[D66] [🇲🇽] Polanski's J’accuse toch in de bioscoop

[A.OUT]

    wsws.org: #MeToo collaborates with fascistic forces to block showing
    of Polanski’s film /J’Accuse/


          15 February 2020

On Thursday, the board of France’s César film awards collectively 
resigned after coming under relentless attack from the #MeToo campaign 
and the French government for nominating Roman Polanski’s film on the 
Drefyus Affair, /J’Accuse/, for 12 awards at the upcoming February 28 
ceremony.

The Dreyfus Affair remains a critical dividing line in French and 
European politics. It was a 12-year struggle to clear Captain Alfred 
Dreyfus, a French Jewish officer falsely convicted of spying for Germany 
in 1894. France came to the brink of civil war between defenders of 
Drefyus, led by Jean Jaurès and the socialist workers movement, and the 
/antidreyfusards/—the Army general staff, the Church and the 
anti-Semitic /Action française/ led by Charles Maurras. Dreyfus was 
ultimately cleared and the conspiracy to frame him definitively 
repudiated in 1906.

The /Action française/ went on to provide the ideological foundations, 
and much of the personnel, for the collaborationist Vichy regime during 
World War II, which oversaw the deportation of a quarter of French Jews 
to Auschwitz and other Nazi extermination camps.

/J’Accuse/ is a powerful, compelling film about this great opening 
battle in the struggle between socialism and fascism in the 20th 
century. It brings to life Colonel Marie-Georges Picquart, an officer 
who overcomes his anti-Semitic prejudices as he finds decisive proof of 
Dreyfus’s innocence and provides evidence central to efforts by the 
renowned novelist Émile Zola to clear Dreyfus. A highlight of the film 
is the reading of much of Zola’s open letter to the president of the 
Republic, “J’Accuse” (I accuse), indicting top army officers who lied to 
frame Dreyfus.

/J’Accuse (An Officer and a Spy)/

This is among the greatest films made by Roman Polanski, a Franco-Polish 
Jewish director whose distinguished filmmaking career now spans more 
than a half-century. Born in Paris in 1933 and raised in Cracow, 
Polanski lived through the imprisonment of his parents and sister in 
Nazi death camps in World War II, as well as the murder of his wife, 
actress Sharon Tate, in 1969. After pleading guilty to unlawful sex with 
a minor, Samantha Geimer, and serving 42 days in jail in 1977, he fled 
the United States when a judge threatened to unlawfully break the terms 
of a plea deal. Since then, he has been mercilessly pursued by US police 
authorities and feminist groups.

There is nothing legitimate about the campaign to suppress /J’Accuse/. 
The legal and political consequences of such censorship extend far 
beyond its impact on Roman Polanski. By attacking /J’Accuse/, the #MeToo 
campaign is serving as an instrument of a reactionary attack on freedom 
of expression and working to install official state censorship of 
filmmaking and promote a repressive political atmosphere.

 From the beginning, the #MeToo campaign against /J’Accuse/ had a 
fascistic odor. Just before the film came out in November, actress 
Valérie Monnier suddenly published unsubstantiated accusations, which 
she had already discussed privately with state officials for a year, 
that Polanski had raped her in 1975. #MeToo groups then claimed that 
those seeing or expressing interest in the film were “complicit” in 
rape. Given the vast historical weight of the Dreyfus Affair, this is 
tantamount to asserting that anyone with left-wing views in France 
supports rape.

<https://mehring.com/product/why-are-they-back-historical-falsification-political-conspiracy-and-the-return-of-fascism-in-germany/>

The film shot to the top of the French box office despite #MeToo attacks 
against it and criticism from several ministers. And so, when the #MeToo 
movement objected last month to the César board’s decision to name 
/J’Accuse/ for awards, including best picture and best director, 
President Alain Terzian dismissed the objections. He stated: “The César 
awards are not an institution that must have moral positions. Unless I 
am wrong, 1.5 million French people went to see this film. Ask them.”

#MeToo responded by stepping up its offensive against /J’Accuse/. The 
“Dare To Be Feminist” association, closely linked to Macron and to 
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France party, circulated a petition 
demanding the César board “not give awards” to /J’Accuse/. It asserted: 
“Two years after #MeToo, while in the United States Harvey Weinstein 
faces life in prison, in France we are acclaiming and celebrating a 
violent pedocriminal who is on the run.”

A group of 400 film artists, including director Bertrand Tavernier and 
actor Omar Sy, regrettably signed a statement supporting #MeToo’s call 
to totally restructure the Césars.

César President Terzian briefly tried to save his position by deciding 
that the organisaton would recruit hundreds of women to the board and 
implement a strict female-male parity in awards and positions. But 
denunciations of Polanski as a “rapist” and against the Césars for 
promoting “rape culture” kept raining down, until the entire leading 
body of French cinema was thrown out.

