dognovel Chapter 1567 Perhaps You Overestimate Yourself
Chapter 1567 Perhaps You Overestimate Yourself
Chapter 1567 Perhaps You Overestimate Yourself
"That interview was really good. I imagined what it would be like if I were sitting opposite Mike Wallace. Although I really want to say that I will perform as well as you, my intuition tells me that I might sweat under the questions of that old man..."
The American Academy of Motion Picture Technology and Arts held a media lunch a few days before the Oscars and invited all the nominees to attend and be interviewed by the media.
This is a new luncheon, and it is also a new initiative by the new Academy President to increase the popularity of the Oscars. If many people can come to the first session, it will be considered a success.
In order to allow as many people as possible to come, the Academy did not limit the attendees to this year's nominees; previous winners could also come.
Ronald and Diane came in casual clothes. Everyone was more relaxed in such occasions, and it was an opportunity for this year's nominees to communicate with each other and to be interviewed if they wished.
Cameron was the one who was talking to Ronald about the interview. He felt that this kind of personal interview was too intrusive and he didn't want his private life to be exposed to the public, so he admired Ronald's courage.
"Who said I didn't sweat? Mike is really amazing. After I finished the first half of the interview, I changed my shirt during the break."
Ronald was half expressing that he was also very nervous about the interview, and half was also showing off in a low-key manner. For a director, being able to appear on the show for 60 minutes is also a kind of recognition from the public.
"Ha, I wonder if I can be on 60 Minutes... This kind of interview is completely different from that of an entertainment reporter..." Jim Cameron's face was full of envy, and he almost said, "I want to be on it too..."
"In fact, they send invitations to potential interviewees every 3-6 months. If you go back and ask your agent, it's possible that he has rejected it on your behalf. Hollywood generally refuses such interviews by default, but..."
Ronald lowered his voice and whispered to Cameron, "If you get nominated for Best Director next time, I advise you to do it the same way as last time..."
"Oh? Why?" Cameron knew that Ronald would not cheat him, maybe he had some secret.
"It's good for voting. The polling company I recently hired sampled the official members of the Hollywood Actors Guild, and my vote share has gone up quite a bit..."
"This is really unexpected..." Cameron was a little excited for a moment. There was not only one reporter for 60 Minutes, so he would go back and talk to his agent.
"Hi, Ronald, I watched your show. Your father and uncle are Vietnam War veterans. No wonder you were able to shoot that scene in Forrest Gump..." Also speaking this time was Oliver Stone. As a previous winner, he was also able to participate in today's event.
As a famous director in Hollywood who became famous for his Vietnam War movies, he actually disagreed with the mediocre attitude of Forrest Gump. If he were to film it, Forrest Gump would definitely curse the President at the anti-war rally...
However, as a director, Oliver Stone still appreciated Ronald's Vietnam War footage. Because he wanted to show Forrest Gump's life, the Vietnam War chapter could not be as colorful as his Platoon, so he could only pick out some wonderful clips to show.
Ronald used poetic film editing to connect scenes of peaceful patrols and sudden ambushes in the Vietnam War with CCR's rock songs, which was an extraordinary move.
Oliver Stone has always thought that it is amazing that Ronald, who has never experienced the Vietnam War, can film the feeling of the Vietnam War. After watching the interview, I realized that it was because of his family. His father must have told him a lot about what happened on the battlefield...
"Yeah, this is a feeling that is hard to communicate with unless you are someone who has actually been to the battlefield. Only those who have experienced it personally, or whose closest family members have participated, can understand it a little.
I wanted this to be recognized by Vietnam veterans, and luckily I was able to do it.”
"Very good. I cried when I saw the scene where Bubba died in Forrest Gump's arms and shouted to his mother to go home. Damn, you brought me back to the battlefield of the Vietnam War..." Oliver Stone patted Ronald's shoulder heavily to show his approval.
This was unexpected for Ronald. "I thought you wouldn't like this movie. After all, Forrest Gump didn't make any anti-war declarations."
"That's not a problem. Your portrayal of the Vietnam War is so realistic. Forrest Gump was like a rookie in the battle, and so was Bubba, and they lost their lives in vain. But what Forrest Gump finally succeeded in was learning to play table tennis in a military hospital. This is so real and ironic. Few people know that most of the US military work in logistics departments, and only a small number actually go to the battlefield."
"Ha..." Ronald was very happy. He didn't expect that Oliver Stone still felt bad about sending a Yale student to the battlefield. The US military does have such a tradition that those who manage logistics don't have to go to the battlefield, and after the war, they do better than the soldiers who fought on the battlefield.
In 1946, just after the end of World War II, the great director William Wyler made a movie called The Best Years of Our Lives.
The soldiers who had fought bravely in the war had no jobs and could only work as bartenders in bars. After the former banker retired, he found that many veterans could not pay their mortgages and faced homelessness.
In the end, it was thanks to his connections in the Air Force that the protagonist was able to turn his life around and successfully marry his sweetheart by doing a job dismantling airplanes.
Neither Gump nor Sergeant Dan gained any benefit from their heroic actions. Gump was able to buy a shrimp boat because of the endorsement income from his table tennis skills that entertained soldiers in the rear.
The last two people were discriminated against by street prostitutes in New York, and only after they achieved success did they gain social recognition.
This kind of description is especially suitable for veterans like Oliver Stone. It doesn't matter what else he does, as long as he smears the US military and the government to death...
