Christopher McQuarrie broke out in Hollywood by winning the Oscar for writing “The Usual Suspects,” but in recent years he’s become known as Tom Cruise’s go-to director. After working with Cruise on “Jack Reacher,” McQuarrie delivered one of the best “Mission: Impossible” movies with 2015’s “Rogue Nation.” Now the director is back in the director’s chair for this month’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.” Ahead of the film’s release, McQuarrie took to social media to share a story about his relationship to film criticism.
McQuarrie remembered the negative reviews he got for his 2000 directorial debut “The Way of the Gun,” which starred Ryan Phillippe and Benicio del Toro. But one bad review stood out above all the rest since, for McQuarrie, it was written less an attack on the film but as an attack on the director personally. The director remembered a line in the review that read, “McQuarrie is like an SS Guard trying to build a kinder, gentler concentration camp.”
“It stayed with me for days,” McQuarrie said about the review. “I could not let it go. It was cruel and unfair and completely missed the point of the film. And it presumed to know who I was as a person.”
McQuarrie reacted to the review by deciding to meet the film critic who wrote it. The director wrote to the critic and asked him to lunch.
“I did not argue or rail,” McQuarrie said. “I wanted to understand what he thought I had done. I wanted to know how and why I had failed to make my point. It ended: ‘I offer you this opportunity to stop me before I kill again.'”
The film critic agreed to have lunch with McQuarrie. As they walked to the restaurant, the critic told the filmmaker that he was also failed director. McQuarrie tried to explain his intention with “The Way of the Gun” and admitted it did not come across effectively in his finished theatrical release.
“I walked away having learned something I say often,” McQuarrie wrote. “All angry, bitter, nasty criticisms have the same subtext: ‘You squandered an opportunity that should have been mine.’ I can’t say criticism never bothered me again. But it never had the same power. Angry criticism has even less. Because I have seen the angry critic’s pain.”
McQuarrie’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” opens nationwide July 27. Read the director’s full story below.
The defining event in my relationship with criticism:
The first film I directed was The Way of the Gun. It violated what I later learned is the primary rule of popular (emphasize popular) filmmaking:
Give the audience exactly what they expect in a way they never saw coming. 1/ https://t.co/NQh17k0PCU
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
On opening night, I read a review in my hometown paper (the first of many incredibly negative reviews). It was not so much an attack on the film, but on me personally.
“McQuarrie is like an SS Guard trying to build a kinder, gentler concentration camp.”
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
It stayed with me for days. I could not let it go. It was cruel and unfair and completely missed the point of the film. And it presumed to know who I was as a person.
It also said: “McQuarrie doesn’t realize what he’s done” without ever saying what it was I HAD done. 3/
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
Finally, I wrote to the critic. I did not argue or rail. I asked him to lunch. I wanted to understand what he thought I had done. I wanted to know how and why I had failed to make my point. It ended: “I offer you this opportunity to stop me before I kill again.”
He accepted 4/
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
I was invited to the paper where he worked. I took a tour of the building. I was quite. Courteous. I noticed immediately that no one could look at me. Not even the editor.
I remained quite as the critic and I walked to lunch. 5/
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
On the way, he told me about his failed film career.
He talked for an hour about movies and his love of film and I listened.
Finally, he came around to his review and our reason for meeting. It was clear he’d never had a meeting like this. I said:
“I have one question.”
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
I asked: “Do you think Leni Refiestahl’s films caused the Holocaust?”
He said: “Of course not.”
And I said: “That’s why I figured I had a right to make mine.”
We talked for another hour. He better understood my intention. One I readily admit I failed to explicitly communicate.
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
Months later, in a tiny little box in the same paper, he wrote an announcement that I would be speaking at the local university that weekend. He said very kind things about me in that little box.
I walked away having learned something I say often:
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
All angry, bitter, nasty criticisms have the same subtext:
“You squandered an opportunity that should have been mine.”
I can’t say criticism never bother me again. But it never had the same power. Angry criticism has even less. Because I have seen the angry critic’s pain.
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
The people criticizing @rianjohnson have every right to do so. The angry ones have every right to be angry. He did not give them what they expected, and he did so in a way they feared.
They take one quote as hostility to their feelings. They hold on to this as justification.
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
They take that moral high ground and squander it with personal attacks.
They don’t realize that the only criticisms that really hurt are the ones that are right. And nothing makes criticism more wrong, and easier to dismiss, than making it personal.
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
If my comments make you feel personally criticized, I hope we can discuss it with civility.
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 4, 2018
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