10 Times Audiences Were Pissed Off At Film Premieres
9. 250 Audience Members Walked Out & 20 People Fainted - Irréversible
The Cannes Film Festival is the most prestigious arena for filmmakers to premiere their new works, and its notoriously confronting (and fickle) audiences can always be relied upon to meet a controversial film with a hostile reaction.
Case in point, we have Gaspar Noé's infamous rape-revenge experimental thriller Irréversible, which may hold claim to hosting the most infamous premiere in the history of the festival.
The film features both a prolonged, single-take rape sequence and a brutal depiction of murder, which led to 250 audience members walking out of its Cannes bow, while many who remained began shouting at the screen, and 20 viewers even ended up fainting.
The fire brigade was dispatched to provide oxygen to afflicted viewers, with their spokesman saying, "In 25 years in my job I've never seen this at the Cannes festival. The scenes in this film are unbearable, even for us professionals."
Irréversible remains hugely contentious to this day, with many praising it as a singularly nauseating head-trip while others dismiss it as a sadistic exercise in punishing the audience.