Weinsteins step down as Miramax CEOs

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Fired yesterday. Apparently NYT had expose on him in 2004 but killed it under pressure:

I traveled to Rome and tracked down the man who held the plum position of running Miramax Italy. According to multiple accounts, he had no film experience and his real job was to take care of Weinstein’s women needs, among other things.

As head of Miramax Italy in 2003 and 2004, Fabrizio Lombardo was paid $400,000 for less than a year of employment. He was on the payroll of Miramax and thus the Walt Disney Company, which had bought the indie studio in 1993.

I had people on the record telling me Lombardo knew nothing about film, and others citing evenings he organized with Russian escorts.

flappy bird, Monday, 9 October 2017 17:52 (six years ago) link

After intense pressure from Weinstein, which included having Matt Damon and Russell Crowe call me directly to vouch for Lombardo and unknown discussions well above my head at the Times, the story was gutted.

Those must have been some surreal calls, jesus.

change display name (Jordan), Monday, 9 October 2017 18:00 (six years ago) link

Who signed off on this headline? pic.twitter.com/213KJQMPzA

— Dan Scary (@djperry1973) October 9, 2017

Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP), Monday, 9 October 2017 18:10 (six years ago) link

Jesus, Ronan Farrow's piece in the New Yorker is nauseating. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories

Asia Argento, an Italian film actress and director, told me that she did not speak out until now––Weinstein, she told me, forcibly performed oral sex on her—because she feared that Weinstein would “crush” her. “I know he has crushed a lot of people before,” Argento said. “That’s why this story—in my case, it’s twenty years old, some of them are older—has never come out.”

. . .

Three women––among them Argento and a former aspiring actress named Lucia Evans—told me that Weinstein raped them, allegations that include Weinstein forcibly performing or receiving oral sex and forcing vaginal sex. Four women said that they experienced unwanted touching that could be classified as an assault. In an audio recording captured during a New York Police Department sting operation in 2015 and made public here for the first time, Weinstein admits to groping a Filipina-Italian model named Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, describing it as behavior he is “used to.” Four of the women I interviewed cited encounters in which Weinstein exposed himself or masturbated in front of them.

. . .

Other employees described what was, in essence, a culture of complicity at Weinstein’s places of business, with numerous people throughout the companies fully aware of his behavior but either abetting it or looking the other way. Some employees said that they were enlisted in subterfuge to make the victims feel safe. A female executive with the company described how Weinstein assistants and others served as a “honeypot”—they would initially join a meeting, but then Weinstein would dismiss them, leaving him alone with the woman.

. . .

Multiple sources said that Weinstein frequently bragged about planting items in media outlets about those who spoke against him; these sources feared that they might be similarly targeted. Several pointed to Gutierrez’s case, in 2015: after she went to the police, negative items discussing her sexual history and impugning her credibility began rapidly appearing in New York gossip pages. (In the taped conversation with Gutierrez, Weinstein asks her to join him for “five minutes,” and warns, “Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes.”)

And it goes on and on.

Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 15:17 (six years ago) link

I know, I know, the Weakly Standard, but I liked this piece.

a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 15:24 (six years ago) link

wonder if there's any chance of criminal charges against Weinstein

jmm, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 15:25 (six years ago) link

no

a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 15:26 (six years ago) link

2. Audio: Harvey Weinstein admits to assaulting model Ambra Gutierrez. Keep in mind NYC DA Cy Vance had this audio. https://t.co/8W4s5CrLy7 pic.twitter.com/Ft4P70g6Mm

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 10, 2017

Good lord

Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 15:40 (six years ago) link

Weinstein had a reputation for insisting on edits when he acquired foreign films, but obv his recently revealed crimes are in a more distressing category.

ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 15:46 (six years ago) link

yikes

it's all just horrific. i choose not to read any comments on these articles, there are so many trashy people in this town who are more than willing to sling mud at those coming forward.

nomar, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:00 (six years ago) link

That's the same DA involved in the Ivanka/Don Jr. fraud case -- and who took donations from Trump's lawyer. https://t.co/1sf2NVGd5V https://t.co/Oh20lqTyRo

— Rachel Glickhouse (@Riogringa) October 10, 2017

Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:09 (six years ago) link

(Cy Vance, that is)

Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:09 (six years ago) link

Two sources close to the police investigation said that they had no reason to doubt Gutierrez’s account of the incident. One of them, a police source, said that the department had collected more than enough evidence to prosecute Weinstein. But the other source said that Gutierrez’s statements about her past complicated the case for the office of the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr. After two weeks of investigation, the District Attorney’s office decided not to file charges. The D.A.’s office declined to comment on this story but pointed me to their statement at the time: “This case was taken seriously from the outset, with a thorough investigation conducted by our Sex Crimes Unit. After analyzing the available evidence, including multiple interviews with both parties, a criminal charge is not supported.”

“We had the evidence,” the police source involved in the operation told me. “It’s a case that made me angrier than I thought possible, and I have been on the force a long time.”

So it's pure victim blaming. Just the fact that she claimed to have been sexually assaulted before was enough to invalidate recorded evidence.

jmm, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:13 (six years ago) link

It sucks that this stuff is coming out so late after the NY primaries, Vance clearly should and could have been primaried.

IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:21 (six years ago) link

isn't Ronan Farrow ...? Impressed how the writer's personal life did not get inserted into the story at all!

sarahell, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:24 (six years ago) link

I guess Ronan Farrow was investigating this independently of the NYT reporters? I wonder how many simultaneous investigations were going on.

jmm, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:27 (six years ago) link

Ben Affleck clears his throat:

pic.twitter.com/f5AgemRXds

— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) October 10, 2017

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:28 (six years ago) link

Looking forward to "THE BOURNE APOLOGY" in which Jason fights off attempts to expose a pimp

— Anthony Bourdain (@Bourdain) October 10, 2017

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:30 (six years ago) link

damn

nomar, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:33 (six years ago) link

This in response to Ben also very good/cold:

how's your brother doing https://t.co/KRIjzRtC53

— pilot (@pilotbacon) October 10, 2017

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:36 (six years ago) link

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLvlgmeVoAA20FB.jpg:small

uh

mookieproof, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:42 (six years ago) link

Meantime, is this the angriest I've ever seen or heard this man, about anything?

“I will go anywhere I can learn more about myself.” Try prison you fucker. https://t.co/Wy6fQyTqAw

— david sylvian (@davidsylvian58) October 10, 2017

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:43 (six years ago) link

"fucker" maybe not the best choice of insults there

Οὖτις, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:45 (six years ago) link

I had to check Schrader's FB page to see if this was real *and it was*

buddy. pic.twitter.com/I29HkMT7UN

— Ken Greller (@kengreller) October 10, 2017

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link

Good thread

Yet last year Nate Parker, who was acquitted of a rape charge almost 2 decades ago by a jury had to be gotten out of the paint immediately?

— Neo Liberal (@RickyRawls) October 10, 2017

flappy bird, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link

someone dig up that Shcrader/Nastassja Kinski excerpt

a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:04 (six years ago) link

nice time to come up with a stunningly tin-eared take, P.S.

ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:07 (six years ago) link

And the hits just keep on coming: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html

What was the last remotely useful thing Schrader did?

Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:08 (six years ago) link

his new movie is good

a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:12 (six years ago) link

When Gwyneth Paltrow was 22 years old, she got a role that would take her from actress to star: The film producer Harvey Weinstein hired her for the lead in the Jane Austen adaptation “Emma.” Before shooting began, he summoned her to his suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for a work meeting that began uneventfully.

It ended with Mr. Weinstein placing his hands on her and suggesting they head to the bedroom for massages, she said.

“I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,” she said in an interview, publicly disclosing that she was sexually harassed by the man who ignited her career and later helped her win an Academy Award.

She refused his advances, she said, and confided in Brad Pitt, her boyfriend at the time. Mr. Pitt confronted Mr. Weinstein, and soon after, the producer threatened her not to tell anyone else about his come-on. “I thought he was going to fire me,” she said.

