There exists a cinephile director in the Quentin Tarantino mold, just as there exists the director who simply makes movies and that’s it: Ridley Scott. Now 88, he has long given the impression of belonging to the latter camp, so asking him for opinions on films from his career can yield contradictions and rather odd responses. It’s normal, to the extent that after roughly three months he has already altered his stance on his own assessment of The Dog Stars – The Stars After the End, his latest work featuring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce, and Margaret Qualley, currently in theaters. The important thing is not to lend too much credence to the often ironic and cocky English director (here above on the set of Napoleon with Joaquin Phoenix)…
Ridley Scott Changes His Mind: The Dog Stars Is No Longer His Best Recent Film
Some naysayers will view the flop of The Dog Stars – The Stars After the End as the reason for Ridley Scott to retract a statement he gave to The Buyer in June: “The Dog Stars is probably the best film I’ve made since The Martian [2015].” We’re now in September, and Allociné, digging up his remark, reports his response: “I didn’t say that; someone else must have said it. Since The Martian? But since then I’ve made great films. I’ve done Gucci… The Last Duel is excellent.” World of Reel rightly notes that Scott is reoffending, because he had already told Empire a few years ago that The Gladiator II was probably his best film. Perhaps Ridley is simply twisting the conventional, tongue‑in‑cheek line about what the best film of a director’s career would be—likely the response many others have given when asked that exact question: “The last one.”
Ridley Scott isn’t a cinephile director, at least not in the sense of adopting a critical-analysis stance toward his own work or his creative path. He’s very different from Quentin Tarantino, who recently endured one of his snaps, after declaring Black Hawk Down as his favorite film of the 21st century so far: “I wonder what he’s smoking; whatever it is, I could use some.”
While we obsess about Scott’s mental process in shaping his filmography, he’s calmly preparing the first take of a new adaptation of Treasure Island, with Hugh Jackman in the role of Long John Silver. And we’re eager to see it, already convinced that it will be his best film, naturally.
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