Trump campaign slams ‘The Apprentice’ film, vows legal action
CANNES, France, May 21, (AP): Donald Trump’s reelection campaign called “The Apprentice,” a film about the former US president in the 1980s, “pure fiction” and vowed legal action following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Steven Cheung, Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that the Trump team will be file a lawsuit “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.”
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” Cheung said.
“The Apprentice,” which premiered Monday in Cannes, stars Sebastian Stan as Trump. The central relationship of the movie is between Trump and Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the defense attorney who was chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s Senate investigations of suspected communists.
In the film, directed by the Iranian Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, Cohn is depicted as a longtime mentor to Trump, coaching him in the ruthlessness of New York City politics and business. Early on, Cohn aided the Trump Organization when it was being sued by the federal government for racial discrimination in housing.
“The Apprentice,” which is labeled as inspired by true events, portrays Trump’s dealings with Cohn as a Faustian bargain that guided his rise as a businessman and, later, as a politician. Stan’s Trump is initially a more naive real estate striver, soon transformed by Cohn’s education.
The film notably contains a scene depicting Trump raping his wife, Ivana Trump (played by Maria Bakalova). In Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce deposition, she stated that Trump raped her. Trump denied the allegation and Ivana Trump later said she didn’t mean it literally, but rather that she had felt violated.
That scene and others make “The Apprentice” a potentially explosive big-screen drama in the midst of the U.S. presidential election. The film is for sale in Cannes, so it doesn’t yet have a release date.
Relevant
After the premiere, Abbasi addressed the Cannes audience, saying “there is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.”
“The good people have been quiet for too long,” he said. “So I think it’s time to make movies relevant. It’s time to make movies political again.”
Listing wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, Abbasi, whose previous film “Holy Spider” depicted a serial killer murdering women in Iran, warned of trouble ahead.
“In the time of turmoil, there’s this tendency to look inwards, to bury your head deep in the sand, look inside and hope for the best - hope for the best, hope for the storm to get away,” Abbasi said. “But the storm is not going to get away. The storm is coming. The worst times are coming.”
CANNES, France: Suzuki, Kenichi Yoda Also:
Studio Ghibli, the Japanese anime factory of surreal ecological wonders that has for 39 years spirited away moviegoers with tales of Totoros, magical jellyfish and floating castles, was celebrated Monday by the Cannes Film Festival with an honorary Palme d’Or.
In the 22 years that Cannes has been handing out honorary Palmes, the award for Ghibli was the first for anything but an individual filmmaker or actor. (This year’s other recipients are and
the 83-year-old animation master who founded Studio Ghibli in 1985 with and
didn’t attend the ceremony, but he spoke in a video message taped in Japan.
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Miyazaki. “But thank you.” At Cannes, where standing ovations can stretch on end, the fervor that greeted Ghibli’s emissaries - (son of Hayao) and - was nevertheless among the most thunderous receptions at the festival. Cannes’ artistic director, walked across the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière filming the long ovation, he said, for a video to send to Miyazaki.
“With this Palme d’Or, we’d like to thank you for all the magic you’ve brought to cinema,” said the president of the festival, presenting the award.