5. James Gray vs Peter Bradshaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER09PEb73KQ James Gray didn't like Peter Bradshaw's review of The Immigrant. Not one bit. Not only did he end up calling the British critic a "failure as a critic", but he also labelled him as "corrupt" and "dumb". Like in the case of SLJ vs AO Scott, this was a case of someone plucking out one negative review from a sea of positive ones, with Bradshaw representing a small number of critics who disliked Gray's period drama. In the wake of responses to The Immigrant, Gray went off on a tirade about poor film criticism, stating
This year I tried to read as little as possible, but the publicist did send me some reviews, particularly out of the UK, which I found gallingly dumb. Its hard to read a review, which you think is flat out dumb and not take it personally.
So what exactly was it about Bradshaw's review that got Gray all riled up? Essentially, the critic spent a good chunk of his review condemning The Immigrant for its blatant attempts to appear authentic, but coming across as ridiculous instead. This angered Gray to such an extent that he dubbed Bradshaw's review the "dumbest review I've ever read". Bradshaw kept reasonably quiet on the issue, until confronted by Kaleem Aftab at filmmaker magazine, who asked him what he thought about Gray's comments. Bradshaw's response was one of maturity:
I apologize to him for the factual issue about Caruso and Ellis Island. Hes right: 2 plus 2 does not equal 7, though there is another critical point about the credibility of this scene within the dramatic context. However, James Gray is unquestionably a major talent and his future films at Cannes will be events that I will always look forward to.
It'll be intriguing to see if Gray ever comments about Bradshaw again.