Background music paraphrased from Dean Martin (sing along):
You’re nobody till somebody gropes you…
I have a confession to make. Fifteen years ago I met Harvey Weinstein. Not that he would remember. It was at a party at the Cannes Film Festival and nothing untoward happened between us.
What most don’t know or realise is that the Cannes Film Festival is also the world’s largest film market. If you are in the business of making, funding, buying or distributing films, you are a hot commodity. And commodity is an apt word as, for two weeks, Cannes is a cinematographic meat market. It was hell.
And here is the dark side of Cannes. I am not blessed with what producers might call “leading man looks”. But women, men and (I think) animals were hanging on to me, hanging on to my every word because I had what they wanted: money. Back then I was part of a successful UK film fund and part of the meat that people wanted to meet.
That brings me back to Mr Weinstein. I did not speak to him long enough for him to say, “Call me Harvey.” He too had people hanging on to him because he had what they wanted: roles that might lead to stardom. What I saw was that these wannabes were prepared to give anything of themselves for a shot at the cinematic golden ring. Even if the ring was Harvey’s.
Now this may be a function of being male, but it seems to me that there is a huge difference between enjoying what is on offer and insisting (or expecting) someone to offer themselves on the table. The latter is the power play and wrong. But ascertaining which is which is the problem for anyone looking into the various allegations.
One of my favourite movies is Harvey. For those who don’t know or remember, the title character is an invisible spirit, a giant rabbit referred to as a “Pooka”. Today, however, Hollywood is attempting to exorcise the spirit of another Harvey who is best referred to as a “Poker”. It will not matter if what is being spoken about is how an industry worked at the time but just never grew up. Wrong is wrong. That no one spoke up at the time or before is why the Dream Factory has become more of a Nightmare.