“Harvey is history. This story is significant only in respect of the women’s point of view. That perspective is the one we need to pay attention to now,” said film, theatre, radio and TV director John Madden about the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein against whom numerous allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape have been levelled against.
Mr. Weinstein was fired by his company’s board of directors earlier this month and had also expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
“He has utterly utterly disgraced himself and disgraced the profession... It is a fall from grace, if grace is ever the right word,” Mr. Madden told The Hindu in an interview.
The English director is in Mumbai to head the international jury at the 19th Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival With Star.
Mr. Weinstein produced Mr. Madden’s Academy Award-winning film Shakespeare In Love . Earlier, Mr. Weinstein had also distributed two of Mr. Madden’s films — Ethan Frome and Mrs Brown .
“It causes some heartache looking back at the collaboration,” Mr. Madden said.
‘Point of the story’
For him, Mr. Weinstein’s fall has been of an immense dimension, as though a big political figure had been upended. Mr. Madden likened the episode to the toppling of Saddam Hussain’s statue in Baghdad in 2003.
“It’s very startling to behold but it’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is what happened to people who were his victims. That’s what we should be paying attention to,” the director said.
Looking ahead
Mr. Madden thinks that instead of spending too much time looking back at Mr. Weinstein, it’s time to look ahead and beyond.
“Now, possibly some good thing will come out of it, which is that people are not going to turn their heads away and make assumptions any more. That will result in an empowerment, I think. We will all be more vigilant about it,” Mr. Madden said, adding that he hoped the balance of power in the film industry, which he believes is skewed against women, would now be restored.
According to Mr. Madden, though there was a “reputation” [Mr. Weinstein’s] that people were aware of, there was no inkling of the horror stories that unfolded over the past few weeks.
Mr. Weinstein, with his brother Bob Weinstein, co-founded Miramax that produced several popular independent films, including Pulp Fiction , The Crying Game and Sex, Lies and Videotape . He left Miramax in 2005 to co-found his own production company, The Weinstein Company.
