Harrison Ford Called Shia LaBeouf an Idiot, was he Right?

Is Shia LaBeouf interested in inserting a new perfectionistic quality into how movies are evaluated in Hollywood? If he is, somebody might want to tell him that he hasn’t enough money to bankroll such and altruistic fantasy; and if he thinks he can then maybe Harrison Ford was right.

LaBeouf ascended to prominence among young audiences for his part in the Disney Channel series “Even Stevens and for his film debut in “Holes” in 2003. In 2007, LaBeouf reached a much broader audience staring in the commercially successful films, “Disturbia” and “Transformers.” They were followed by “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” Suddenly, LaBeouf was on his way to becoming a Hollywood A-list performer.

LeBeouf’s early success may have steered his artistically pure ideas to overlook pragmatic reality. In other words, his thinking may have increasingly become fogged by fame and income.

During LaBeouf’s meteoric rise he amassed a bank account that puts his current worth over $25 million. He was, up until recently, able to demand between $5 and $10 million per movie.

Nevertheless, the “Lawless” actor appears to have let a sense of false security lead him to criticize one of Hollywood’s leading Director/Producer’s, Steven Spielberg, the guy primarily responsible for LaBeouf’s rapid rise.

The actor is reported to have said that both he and Spielberg “dropped the ball” on “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” LaBeouf claimed it didn’t live up to the standards set by the rest of the adventure series.

Now I don’t know what grade level LaBeouf reached before dropping out of school, but even most high-schoolers know not to speak for someone else. If nothing else, LaBeouf critique should have been a self-critique;  he should have been speaking for himself.

Now that it’s practically too late to withdraw his disparaging remarks, LaBeouf reportedly regrets his criticism of Spielberg. “The Hollywood Reporter,” told its readers: LaBeouf “deeply regrets” his negative comments, which at the time led Harrison Ford to brand him a “F**king idiot.”

Ford’s comment though harsh was simply stating a Hollywood fact that everyone was thinking; was LaBeouf an idiot?

 

In the same interview with “The Hollywood Reporter” LaBeouf said: “[Spielberg] told me there’s a time to be a human being and have an opinion, and there’s a time to sell cars,” he said. “It brought me freedom, but it also killed my spirits because this was a dude I looked up to like a sensei.”

What gets into actors minds that causes them to think they’re supposed to open up and tell reporters the private conversations that they have with their bosses. When Spielberg made that comment he was essentially LaBeouf’s boss.

Near the end of his interview with “The Hollywood Reporter,” the “Lawless” star told  that he has no plans to work within the Hollywood studio system from now on.

Who does LaBeouf think is buying his sh**. It’s more like he can’t work in the system any longer because they’re not interested.

 

You could say it was of his choosing, but when the money runs out, the reality of the situation is that he’ll desire returning to those million dollar paychecks and will find they have chosen to look elsewhere to fill their roles.

“I’m done,” LeBeoul explained. “There’s no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist. You give Terrence Malick a movie like Transformers, and he’s f**ked. There’s no way for him to exist in that world.”

The fact of the matter is LaBeouf doesn’t have a studio picture on his slate; instead, he’s co-starring in Robert Redford’s “The Company You Keep,” he’ll reunite with Hillcoat on the L.A. cop thriller “Triple Nine,” and most recently, signed on to appear in Lars von Trier’s sexually explicit “The Nymphomaniac.” All of these films are independent.

Perhaps the media and LaBeouf would like for us to miss the point when they sensationalize news that LaBeouf is about to have sex, real sex on the big screen. The reality of the situation suggests that LaBeouf is desperately trying to stay relevant in an industry where relevancy typically last fifteen minutes for most, and can be cut short for others.

 

By seemingly appearing to have abandoned studio fare, LaBeouf can claim artistic purity as a way of convincing his fans that he is in control. The sad fact of the matter is that LaBeouf  is not only not in control, he’s out of control.

Clearly his diss of his Indiana Jones movie seemingly cost him his relationship with the director.

Working with Spielberg will certainly be worlds away from working with Lars von Trier, as “The Nymphomaniac” gears up to shoot next month with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård andWillem Dafoe also in the cast.

Though LaBeouf says he’s prepared to do “Whatever’s asked of me,” by director Lars von Trier, the question that we all should be asking him is why this director and not Spielberg.

 

So don’t be fooled into thinking that LaBeouf is interested in making edgy, pushing the envelope kind of movies. The problem he’s having right now is that he has no other alternative but to turn to Indie film makers to remain relevant. At least until he figures how to reconcile with Hollywood.

To borrow a word from Harrison Ford, LaBeouf present artistic direction is an idiotic approach for an actor who could be cashing paycheck after paycheck in studio fare. We’ll see how things turn out when “Lawless” hits theaters on August 29th, and “The Nymphomaniac” follow in 2013. But I’m kinda thinking that Harrison Ford may have gotten this thing right because because to wreck a solid working relationship with Steven Spielberg on just the face of it appears to be something only an idiot would do.