THE LL WORD

Contributing editor LEILA LATIF has something to say…

As film fans, we vote with our wallets. If you support a film or a filmmaker, the most powerful act is buying a ticket. But what about when it comes to supporting films by more controversial figures? Post Hollywood’s #MeToo movement, there is no shortage of allegations that make watching some brilliant movies a moral quagmire.

Sure, we can say, ‘love the art, not the artist’, but honestly, that’s a coward’s approach. So I found myself in a tricky position at the Venice Film Festival this month, figuring out how to engage with the latest films from Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson, all master filmmakers, all there legally, all with too many allegations to entirely ignore.

A weird hysteria occurs around ‘cancel culture’. And while I don’t diminish the impact of public shaming in the social-media age… get serious. A few Hollywood icons languish in ‘movie jail’ or literal jail, but many of these supposedly ‘cancelled’ men work red carpets at glittering premieres and win Oscars. Meanwhile, Katherine Heigl’s career never recovered from calling Knocked Up ‘a tiny bit sexist’, Winona Ryder took 15 years to recover from shoplifting, and Anne Heche’s trajectory hit a brick wall because she dated a woman.

Double standards aside, decisions have to be made by audiences and journalists. Over the years I’ve found this particularly tricky with Allen, whose films I adored. But even if I convince myself that a powerful man found innocent of a crime that’s notoriously difficult to prosecute means he’s innocent, I just can’t watch Manhattan any more. I can’t watch 16-year-old Mariel Hemingway kiss mid-40s Allen having read her perspective on what was her first kiss, saying, ‘He attacked me like I was a linebacker,’ in 2010. Further details emerged in her memoir of his subsequent seduction attempts once she turned 18. Even if that isn’t illegal – and Allen hasn’t discussed his recollections publicly – it just now feels too gross to get lost in the film’s magic.

It’s also important to be honest that we accept problematic behaviour if the films are brilliant. Oscar-winning actor/director Sarah Polley articulated this in her memoir, writing about the glamorisation of the ‘out-ofcontrol mad white male genius that dominated the film industry’s understanding of what brilliance is’. Polley says Terry Gilliam ran a chaotic set while they were filming The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and that she felt unsafe. He has disputed some of her account but has also bemoaned ‘cancel culture’, calling #MeToo ‘a witchhunt’ in 2020. Polley believes the film world thought ‘madness and recklessness somehow elevated his work’. If Polanski wasn’t considered a genius, there’s no way that 100 beloved Hollywood figures would have signed a petition in 2009 demanding he not be arrested for child sex abuse.

Everyone can decide that a movie enriches their lives enough to look past the sins of the creator. Films from people we would never want to meet have made the world a more beautiful place. While perpetrators of on- or off-set abuse should be held to account, whether or not to engage with their work isn’t so straightforward. Even Polley tweeted that we have her ‘unconditional permission to still love’ Baron Munchausen.

It’s up to audiences to vote with their ticket stubs, but also consider just what it means to survivors of abuse to see those names up in lights or at the top of the box office. It can serve as a reminder that they may not be believed or that even if they are, the cinemagoing public doesn’t care. The Venice Festival has every right to screen those movies, to not serve as lawmakers over who is allowed to direct films. I also have every right not to watch or cover them.

LEILA WILL BE BACK NEXT ISSUE. FOR FURTHER MUSINGS AND MISSIVES FOLLOW @LEILA_LATIF ON TWITTER.