J'accuse [An Officer and a Spy] (Roman Polanski, 2019)

[aox]

How did you guys see this film? I am quarantined in a NYC apartment.

[swo17]

French BD just came out

[therewillbeblus]

Can you confirm it has English subs? I can’t find any clarity on that

[swo17]

Someone on Blu-ray.com's forum confirmed there are only optional French subs on the disc but English subs can be found online

[therewillbeblus]

That’s where I found them but important info for those looking to find an English friendly physical copy, hopefully one comes soon

[Martin Stett]

I found an all region bluray on eBay. It appears to be a Russian Federation issue. The audio language options are French and Russian and there is an English language subtitle option. The subtitles are pretty clear except for a few minor glitches--they don't handle French accent marks very well, but it's a slight distraction. The A-V quality of the film itself seems as good as the official trailers. If it's a bootleg, it's a very good one.
I've looked for it since, but it hasn't turned up again.
Having watched it twice, I'd say it's worth the effort finding a viewable copy.

[aox]

Sorry to bump this thread for such a banal though innocuous question, but basically at this point, American audiences are never going to see this film right? It will never get distribution in the US?

My only option is buying a region-free BD? Which sucks, because I don't necessarily want to own this, and hundreds of people worked on this film who aren't monsters.

[therewillbeblus]

It's a very good movie, and well-worth owning, but no it probably won't get a U.S. release. Even a company like Shout! Factory, that has no qualms licensing and even getting Polanski to contribute to new extras, doesn't seem likely as this isn't really on-brand for them.

[swo17]

I don't think it's available anywhere yet with English subtitles

[MichaelB]

I saw it courtesy of the French BD married up to English subtitles found online - my Oppo player lets me do this.

And it was definitely worth the effort: I agree with the people above who say that it's Polanski's best in years.

[Aunt Peg]

I found a Blu Ray bootleg copy on eBay which was from Russia sold via a Canadian seller. It was a Blu Ray-R and excellent quality - I invited some friends over who also wanted to see the film. This was back in August 2020.

I generally don't support bootlegs but if something is simply not available I will resort to something I would rather not do. Having said that if the film is ever released legally with English subtitles I will replace my copy.

[Ribs]

Opening at Film Forum in NYC in August

[Yakushima]

Opening at Film Forum in NYC in August

Thank you, Ribs! This is one of Polanski's very best. I'll try to make it.

[hearthesilence]

Jim Hoberman's review in Film Comment

[aox]

Opening at Film Forum in NYC in August

Ribs, it says this is a TWO WEEK LIMITED ENGAGEMENT. Do you happen to know if this week is week 1 or week 2, already?

[Matt]

The Film Forum calendar says the start date was August 8, so it's still the first week.

[aox]

Thanks Matt

[hearthesilence]

Film Forum’s union, Local 2110 UAW, issued a statement criticizing Film Forum's booking of this film.

[malachi_lui]

There are valid cases on both sides here, but the statement from the Film Forum union makes me wonder whose decision it was to program the film in the first place, if almost everyone who works there so strongly objects to it.

[pistolwink]

There's at least one major irony in the union's statement, which reads:

“This endorsement of Polanski’s allegorical project makes Film Forum complicit in the cultural amnesia that normalizes abuse and keeps survivors of sexual violence from being taken seriously,” the statement reads. “As workers and as film lovers, we count on the discernment of our premieres programmers to introduce work that not only reflects cultural significance, but upholds ethical responsibility.”

Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, has stated many times in recent years that she does not want people continuing to hound, boycott, or otherwise shun Polanski in her name. So it's the union who are not taking this particular survivor seriously.

I'd respect this statement more if the primary concern was simply Film Forum doing something that might end up putting money in Polanski's pocket. But the idea that the film's "allegorical project" is harming someone seems dubious. People should be free to watch it and make up their minds about what they think about the film's connections to Polanski's crime (and his own idea of himself as a victim). Likewise the idea that Polanski is a beneficiary of "cultural amnesia" is ridiculous. People can't stop talking about a crime the guy committed in 1977!

