Watch a Sundance Viewer Lose It Over The Woman: 'This is Not Art! This is Bullsh*t!'
While Movieline's Sundance bureau had its cameras trained on ingénues, warbling auteurs and various other festival luminaries, another stirring scene was captured at the premiere of Lucky McKee's latest horror effort The Woman: An angry viewer removed from the screening argued the film had no artistic value and should be confiscated and burned. And he was just getting warmed up.
The Woman has been summarized as so: "When a successful country lawyer captures and attempts to 'civilize' the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the Northeast coast for decades, he puts the lives of his family in jeopardy." Apparently part of the routine includes torture and rape -- which, if you've ever seen a McKee film (like May, The Woods or Red), you can probably guess is handled with uncompromising and/or squirm-inducing directness.
This made for a few especially aggrieved walk-outs, including one woman who reportedly fell and hit her head. And then... this guy, who was removed from the theater after a yelling fit. Watching this go on and on, I can only speculate the whole thing is a filmmaker-generated hoax; who would get tossed from a screening where some camera awaits to tape his rant, and what festival staffer would indulge this guy for almost seven minutes (if not longer; the video is edited in spots) while letting the whole thing be recorded for instant infamy and indefinite posterity? Then again, that possibility diminishes as more and more people get involved in the kerfuffle. Who knows?
Anyway, well played, The Woman! You can't buy this kind of festival publicity, and they didn't even have to lie about an auction or square off with Fred Phelps to achieve it.
[via Badass Digest]
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Comments
Watching this go on and on, I can only speculate the whole thing is a filmmaker-generated hoax
Great observation, Mr. V, but it does feel relatively real as it goes on.
Either way, you're spot on that it's bound to draw attention to the flick.
If it ISN'T fake, the guy who listens for the full time deserves both a raise and a promotion for handling himself so well.
I don't know about this... But May is the shit!
I'm pretty much with you -- maybe 80 percent confident it's legit. I tend to approach stuff like this with a natural skepticism, though, especially at Sundance, where I've witnessed plenty of blow-ups and never seen a venue manager or volunteer or any fest personnel engage an upset audience member like this.
Which doesn't mean it doesn't happen! But to happen at this movie with a camera conspicuously rolling the whole time is just... weird. And I'd rather invoke the possibility of a set-up than hear later on how all us dumb bloggers fell for it, etc etc. (I'm looking at you, Kevin Smith.)
Its sundance, who doesn't have a flipcam. But this is great marketing either way.