{"id":657162,"date":"2026-08-26T09:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657162\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T09:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:17:18","slug":"ridley-scotts-impending-apocalypse-people-dont-watch-the-news-this-is-happening-already-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657162\/","title":{"rendered":"Ridley Scott\u2019s impending apocalypse: \u2018People don\u2019t watch the news. This is happening already\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wake up, world. Ridley Scott<\/a> is on another press tour. Over the past few decades the indomitable British director, now an implausible 88, has established a reputation for saying whatever the heck he likes in the most colourful manner imaginable. <\/p>\n

He had particular fun<\/a> during press duties for his film Napoleon, in 2023. \u201cExcuse me, mate, were you there?\u201d he asked of an imagined critical historian. \u201cNo? Well, shut the f**k up then.\u201d He was, at the same bash, keen to impress his proletarian credentials<\/a> on this writer. \u201cI do 120 hours a week,\u201d Scott told me. \u201cSo what do you think I am? I think I\u2019m f**king working class, right?\u201d And so forth.<\/p>\n

That means there\u2019s a sense of tourists gathering around a simmering volcano at the press event for The Dog Stars. Scott\u2019s latest film, adapted from a novel by Peter Heller, stars Jacob Elordi<\/a>, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce in a tale of survival following an apocalyptic flu epidemic. (The book was written eight years before the Covid pandemic, but it ended up offering prescient commentary.) <\/p>\n

Elordi, enormous and cautious, Brolin, grizzled and charismatic, and Pearce, gentle and charming, join their veteran director for what turns out to be The Scott Show.<\/p>\n

Every question is an opportunity for a riff. What about shooting in Italy? Were there delights to that?<\/p>\n

\u201cFood!\u201d Scott says tartly. \u201cI was in Canada, recceing the film in Calgary. And, you know, Canada is majestic. You get out of a car for a pee and walk in the forest for five minutes. You turn around suddenly. You don\u2019t know where you are. You die there. There are wolves and birds. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I found that intimidating. I\u2019d already recced in the Dolomites, where the food\u2019s better. I said to my small crew, who were recceing, \u2018Anybody frightened? I\u2019m frightened.\u2019 So we all went to Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n

One imagines he has shot there a few times. In the 49 years since he gave the world The Duellists, a celebrated debut, Scott has clocked up 30 feature films. And few of those have been delicate chamber pieces involving quiet liaisons in suburban greenhouses. Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, The Martian, The Last Duel: the plain-speaking Tynesider has always enjoyed the larger scale. <\/p>\n

The current film \u2013 more intimate than most mentioned above, to be fair \u2013 was partly filmed at the renowned Cinecitt\u00e0 Studios in Rome. That was where the likes of Sergio Leone and Federico Fellini plied their trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cItalian and French cinema were my school, even more than Hollywood,\u201d Scott says. \u201cAnd somehow Italy kind of lost it. Sorry, you did Italy \u2013 and France lost it. There\u2019s no tax rebate in France. So they don\u2019t have that kind of industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s them told.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Fellini and Sergio Leone,\u201d he drops in.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery cool,\u201d Elordi says.<\/p>\n

It sounds as if Scott and Fellini met when the Italian was shooting his 1983 epic And the Ship Sails On.<\/p>\n

\u201cFellini took me around the thing he did with the giant boat,\u201d Scott says. \u201cHe had the set on two pistons the size of this building. And he walked me around. He was very proud. He wore a very English mackintosh. What\u2019s the English mackintosh that has plaid inside? Famous English mac?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBurberry?\u201d someone suggests.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. He had a Burberry scarf. I always remember that. So much class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, where were we? The Dog Stars is plainly warning us about something or other. Elordi and Brolin play two oddballs operating from what remains of a remote airfield. Elsewhere, the sparse surviving population squabbles over fuel and canned goods.<\/p>\n

This is not exactly an ecological disaster, but the film is awake to a ticking clock. One way or another, this is how humanity might end up.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t watch the news,\u201d Scott says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m a news hound. So I watch the global news twice a day, and a lot of this is happening already. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we have just all got blinkers on every level about climate change<\/a>. Worse chaos in certain territories around the world. I\u2019m not going to mention where they are, but there\u2019s chaos fundamentally \u2013 calamities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Dog Stars: director Ridley Scott. Photograph: John Phillips\/Getty <\/p>\n

Was that why he wanted to make the film?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I don\u2019t want to make it into a documentary. It does need to, in that very loose term, entertain. But \u2018entertain\u2019 should also challenge you. You can\u2019t just sit there grinning at some stupid movie. It\u2019s great when it starts telling you something. When the film starts speaking to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott is furrowing his brow in close concentration. The party is listening closely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try and hide what I think underneath, because I tend to get very dark, being Celtic. I was killed on Blade Runner for being so tough. I\u2019ve never forgotten that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Really?<\/p>\n

