She Said

Paying the Piper: The Last Harvey Weinstein Picture Show

or

"I Think Everyone and Everything Has a Secret"

 

"I feel equipped to protect you against the Roses of the world, because I have represented so many of them...You should be the hero of this story. Not the villain. This is very doable."

Attorney Lisa Bloom in a memo to Harvey Weinstein

Who knew?

 

That's the dispiriting question that lingers as one watches She Said, the film made of expose by the two New York Times reporters, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who "broke" the Harvey Weinstein sex-abuse scandal. Weinstein had been using his power as head of the Miramax film studio since the 1990's to harass, proposition, and even rape employees or potential hirees, and then used his lawyers to sign up NDA's, hired spies to follow and intimidate his accusers, and then, had his board of directors approve the hush money that was paid out. That's a lot of personnel. There are allegations that the story was spiked years previously by NBC—or should we say NBCUniversal (Universal being the distributor of this film*) owned by Comcast. Even one of the producers of this film—who was intimate with two of Weinstein's victims, and supposedly threatened him after one of his episodes—still had dealings with Weinstein afterwards even though he knew what kind of a slime-ball he was. Hard not to be cynical when there are as many suspects as an Agatha Christie drawing room can hold.

 

A lot of people knew. They just weren't talking. Or others kept them from talking. And as long as no one talked, the assaults continued.

Look, not to be too naive about all this—because Hollywood people have been sleeping around even while making remakes of "Polyanna"—but why was anyone surprised this was going on...and why wasn't anyone talking about it? With all the conspiracy theories running rampant these days, why are so many staying silent about all the hush-ups about sexual assault? Because most of the "professional" services are at the behest of men? And men perpetrate the vast majority of sexual assaults? Duh! And one may crow about more women lawyers, but judging by the quote above from a so-called harassment victim "advocate" it seems like membership in any "sisterhood" can be bought out by a sizable check.

Sex in Hollywood was just another coin of the realm. It was a quick way to get ahead or get head, all part of the bartering system of tit for tat, with the guys who had the power to make or break careers and approve budgets taking advantage of their perceived power for their own selfish appetites.

But, to the story at hand. At the New York Times, Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Kantor (Zoe Kazan) are both working on sexual harassment stories but in different beats—Twohey is following up on a charge against presidential candidate Trump, while Kantor gets a lead that actress Rose McGowan is saying that she's been raped by Harvey Weinstein, the head of Miramax and The Weinstein Company; Kantor has already done work-place harassment pieces about Amazon, Starbucks and the Harvard Business School. She calls up McGowan but the actress won't talk about it—why should she, as she's taken it other places and it has been shelved. Kantor tries to reassure her but McGowan won't commit. It would be career suicide, but she gives the reporter enough information that Kantor can follow up with another source.

While Kantor runs down leads, Twohey takes maternity leave and after suffering through some post-partum depression comes back to the Times and is assigned by editor Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson) to run down parallel leads for the Weinstein story. Doors get slammed in faces. The same "nobody did anything before" deflection is heard time and again. And editor Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher) starts to become involved: "Harvey...he's...difficult" is his reply when asked if he'd dealt with Weinstein before (Braugher's tough even-handedness is a wonder to behold).

In many ways, one may feel that they've seen this movie before—All the President's Men and Spotlight—the dogged knocking on doors, the "just-in-case" giving of business cards, the leg-work, how the interviews always end with the rejection of the "Always Be Closing" line ("Will you go on the record?"), the assuredness that there is a story there and the frustration that no one will corroborate it. The ghosts of stories that never make it to press because the source won't commit, on or off the record, because...consequences. Who can blame them? For some, it's a matter of life or death.

But not for the perpetrators. The ones with power, whether Presidents or priests or producers.

 

It comes down to a biological dynamic: women and men are different. Women have to deal with the consequences of sex—pregnancy, child-bearing, child-birth, child-rearing**—and men, because of that difference, can ultimately choose to ignore that responsibility. To the point where they have the attitude that they are immune from responsibility. Does this sound familiar? The active response of men "getting caught" is to delay the inevitable, to avoid the consequences, to kick the can down the road where they have to own up to the consequences of their actions...and pay for them. It leads to an attitude of privilege, and (as I love to point out to people who fight the notion) "to the privileged, equality feels like oppression" so they fight it every step of the way. Every. Step.

Court, to the majority of us, is something to avoid. For the powerful it's just a delaying tactic. So, the "we'll sue" card is always played first as a bluff, actual suits tie things up for a bit but involve money (which the powerful can afford). It's a delaying tactic...but it's "doable." Consequences aren't.

