On the front page of Causeur magazine, Fanny Ardant defended Roman Polanski, prosecuted by American justice for more than 40 years for rape of a minor. The actress, who stars in the director’s latest film, “The Palace,” denounces the “McCarthyism” of #MeToo and those who “kneel” to fear.
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“In our capitalist society, everything comes down to profit,” laments the actress. “In cinema, if a director or an actor is singled out, we erase him, because he endangers the only thing that interests everyone: business and profit.”
Fanny Ardant also criticizes the fear which, according to her, motivates the #MeToo movement. “Remember McCarthyism. The goal was to intimidate people, to make them humiliate themselves so that they could denounce them,” she says. “Fear, plus profit, leads to people falling on their knees,” she continues.
“You can attack anyone, no one will move to defend them because everyone protects their interests: no longer being “engaged”, no longer earning money, no longer being part of the “blessed of the world”… the most great fear!”, she declared to the far-right magazine.
The actress says she is guided by a completely different morality: “I will always defend the people I love, I will never abandon them. It’s serious to have soiled yourself, to have sold yourself, to have kneeled for NOTHING.” And to conclude: “I always thought that it was always better to be part of the resistance than of the majority.”
Outcry
The words of Fanny Ardant did not fail to provoke a reaction from Judith Godrèche, at the origin of the last MeToo wave which shook French cinema: “Oh Fanny, your words… And this hubbub around which gorges itself on them, made inaudible by his malevolence. It goes around in circles, pulling wildly. In what hope? What fear? That of the weakness of others? (…) It is time to stop shooting at the open wounds of thousands of anonymous people. They have a name. Just like Fanny Ardant.
At the start of the year, Judith Godrèche filed a complaint against directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon for rape and sexual and physical violence which dates back to her adolescence.
