Ridley Scott filming Gladiator 2. (Photo credit: Paramount Pictures)
It's sometimes a lot of fun to look at press reviews of film masterpieces. After all, the film critics didn't know at the time what repercussions the film they had just seen in the screening would have. Sure, sometimes you sense that a film has something special, but sometimes… not. And even if you do, in the end you have no choice but to write down your honest opinion – repercussions or not.
42 years ago, the American film critic Pauline Kael (1919 – 2001) had little love for Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which is now secretly considered one of the best cyberpunk films of all time. At the time she wrote for the New Yorker:
Blade Runner has nothing to offer the audience – not even a second of pity for Sebastian. It is not humanly thought out. If someone comes along with a test to detect humanoids, maybe Ridley Scott and his associates should go into hiding. With all the smoke in this film, you get the feeling that anyone who interacts with it needs to have their chimney cleaned.
This criticism still hangs framed in Ridley Scott's office 42 years later, as he recently did in one Interview mit Entertainment Weekly in light of his latest film Gladiator 2.
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Gladiator 2 is already in the cinema, now a final trailer is heating up the mood in the Colosseum
I don't care about press reviews
The director keeps the criticism as a kind of memento not to take press reviews too seriously. This is what he says literally:
Well, you probably don't want to hear this, but at the end of the day, as a director, in my condition [und] at my age, honestly haven't read any press since Pauline Kael destroyed me on Blade Runner. That was 42 years ago, and I was so dismayed that I framed the four pages in the New Yorker. They hang in my office now, reminding me that you should never believe your own press, whether it's good or bad. So I don't read them.
At the same time, Scott emphasizes that he doesn't see his work as a free pass to do whatever he wants. Without the audience, his job is impossible and he takes this responsibility extremely seriously. His latest film Gladiator 2 has been running in Europe cinemas since November 14, 2024 and currently has 71 percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes – not that Ridley Scott would care, hehe.
