Invited to Elisabeth Quin’s set on Arte in 28 minutes, Emmanuelle Devos was invited to react to the Depardieu affair. To the question, “could you shoot with Gérard Depardieu today based on what we know or what is being said?”, the actress replies: “I don’t know. But I think one thing: Gérard Depardieu is the tree that hides the forest. It’s a beautiful, big tree that hides the forest of fifty years of laissez-faire in the world of cinema, and as long as it brought in money we left it.”
Emmanuelle Devos, who specifies that she has never met the actor, adds that until then she had only heard of promiscuity and not of sexual assault. “Everyone was laughing about it,” she remembers. She denounces film sets where there is “too much power, too much money”, issues which are not unrelated to the silence which reigns in the small world of the seventh art: “We let it happen , and that suited everyone.”
The actress is pleased to see people speaking out about this affair and is full of hope towards the next generation of filmmakers: “We need to [speak out], and all those who are against all that, they are old and they will clear out, unfortunately, but that’s how it is. There is a new movement coming, with a revival of cinema, with young female directors. They will have the keys to the truck and it is up to them to do the work,” she says.
Emmanuelle Devos continues: “Those who abused they will get out, that’s how it is and I find it rather healthy. Of course there are heads which will roll and which perhaps should not have fallen, but that’s what revolutions are…” The one who did not sign any platform and stayed out of the turmoil caused by the storm Depardieu nevertheless tempers his remarks. She calls for taking a step back from the situation: “We have to try to take a little distance. We have to rise up and see what it will look like in ten years.”
The actress thus adopts the same position as her playing partner, Daniel Auteuil, also starring in Un Silence by Joaquim Lafosse. The latter spoke on France Inter on Wednesday. Did the actor realize what was happening on the sets, he who filmed with Gérard Depardieu and who has been practicing this profession for forty years? “It’s inherent to all professions, to all walks of life,” he replies before assuring that he has never “noted anything sufficiently disturbing or disturbing, otherwise you can imagine that it would have alerted me and that I would have spoken about it.
Also read “Everyone knows and no one says anything”: Lio denounces the Depardieu affair and the silence of the cinema world on sexual violence
But Daniel Auteuil wants above all to be cautious: “I am neither a prosecutor, nor a lawyer, nor a journalist… My testimony would not contribute anything in particular, given that I do not want to add noise to the noise and that I do not know these files. But once again: I support the words, and I claim these words from women.” Is it also a generational thing? “Surely, but not only that,” analyzes the actor. Perhaps it was time for these things to happen. This is something that has always existed unfortunately, and once again, in all professions. I don’t necessarily like people to stigmatize cinema, because it’s the same everywhere.”
