It's Julien your French correspondent to pass a bit of a contentious interview your way. After tampering with the ending of August: Osage Country and cutting 20 minutes off Snowpiercer, it seems Harvey Scissorhands is at it again. Grace of Monaco director Olivier Diahan spoke to French newspaper Libération (in an article published today) about his ongoing feud with Weinstein.
The disagreement is apparently the cause of the film's delay:
What’s complicated right now is to make sure that the critics will be able to judge my own version of the film, and not another one. But it’s not over yet, I haven’t given up. (…) There are two versions of the film: mine and his… which I found catastrophic.”
Quite a strong assessment from the guy who directed My Own Love Song, wouldn’t you say?
Dahan went on to comment on the practice of cutting trailers before the editing of the actual movie is even completed, stating that the recently released teaser for Grace wasn’t at all like the film, and that Weinstein was trying to turn the film into something resembling the trailer, instead of the the other way around.
He goes on to add:
They want to make a commercial, pedestrian film, by removing everything that’s too abrupt, everything cinematic, everything that’s life. A lot of it is missing."
Dahan last foray into biopic was of course Marion Cotillard’s Oscar vehicle La Vie En Rose. If the fight over Grace escalates, those hoping he could pull off the same hat trick with Nicole Kidman might be facing quite a disappointment. Confessing that he was probably done with “a certain luxury”, Dahan went on to expose Weinstein’s notoriously ruthless methods in the interview:
If I’d made a Hollywood film, I would have know what to expect: after the third cut, if it’s not considered suitable, they fire you from the editing room and the producer takes charge. But this is a French film, so this type of problems shouldn’t arise. The American distributor, as powerful as he may be, shouldn’t have access to the rushes. But they assumed that right, unbeknownst to me."
Not being the biggest Dahan fan, I must say I'm ambivalent about which version I'd rather see. Between Dahan's hysteric artsiness and Harvey's gold-plated prestige, which one would you favor?