Barely a year ago, French actress extraordinaire Isabelle Huppert won a Golden Globe for her performance in the so-called "feminist thriller" Elle, a film steeped in sexual violence that depicts a multiple-rape victim's weird and unsettling attraction to her masked attacker. An Oscar nomination followed for Ms. Huppert and Elle won best film at France's César Awards.
What a difference a year makes. In the post-Weinstein world of #MeToo and its French equivalent #BalanceTonPorc (or "Denounce Your Pig"), would the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences or France's Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma dare honour Elle now? Or would they bow to those who denounce the movie as a twisted glorification of rape culture by snubbing the film at awards time?
What was high art a year ago may now be taboo. While one can only admire the brave women and men who have gone public in recent months to denounce their serial sexual harassers and abusers, it is hard to celebrate the chill that has fallen over the arts. These days, taking creative risks could kill your career.
This, sort of, is what actress Catherine Deneuve and 99 other French women were trying to get at in an open letter published last week in Le Monde. Their missive went over like a lead balloon in France as much as elsewhere because it failed to acknowledge all the good that has come of #MeToo and seemed to make light of some obviously disgusting (if not criminal) male behaviours. There was more than a bit of tone deafness in their defence of the indefensible.
Still, their warnings should not just be seen as the vain musings of privileged and out-of-touch socialites who never themselves have to endure some "porc" pleasuring himself while rubbing up against them in a crammed Paris Métro car. If #MeToo discourages writers and directors from stretching boundaries, it will only lead to the new wave of puritanism that Ms. Deneuve and her co-authors fear has already arrived.
"Already, editors are asking some of us to make our male characters less 'sexist', to talk about sexuality and love with less immodesty or to put more emphasis on the 'traumas undergone by female characters,' " explains the letter, written by Catherine Millet and four other authors, and signed by 95 more women including the legendary 74-year-old Ms. Deneuve.
Ms. Deneuve's latest movie reunites her with Gérard Depardieu, with whom she last starred in the 1980 François Truffaut masterpiece The Last Metro. In Bonne pomme – whose English title, Nobody's Perfect, makes it sound far more trite than it is – Ms. Deneuve plays one of those past-her-prime floozies who drinks too much. She is extremely good at it and would probably be a contender this awards season for her portrayal of Béatrice in Sage femme (The Midwife), a past-her-prime floozy who reconnects with the daughter of her former sugar daddy, had she not spoken out against the dangers of the #MeToo movement even before signing last week's letter.
Ms. Huppert, who was on hand at this month's Golden Globes to present a best-actress trophy to Frances McDormand, deftly reminded viewers of the difference between art and real life by saying: "French New Wave directors were fond of this sentence: 'Filmmaking is the art of making beautiful women do beautiful things.' But on screen, you know, only on screen."
Still, chances are Ms. Huppert would not have been standing on that stage had Elle been released in 2017 instead of 2016. Sometimes, a year really does change everything.
Only last January, the French film académie was preparing to award an honorary César to Roman Polanski despite the acclaimed director's 1977 U.S. conviction on charges of having sex with a minor. Mr. Polanski declined the invitation after feminists protested, and the award was dropped. But even France's Socialist culture minister at the time saw nothing wrong with honouring such a "great director."
After all, in 2003, Mr. Polanski won an Oscar for directing The Pianist, despite being a fugitive after fleeing the United States in 1978. "The academy congratulates Roman Polanski and accepts this award on his behalf," actor Harrison Ford said amid a standing ovation.
Among those leaping to their feet was Harvey Weinstein.
Thanks to the courage of a few good women, we won't be seeing him at the Oscars again any time soon. But in the collision between art and #MeToo, is art always destined to lose?
Konrad Yakabuski