both sides of the Atlantic recentlyacquitted him of every chargethat has been leveled against him, including multiple counts of sexual assault. I have the humility to trust jurors, who have heard actual evidence, as opposed to my own intuition, based on accusations I’ve read online.

This idea that artists must be above reproach — and that we ourselves are virtuous if we reject artists and their work based on their personal behavior — is not a new idea at all. It’s an old idea that keeps taking different forms, depending on the era.

In the early 1930s,Clara Bowlost much of her remaining popularity when tabloids published stories of her having indiscriminate sex with men, women and (this part wasn’t true) dogs.In the early 1950s,Charlie Chaplin, once the most loved man in the world, had to leave America for 20 years just for being a liberal. That was at a time when many actors and filmmakers were losing their careers because they either were, had been or were accused of being communists.

To this day, I can’t print the nameJohn Waynein the newspaper without getting deluged with mail telling me he was a horrible guy for supporting the Vietnam war. But you know what? In the 1960s, lots of people — including lots of people in power — supported that war, but none of them made “Red River” or “The Searchers.” Why get worked up about the one artist among them?

This is how I feel about it: If you’re a dog-loving communist who supported the Vietnam war, and you make a great movie, I’d still like to see it.

I just accept that artists are often screwed-up people. For example, in one widely reported incident, a painter once cut off his ear and had it delivered to a teenage prostitute who worked in a brothel. Apparently, he thought that her being a teenage prostitute wasn’t a rough enough life and that she also deserved to get a really disgusting gift.

I wouldn’t want to know someone like that. But I see in that event no reason to stop admiring Vincent van Gogh’s paintings.

Here’s a radical idea: Putting aside monsters like Adolf Hitler or Charles Manson, human beings are not the worst thing they ever did. They’re just not. We know this to be true of ourselves, and of the people we know. So let’s not judge artists by a higher standard, especially when the best of who they are is often expressed by the art that they create. If the art is good, it benefits everyone, however imperfect the person who made it.

This invites a question: But what if Vladimir Putin made the most lovely and humane film in all human history? Should we embrace that? I’d say no. But I’d also say that such a question is purely academic. Someone so evil could not possibly create something entirely humane and good.

Yet someone like Roman Polanski could, and we know this empirically, because he has.

In 1977, Polanski was accused of drugging, sodomizing and raping a 13-year-old girl; he pleaded guilty to statutory rape and spent time in prison, and then fled the United States before sentencing. Yet, years later, Polanski made “The Pianist” (2002), a masterpiece about a Polish musician during the Holocaust.

The point here is not that “The Pianist” exonerates Polanski’s disgusting, appalling and ineradicable behavior, because it doesn’t. Rather, the point is that “The Pianist” isn’t tainted simply because it was made by Polanski. Just as good people can do bad things, so can bad people do good things, and we, as adults, can trust ourselves to know the difference.

As for Spacey, he can’t be placed in Polanski’s category, because he’s never pleaded guilty to anything and has never been found guilty of anything. I’ll admit that there has been so much smoke surrounding Spacey’s name that I still suspect there must be a fire somewhere. Even years ago, I heard rumors that comport with some of the accusations.

But rumors and accusations are not the same as facts, and writing off people’s lives and careers based on accusations alone is just wrong. Spacey has spent six years trying to clear his name, and he’s cleared it to the extent he can in a world driven by social media.

It’s time we see what he can still do as an actor and judge him on the basis of his work.

Reach Mick LaSalle:mlasalle@sfchronicle.com