Can We Still Watch Films by Bad People?

The death of French cinema icon Brigitte Bardot has reignited a familiar and uncomfortable question: can we separate art from the artist? Long celebrated as a screen legend, Bardot’s legacy is also inseparable from her openly expressed far-right views—forcing a renewed reckoning with how we engage with culturally significant work made by morally compromised figures.

In this episode of Celebrating Cinema, hosts Laura Gommans and Hugo Emmerzael reflect on their own responsibilities as viewers and critics. They discuss whether watching films by “bad people” can still offer insight into the art and the person behind it, and whether cinema can act as a space to confront difficult ideas rather than retreat from them.

If the work already exists, what does critical engagement look like—and do we watch films for their politics, their artistry, or something more complicated?

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