/J’Accuse/ has no distributors in either America or Britain, where 
#MeToo has effectively banned it. After attending a secret showing of 
the film in Britain, John R. MacArthur of /Harper’s Magazine/ wrote: “So 
dangerous is the potential backlash of collaborating with Polanski that 
no British or American distributor will risk showing the movie, which 
opened to great acclaim and box office success in France... No one, 
including my hosts, wants to be stoned on Twitter or picketed in their 
place of business.”

#MeToo’s role exposes the interaction of petty-bourgeois identity 
politics with the agenda of capitalist governments. Promoting gender 
politics in opposition to class politics, #MeToo has relentlessly moved 
to the right.

Macron has reacted to 16 months of mass strikes and Yellow Vest protests 
against its overwhelmingly unpopular pension cuts and tax cuts for the 
rich by cultivating far-right police forces to assault protesters. Since 
Macron hailed France’s Nazi-collaborationist dictator Philippe Pétain as 
a “great soldier” in 2018, police have arrested over 11,000 people, 
wounded nearly 5,000 and killed two.

Knowing itself to be hated, the Macron government is seizing upon #MeToo 
to promote censorship and build a middle class base for its repressive 
policies. #MeToo has not criticized growing police assaults on 
protesters. Instead, it has demanded stepped-up state control of public 
life and an increase in the proportion of better-paid jobs given to women.

Just after the César award nominations were announced, Woman-Man 
Equality Minister Marlène Schiappa toured the media to orchestrate the 
attack on /J’Accuse/. Asked on LCI whether the Césars are “complicit in 
rape culture,” Schiappa said French cinema has not “matured in terms of 
sexist and sexual violence towards women.” She said she was “shocked” at 
Terzian’s defense of /J’Accuse/ and that she would be “indignant” if the 
film won awards.

Through #MeToo’s attack on Polanski and the disciplining of the Césars, 
the French government is targeting all cinematic expression of left-wing 
opposition. Schiappa denounced Ladj Ly, the Franco-Malian director whose 
film /Les Misérables/ on police violence in working class neighborhoods 
is named for 11 César awards. Claiming there is “no difference” between 
Polanski and Ly—that is, that Ly should not receive any awards, 
either—Schiappa said she was “surprised” that Ly is “praised to the skies.”

Culture Minister Frank Riester, whose ministry sought to publish the 
writings of the nationalist and fascistic figure Charles Maurras in 
2018, hailed the ouster of the Césars board over /J’Accuse/ as a “wise 
decision.”

#MeToo is a reactionary petty-bourgeois movement providing “feminist” 
cover for far-right, racialist forces. It is worth noting that three of 
#MeToo’s main targets in the movie industry—Harvey Weinstein, Woody 
Allen and Polanski—are Jewish.

Alex Lantier



On 21-02-2020 09:05, A.OUT wrote:
> (Debat?! Polanski is wereldklasse|!)
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohbrCbefoRY
> J'ACCUSE - Roman Polanski - Officiële NL trailer
> 8.578 weergaven
> •22 okt. 2019
>
> Delen
> Opslaan
> Cinéart Nederland
> 46,4K abonnees
> Voor meer informatie: https://www.cineart.nl/films/jaccuse
>
> Omstreden Polanski-film in Nederlandse bioscopen, ná debat
> 14 februari 2020 12:55
> Laatste update: 14-02-2020 12:55
>
> Door ANP
>
> J’accuse, de nieuwe film van Roman Polanski, wordt waarschijnlijk in 
> april uitgebracht in de Nederlandse bioscopen. Distributeur Cinéart 
> gaat de film aan theaters aanbieden, maar pas na een groot publiek 
> debat over de vraag of de film wel vertoond zou moeten worden gezien 
> het seksuele wangedrag waar de regisseur voor is veroordeeld.
>
> Dat openbare debat moet plaatsvinden in Amsterdam. Voor het gesprek 
> worden voor- en tegenstanders van vertoning van de film uitgenodigd, 
> laat een woordvoerder van Cineárt vrijdag weten. “We willen de ruimte 
> bieden aan het debat wat er zwaarder weegt: de kunst of het gedrag van 
> Polanski.”
>
> De filmmaker werd in 1977 in de VS veroordeeld voor seks met een 
> 13-jarig meisje. Sindsdien woont hij in Europa, omdat hij in Amerika 
> direct zou worden opgepakt. Intussen hebben meerdere andere vrouwen 
> Polanski beschuldigd van verkrachting. Tegelijk met de lancering van 
> J’accuse dook een nieuwe beschuldiging tegen hem op. Een Franse vrouw 
> zegt dat ze door Polanski is verkracht in de jaren zeventig.
>
> De titel J’accuse verwijst naar de open brief van Émile Zola tegen de 
> veroordeling van de Frans-Joodse officier Albert Dreyfus die in 1894 
> ten onrechte werd beticht van spionage. Volgens veel recensenten is de 
> film een meesterwerk. Cineárt wil J’accuse sowieso aanbieden via het 
> streamingplatfom Picl, zodat Nederlandse filmliefhebbers de film zelf 
> thuis kunnen zien.
>
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