\u201cPauline Kael! Full page of destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott is not wrong in suggesting the critics have occasionally had it in for him. And the most notable mauling was, indeed, for Blade Runner in 1982. Pauline Kael, the buzziest critic of her age, gave that science-fiction noir a full 1,200 words of forensic \u201cdestruction\u201d<\/a> in the New Yorker magazine. She had praise for the production design, but little else met with approval.<\/p>\n

\"HarrisonHarrison Ford with Ridley Scott on the set of Blade Runner (1982) <\/p>\n

\u201cBlade Runner is a suspenseless thriller,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIt appears to be a victim of its own imaginative use of hardware and miniatures and mattes. At some point, Scott and the others must have decided that the story was unimportant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott had his eventual revenge. A director\u2019s cut in 1992 tidied away some of the original release\u2019s missteps as it propelled the picture to its current legendary status. But Kael\u2019s review seemingly continues to sting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI framed it in the office. I never read a critic again. With respect to you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWas the review that bad. Pauline Kael\u2019s?\u201d Brolin asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cFull page in The New Yorker. I framed it in my office,\u201d Scott repeats. \u201cWhat it taught me is don\u2019t read your own press, good or bad. Because if it\u2019s great press you think you own the world \u2013 and you don\u2019t. If it\u2019s bad press, you think … \u201d<\/p>\n

He makes grumbling noises.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I don\u2019t. I just do what I have to do. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott, in so many ways, comes across as the last of the great heroic directors. Indeed, you could argue that, by the time he moved from advertising into features at the end of the 1970s, that domineering breed \u2013 the likes of John Ford and John Huston \u2013 was already becoming a thing of the past. <\/p>\n

Scott comes across as the unflappable general at the heart of a cinematic war. Like those earlier Hollywood film-makers, he is not afraid to tackle the big genres. Sword and sandals with the Gladiator movies. Historical epic with Napoleon. Crime saga with American Gangster.<\/p>\n

\"JacobJacob Elordi in The Dog Stars. Photograph: 20th Century Studios <\/p>\n

I imagine actors come to him with expectations. Elordi, the unavoidable Australian star of Wuthering Heights<\/a>, Priscilla and Frankenstein<\/a>, was a canny pick for the resourceful lead character in The Dog Stars. He marvelled at Scott\u2019s energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like Ridley mainlines the shooting process,\u201d he says. \u201cHe just comes to life in the morning. It\u2019s like nothing I\u2019ve seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does Scott do that?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be Marlboro, and then it became cigars,\u201d the director says. \u201cI\u2019d do four packs a day. I\u2019m still here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFour packs a day of cigars?\u201d Brolin says, slightly aghast.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, four packs a day of Marlboro reds,\u201d Scott clarifies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you switched to cigars!\u201d<\/p>\n

He is now more prolific than he was in his 40s. He releases close to one (huge) film a year, and if he misses that target he will often follow up with two in 12 months. The Last Duel and House of Gucci both arrived in 2021. As we speak, he is planning an adaptation of Treasure Island with Hugh Jackman as Long John Silver. <\/p>\n

\u201cI develop a lot of my own material,\u201d Scott says. \u201cIn fact, 80 per cent is chosen by me. I then find a writer, and then we develop it. And so I spend a lot of time sitting with the writer. And I\u2019m good at saying, \u2018This is getting boring.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He remembers his work on The Martian<\/a>, the Oscar-nominated adaptation of Andy Weir\u2019s science-fiction adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Martian was sitting on the shelf,\u201d he says. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know what it was. I said, \u2018It\u2019s a comedy\u2019. They said, \u2018A comedy?\u2019 I said, \u2018Yeah. How can it not be a comedy? If a guy survives by eating food grown in his own manure, that\u2019s funny.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The film went on to win award for best motion picture at the 2016 Golden Globes.<\/p>\n

One thing that keeps Scott going is concern at the state of the world. He worries about a lot. The Dog Stars was, to an extent, driven by recent financial convulsions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2008 we all stared at the financial abyss,\u201d Scott says. \u201cThe greed of the banks. Hedge-fund traders and bankers would charge a per cent to tell you what to invest, then charge another per cent on the profit. When all you should really have is per cent on the profit. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is just a basic symbol of what went wrong. And then not paying attention when the oldest bank in the world crashed. You had that on the top of a pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s on a roll.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want me to go on and get depressing?\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s fine for now. Maybe the press tour for Treasure Island will be a bit jollier. It should be along in another 15 minutes or so. <\/p>\n

The Dog Stars is in cinemas from Wednesday, August 26th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wake up, world. Ridley Scott is on another press tour. Over the past few decades the indomitable British…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,277808,33953,19,17,11490,13326,10151,23431],"class_list":["post-657162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-federico-fellini","tag-guy-pearce","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jacob-elordi","tag-josh-brolin","tag-margaret-qualley","tag-ridley-scott"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117161063996394136","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}