It was just 10 days ago that filmmaker Claire Denis presented the controversial César for Best Director to “An Officer and A Spy” helmer Roman Polanski. We all know what happened next, with “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” actress Adèle Haenel walking out of the ceremony in protest of Polanski’s win.
In an interview given to Le Monde, Denis, a Godmother figure for many young French actresses and female directors including Atlantics’ Mati Diop, tried to make sense of the Haenel/Polanski controversy at the Cesars.
In this insightful and fascinating interview, Denis starts off by saying that we should "Leave Adèle Haenel alone at this moment, (because) it is obviously her right to say whatever she wants.” However, Denis says she is still allowed to disagree with Haenel’s “finger-pointing” and “shaming” adding, "People voted, they found Polanski's film better, worthier than the others, that's it, it's the César. I don't think we should look any further."
"The fact that Haenel got up and walked out – I mean, she has the right to do that, but with her finger pointing at us and shouting "shame!" – I must admit I found that a bit strange,” the filmmaker continued, paraphrasing Haenel’s recent comments to the New York Times in which the actress said Polanski winning felt akin to rape victims getting spat on in the face. “I don't think anyone wanted to spit at the face of rape victims, or Adèle Haenel's face for that matter. I'm not at all in agreement with this phrase,” Denis said. Adding "I don't agree with that sentence. What's the point of saying that, especially days after the ceremony ended? What's the use of saying all of this now? Especially days after the ceremony ended?"
Denis, the director of “High Life,” “Beau Travail,” and “Trouble Every Day,” went on to defend the patriarchal nature of cinema since its inception in the Lumiere days, "Cinema, it’s true, has alienated the body of women and turned it into a sexual object, but it never ceased, from its very beginnings, to advance the courage and the dignity of women. They weren't just models anymore, far from it. And as soon as the cinema started to speak, they forcefully brought into existence that poorly represented part of society. Thanks to the cinema, not in spite of the cinema.”
Polanski, the 86-year-old director of such classics as “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” has been a fugitive of the law in the U.S. for the better part of 40 years now. Back in 1978, he fled to France instead of facing his sentence on a charge of statutory rape of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, charges which he had pleaded guilty to. Geimer has been fairly open about forgiving Polanski for taking advantage of her and pleaded to the press to stop harassing him and let him live whatever years of his life are left.