Meanwhile, the press have consequences they're trying to avoid, as well. Those pesky lawsuits, of course, but the shame of "getting it wrong" is tied in with that. Get the story, but verify. Verify as often as possible. From sources with evidence. Get the story, sure. But get it right. Get it dead to rights. One of my favorite shots from the film is the entire team of editors, writers, proof-readers, researchers, huddled around a single computer terminal, reading, re-reading, checking every word, every punctuation, before daring to push "publish." The stakes are high, sure, but I wonder how many reporters suppress a laugh during that scene. I'd like to think very few. But I can't verify.

Still, the film does what it's supposed to do, which is provide food for thought, tell its story with the intended underlying tension, and generate a modicum of righteous indignation.

And the powerful will continue to stalk for anything...or anyone..."doable."

* Penance? I don't know. Idle speculation will make me as bad as any other foil-hat wearing conspiracy wack-o. But, Weinstein got Lisa Bloom on his team by buying the film rights of one of her books. But, NBC did spike those stories.

 

** A point is made of showing Twohey and Kantor with supportive, stepping-up partners who'll, without whining, attend the kids. Because it's what they do. And who they are.

The Mist

Well, it's a week before Hallowe'en, so I can't ignore it any longer. The Horror genre is not my favorite, but like anything, if something good comes along, no matter its origins, no matter its budget, it should be celebrated. 

We won't be doing that. 

We'll be looking at a bunch of horror movies from the past few years that I haven't been able to recycle into this blog—for whatever reason—but mostly for the fact that they aren't any good. They are horror films that merely accentuate the fact that I don't like the genre much, even though it has always inspired new techniques in film-making, rules-breaking in scope and subject matter, and been the moldy place from which some talented film-makers emerged...while others just fell back into the bog.

The Mist (Frank Darabont, 2008) A horror pastiche bubbled up from many long-crusted cauldrons, The Mist wouldn't cross anyone's radar as a "must-see." But considering it's writer-director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) revisiting Stephen King territory (usually Maine) with top-tier actors like Andre Braugher, Marcia Gay Harden, and Toby Jones, it's worth a look*

A night's damaging electrical storm produces a dawn mist that begins to seep down from the mountains. A trip into town for provisions traps a motley crew of citizens inside "The Food House" keeping the enveloping mist outside. Conspicuous consumption proceeds inside when a man bleeding from his head runs in screaming that "the mist" killed his companion, confirming that consumption is going on outside, as well. It becomes apparent that the lives of the people in the store amounts to a can of beans (in Aisle 5), with roughly the same position on the food chain.

At that point, to pass the time everyone starts playing "The Blame Game" falling in line between the scientific, the religious and the superstitious. But, whatever "it" is, "it's a problem of some magnitude"—several magnitudes, in fact, what with giant killer locusts (for the religious), flesh-eating pterodactyls (for the scientific) and big hairy spiders shooting acid webs (for the superstitious). Not to mention the towering Lovecraftian dromedaries (for the English majors). They all have nasty invasive ways to kill you and the rest of the movie boils down to whatever bone-headed motivation it takes to get people outside for the near-occasions of carnage that break out every fifteen minutes. Go down the checklist—hubris, zealotry, rationalization, drunkenness, or even "doing it for the kids." Then there are the defense measures that feel more like offense for the other side; how smart is it to douse a flying creature with gasoline in an enclosed space...lit by torches?

Darabont shoots things in a faux cinema-verite style, light on the hand-held, and does some quick cutting (but not too quick) to hop up the urgency (and discourages thinking too much—the store doesn't have a radio? Not even for muzak?). And tries to justify it all with a minute discussion of how folks are rational "as long as the machines are working and they can call 9-1-1." (Points for working sociology and political science into one sentence").

The execution is tried and true, but then there are a lot of sources to draw from: 50's atomic monster movies, The Fog, The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, as well as waves to 28 Days, Planet of the Apes, The Birds, Alien, Stargate, and King's own Maximum Overdrive, which is about folks trapped in a diner while outside is a raging...18 wheeler. The ending has drawn a lot of criticism in some parts from some who though it was a "mist" opportunity, but it's a satisfying/dissatisfying ending that also has cinematic precedence, whether you like it or not.

The lesson, once the smoke clears, seems to be: "Don't be so myopic, ye of little faith."

Either that, or always take more bullets.

* Starring is Thomas Jane, late of "The Punisher" films, and he proves to be a credible, believable leading man of the Harrison Ford School.