The chorus of A-listers denouncing Harvey Weinstein continues, and Paul Schrader has — well, not quite joined them, but yeah, he’ll say he never trusted Weinstein either. The director, screenwriter, and critic readily admits that he heard the rumors about Weinstein, even saying he knew the ex-studio boss was what Schrader would call a “sexual gangster.†(Schrader doesn’t elaborate on what that means.) In a statement posted to his Facebook account on Monday, after Weinstein’s firing from the Weinstein Company over his alleged history of sexual misconduct and secret settlements, Schrader denounced Weinstein for a different sin: his tendency to go “Harvey Scissorhands†on any movie he bought. “[The rumors were] not what offended me most about the man. It was the fact that he purchased films by both Bernardo Bertolucci and Wong Kar-wai and then recut them,†Schrader wrote.
Of course I knew Harvey Weinstein was a sexual gangster. So did most people who crossed his path. It was an odor that preceded him,†the post says. “That’s not what offended me most about the man. It was the fact that he purchased films by both Bernardo Bertolucci and Wong Kar Wai and then recut them. TWC offered to purchase Bret Ellis and my The Canyons on the proviso that Harvey could recut it — Why would Bret and I, I screamed into the phone, undergo the sacrifice of self financing a movie only to let an asshole like Harvey recut it?
Update, 5:20: Paul Shcrader said his initial Facebook post was “misinterpreted†and that he didn’t actually know much about Weinstein’s alleged history of sexual harassment and assault, but that he’s happy he was never in business with him. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the writer-director said: “I’m going to wipe out all those posts. It was clearly something stupid. The worst part of Facebook is you think you are part of a conversation, but in fact you got hijacked. It’s always sort of baffled me why he would hire someone like Wong Kar-Wai and Bertolucci. But those [the current allegations and how he recut films] are two separate issues, but some people thought [I was saying] there were comparisons to be made.â€