30 Harshest Filmmaker-on-Filmmaker Insults in History: 30. Uwe Boll on Michael Bay:

You can blame John Wesley Downey for this thread: he sent me the site,

The 30 Harshest Filmmaker-on-Filmmaker Insults In History
1:30 pm Wednesday Aug 10, 2011 by Jason Bailey

"Earlier this summer, a shocking number of our readers flocked to read (and amend) our list of the harshest author-on-author insults in history. But you know who is even more childish, trifling, vindictive, and nasty than your favorite scribes? Your favorite filmmakers. These directors may not have quite the same precision with the written word as those rancorous authors, but when it comes to pettiness, they can?t be beat. After the jump, we?ll run down 30 of our favorite slights, slanders, and cheap shots from filmmakers both classic and contemporary; we?d love to hear yours in the comments.

1. Francois Truffaut on Michelangelo Antonioni:
?Antonioni is the only important director I have nothing good to say about. He bores me; he?s so solemn and humorless.?

This is not necessarily untrue; Antonioni can be infuriatingly solemn, but he's also humorlessly brilliant.

 

i wouldn't call that an insult. i'd call it an opinion, and one i can sympathize with to a degree.

an insult would be more like "yo, antonioni is a limp-**** fool and he deserves to die! word!"

something like that.

 

Perhaps this is a better example:

2. Ingmar Bergman on Michelangelo Antonioni:

?Fellini, Kurosawa, and Bunuel move in the same field as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness.?

When Ingmar Bergman deems you 'tedious', you've got problems.

 

When Ingmar Bergman deems you 'tedious', you've got problems.

You're not kidding there! Talk about "the pot calling the kettle black."

Some of Bergman's films are more sleep-inducing than anesthesia.

 

As stated, when Bergman says you're tedious and suffocating, that's bad. That's like Wagner accusing someone of being too operatic.

 

3. Ingmar Berman on Orson Welles:

?For me he?s just a hoax. It?s empty. It?s not interesting. It?s dead. Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of ? is all the critics? darling, always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it?s a total bore. Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that movie?s got is absolutely unbelievable.?

He's right and he's wrong. "Citizen Kane" is a great movie. But the rest of Welles' career? The emperor has no clothes, and 'hoax' is dead on.

 

Bergman on Citizen Kane:
"The amount of respect that movie?s got is absolutely unbelievable.?

I'd actually like to alter the above sentence and apply it to Bergman:
"The amount of respect that man's gotten is absolutely unbelievable."

Berman has had a few artistic successes and he's popular with a certain art crowd of which Woody Allen is the head cheerleader.

But I'm sorry, I've tried to watch some Bergman and it's a mixed bag. For me, his movies are often forlorn and pretty to look at, but lack energy, pace and cinematic dynamics.

I like a couple of them, but there's a few where the audiences are as tortured as the gloomy drama and the characters.

Must be those cold nordic winters.

 

"Smiles of a Summer Night", "Wild Strawberries" and "Fanny & Alexander" are all great movies, but otherwise, I'm with you.

In the place I grew up, they had to cut down a tree in the central square. Because the local Scandanavian immigrants used to hang themselves from it. On Christmas Eve. They are pretty damn dour, and I say that as a Celt.

 

we're kind of getting somewhere now. though it doesn't surprise me that bergman disliked ck. it's a very showoff-y, technical film.

 

I like kinetic films a lot. Obviously he doesn't. But the real joke--from a guy who can be watching-paint-dry dull--is the 'tedious' or 'boring' label.

He doesn't reserve it to Antonioni, either:

4. Ingmar Bergman on Jean-Luc Godard:

?I?ve never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual, and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a ******* bore. He?s made his films for the critics. One of the movies, Masculin, Féminin, was shot here in Sweden. It was mind-numbingly boring.?

 

Disagree with him on Welles, Citizen Kane is a masterpiece and Touch of Evil ain't a slouch either. The Lady of Shanghai is wonderfully fun and completely ridiculous. All the Bergman hate is crazy though. "The Seventh Seal", "Fanny and Alexander", "Wild Strawberries", "The Virgin Spring", all great films. "Cries and Whispers" is really the only film I feel he really goes overboard, but some people consider it his masterpiece, so YMMV.

 

If I ever have to watch "Persona" again, just shoot me.

 

Haven't got around to "Persona" as of yet, I've gotten mixed reviews about it.

 

5. Orson Welles on Jean-Luc Godard:

?His gifts as a director are enormous. I just can?t take him very seriously as a thinker ? and that?s where we seem to differ, because he does. His message is what he cares about these days, and, like most movie messages, it could be written on the head of a pin.?


What's amusing about this (as with Bergman), is that this is a succinct criticism of Welles' own career.

 

I had no idea Bergman talked so much trash. He has a point on Godard, who, like Bergman and Welles, to be fair, could get drunk on his own perfume. Bergman is right on Citizen Kane, in part, and on Welles; CK is overrated and doesn't really have as much to say as it seems to think it does. But Welles wasn't empty; he had nothing but ideas, a lot more ideas than Bergman, who really only had a couple. The problem with all of Welles' ideas is that a damn fine share of them were bad ideas. Not all of them though; and when he had a good idea, he was unstoppable. Bergman wasn't nearly as much of an evolver/experimenter as Welles was. Welles' constantly shifting psyche was both a strength and a weakness; the same could be said of Bergman's steadfast tone.

 

CK is *not* over-rated.

6. Werner Herzog on Jean-Luc Godard:

?Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung-fu film.?

Jean-Luc is not so popular with his confreres, n'est-ce pas?

 

Godard, OTOH, is refreshingly direct:

7. Jean-Luc Godard on Quentin Tarantino:

?Tarantino named his production company after one of my films. He?d have done better to give me some money.?

 

8. Harmony Korine on Quentin Tarantino:

?Quentin Tarantino seems to be too concerned with other films. I mean, about appropriating other movies, like in a blender. I think it?s, like, really funny at the time I?m seeing it, but then, I don?t know, there?s a void there. Some of the references are flat, just pop culture.?

Harmony Who?

 

I just can't understand how people think Tarantino just makes movies filled with pop culture references. I still find the ending scene of Pulp Fiction to be one of the greatest in all of film, and it hits on an emotional level.

 

I don't necessarily think it's an unvalid critique of Tarantino. I don't think he ever directly lifts scenes from films but he is very much influenced by style. I appreciate his work because he constructs movies for the movie lover and also because he appreciates genres that many film goers are snobbish about.

 

If you're going to diss on Tarantino, you ought to just go for his attitude. I love his movies, but damned if I don't want to punch him every time he makes some smug remark.

 

That's one of the harshest insults? It's not even coherent.

 

That's true but I don't think his films are free from criticism. Sometimes I think his personality really hinders him.

 

I think the pop-culture critique really doesn't suit Tarantino. Outside of the "Royale with Cheese" bit he really doesn't reference much of pop culture. He certainly references other movies but they are obscure ones from genres typically ignored by critics. Whereas DePalma, Scorsese or Spielberg make their nods to Hitchcock or John Ford easy to spot, Tarantino's are hard to find unless you are a fan of those films. Samurai flicks, spaghetti westerns, giallo, Hong Kong movies and other drive-in type films are fair game and I think a film geek is far better suited to catch those references than your typical critic. I think Korine should look in the mirror before he says anyone's films are blender-like.

 

That is a plus to Tarantino. He likes sleazy films and often references them and often someone like Ebert will praise something Tarantino did that was inspired by a film he would otherwise hate.

Referencing Hitchcock, Ford, or Orson Welles really can be downright pretentious because you know you can't top them.