After a lawsuit threat, the director of the Trump biopic defends a contentious rape scene
The controversial scene featuring Donald Trump raping his wife was defended by the director of an explosive biopic, telling AFP that the purported occurrence is “well known” and illuminates the ex-president’s character.
The film The Apprentice, which had its world premiere at Cannes, follows Trump’s beginnings as a driven young real estate entrepreneur in New York throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Donald Trump’s legal team has threatened to sue the filmmakers, referring to their actions as “garbage” and “pure malicious defamation.”
The moment when Trump rapes his first wife, Ivana, after she makes fun of him for getting obese and bald is the most contentious. “This specific item is well-known. Ivana Trump disclosed this occurrence in a deposition and while testifying under oath, according to director Ali Abbasi. Ivana made the charge during the divorce process, but she later withdrew it. In 2022, she passed away.
When asked about the scene’s inclusion, Abbasi explained that the film is “about how, bit by bit, point by point, (Trump) distances himself from those human relationships that define him and that hold him in check as a human being.”
“Ivana’s relationship is obviously very significant. He is really close to Ivana, “said the speaker.
Sebastian Stan, most known for his roles in Marvel superhero movies, plays Trump, while Jeremy Strong, best known for Succession, plays Roy Cohn, his merciless mentor and lawyer. Critics gave both excellent reviews.
In other embarrassing moments, Trump is seen getting liposuction and having surgery to replace lost hair, along with experiencing erectile difficulties. Overall, though, the movie presents a complex picture of an aspirational yet unsophisticated social climber whose decency erodes as he becomes adept at the dark arts of power and dealmaking. “A lot of the behavior and the personality is much more relatable than we want to admit,” Stan stated to AFP.
“Donald’s team should wait to watch the movie before they start suing us,” Abbasi proposed.”I don’t believe he would be against this movie per se… “I believe he would be taken aback,” he remarked.
Trump’s director of campaign communications, Steven Cheung, announced in a statement that legal action would be taken “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.”
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” Cheung stated.
While Trump is on trial in Manhattan for a sleazy affair involving a porn star, The Apprentice made its debut. It occurs only a few months before Trump is anticipated to run against Joe Biden in the US presidential election.
Jokingly, Abbasi said, “We have a promotional event coming up called the US elections that will help us with the movie,” implying that it might be published in time for the September 14 Biden-Trump debate.
The Apprentice opens with a young Trump who is driven to become a member of the city’s elite and has grand ambitions to open a five-star hotel. Meeting Cohn changes his life, imparting nihilistic principles like “attack, attack, attack” and “admit nothing, deny everything” that will later become Trump’s platform. Cohn gained notoriety as a formidable attorney by tracking down Communists on behalf of Senator Joseph McCarthy and executing Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Journalist Gabriel Sherman, who frequently interacted with Trump while covering real estate for the New York Observer, wrote the screenplay. He said that major Hollywood players obstructed the movie, which was eventually financed by the governments of Denmark, Ireland, and Canada.
Sherman remarked, “We couldn’t succeed in the American system.” “Hollywood in many ways doesn’t want to rock certain boats.”
The movie is one of 22 vying for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest award. On Saturday, the winner will be announced by a panel led by Greta Gerwig, the director of Barbie. Gerwig responded that she would approach the film with “an open mind and an open heart” when asked if it was feasible for an American woman to judge a movie about Trump objectively.
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