Johnny Depp will not have been a victim of the cancel culture long time. Here he is back through the front door on the Croisette a few months after the highly publicized trial which pitted him against his ex-wife Amber Heard, against a backdrop of accusations of domestic violence. Away from Hollywood sets, the actor climbs the steps this Tuesday evening for the opening of the official selection with Jeanne du Barry Directed by Maïwenn. If the big family of cinema fully assumes the presence of Johnny Depp, this rehabilitation gives the 2023 edition of the Cannes Film Festival an aftertaste of unease.
Thierry Frémeaux, general delegate of the festival, tried to extinguish the controversy while the hashtag #CannesYouNot (“Cannes, could you avoid”) begins to be talked about on Twitter. “I don’t know the image of Johnny Depp in the United States”, he underlined, explaining that he had “a single conduct in life: the freedom to think, to speak, to act within the framework of the law “. “I am the last person to be able to talk to you about all this because, if there is a person in the world who has not been interested in this highly publicized trial [entre Johnny Depp et Amber Heard], it’s me. I don’t know what it is, I’m interested in Depp as an actor”.
“Five years after #metoo, French cinema is still defending attackers”
Not better on the side of Maïwenn, the director of the film, who has no regrets about the surprising choice of an American actor to play a king of France. “With him, it was so obvious”, indicates the one who gives him the reply in the film. The actress is herself caught up in a legal case, accused of having assaulted the co-founder of Mediapart Edwy Plenel in a restaurant in Paris. Altercation that she confirmed in a disconcertingly light interview on the set of Dailylast week.
However, many voices have been raised since the announcement of the presence of Johnny Depp in Cannes. A few days after the revelation of the work which was to be screened at the opening of the official selection, at the beginning of April, the association Osez le féminisme was surprised on Instagram: “Five years after #metoo, French cinema still defends the aggressors . (…) [Il] continues to despise the victims of violence and reward the aggressors”. For her part, Adèle Haenel, voice of the metoo movement in France, strongly criticized the festival in a letter published by Telerama last week.
Amber Heard exiled in Spain
“But they and all of them together during this time join hands to save face for the Depardieus, the Polanskis, the Boutonnats. It bothers them, it bothers them that the victims make too much noise, they preferred that we continue to disappear and die in silence. They are ready to do anything to defend their rapist leaders, ”wrote the actress, who announced that she would stop the cinema in stride. A collective of actresses and actors expressed the same indignation in a column published in Release this Tuesday, the day of the opening ceremony of the festival.
Among the signatories, we find: Daphné Patakia, Bastien Bouillon, Jérémie Renier, Camille Chamoux, Agathe Bonitzer, Anna Mouglalis, Julie Gayet, Ophélie Bau, Laure Calamy… “We refuse to be associated with the decisions taken in recent weeks. By rolling out the red carpet to the men and women who attack, the Festival sends the message that in our country we can continue to exercise violence with complete impunity, that violence is acceptable in the places of creation”, can we read in the post.
Amber Heard exiled in Spain
Inevitably, seeing Johnny Depp arrive on the Croisette has something rather cynical about it. Especially when he arrives with the director’s cap on his head and a Modigliani biopic project with Pierre Niney and Al Pacino in his pocket. Without forgetting that, according to information from variety On Friday, Dior signed an agreement worth more than $20 million with the American star in August 2022 to keep him as the face of its Sauvage men’s fragrance.
At the same time, his accuser Amber Heard, victim of a campaign of hatred and disinformation in packs by masculinist groups throughout the trial, ended up in exile in Spain, far from Hollywood sets and paparazzi. It makes you wonder who was canceled in this story.