[albucat]

Polanski's victim isn't the final arbiter on what people should or should not support in the world. If people don't believe in supporting the work of a celebrated rapist, forcing them to do so is pretty awful. If you are a rape survivor or close to someone who is, being told that you must support Polanski because his victim is tired of dealing with this part of the past is in no way going to be convincing. I don't mean to get too personal here, but it's something that I wouldn't touch due to my own past, and I assume many others feel likewise or are supporting those who feel that way.

[pistolwink]

The points the statement makes aren't about "supporting" Polanski or not, but rather assert that the union feels that showing the film:
1) Means that Film Forum is preventing survivors of sexual assault from being taken seriously
2) Means that Film Forum is complicit in "cultural amnesia" around sexual assault

I don't see how either of these things are true.

Showing the film doesn't consitute a denial or forgetting of Polanski's actions. We're still talking about them right here, and I don't doubt most of the people going to see the film will be talking about them as well. It also doesn't do anything to silence sexual-assult victims and their allies, who are free to protest, hand out literature, write editorials, hold seminars, etc. As someone who often teaches films with potentially objectionable or difficult content, sometimes made by people who have done or said bad things, I find the notion that such films should be shielded from public view—as opposed to being available for debate and conversaton—objectionable in itself.

As well, there's a sleight of hand here (as there often is in these sort of censorious statements) whereby the "survivors of sexual assault" that are invoked are only those who would agree that showing the film (or publishing the book or whatever, in other cases) is objectionable. Survivors who would not object to the film being seen are simply not acknowledged to exist.

[albucat]

Did you not read the full statement? I guess I'll have to assume not, since that isn't at all what it says, and it speaks a lot about Polanski and this movie in particular. You seem to only be referring to one small quote from the Indiewire article rather than the real crux of what they said which isn't broad and generalizing in the way you're implying.

To address 1. No, it ignores survivors of sexual assault who have asked this movie not to be screened. How is that confusing at all?
To address 2. As noted in their statement, this is specifically about endorsing an allegorical project with a completely messed up point of view. The whole concept of the movie is to cause said amnesia through equating Polanski's actions with those of Alfred Dreyfus. That's literally what the movie is about, how is this a confusing point either?!

Showing the film constitutes allowing a shoddy "gotta hear both sides" argument from a rapist justifying himself. Are you also unfamiliar with what the movie is about?

Yes, these magical and fictional rape victims you posited who support a movie that's explicitly arguing that the real victim was the rapist weren't asked... perhaps because they don't necessarily exist. This isn't even a free speech absolutism case--the movie still exists whether or not Film Forum shows it. They don't show many, many, many films. However, they are choosing to prioritize this particular movie over the hundreds of thousands of others they could distribute. You're acting like this isn't a particular choice for distribution, which it is. Picking what movies to screen is a message, both political and otherwise. It isn't like Film Forum is showing Chinatown and they're angry about that, rather it's that of all the movies available, their boss wants to display the only one I've ever even heard of that wishes to heroize a rapist through analogy.

Since we're in the world of really dumb strawmen arguments already, if Polanski's next movie is an aesthetically lovely depiction of how Jeffrey Epstein was the real victim and needs to be shown as the righteous individual we all know him to be, I assume Film Forum should also be obligated to screen that? What about Polanski's upcoming story about how the KKK was the real victim and Black people need to learn what's best for them? I fail to understand why anyone would be supportive of either of these projects being screened, but then I also feel that way about J'accuse.

If someone makes a politically abhorrent movie and people respond by saying they don't support it because its politics are abhorrent, how is that surprising or unjustified? Why is it bad to take a stand against something politically abhorrent? You may personally feel like a movie justifying a rapist's actions through a contorted analogy is a good thing and that we should all want to see and enjoy its wisdom, but it shouldn't be surprising that many people would be willing to risk their jobs because they consider such a project so loathsome--there is a reason that free speech absolutism is a far right talking point, and this is a pretty obvious case in point.

[pistolwink]

I'm not really sure what you are alluding to when you mention "free-speech absolutism." I'm not making a 1st Amendment-based argument or proposing that privately-run theaters are somehow compelled to show any and every random film. Film Forum obviously isn't obligated to show J'accuse as you put it. But I don't think it's that hard to imagine why a venue would want to show it. It's an ambitious film, one that has had a very if not uniformly positive critical reception in Europe, by one of the most talented filmmakers alive, who has made more than his share of masterpieces over the past 60 years.

