Anne Sinclair, now or soon to be the ex wife of disgraced French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has denounced the Abel Ferrara film about the couple’s life shown here in Cannes and all over France on Saturday night.
Writing on The World Post, Sinclair calls “Welcome to New York” ‘disgusting.’ She’s correct about a lot of what she says, but she should also thank Jacqueline Bisset for portraying her with sensitivity and intelligence.
Sinclair is Paris editor of The Huffington Post, a partner of the World Post.
She writes:
I will leave it up to viewers and critics to judge this movie — if they ever want to see it. Many have already expressed boredom and other unflattering opinions about it.
I’m not used to expressing my personal feelings here, but as “Simone” is a character that is meant to represent me in Welcome to New York, I would simply like to say how disgusted I am.
I am disgusted with a movie that presents the exposure of Gérard Depardieu’s body as boldness, when it in fact only makes you retch. I am disgusted with the film’s pathetic and ridiculous dialogue, and the way Abel Ferrara represents women throughout the movie — it must illustrate his own drives.
Above all, I also feel disgusted with the so-called confrontation between the two main characters. The film’s writers and producers are only projecting their own fantasies about money and Jewish people.
References to my family during the war are truly degrading and defamatory. They’re the contrary to what really happened. My grandfather had to flee the Nazis. He was deprived of his French citizenship by the Vichy regime. My father joined Free France and fought until the Liberation. Saying anything else is nothing but slander.
I never thought I would have to defend their memories against such anti-Semitic attacks. They’re without a doubt motivated by the director’s own issues, and by the producer’s naked greed.
That being said, I won’t give Abel Ferrara and Vincent Maraval the pleasure of suing them. They already said they wanted — and expected — to be sued. I don’t attack filth. I despise it.
