‘Melania’ DOP Dante Spinotti Defends Working With Brett Ratner On Trump World Doc: “I Felt That What Happened To Him Was Kind Of Unjust”

Filmmaker Brett Ratner (accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women and implicated in the Epstein Files) was behind the recent Melania Trump documentary “Melania,” seen by many as a political attempt to rebrand The Trump Family’s public image. The doc arriving in theaters in the wake of multiple corruption allegations (Trump openly courting bribes from foreign governments/companies, and is said to be selling pardons to convicted criminals), attacks on the Constitution with ICE’s illegal thugish activities across the country (leading to multiple deaths of American citizens and many more residents in detention, with little to zero investigations into that conduct), and increasingly disgusting allegations made in the Epstein Files that suggests that the President may have participated in the infamous child sex trafficking ring (Melania was notably connected to Jeffrey Epstein and that world like her husband for decades).

Well, with the film now being released, there have been some questions about why exactly high-profile crew members got involved, such as veteran director of photography Dante Spinotti (“Heat,” “Ant-Man & The Wasp”), who has come out to defend his involvement while speaking with The New Yorker and provided some really vague responses in an attempt to stand up for Ratner (who hasn’t been really in public in recent years).

READ MORE: Trump Reportedly Petitioned David Ellison’s Paramount To Distribute ‘Rush Hour 4,’ A Worrisome Sign Of Influence, Pressure & Things To Come

“Curiosity was really what led me into this, and a certain friendship with Brett that has gone on for a long time…Don’t ask me about my political opinions of the President, because I’d rather not answer…My curiosity was to see the center of power and the White House, which is a beautiful place,” Spinpotti said of what attracted him to the project.

Adding reuniting with Ratner was a key element. “Also, it was a great pleasure for me to work with Brett again, because I did movies years ago with Brett. And I always felt that as you do a movie with somebody, you’re very intimate with this person. Not the intimacy level of when you go out with a girl. But, you’re close. It’s like a family. You live twenty-four hours with someone shooting a movie. So I know Brett very well, and I know he is a very good, generous soul.”

“He is not an aggressive person, so I was very happy to see him being happy again, to be able to work, because he’s been without work for a few years, which I think is kind of unjust. It makes no sense to me, knowing Brett very well.”

When directly confronted with Ratner’s multiple allegations by the interviewer, the cinematographer went into defense mode, “Well, I don’t know. I was not present. What I can tell you is that Brett might have made some mistakes, but his character is very gentle; he is a very gentle, generous person, always kind to everybody in the crew, men or women, always very respectable. So that’s why I wanted to go back and help him, because I felt that what happened to him was kind of unjust. I don’t know. I’m not informed about the accusations. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t present, but I know his personality. I know his character. I can’t tell because I wasn’t there, and he might’ve made some mistakes, but he’s a very good guy at heart. He’s a very generous and human kind of person.”

These responses come off like evasive attempts not to talk politics or about Ratner’s allegations of sexual misconduct, which is a little weird given the nature of the documentary and the controversy surrounding the film’s director is not new information, as it goes back nearly a decade.

Working with Ratner isn’t a huge shock given their longstanding professional relationship. Spinotti previously worked with Ratner on his last scripted feature, “Hercules,” after having lensed other projects such as “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Tower Heist,” “After The Sunset,” and “Red Dragon” (a remake of Michael Mann‘s “Manhunter,” a DP on both films). Meanwhile, don’t expect a reunion with Mann for “Heat 2” as Spinotti is ruling that out.

Jeff Cronenweth and Barry Peterson are other DOPs credited on the doc, while other crew members attempted to have their names removed from it, according to a piece from Rolling Stone Magazine

Some outlets have been crowing about “Melania” being able to etch out a $7 million domestic opening as something to be happy about. However, in reality, given the film’s hefty costs at $75 million (broken down as Amazon spending $40 million to acquire it and another $35 million on marketing), it may have trouble being able to turn a “profit,” as viewership is unlikely to grow (then again, earning a profit likely wasn’t the goal here and it’s not like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would notice the loss).

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Between shooting “Melania” and the film’s release, it was announced that Paramount Skydance (now owned by The Ellison Family, billionaire donors of the Trump administration and overseers of CBS News) would be shouldering the production of “Rush Hour 4“ from Warner Bros. Pictures, with Chris Tucker (oddly enough, also spotted in the Epstein Files) and Jackie Chan set to reprise their roles. Could the two projects have something to do with each other? Who knows, but there were reports of Trump pressuring Paramount to gift Ratner the sequel.