One thing I object to in your response is the seeming attempt to close down interpretation of the film and declare its ultimate meaning and impact as a "politically abhorrent" work and thereby cast it into some bucket labeled Bad Art (as opposed to the "good thing" you imagine I think it is). The fact that film appears to be, in part, Polanski's attempt to liken his own experiences to those of Dreyfus doesn't mean that the venue much less the audience needs or is implied to endorse that allegory—or that the film is without worth or interest. There are many ways of interpreting the film in other ways and/or against the grain, as a polemic on anti-Semitism (remember that Polanski's family was slaughtered in the Holocaust), as a window into a major artist's twisted self-regard, etc. To me, the autobiographical allegory that the film is proposed to contain makes it fascinating. It might be compared to On the Waterfront, by which Elia Kazan sought to romanticize his own supposed persecution via allegory—which in one way was even more dubious, because the common reading of the film is that Kazan was actively trying to exculpate (not just pity) himself. Another example might be Intolerance, which was D.W. Griffith's grandiloquent response to the (in his view) intolerant meddlers who sought to criticize and censor The Birth of a Nation and which allegorically compares Griffith to such historical victims as the Huguenots and, uh, Christ. The allegory is frankly silly, offensive, but also fascinating; and the film's brilliance as a visionary work of experimental narrative is seldom questioned.

I'm quite capable—and I imagine most rep-cinema audiences are quite capable—of admiring aspects of Kazan and Griffith's films while finding their allegories unconvincing and even offensive, and likewise of contemplating Polanski's allegory in a critical manner. I don't see how allowing people that opportunity constitutes doing anyone serious harm. (You don't have to look far in American life to find real examples of egregious and novel cruelties; our present federal government specializes in them.)

I'd also note that you confuse the matter with your hypothetical examples. J'accuse is a film about Alfred Dreyfus and the social convulsions that surrounded his conviction and exoneration in turn of the century France. Any autobiographical allegory exists as subtext and audiences can choose to engage with or ignore that interpretive frame as they choose. Your KKK and Jeffrey Epstein examples are rather different.

As for sexual-assault survivors, my point was that as in any other group, there's a diversity of opinion. Some wouldn't want a film made by a rapist to be seen or shown, others would not object. (Surely you're not suggesting that all victims have a uniform stance on this? Samantha Geimer is just one example. I know plenty of other people who are others.) The union's statement doesn't simply propose to speak for individual survivors on the staff who find the film's distribution unethical. In my reading, it claims to speak on behalf or, or at least for, "survivors of sexual violence" in total.

[tenia]

To me, the autobiographical allegory that the film is proposed to contain makes it fascinating.

J'accuse is a film about Alfred Dreyfus and the social convulsions that surrounded his conviction and exoneration in turn of the century France. Any autobiographical allegory exists as subtext and audiences can choose to engage with or ignore that interpretive frame as they choose.

Just shiming in with 2 cents to state that of course, people are free to overlook an explicit and willful analogy, one that Polanski expressed explicitly and publicly, and not in a small outlet but in the movie's pressbook. It's also seemingly worth reminding that at thid moment, in 2019, Polanski was facing sexual assault accusations from 5 women others than Samantha Geimer, and that's what Polanski was referring to in this pressbook, until Valentine Monnier's newly-repeated accusations led way to a retooled pressbook deleting this parallel between Dreyfus' subject to a "witch hunt" and Polanski "knowing very well what it's like".

But people being oblivious to an aspect of the movie explicitly wanted by the director and co-writer is their analytical problem, just like it'd be to fail to see Luc Besson's Dracula trying to romanticize a huge age gap between a stalker and his "love interests", and where that's coming from. One could still obviously say "hey, that's just Dracula for you", but I'd argue that's just being either blindsided or poor at analysing what a movie can be saying.

In such a context, choosing this specific movie amongst all Polanski movies amongst all movies is etiher extremely clumsy or very blindsided, and of course it was bound to spark debates about why this one specificially.