Can you celebrate Roman Polanski’s films with knowledge of his controversial past? A German outlet asked French director Francois Ozon that very question and others in an interview about “cancel culture.”
Separating the art from the artist has become such a hotheaded debate these days, but the fact remains that, for many, the reputations of Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Kevin Spacey and others has been tarnished these last few years.
Ozon refers to German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder as a role model like hardly anyone else, but Fassbinder tormented, humiliated and beat up his actors. His films would no longer be possible today. Still, Ozon believes you “you can’t just burn down all of Fassbinder [and Polanski’s works].”
The fact remains that over the last few centuries there have been plenty of blatant antisemites and racists who created astoundingly influential works of art: Virginia Woolf, Patricia Highsmith, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, H.P. Lovecraft, Dr. Seuss, Walt Disney (!!!) just to name a few.
William S. Burroughs killed his wife. Ditto Phil Spector, also a spousal murderer and, yet, his immaculate wall-of-sound productions are still blasting, justifiably so, on the radio during hot summer days.
J.D. Salinger was, possibly, a pedophile; Lord of the Flies author William Golding tried to rape a 15-year-old girl, both of these men have written books that are practically mandatory reading at almost every high school in this country.
Caravaggio was a pimp and a murderer. Charles Dickens, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all treated their wives like raw meat. Chuck Berry, by all accounts, was a hot-tempered asshole who also tried to sleep with a 15-year-old girl. I could go on and on.
History has always found a way to separate art from the artist. Why can’t we do it now?
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.