None of these negative quotes from Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Vincent Canby or Roger Ebert appear in their reviews. What is the intention here?
Photo: Lionsgate

We have all seen film marketing campaigns that try to pull the wool over our eyes by taking quotes out of context and pretending that a widely derided film is actually a widely loved one. Every now and then a film goes in the opposite direction and plays on the fact that it has caused divisiveness among critics. Famously, the ads for David Lynch’s The lost highway praised Siskel and Ebert’s “two thumbs down” reviews of the film. First of all, this new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited, decades-in-production Big city seemed to take a turbo-charged approach to this latter strategy, going back in time to give us examples of critics who hated Coppola’s earlier masterpieces. And not just any critics: These are quotes from people like Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, two of the biggest names in film criticism.

However, it seems that they didn’t say anything about it. Pauline Kael, for example, was totally enthusiastic about both The Godfather And The Godfather – Part II. She praised the adaptation, the direction and the performances highly and said of the whole epic: “This is a bicentennial film that does not insult the intelligence. It is an epic vision of the corruption of America.” The alleged quote attributed to her in this trailer – the The Godfather is “detracted from by its artistry” – is not to be found in any of her (glowing) reviews of the first two films. (She was less enthusiastic about Part III(but that sentence doesn’t appear in this review either.) Kael was more of the opinion that Coppola’s refinement and skill — his artistry — significantly improved Mario Puzo’s admittedly cheesy source material.

I know that Sarris, who was always such a pleasant troublemaker, was less enthusiastic about The Godfatherbut that was to be expected. Nevertheless, the quote attributed to him in the trailer (“a sloppy, self-indulgent film”) is also not to be found in his review. Vincent Canby does not seem to have called Apocalypse now “hollow at heart.” However, he was ambivalent about the film. Rex Reed hated Apocalypse nowbut his quote from this trailer does not appear in his review either. And no, Roger Ebert’s predominantly positive review of Bram Stoker’s Dracula does not include the words “a triumph of style over substance.” Instead, he says this: “The film is an exercise in feverish excess, and for that reason alone I liked it.” He gave it three stars, which was actually one of the nicer reviews the film received at the time. Is it possible that all of these quotes are made up? I’m not going to bother looking through John Simon’s archives—I’m already in a bad mood—but I wouldn’t be shocked if his quotes were also altered or made up entirely.

What is the intention here? Did the people who wrote and edited this trailer simply assume that no one would pay attention to the veracity of these quotes since we live in a made-up digital world where curiosity about anything from the past is considered a character flaw? Did they do it to see which outlets would simply take these quotes at face value? Or did they perhaps do it on purpose to make us look back at these past reviews and figure out what good criticism can be? If so, then it worked in my case. I have read many Pauline Kael reviews in my life, but I had never read her review of The GodfatherI encourage you to do the same.

But there is another problem here. Yes, Coppola has built a career on films that confuse some critics and audiences when they are first released, but ultimately turn out to be visionary works of art. I wrote an entire column about it! And yes, Big city will be a film that divides minds. It already has. Many of us saw it at Cannes and were both astonished and fascinated. It is a completely insane, absolutely unforgettable work. (You can quote that.) The film not only divides critics, it divides the minds of individual critics; I suspect many viewers will react in the same way. I also know that Big citylike many of Coppola’s more dismissive films over the years, it is much better on second viewing. The film is full of tricky and intriguing ideas and bold stylistic choices – the kind of things that critical voices often help to bring out. Taking on critics may be an exciting and cathartic marketing tactic, but I suspect Big city will need critics to support it when it actually comes out. And making up fake quotes from our heroes probably isn’t the best way to get us on your side.