'Battle Membership' Booed at 1999 Venice Movie Fest Premiere?

In September 2024, thanks partially to the twenty fifth anniversary of the movie’s launch, trivia about David Fincher’s 1999 movie “Battle Membership” turned fodder for social media. 

One declare, shared on Reddit, asserted that “when ‘Battle Membership’ premiered on the 1999 Venice Movie Pageant, it obtained booed onerous by the viewers.”

Whereas Snopes doesn’t have viewers audio from the competition to confirm that declare first hand, studies of viewers boos are credible.

The claims originated immediately from the movie’s stars, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, who’ve informed basically the identical story of the film’s Venice Movie Pageant premiere a number of occasions to a number of folks. The movie, which polarized critics and failed financially, would go on to turn into a cult basic.

The declare stems partially from a March 2019 feature story on the historical past of “Battle Membership” printed in The Ringer by Brian Raftery. Within the function, an excerpt from his book concerning the movies of 1999, Rafterty quotes Pitt and Norton discussing the premiere, and the reception it acquired by the competition viewers, with Norton noting the boos:

The world premiere of Battle Membership was held in early September at Italy’s prestigious Venice Movie Pageant. It was the primary indicator that not everybody discovered Mr. Fincher’s Opus particularly humorous. “It will get to one in every of Helena’s scandalous strains—’I have not been fucked like that since grade college!’—and actually the man working the competition obtained up and left,” recalled Pitt.

“Edward and I had been nonetheless the one ones laughing. You might hear two idiots up within the balcony cackling by means of the entire thing.” Provides Norton: “It obtained booed. It wasn’t enjoying effectively in any respect. Brad turns and appears at me [and] says, ‘That is the perfect film I am ever gonna be in.’ He was so pleased.”

Pitt informed the same model of this story, later featured in numerous well-liked YouTube shorts, relating to the identical second within the movie, albeit with out immediately mentioning booing, on a January 2020 episode of the podcast “WTF with Marc Maron”:

I keep in mind once we first aired on the Venice Movie Pageant … It was Edward and I. For some motive, we thought it would be a good suggestion to smoke a joint beforehand. … We sat subsequent to the man who was head of the competition.

The film begins out and it is useless silent, and I see that the competition head, I see him begin to go [scrunches face and winces] with bits that I believe are actually humorous. Edward and I are laughing out loud we are the, we’re just like the obnoxious People laughing at our personal film. And there is a significantly offensive joke from the Marla character: “I have not been fucked like that since grade college” …

It was useless silent, and we proceeded to howl even tougher in it. We had an excellent expertise. We thought we had been onto one thing.

Brad Pitt on the 1999 Venice Movie Pageant

In a earlier episode of the identical podcast from October 2019, Norton told Maron what’s clearly the identical story, reiterating the truth that some folks booed:

I keep in mind going to one thing with Brad and the gang, and I keep in mind him giving me this humorous look and going … “How do you suppose that is going to go?” And I stated, “I believe it may go very badly.” And he stated, “I do too. Let’s get excessive.” And he had a joint, which he all the time did then.

And I keep in mind we went to this factor at some movie competition and other people booed it. It obtained booed. And a few folks walked out and we sat within the again and we watched it and there was all this destructive feeling within the room.

And he turned to me at midnight and he goes, “that is the perfect film I am ever going to be in.” And I stated, “I believe so too.” And we had been hugging one another, type of weepy. We had been actually pleased.

As a result of this story has been informed persistently, by a number of individuals who had been there, to a number of sources, and since it’s in line with the polarizing reception the movie acquired on the Venice Movie Pageant, we charge the declare as true.

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