The choice to kick off with controversial helmer Maïwenn’s interval piece Jeanne Du Barry provides a digital case research of the completely different cultural norms driving the French and American movie industries
French actress-writer-director Maïwenn has confessed to a little bit of Franco-American tradition conflict on the set of her newest film, Jeanne du Barry. The Cannes opener stars Johnny Depp in his first function movie function in three years, as Louis XV, and Maïwenn because the 18th century monarch’s favourite mistress. In a latest interview with French Premiere, the filmmaker stated that she had been warned to not knock on Depp’s dressing-room door throughout filming to let him know she was ready. “In the future, I did it anyway,” she stated. “And there, he made me perceive that I had dedicated an unacceptable intrusion and requested me how I'd have felt if he got here knocking on my dressing room door. I replied that everybody does it on a regular basis. As a result of that’s how a set works in France!”
That’s how a set works in Hollywood, too, or it ought to anyway. A door-knock fake pas is downright quaint — Maïwenn’s actual provocation is her casting of Depp, who continues to be persona non grata in Hollywood a 12 months after his ugly defamation trial versus ex-wife Amber Heard. And Maïwenn herself is as difficult a personality as her main man, a #MeToo antagonist at present being sued for assault after spitting at a outstanding French journalist. An alleged hitter and an alleged spitter. Mon Dieu, what’s French for “sizzling mess”?
Jeanne du Barry’s high-profile spot as Cannes’ opening night time movie is a digital case research of the completely different cultural norms driving the French and American movie industries proper now. Europe is traditionally extra tolerant of controversial artists than the U.S., at the very least male ones — Woody Allen and Roman Polanski proceed to make movies right here. However even Cannes has drawn the road at these filmmakers: Pageant director Thierry Fremaux informed French newspaper Le Figaro that he didn’t program Allen’s new Paris-set film, Coup de Probability, as a result of “the controversy would take over towards his movie, towards the opposite movies.”
Depp is one other troubled male artist who has to date discovered a heat embrace throughout the pond, regardless of Heard’s allegations of abuse, which he has denied, and two defamation trials that introduced probably the most poisonous moments of their marriage into public view. Due to a head-scratching verdict within the 2022 U.S. trial that discovered each Depp and Heard had been defamed however awarded him extra money, the takeaway for a lot of informal observers was a obscure sense that Depp had gained but additionally that they like him much less. In line with a ballot performed by Morning Seek the advice of, the share of U.S. adults with a “very” or “considerably” favorable view of Depp declined by 12 proportion factors throughout the trial, from 68 p.c in April 2022 to 56 p.c in June after the trial concluded.
For studios within the U.S., the home violence allegations and reputational plummet make him uncastable. However for the French producers of Jeanne du Barry, who're known as — and you can not make this up — Why Not Productions, Depp’s unemployable standing in Hollywood poses a chance. A 3-time Oscar nominee with an worldwide fan base, a bad-boy patina and a must work? Schedule the wig fittings!
Jeanne du Barry, which lacks U.S. distribution, will not be Depp’s solely movie at Cannes this 12 months, both. He’s additionally obtained a directing venture out there, a biopic of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani with Al Pacino connected. And he simply prolonged his profitable Dior Sauvage perfume deal, with the French luxurious home touting Depp as “the soul of Sauvage.” It’s unlikely the 59-year-old star will ever return to the times of fronting family-friendly U.S. studio tentpoles, however this 12 months’s Cannes is his first step in an try at a profession reboot.
Maïwenn, in the meantime, has her personal fascinating story. A former little one actor who gained the Cannes jury prize for her 2011 drama Polisse, the 47-year-old French-Algerian filmmaker has been a critic of the #MeToo motion, and her private historical past is intertwined with considered one of France’s key accused. At age 16, Maïwenn had director Luc Besson’s little one, and he or she has stated that their relationship impressed his 1994 movie, The Skilled, which starred a then-12-year-old Natalie Portman in a job Portman just lately informed me she now finds “cringey.” Besson has been accused of sexual abuse by 9 girls, which he has denied, and the journalist whose investigations helped floor these allegations, Edwy Plenel, says that in February whereas he was eating at a restaurant in Paris, Maïwenn grabbed him by the again of his head and spit on him — an allegation she confirmed throughout a latest discuss present interview.
Most Hollywood feminists and #MeToo activists aren’t positive what to make of Depp or Maïwenn, with some declining to remark as a result of they don’t need to malign a feminine director, and others as a result of they discovered the Depp-Heard trial uncomfortably ambiguous in its #MeToo takeaways. Up to now, Cannes has stood by its option to program a film mired in off-screen, #MeToo-adjacent controversies. Almost six years after Hollywood’s gender rights motion kicked off, the black-and-white period of villains and victims is over. And the crimson carpet of the Palais, at the very least, is open to these dwelling within the grey area.