4. Rick Alverson Trashes A.O. Scott For His Scathing Review Of 'The Comedy'
The Criticism: The New York Times' film critic A.O. Scott said of the American indie flick, "'The Comedy'...takes no critical distance from its subject. Swansons vocation is trying to see what he can get away with, and of course he gets away with everything. His racist, homophobic and misogynist rants are delivered not with any evident irony, but rather proceed from the sense that he is entitled never to be taken seriously. The question is whether the movie extends itself the same license."
The Response: Taking offense, director Rick Alverson retorted, "That a critic for a respected newspaper demand a director insert condemnations of immoral or aberrant behavior into a film is frightening, particularly when that behavior is not padded with comfort or made palatable. Ambiguity is necessary for access to that behavior." "To question a filmmaker's moral compass because he/she won't submit to banal, cinematic moral grandstanding is insulting and irresponsible. It reduces the potential of cinema to a narrow, sanitized, puritanical and unreal world without potency...For a filmmaker to actively cast judgement on his/her characters is a lazy, convenient, arrogant and reckless pursuit." I imagine Scott was not expecting that. It's an interesting rebuke to Scott's clear assertion that Alverson has broken "the rules" of filmmaking, while Alverson seems to remark that the rules are merely an arbitrary standard to make a film critic's job easier. It is as though Scott did not like the film anyway, and used this to pile on the flak, and Alverson seems to disapprove of being dismissed so summarily. Whose side is truly
right? I have no idea, but it's one of the more interesting wars between critics and filmmakers, and certainly made me want to see the movie for myself.