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DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN is to file suit for defamation over a US movie inspired by the sex scandal that brought down the former IMF chief, his lawyer confirmed today.
Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York stars Gerard Depardieu as a man called Georges Devereaux with striking similarities to “DSK” – whose alleged 2011 sexual assault on a New York hotel maid shook the world.
Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Jean Veil said his client would in the coming days “file suit for defamation over the accusations of rape and the insinuations made all throughout the movie”.
He said Strauss-Kahn has been cleared of all charges in the case, and was “sickened and frightened by this film”, which premiered at the Cannes film festival on Saturday.
Veil described the film as “a piece of shit, dogshit”, and echoed a charge by Strauss-Kahn’s ex-wife Anne Sinclair that aspects of it were “anti-Semitic”.
The start of Ferrara’s film states that it is inspired by a court case but it has been widely seen as a fictionalised account of the downfall of DSK.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested in May 2011 in New York and forced to live under house arrest for weeks after posting $1 million bail.
Criminal charges were eventually dropped and Strauss-Kahn settled a civil suit brought by the maid by paying her undisclosed damages, which reportedly exceeded $1.5 million.
Sinclair has accused the movie of portraying her in an anti-Jewish way, through the character of Devereaux’s wife Simone played by Jacqueline Bisset.
In the film, Simone is a rich woman who inherited a fortune amassed during World War II and helps the Israeli state financially.
Writing in the French Huffington Post, which she edits, Sinclair accused the authors and producers of the film of projecting their “fantasies about money and Jews”, notably in a scene in which Devereaux tells Simone, “Everyone knows what your family did during the war.”
“My grandfather (famous art dealer Paul Rosenberg) had to escape from the Nazis and was stripped of his French nationality by the Vichy government,” Sinclair said added, referring to the wartime French regime that collaborated with the Germans.
Sinclair said however she would not resort to legal action over what she described as “dirt”.
Ferrara refuted the allegations on Sunday, telling AFP he is not “anti-Semitic”.
“I hope not. I was brought up by Jewish women,” he said.
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Fascinating as always.
Great article. Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit!
I needed to read something like this today. Thank you.
Today, above all other days, we are redefining what it means to be Irish. Our proud, culturally-rich country will rise again, as it has many times before.
For now, a very happy St Patrick’s Day to all of you. Stay safe.
I’ve fed my family by selling Leprechauns (other stuff as well!) in our little Galway shop – we decided to close it for the time being yesterday, safer for staff, immunosuppressed family members and for the general public.
In normal times people from all over the world get to hear me ráméis about Leprechauns and we all enjoy the interaction.
I prefer telling them about Newgrange, Poulnabrone, Gráinne Mhaol, our Poets, our writers and the people of 1916 but the much denigrated Leprechaun is an innocent part of the overall package and, while never giving me a pot of gold, has enabled me to feed a family, pay rent and taxes and allow my suppliers and their employees do the same.
The Tourism business looks like it’s totally screwed this year, just hoping the scraps from our online sales will keep us going.
Beidh lá eile againn!
Great article. Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit!
I love these articles by Darach, way more please!
I think we need to break this association of the aos sídhe and fairies. Fairies are a mythological Germanic creature, usually depicted as very diminished in size – typically the size of an outstretched hand – with wings. The aos sídhe were of human size (we don’t know enough about the lúchorpáin) and had no wings. They looked exactly like humans although they were from the Otherworld or the Western World. Tír na nÓg, for example, was a home of the aos sídhe. The banshee is literally a bean sídhe. Sídhe, itself, refers to the mounds and not the mythological creature. Aos sídhe, daoine sídhe, na daoine maithe, etc are all other terms for them.
leprechaun economics
That leprechaun is unnaturally tall.
@D’oh: or those children are unnaturally small. They are mine!
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