Rosanna Arquette, a star of “Pulp Fiction,” has a similar account of Mr. Weinstein’s behavior, as does Judith Godrèche, a leading French actress. So does Angelina Jolie, who said that during the release of “Playing by Heart” in the late 1990s, he made unwanted advances on her in a hotel room, which she rejected.

“I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did,” Ms. Jolie said in an email. “This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”

A New York Times investigation last week chronicled a hidden history of sexual harassment allegations against Mr. Weinstein and settlements he paid, often involving former employees, over three decades up to 2015. By Sunday evening, his entertainment company fired him.

On Tuesday, The New Yorker published a report that included multiple allegations of sexual assault, including forced oral and vaginal sex. The article also included accounts of sexual harassment going back to the 1990s, with women describing how intimidating Mr. Weinstein was.

Several days ago, additional actresses began sharing with The Times on-the-record stories of casting-couch abuses. Their accounts hint at the sweep of Mr. Weinstein’s alleged harassment, targeting women on the way to stardom, those who had barely acted and others in between. Fantasies that the public eagerly watched onscreen, the women recounted, sometimes masked the dark experiences of those performing in them.

The encounters they recalled followed a similar narrative: First, they said, Mr. Weinstein lured them to a private place to discuss films, scripts or even Oscar campaigns. Then, the women contend, he variously tried to initiate massages, touched them inappropriately, took off his clothes or offered them explicit work-for-sex deals.

In a statement on Tuesday, his spokeswoman, Sallie Hofmeister, said: “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. He will not be available for further comments, as he is taking the time to focus on his family, on getting counseling and rebuilding his life.”

Even in an industry in which sexual harassment has long persisted, Mr. Weinstein stands out, according to the actresses and current and former employees of the film companies he ran, Miramax and the Weinstein Company. He had an elaborate system reliant on the cooperation of others: Assistants often booked the meetings, arranged the hotel rooms and sometimes even delivered the talent, then disappeared, the actresses and employees recounted. They described how some of Mr. Weinstein’s executives and assistants then found them agents and jobs or hushed actresses who were upset.

His alleged behavior became something of a Hollywood open secret: When the comedian Seth MacFarlane announced Oscar nominees in 2013, he joked, “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.” The audience laughed. According to a 2015 memo by a former Weinstein Company executive that The Times previously disclosed, the misconduct continued.

More established actresses were fearful of speaking out because they had work; less established ones were scared because they did not. “This is Harvey Weinstein,” Katherine Kendall, who appeared in the film “Swingers” and television roles, remembers telling herself after an encounter in which she said Mr. Weinstein undressed and chased her around a living room. Telling others meant “I’ll never work again and no one is going to care or believe me,” she reasoned at the time, she said in a recent interview.

Ms. Paltrow, 45, is now an entrepreneur, no longer dependent on securing her next acting role. But she emphasized how much more vulnerable she felt at 22, when Mr. Weinstein had just signed her up for a star-making part. On a trip to Los Angeles, she received a schedule from her agents for the hotel meeting with Mr. Weinstein.

There was no reason to suspect anything untoward, because “it’s on the fax, it’s from C.A.A.,” she said, referring to Creative Artists Agency, which represented her.

When Mr. Weinstein tried to massage her and invited her into the bedroom, she immediately left, she said, and remembers feeling stunned as she drove away. “I thought you were my Uncle Harvey,” she recalled thinking, explaining that she had seen him as a mentor.

After she told Mr. Pitt about the episode, he approached Mr. Weinstein at a theater premiere and told him never to touch Ms. Paltrow again. Mr. Pitt confirmed the account to The Times through a representative.

Soon after, Mr. Weinstein called Ms. Paltrow and berated her for discussing the episode, she recalled. (She said she also told a few friends, family members and her agent.) “He screamed at me for a long time,” she said, once again fearing she could lose the role in “Emma.” “It was brutal.” But she stood her ground, she said, and insisted that he put the relationship back on professional footing.

