Back in September, Harvey Weinstein moved Olivier Dahan's "Grace of Monaco," with Nicole Kidman in the title role as Grace Kelly, from its November release date to March of 2014. "It just wasn't ready," Weinstein said at the Zurich International Film Festival one week after the shift was announced. "The score wasn't ready, a lot of things weren't ready."
Not true, according to Dahan. The director gave an interview to the French newspaper Liberation and said that his film is ready right now. "The movie I'm going to finish is complicated to complete," he said (translation provided by Google). "At least for me it is finished [...] What is complicated in this moment is to ensure that you, the critics, you can criticize my version of the film, and not that of another. But it is not over yet, I have not given up."
The other, in this case, is Weinstein. According to Dahan, the producer wants "Grace of Monaco" to look more like its U.K. trailer. "They want a commercial film, that is to say at the grass roots, removing everything above [...] removing all that is cinema, everything that makes life," Dahan said. "Here, in this case, they made a trailer that did not fit the movie, and then they try to make the film look like the trailer, this is absurd."
As THR notes, Dahan said his two options were either embracing Weinstein's "pile of shit" or bracing himself "so the blackmail isn't as violent." (The Google translation for that section of the interview is slightly different, but projects the same sentiment.)
This, of course, isn't the first time Harvey Weinstein has been criticized for cutting a film against the director's wishes. In fact, just this past week, Grantland contributor Karina Longworth wrote a piece titled "The Legend of Harvey Scissorhands," which details Weinstein's history of editorial clashes. This year alone, Weinstein has been criticized for making cuts to Wong Kar Wai's "The Grandmaster" and Bong Joon-ho's "Snowpiercer." (There is also some debate over the final cut of the studio's upcoming Oscar hopeful, "August: Osage County.")
Not that making cuts to films always rankles the directors. "Weinstein is actually being pretty soft toward editing, probably because it's noticed how critics have praised the film and know how angry movie fans get over new edits," Joon-ho said in a recent interview. "They even asked me which parts I want to include in the film."
For more from Dahan, head to Liberation. TWC didn't not respond with comment when asked about the story by THR.
[via THR]
