On one hand, as someone who has attended countless film festival Q&As, I could count the number of times an audience member asked a really great question after a festival screening. Inevitably there will be that one person asking how much the movie costs, and then an endless parade of moviegoers proclaiming, “I have a comment rather than a question,” and then talking about what they think of the movie . And that’s as good as it gets! To be honest, I almost never stay for Q&As anymore because 90 percent of the time it’s a waste of time.
Clearly Adam Driver feels my pain. He attended the Cameraimage Film Festival in Poland at the weekend with his new film Ferrari, about the life of the famous Italian racing driver, designer and businessman. Without going into any tell-tale details, the film contains several very important car crash sequences. (One in particular is central to the story.) At the festival, Driver was asked about these scenes during a post-film question-and-answer session.
“What do you think of [those] Crash scenes?” asks the viewer. “They looked pretty harsh, drastic and, I have to say, tacky to me. What do you think?”
“F- you. I don’t know? Next question,” Driver replies.
READ MORE: The worst films of the 21st century
Before I get to Driver’s answer, I have two thoughts on this particular question. First, how can a scene be hard? And cheesy? That seems impossible. Second: I saw Ferrari. I have no problem with anyone who doesn’t like the film or parts of it. That is your opinion and you have more than a right to it. And I have no problem with anyone not liking the car crash scenes in particular. But the scene this person is talking about has many things… it definitely is not cheesy. Cheesy just isn’t in the same universe as this one Ferrari Crash.
Now to the more general questions at issue here. Could Driver have handled this more carefully? Of course he could. Is he happy that this rude moment is being shared around the world? Probably not. But the rudeness actually starts with the question. Why would you ask a filmmaker who flew around the world to show you his work why his film is bad?
If you didn’t like the scene or the movie, that’s completely acceptable. But what answer do you have? expect Can Adam Driver answer this question? “Oh, you’re right, that scene sucks, we should have cut it out, it’s so harsh and cheesy at the same time, I’m ashamed of my participation in this film and would like to take my name off it, Alan Smithee-style”?
Adam Driver certainly isn’t going to win any guest of the year awards at a film festival, but I think it’s high time we as festival-goers upped our game. If we don’t have a good, interesting, smart question to ask, perhaps we shouldn’t ask anything at all. Ferrari hits theaters on Christmas Day.
10 TV Show Flops That Turned Out To Be Huge Hits
Popular TV shows are not always popular from the first episode.
Gallery photo credit: Emma Stefansky
Source : screencrush.com