Even as Ms. Paltrow became known as the “first lady of Miramax” and won an Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love” in 1999, very few people knew about Mr. Weinstein’s advances. “I was expected to keep the secret,” she said.

Like several of the other women interviewed for this article, she felt she had to suppress the experience. She praised Mr. Weinstein publicly, posed for pictures with him and played the glowing star to his powerful producer. Yet their work relationship grew rockier over the years, she said, and she distanced herself. “He was alternately generous and supportive and championing, and punitive and bullying,” she said.

Now, with the process of tallying the size and scope of Mr. Weinstein’s abuse allegations underway, Ms. Paltrow and others said they wanted to support women who had already come forward and help those in similar situations feel less alone.

“We’re at a point in time when women need to send a clear message that this is over,” Ms. Paltrow said. “This way of treating women ends now.”

nomar, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:14 (six years ago) link

fortunately Weinstein didn't give that film the Wong or Bertolucci treatment

morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:14 (six years ago) link

okay I read Simon H's linked article up there and the last lines don't disappoint

The 2016 election demolished Clinton world once and for all, to be replaced by the cult of Obama, an austere sect designated by their tailored hair shirts with Nehru collars. “That is not who we are as Americans,” they chant, as Harvey Weinstein’s ashes are scattered in the wind.

El Tomboto, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:38 (six years ago) link

what's wrong with tailored hair shirts with Nehru collars

flappy bird, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:40 (six years ago) link

xxxp wtf is wrong with Tablet Magazine?! Weirdest fucking media outlet, I really don't get it at all.

IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:42 (six years ago) link

What wit – I don't even know if those last two sentences are praise.

morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 17:43 (six years ago) link

Excuses excuses

Manhattan DA’s office on Weinstein: "If we could have prosecuted Harvey Weinstein for the conduct that occurred in 2015, we would have." pic.twitter.com/Y5HslZORN4

— Dan Linden (@DanLinden) October 10, 2017

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 18:32 (six years ago) link

Why can we not have this man beaten publicly?

It took 5 days for Hillary Clinton to say something on Weinsteinhttps://t.co/D8Gq6l5DOZ

— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) October 10, 2017

Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 18:50 (six years ago) link

stopped clock finally hit upon a valid point

ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 18:56 (six years ago) link

LOL no he didn't, but as long as it's dragging a Clinton for something they aren't responsible I expect you to be on board.

Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 18:58 (six years ago) link

DR MORBIUS AND OTHER DUMMIES: Why can't Clinton just shut up and go away?

ALSO DR MORBIUS AND OTHER DUMMIES: Why isn't Clinton saying anything about Weinstein?

Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 18:59 (six years ago) link

I'm surprised that flies and shit are in proximity.

ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:12 (six years ago) link

related

Weinstein wasn’t always so pro-Obama. In 2008, he was a staunch Hillary Clinton backer during the acrimonious Democratic primary. During that cycle, the Democratic National Committee docked Michigan and Florida delegates for trying to jump the queue in scheduling primaries—a move that hurt Clinton’s chances against Obama. CNN reported that Weinstein threatened then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying he would not give to congressional Democrats unless Pelosi backed a plan to hold revotes in those two states. Weinstein confirmed his pressure in a statement to Nikki Finke, but Pelosi did not budge and Obama won the primary. Notably, Pelosi does not appear on the list of candidates to whom Weinstein has given, though he did give to the DCCC after the clash.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/weinstein-democratic-bankroller/542202/

ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:17 (six years ago) link

Hillary Clinton should also be fired from the Weinstein Company imo.

the scarest move i ever seen is scary move 4 (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:21 (six years ago) link

And probably impeached.

Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:24 (six years ago) link

Well public statements about tolerating abhorrent behavior towards women put her in an awkward position

IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:25 (six years ago) link

XPS If only for the cuts she demanded be made to Shaolin Soccer.

to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:27 (six years ago) link

Erica Garner noted today (with some horror) that Weinstein's was the endorsement the Clinton camp rolled out shortly after she endorsed Bernie.

a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:29 (six years ago) link

Wow @ all of this

The Harsh Tutelage of Michael McDonald (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link


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