Everyone’s a critic: Ridley Scott shares the most important advice of his career
Recent years have indicated that questioning Ridley Scott on the historical accuracy of his movies isn’t the greatest idea, with the legendary director becoming increasingly famous for biting back and launching a verbal attack on those who dare place his period pieces under the microscope.
Obviously, that will happen to a filmmaker who’s become increasingly linked to the genre, with stories rooted in ancient history becoming a regular part of his oeuvre. Although he made his feature-length directorial debut on The Duellists – which begins in 1800 – between 1977 and 2000, he only made one other movie that ticked the historical box, which was the entirely forgettable Christopher Columbus tale 1492: Conquest of Paradise.
However, since helming Gladiator, he hasn’t been able to keep himself away from that sandbox for too long, with the Academy Award-winning epic being followed by Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Last Duel, and Napoleon. Slavish recreations of the time periods have never been at the forefront of his mind, and Scott has evidently grown weary of being called out for it.
Even before he told critics to “get a life” for picking apart the inaccuracies in his recent Joaquin Phoenix-led movie, he couldn’t even handle a compliment. When he found The Last Duel gaining praise for being more realistic than the likes of Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood, Scott did not appreciate the back-handed praise by telling the person who said it to go fuck themselves.
Clearly, the Alien and Blade Runner orchestrator isn’t one to suffer fools, something rooted in the piece of advice doled out very early on his career that he’s held onto as the most important words of wisdom he’s ever received. In a conversation with the BBC, Scott shared that “don’t read your own reviews” was the greatest advice he’s ever been given, which presumably means he’s opted to remain blissfully unaware of which of his films have been trashed.
To be fair, Scott hasn’t made a huge amount of objectionable stinkers, but several of his movies have been disappointing at best and monotonously turgid at worst. Mileage may vary as to their individual merits, but nobody’s going to go out on a limb and call G.I. Jane, The Counselor, A Good Year, or House of Gucci cinematic masterpieces that deserve to be placed among Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Thelma & Louise, or The Martian as the cream of the Scott-directed crop.
If somebody has the temerity to outline how far his productions have deviated from the events they’re depicting, then he’s happy to put them in their place. However, if anyone is adamant that he’s made a bad movie that ranks as one of his worst, then he’ll remain completely unaware, having made a point of never reading his own reviews.
