In the Pics section, film critic Floortje Smit casts her eye on contemporary visual culture.
Of course, I wasn’t about to waste another second of your and my life on the showbiz Depp vs. Heard, who goes on and on and on, and has already delivered so much raunchy and intimate detail that even that is the end of the fun. What really happened between actors Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, exes who accuse each other of violent acts – we’ll never know.
But then it turned out the latest lawsuit, which Depp has filed for his name once and for all to purifysuddenly via a live stream to watch. Turn it on, of course. Right at the moment when Depp gave a drifting monologue about his role as Captain Jack Sparrow. ‘How was the movie?’ the lawyer asked, shutting his mouth for a moment. “I don’t know, never seen that,” Depp replied.
Where was the ‘Objection, your honor! Relevance?’. Nope, Depp was allowed to continue. About how he based his character in Edward Scissorhands on “a dog I once had and a bunch of babies.” About his love of literature and his friendship with cult writer Hunter S. Thompson. Something of relevance: his sense of language led to text messages for which he apologized. Texts like ‘I hope her rotting corpse will perish in the trunk of a fucking Honda Civic’. But of course Depp didn’t quote that. He did say that you sometimes process pain through morbid humor. That’s why he loves Monty Python so much.
Court drama? Meditative slow TV it is. Depp gives meandering answers, slow, in half sentences that could have been haikus put together. No wonder this will take another five days. In addition, in split screen, an immobile Amber Heard, who has to keep her face in the same fold for hours, while Depp talks about the first time he used narcotics – his mother’s “nerve pills” at age 11. About that he never used drugs “to party.” And that he finds it strange to hear his full name. ‘When I think of ‘Johnny Depp’ I think of the article, of the product.’
The case yields a wonderful by-catch of unrelated facts that say something about alienation and superstars, although I’m not exactly sure what. Maybe later, when Heard testifies, and James Franco and Paul Bettany and Elon Musk. Not focused on the he-said-she-said cases, I suddenly knew what to make of this lingering case. I deeply feel sorry for everyone.