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Scarlett Johansson has said she was pressed to remove Holocaust references in her feature directing debut Eleanor the Great, which stars June Squibb as an elderly woman who pretends to be a Holocaust survivor.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Johansson said that during the film’s pre-production phase, one of the film’s backers threatened to pull out unless the plot elements relating to the Holocaust were cut out.
“I mean, if they’d said, ‘I’ll only back this if you shoot in New Jersey’, or ‘We need to get this done by the spring’, then that would have been one thing. But they were objecting to what the film actually was.”
In the film, Squibb plays a retired Jewish widow who inadvertently joins a Holocaust survivors group, and subsequently plays along with the imposture after realising her mistake. Johansson said: “[The film] had to be about what happens when someone gets caught in the worst lie imaginable; if not the Holocaust, then what could it be? They offered no alternative. It was just: ‘This is an issue.’”
Johansson said she refused to make the required changes and the backer dropped out, meaning the budget was no longer covered. “It was really shocking, and I was so disappointed.” However, Johansson said distributor Sony Pictures Classics stepped in at the last minute and filming went ahead.
In the same interview Johansson reiterated her support for Woody Allen, for whom she starred in Match Point, Scoop and Vicky Cristina Barcelona between 2005 and 2008, saying: “My mom always encouraged me to be myself, [to see] that it’s important to have integrity, and stand up for what you believe in.” Allen has been ostracised by much of the film industry in the wake of allegations by his daughter Dylan Farrow that the film-maker sexually assaulted her in 1992. Allen has been the subject of investigations in respect of these allegations but has never been charged. The New York Department of Social Services said at the time of its investigation “that there was no credible evidence” to support the allegation. The interview follows her comments in 2019, when she said: “I love Woody. I believe him, and I would work with him any time.”
Johansson also commented on her decision to sue Disney over breach of contract over the studio released superhero film Black Widow simultaneously in cinemas and on streaming platform Disney+, which was settled with a rumoured payout of $40m (£29.7m). Johansson said she would have welcomed more support for her contest with Disney. She said: “As we moved from the model of theatrical box office bonuses to understanding how that translated to streaming, it had just become this nebulous thing, with no guidelines around it. So to be able to impact that moves everything in the right direction. But yes, I would welcome more support.”
