Paul Schrader is wondering why films don’t get booed anymore at Cannes and Venice.
“What happened to the BOO BIRDS? When I first attended festivals (Cannes in particular) there was always a segment of the audience that would boo. [That] came with the territory. Haven’t heard much about them recently. Now it’s all artificially sustained and breathlessly overhyped 7-10 minute ovations. Are the boo birds extinct? Does anyone miss them?”
I’ll tell you why, the film criticism that we dearly loved is dead and most film critics are now too scared to step out of the consensus in fear of the repercussions they might get.
The legendary booing at Cannes which you’ve read about at Cannes all these years almost exclusively occurred at press screenings. Rarely has it occurred at a film’s actual world premiere.
In 2016, “Personal Shopper,” “The Neon Demon,” and, more importantly, Sean Penn’s “The Last Face” were booed there, and this set Cannes to install tightly-knit embargoes — press were no longer allowed to watch movies before the red carpet premiere. Venice soon followed suit with similar embargoes after Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” was booed at Venice.
There has been very scattered booing since 2016, but nothing really significant. Maybe one or two people did it at Penn’s “Flag Day” screening in 2021, but the mood has been generally polite for six years now.
Anyways, it’s not like booing kills a film. If anything it’s been a badge of honor as it means the said film probably riled up the wrong people and took original risks that many just couldn’t deal with.
Some of the great movies that were booed (with also some cheering) at Cannes include “L’Avventura,” “Taxi Driver,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Crash,” “Dancer in the Dark,” “Enter the Void,” “Holy Motors,” And “Tree of Life.”
Still no distributor for "Bucking Fastard," "Alpha Gang," "The Last Photograph," "Closing Night," and "The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd." The issue seems to be quality more than a lack of willingness to buy.