What is it with directors and slandering hard-working actresses?
The case of John Carney and Keira Knightley has been blown up pretty wide by the media like Variety, Indie Wire, Telegraph ever since two days ago.
While promoting his new film, Sing Street, the director called Knightley’s acting as quoted, “Keira’s thing is to hide who you are and I don’t think you can be an actor and do that.” while praising the likes of other co-stars of the 2013 film, Mark Ruffalo and Adam Levine, “(Ruffalo) is a fantastic actor and (Levine) is a joy to work with and actually quite unpretentious and not a bit scared of exposing himself on camera and exploring who he is as an individual,”. And to end it all, Carney said,
“I’ll never make a film with supermodels again.”
This is a standard case of misogyny and sexism whereas men ingrains prejudices toward women. What makes this unacceptable is the fact that Carney really stripped the likes of Knightley as “supermodels” and therefore, deemed unworthy of collaboration. This is rather a silly observation and judgment toward actresses and could be extrapolated to a world where even all women are doomed and considered to be less than the opposite sex, not to mention the latter usually doing the bare minimum of work and received less slandering (I mean, Ruffalo was rough to watch and not in his usual good way).
This case resembles perfectly to make even a bigger question that is my title of the post: What is it with directors and slandering the actresses?
Honestly, there are lots of cases like this, most recent is Kate Beckinsale and Michael Bay. Specifically, with the case of Knightley. Because coincidentally, I have been diving into her catalogue and from what I have seen, she knows what she’s doing and you can tell that she really loves performing.
Thankfully, there are some people who supported and defended Knightley’s performance, Mark Romanek heard about the case and quickly jumped on this topic.
Another fellow director, Lorene Scafaria, who has just premiered her new film this year starring the greats Susan Sarandon and Rose Byrne, The Meddler, commented on her experience as well. Having seen her work in Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend days ago, I could verify that Knightley’s performance and her chemistry with Steve Carell was indeed, lovely.
Even the great David Cronenberg (CRASH!! VIDEODROME!! A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE!!) praised her as “…a brilliant actress …as any good as other actresses — and I have worked with some of the best actresses in the world”. And in other interview, Cronenberg elaborated that she was the leader in the film.
In Begin Again, it is still unsure to point exactly what was wrong with her performance — especially when she already has two Academy Awards-nominated performances locked and loaded — or her in general.
Was it because of her singing and musicality in the film? I have an explanation of that. I did some digging around and found an old interview that she did with The Guardian in 2014. She explained how sucks she really is with music even though her husband is in a band, “Oh God, fuck no, I’m so not musical…It’s terrible. I know nothing about music whatsoever,” She continued that she would ‘try to listen, but it never sinks in.’
She then later explained her connection with music is not as hard as books and drama. “I was always more into reading and drama. I was such a geek. Which is quite interesting in terms of memory. There’s often a huge link between music and memory. And I’ve got such a bad memory.” Which explains her starring roles in period dramas such as Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, and Anna Karenina.
Nevertheless, she has grown a lot; starring in films that are unknown to her usual period drama, expanding her catalogues, and still earning raves here and there. Hence, the question is still floating. What makes John Carney regretting his decision? Is it creative differences or just pure male ego getting in the way?
