Clooney Snaps at Critic Who Called ‘Solaris’ Boring
BERLIN (Reuters) – George Clooney reacted with a stream of invective when a journalist called the American actor’s latest film — the box office flop “Solaris” — “boring” after it was screened at the Berlin Film Festival.
Clooney, who had even exposed his bare bottom for the camera in one scene in a bid to boost the film’s commercial appeal, was happily answering questions at a news conference late on Saturday when a reporter rose to say the film was boring.
“I find you fascinating,” Clooney said, responding to the Turkish journalist’s remarks on the film, which got decidedly mixed reviews in the United States.
“You crack me up, man. You just wanted to get up and be a rat, you know that? You just wanted to get up and say something rotten. What a jerk! I mean honestly, you know, what a (expletive) thing to say!” said Clooney.
“Solaris,” directed by Oscar-winning Steven Soderbergh, is one of 22 films in the running for the “Golden Bear” prize at the Berlin film festival that opened Thursday.
It flopped at the U.S. box office with revenues of just $15 million — the same as the amount Clooney is said to command for his appearances.
Based on a 1961 novel, “Solaris” is about a psychologist sent to a space station orbiting a planet covered in an energy-rich galactic ocean.
Chris Kelvin, the character played by Clooney, investigates a series of strange deaths on the space station, but is visited by a reincarnation of his long-dead wife that forces him to confront his past.
The novel raises the question whether the ocean is a giant brain that conducts psychoanalytical experiments on the space travelers sent to observe it.
The critical journalist said that much had been written about the film, “but I found it boring.”
“You make a lot of films, do you?” Clooney asked rhetorically. “You make a lot of films yourself? Yeah, I’d like to see you make a film first before you get to talk about it. What a jerk!”
Clooney, 41, said he expected “Solaris” to do better in foreign markets. In 2000 the film “The Perfect Storm,” in which he starred, had revenues of $182 million.
Soderbergh, asked by the same journalist if he were happy with his film, remained calm. “Yes I am. And thanks for the question,” he said.
Even Stanislaw Lem, the Pole who wrote the best-selling novel “Solaris,” complained recently about Soderbergh’s film, lamenting that it focused on affairs of the heart rather than the head.
Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky made a slow-paced version of the film in 1972 that film enthusiasts regard as a classic.
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