The Controversial Movie Roger Ebert Named The Worst In Cannes History
The Cannes Film Festival may be one of the world's most prestigious celebrations of cinema, but it's not some stuffy, staid event. A single screening — where booing and hollering are the norm — would debunk that assumption. Furthermore, Cannes is the home to some notable cinematic controversies and publicity stunts, whether it was Jean-Luc Godard getting pied in the face in 1985 or Belgian director Felix van Groeningen and his actors cycling nude down the Croisette in 2009.
Of course, some scandals play out on the big screen. For every "The 400 Blows" and "Easy Rider," there are maligned films inspiring hisses and walk-outs. In 2003, "The Brown Bunny" drew the ire of hundreds of attendees. Roger Ebert deemed it "the worst movie in the history of the Cannes Film Festival."
Directed by and starring Vincent Gallo, an independent filmmaker who had previously impressed critics with his 1996 debut, "Buffalo '66," "The Brown Bunny" was a much more polarizing work. Gallo plays Bud Clay, an aimless drifter driving across the country who can't get his ex, Daisy (Chloë Sevigny), out of his head.
The film has gained infamy for an unsimulated sex act between Sevigny and Gallo, though for Ebert, that wasn't its biggest flaw. In his review, he called "The Brown Bunny" "Tedious ... unenduringly boring ... amateurish, narcissistic, self-indulgent, and bloody-minded," to name a few choice words.
The Brown Bunny incited a feud
Roger Ebert's criticism of "The Brown Bunny" launched a fiery back-and-forth with Vincent Gallo. The filmmaker responded by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader" (via Far Out Magazine). Ebert clapped back with a mic drop of his own. "It is true that I am fat," he wrote, "but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'"
The barbs didn't stop there. When Gallo jokingly put a hex on Ebert's colon, implying he hoped the critic got cancer, Ebert clapped back, "I am not too worried. I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than 'The Brown Bunny.'"
Ebert wasn't alone in his critiques of the film. Variety called it "this year's definition of navel-gazing cinema," and A.O. Scott remarked upon the Cannes crowd's "unrestrained hostility" in the New York Times. However, others lauded the film. Les Cahiers du Cinéma named "The Brown Bunny" one of the top 10 movies of the year, and Jean-Luc Godard, John Waters, and Werner Herzog praised it.
Even Ebert came around on "The Brown Bunny." When Gallo made edits to the film, cutting 26 minutes from its runtime, the critic reevaluated it and gave it a three-star review. "Make no mistake: The Cannes version was a bad film," he wrote in his 2004 reassessment. "But now Gallo's editing has set free the good film inside."