French protestors march against the director, who denies the accusations. Photo: PA
Roman Polanski’s latest film J’Accuse ( An Officer and a Spy) is the French-Polish director’s take on the Dreyfus Affair, the treason conspiracy which targeted Jewish soldier Alfred Dreyfus in the late 19 th century in France, a national scandal which became a textbook case of prejudice and miscarriage of justice. As a new sexual scandal is threatening to engulf Polanski, many have speculated about the film’s subtext and the extent to which Polanski identifies with the beleaguered army captain at its centre.
A few days ago, photographer and former actress Valentine Monnier has accused Polanski of raping her at his chalet in the Swiss resort of Gstaad in 1975, when she was 18. (Polanski has strongly and repeatedly denied the claims.) A fugitive of the US justice system since the 1970s, Polanski previously pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old, and has faced several allegations of assault in recent years. The director has also faced growing scrutiny in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, which he described as an example of the “mass hysteria that occurs in society from time to time.”
The #MeToo movement which swept the US two years ago led to the downfall of powerful men in the film industry, including Harvey Weinstein. Polanski, in contrast, has continued to enjoy a successful career in France, seen his films presented at prestigious film festivals and found wide-ranging support in the industry. While the latest allegations are not proven, there are already signs that the affair has marked a social turning-point in France and has given the previously controversial movement a new life there.
France has had a complicated relationship with the #MeToo movement. After the movement emerged in the US, a sister movement took shape in France under the name Balance Ton Porc (Denounce Your Pig), and quickly faced a social backlash. Concerns that the movement could become a “witch hunt” against men made headlines. Actress Catherine Deneuve and 99 other women signed an open letter defending men’s “freedom to pester” and denouncing the “hatred of men” they believed could result from the movements. Powerful men in the film industry who faced accusations of sexual abuse, including Luc Besson, found widespread support.
Now, calls to boycott Polanski’s latest film are gathering pace on the streets and on social media, where users have rallied around the hashtags #jaccusepolanski and #boycottpolanski. An online campaign to boycott the film has received support from former women’s rights minister Laurence Rossignol. Memes replacing the words J’accuse (“I accuse”) with J’abuse (“I abuse”) on posters for Polanski’s film are circulating on the internet.
Faced with growing pressure, the film’s crew and actors have started cancelling interviews. Oscar-winning actor Jean Dujardin, who stars in the film, decided not to appear on a prime time news programme. The director’s wife was also reported to have cancelled TV appearances. Many of Polanski’s previous supporters in the film industry have remained silent, sensing that the director’s popularity is fading. ARP, France’s film industry association, released a statement saying it “strongly supports all victims of moral and sexual violence.”
The Polanski affair is part of a broader process of reckoning for the French film industry.
The organisation, of which Polanski is a member, will coincidentally be debating the exclusion of any member convicted with sexual offences early next week. On 4 November, the investigative magazine Mediapart published an interview with Adèle Haenel, in which the actress accused her first film director of assault and condemned what she described as the “system of silence and complicity” that “always plays to the guilty’s advantage.”
Even before accusations against Polanski emerged, Haenel’s testimonial sent a shock wave through the French film industry. Mediapart reported that thousands of stories from women in various professions have landed in their inboxes since Haenel’s interview was released. The outpouring of testimonials and discussions about sexual abuse in France mirrors the days which followed the publication of New York Times’ journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s investigation into sexual abuse allegations targeting Harvey Weinstein.
The familiar arguments put forward when sexual assault accusations previously emerged in France, from concerns over the death of séduction à la française to exhortations to separate the man from his work, seem to have run out of steam. Momentum to address sexual abuse or harassment in all its forms is growing. Last year, a new law imposed fines for street harassment in France. The film industry might be catching on with the rest of society, but as the embarrassed silence over the Polanski case has shown, few are yet ready to support the accusers.
