Director rushes to Dustin Hoffman's Defense

Volker Schlöndorff, a major figure in New German Cinema, has come to Dustin Hoffman's defense. Schlöndorff, 78, directed Hoffman in the made-for-TV version of Death if a Salesman. A woman who worked on that movie when she was seventeen-years-old reported that she was harassed by Hoffman. The director said he was just trying to help her relax.  

I welcome the #MeToo campaign and do not want to sound dismissive of what I consider a serious cause. However, one should not smear, tar and feather indistinctively every male around. Calling Dustin Hoffman a predator is simply going too far. I hope this fades away.  

It’s plain silly. Just watch Christian Blackwood’s wonderful documentary “Private Conversations” on the making of DOAS [“Death of a Salesman”] to check what a kidder Dustin was on the set, at all times, with everybody. Standard Monday morning question was indeed: “Did you have good sex over the weekend?” A joke, a running gag, everybody laughed at [it]. 

Foot massage? Yes indeed, he was 16 hours standing on the set (as he never sat down), so he was tired, and, besides, there is a line in the play about it: “These arch supports are killing me.” Dustin Hoffman, ever method acting, made it his own. Everybody gave him a foot massage now and then, on the set, amidst the chaos, nothing ambiguous about it. 

As to the joke who was going to get Warren Beatty, only a teenager in her unlimited fantasy could take it seriously. Slapping her butt on the way to the car, with driver, stage manager and PAs [production assistants] around, may have happened, but again in a funny way, nothing lecherous about it. He was a clown, it was part of the way we portrayed Willy Loman as well — but he never played the power play. He was teasing the young, nervous interns, mostly to make them feel included on the set, treating them as equals to all the senior technicians. She may have got it wrong, confiding it to her diary then, but as a grown-up 30 years later she should know that his was no “sexual harassment,” and not call him a “predator.” 

In her innermost, she must know that this teasing was not to put her down, but to make her relax with all these celebrities around. She had a self-assured playful way herself. If he knew that she would be upset when he was teasing her, he wouldn’t have done it. Not the sensitive man he was, and still is. I wish Arthur Miller was around, he would find the right words, but then he might get accused of sexually molesting Marilyn Monroe.

Why bring Arthur Miller into it? He was married to Marilyn Monroe. Why would he be accused of molesting her? I thought Miller was a jerk for insisting that she convert to Judaism. Why would anyone think they were entitled to tell their spouse what their religion was going to be?

So, maybe Dustin Hoffman was just a very nice man, a very nice man who later slapped Meryl Streep in the face and demanded a playwright sleep with him before he would adapt her play into a movie.