MEDIA > ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS > 2007

DAKOTA FANNING DEFENDS MOM AND DIRECTOR
from Playfuls, January 25, 2007
By Moni Constantinescu

Dakota Fanning seems like one little girl that’s got a good head and a good heart – now she’s defending her family and friends over “Hounddog.”

Almost 13-year-old Dakota Fanning has had enough of the criticism concerning controversial drama “Hounddog” – and condemnation of her mother is where she draws the line. The precocious actress talked about how unfair this is to the people involved.

"It's not a rape movie. That's not even the point of the film,” she said recently, referring to the scenes that have generated this whole hubbub. She plays a 12-year-old Southern girl named Lewellen, growing up in the 1960s and passionate about Elvis Presley.

The scene found offensive by so many contains no nudity; it lasts a few minutes, the scene is very darkly lit and only Dakota’s face and hand are shown.

"When it gets to the point of attacking my mother, my agent ... my teacher, who were all on the set that day, that started to make me mad," she said in an interview with Reuters. I can let other things go, but when people start to talk about my mother, like, that's really bad in my opinion ... that's an attack, and that's not fair. They hadn't seen the movie," she added.

“Hounddog” has so far been the most controversial movie to be shown during this year’s edition of the Sundance Film Festival. Sundance director Geoffrey Gilmore is supporting the movie and director Deborah Kampmeier. He considers independent filmmakers should pursue sensitive subject matter. I feel the mission and very nature of what Sundance is about is to provide a platform for that," he said.

The Catholic League has called for an investigation into whether "Hounddog” broke federal child pornography laws. "It matters not a whit whether Fanning's mother, along with Fanning's teacher/child welfare worker, gave their consent," Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League, said in a statement. "What matters is whether they are an accessory to a crime."

Director Deborah Kampmeier said the rape scene was achieved through editing. "You have a child yelling 'Stop it!" and only when you put that next to an image of a boy unzipping his pants do you see that it's rape," she told the Los Angeles Times.

Kampmeier said she struggled a lot to get the film made, mostly because of the disputed sex scene. However, she was unwilling to compromise by cutting the scene. This issue is so silenced in our society. There are a lot of women who are alone with this story," she said.

"When you're shooting a film, it's the images you line up next to each other that create a story," Kampmeier said. "If you have a hand hitting the ground, Dakota screaming 'stop' and you see a zipper unzip - that creates a rape."

Along with Dakota, there are two more children in the movie: Cody Hanford plays Buddy, and Isabelle Fuhrman plays a girl nicknamed "Grasshopper." The director said she talked with the children and their parents about the movie, but wasn’t explicit with the young actors.

"I didn't have to articulate to Cody and Isabelle the psychological elements that were going on in this film," she said. "I used images to tell the story. I didn't manipulate these children or explain to these children what was going on."

And Dakota is very convincing when she says, "It's not really happening [the rape]. It's a movie, and it's called acting. I'm not going through anything. Cody and Isabelle aren't going through anything, their characters are.” The actress also told how she and Kampmeier talked for months before the film was shot and spent a day painting pottery together and discussing the story.

"And for me, when it's done it's done," she said. "I don't even think about it anymore."

Back in December, before “Hounddog” had ever been shown, the talented little actress accurately described it as “a Southern story about a young girl going through some tough things and overcoming adversity and coming out as a better person, kind of through music and Elvis Presley and that movement in the early '60s."

She also said she did not find the sexual content of "Hounddog" upsetting. "That's what I love about acting, that I can relate to other people's situations through acting without actually going through that myself," she said.

"It's like watching a story on the news, it touches me just as much as hearing about that on TV and I actually got to portray that. So people can learn about it. But no, it didn't affect me more than any other scene would."

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