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What we learnt from Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein
The feature-length BBC2 documentary includes testimonies from many of the mogul’s accusers including Rosanna Arquette, Erika Rosenbaum and Paz De La Huerta
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Almost two years after the New York Times story detailing decades of allegations of rape and sexual harassment against Harvey Weinstein broke, the “definitive” documentary tracking his meteoric rise and monstrous downfall arrives on BBC2.
Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein lifts the lid on how the movie mogul built and abused his power over the course of many years. It features the testimonies of numerous accusers – some who are speaking on camera for the first time – including actors Rosanna Arquette, Erika Rosenbaum and Paz De La Huerta.
“People knew that this pig had violated me,” reflects De La Huerta, “that this monster had been inside me.”
Former staffers are also interviewed, with former President of Miramax Films Mark Gill describing Weinstein as “an overlord who lived by the most vicious methods possible in order to instil fear”.
As well as including accounts from those who knew Weinstein, the documentary also features anecdotes from journalists who worked to expose the story, including The New Yorker’s investigative reporter Ronan Farrow.
He says: “I was being told, ‘You still need more women, these women are crazy, you need more credible women.’ Over and over again, no matter how many women were saying this was happening to them.”
Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex. Here are the testimonies we hear in the documentary…
Rosanna Arquette
“He grabbed my hand and he had an erection and I went, ‘F***’ and backed up. He went, ‘Rosanna, you’re making a very big mistake.’ I knew I was going to be in trouble because I didn’t participate, I knew it, and then when I tried to tell people they said, ‘You better keep your mouth shut.’”
Erika Rosenbaum
“He came out of the bathroom and he wasn’t wearing any pants, just a shirt that covered his hips. I was very put off as you can imagine and also just nervous because he was clearly distraught about something that had nothing to do with my presence there.
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“So right away I said, ‘It’s a bad time, I can see you’re on your way out, let’s do this another day.’ And I backed towards the door. And he got quite annoyed and said, ‘You’re here, take the five minutes and let’s talk for a second.’ He said, ‘Come with me.’ And he asked me to follow him to the bathroom. I said, ‘No, please, this is not a good time I’ll come back.’
“… I stayed because I thought leaving would be worse, I followed him into the wash room. The toilet seat had been broken like it had been smashed… there was blood on the seat. He asked me to face the mirror and said, ‘I just want to look at you.’
“He put his hand on the back of my neck and held me in place, staring at my own face in the mirror. He started to touch himself under his shirt behind me. I remember that like it’s a scene from a bad movie, because it’s hard to believe that was me…
“I remember staring at him and thinking, ‘If I can just stand still maybe it will all go away or maybe I will disappear.’ I was too shocked to move. I noticed he had blood on his hand. I found a way to say I had to go. I don’t think he finished.”
Paz de la Huerta
“I was intimidated by him and his power. He’s a repulsive man physically. I saw these other actresses hanging around him so I felt like it was something you did, he asked me if I wanted a ride home and I said, ‘Okay.’
“He said, ‘Can we have a drink upstairs at yours?’ And I was too afraid to say no. We went up to my place and things got very uncomfortable very fast. He pulled my dress up I was just terrified, I didn’t kick or scream. When you read about rape you read ‘The girl screams no and kicks and screams’ but that’s not exactly right. The way in which he overpowered me left me no way out.
“It’s almost like I was hovering over my body and this thing was happening to me. I didn’t go to the police because I was terrified he would destroy me and he would say it was consensual, and that I was a whore and I was lying.
“You put on a happy face but inside you’re dying. It made me feel like I had to reclaim my sexuality so I wanted to do photoshoots where I could feel beautiful and take it back, take back what I believe he stole from me…
“I wanted to feel desirable again, people knew that this pig had violated me, that this monster had been inside me.”
Caitlin Dulany
“Harvey performed oral sex on me forcibly, or without my consent, I didn’t know what to do and I was terrified he was going to rape me. I was really scared of being of being penetrated, of being raped, of having him on top of me, so I just froze. I definitely went somewhere else. I thought, ‘This is happening and it’s going to be over and I’ll cut it out of me somehow.’ He masturbated and finished.”
Hope d’Amore
“I put on a T shirt and some shorts or something to sleep in and I went to bed. Suddenly Harvey gets into bed naked next to me… I just pushed him away. He tries to cajole at first: ‘Do you really want to make me an enemy for five minutes of your time?’
“He just pushed and pushed and then, he just, he’s huge, I weigh about 100 pounds, probably about 110 then. I don’t know how to explain it, I just thought, ‘If I just shut up it will be over in a few minutes.’ I didn’t want anything from him. I didn’t hit him. I didn’t try to scratch his eyes out. But I said ‘No’ and I pushed him away, more than once, and then I just stopped. I was so frightened.
“I went back to Buffalo, I didn’t tell anybody. I knew he used to say he owned the cops in Buffalo because they worked concerts, they worked security when they were off duty. He had influence, he had a lot of money, he did a lot of advertising in newspapers, nobody would have believed anything I said. I wasn’t going to go to anybody and complain about that.
“It’s the collateral damage, what it does to the relationships with friends, people you love and they don’t know why. It steals something.”
Zelda Perkins
Assistant at Miramax London
“As an assistant you had to get him up in the morning which usually would mean there was a tussle at the bedside. He showered, he expected you to be around when he was naked. He very quickly tried to normalise the situation and just told me I had to get with it and not be such a prissy and he didn’t have time to worry about my delicate feelings.
“At 23 in your first job you believe what they tell you, so I was like, okay, I’m now in the big league and of course he’s really important. He doesn’t have time to do things like wear trousers when he’s tired. The first time he asked for a massage I was very robust and I was always pretty cheeky and rude back to him which would make him laugh, so I didn’t feel frightened, but it was mentally exhausting because you were always slightly fighting, it felt like you were always keeping your head above water.”
Talking about an incident involving her colleague, Perkins adds:
“I had recently employed an assistant to help me with Harvey. When I was interviewing people I very clearly said, ‘He will behave inappropriately. If you deal with him robustly you’ll be fine.’ Because that was my experience. That evening my colleague did the night shift, it was her first time with him alone and he assaulted her and attempted to rape her, which she told me the next day. I think it was probably one of the most shattering bits of news I’d ever had.
“So I immediately went and confronted Harvey. He told me nothing and he then swore on his wife, who was Eve at the time, and his children’s lives, which to me I’m afraid was an absolute admission of guilt because I’d heard him only do that as a proper get out of jail card, that was his ‘I’m in trouble’ lie.”
Nannette Klatt
“I had gotten an audition and was going in to read for a part, he handed me the script and said, ‘You think you can read those four pages for me?’ And I said, ‘Yes, yes I’d be happy to.’ I was so happy because all I could think of is, ‘Yes! This is the launching of my career. I’m going to be working for a huge major studio, a huge person in the industry, thank you god.’
“’Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I need one more thing from you. I want to see your breasts.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t do that.’ ‘It’s your breasts,’ he said. ‘Do you know who I am?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘You know I can make your career or break your career? I can make it so you never work in this business again. Show me your breasts.’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t do that.’
“And he said, ‘The building’s locked, you can’t get out that way, you can’t get out at all. You should go down there.’ And he pointed past him down the end of a hall where there was a stairwell door. I don’t know if he’s going to come in looking for me, he knows I have total night blindness so he knew when I went down those stairs it was totally black, totally, totally black.”
Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein airs at 9pm on Sunday 1 September on BBC2