"I just filmed it based on the facts. All of this content is from interviews with veterans." Ronald laughed so hard. He didn't expect that it would be so in line with Oliver Stone's preferences.
"Look at how corrupt the federal government and the military have become. Telling the truth is a huge irony to them. I really like this part..."
The two were about to continue criticizing the American military together, but unexpectedly, Oliver Stone suddenly frowned, as if he saw a fly on his plate while eating.
"What's wrong?" Seeing this, Ronald tried to turn around to see who made Stone so disgusted.
"Assxhole!" Oliver Stone cursed and grabbed Ronald, not wanting this disgusting fat guy to ruin his good mood.
The person who came in was his former "friend", Michael Cimino, who was also an Oscar winner for Best Director and became famous earlier than him, and won the Oscar for Best Director for "The Deer Hunter".
Ever since "Heaven's Gate" failed at the box office, Michael Cimino has almost lost the qualifications to continue to be a director in Hollywood.
After struggling for several years to revise scripts for others, act as a script doctor, or write scripts for studios, he later made a story about Chinese gangsters, "Year of the Dragon", which failed at the box office after being boycotted by protests in which Ronald participated.
After that, he was in various failed projects. He was sued by the producers for editing two movies that did not meet the contract requirements. The only time he had the opportunity to work with a star was in a story about a retired failed Tour de France cyclist with Dustin Hoffman, but he was fired because he offended Dustin Hoffman.
Ronald glanced at the fat director who had looked down on him in the past. Although he had failed all the way in Hollywood, he still looked arrogant. He even wore sunglasses indoors and held his head high. It seemed that he looked at people from under the glasses, revealing a trace of his gaze that passed over his proud chin to the other person's forehead.
"How did you get involved with this person?" Ronald also felt nauseous, and his good mood was ruined.
"I'm blind..." Oliver Stone said to himself.
Last year, because of his love for talent, he encouraged Mario Casal, the boss of Carloco Pictures, to help Michael Cimino and finance Fatty's ambitious "Conquering the Horse" project. However, Cimino successfully offended everyone, from the producer who helped him find an assistant, to the casting director, to the art director, all of whom submitted their resignations, preferring not to work with this bastard for money.
In the end, even Mario Casal was scolded by Michael Cimino. Casal, who was worried about the company's financial situation, fired Cimino on the spot.
This also made Oliver Stone, the recommender, very embarrassed. When he was about to talk to Casar, Michael Cimino called Stone and scolded him. This made Stone give up the idea of speaking well of Cimino and watched Cimino fail without any psychological burden.
"Why would he do this? Doesn't he know who pays him?" Ronald didn't understand this man's strange behavior.
"He is so difficult to get along with and so arrogant. I don't know if he has ever given up. He has never been able to humbly accept reality. He never did. He still thought he was Cimino who won the Best Director Award for The Deer Hunter." Stone curled his lips. Some people are just so arrogant.
"Ha..." Ronald was about to speak up. The Deer Hunter was actually just a product of the times, and its true artistic value might not be very high. In addition, for a shot, they would shoot dozens or hundreds of films first, and then slowly select them in the editing room. If they were not afraid of losing money, they could still cut out a good copy at one-third of the industry average speed. However, it hurt the producers badly, and the loss was so great that even one of the eight major studios, United Artists, went bankrupt.
"Why, isn't that Oliver?"
Unexpectedly, the fly came over on its own, wanting to annoy Oliver Stone again for not speaking up for him.
"The project abandoned by people like you and Casar who had no vision has now become a film in the main competition unit of Cannes this year."
It turns out that after failing to find a producer in Hollywood willing to finance his film, Michael Cimino's luck has returned.
Israeli Arnon Milchan got Regent Pictures, which approached him, hoping to fund him to make a film to participate in the main competition of the European Film Festival.
Arnon Milchan himself has a Mossad background. He came to Hollywood to make movies not for money or art, but as a means of infiltration. In the very important film market, we need to maintain the presence of some Israeli Jews. Make more movies in which Israelis play positive roles.
Because the filming rights for Cimino's "The Conquering Horse" were held by Carloco Films, Cimino used his specialty of plagiarizing with a disguise, renamed the script "Sun Chasers", and then adapted the background and characters of the story. With the support of Regent Pictures, he actually entered the main competition of Cannes as a Hollywood entry.
Fatty Cimino's upper and lower lips, like a pair of sausages, swayed as he began to talk about his own mental journey in filming Sun Chasers.
“When I was very young, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with the people of the Dakota Indian tribe, and I was so immersed in their culture that, in a way, it became my religion—a religion based on a very simple idea: a stone, a cloud, a rock, everything has a soul, is alive.
My film Sun Chasers is the true inheritor of Indian culture, much more authentic than that hypocritical film Dances with Wolves..."
"Oh my God..." Oliver Stone couldn't stand Cimino's boasting. Dances with Wolves was a commercially successful film that revived the traditional western genre. Cimino's new film was still his usual tedious and lengthy, which had long been abandoned by the times and was no longer popular.
Oliver Stone ignored him, raised his glass to Ronald, then turned and walked away.
"Hey, this isn't..." Cimino seemed to have just noticed Ronald's look, curled his lips, then raised his chin, ready to say something to disparage Ronald's movie.
"My film will soon go to Cannes. The people there understand my film best and appreciate the art of film the best. If it weren't for the Chinese, I think Hollywood artists would be extinct."
"Hey, the only production company founded by artists in Hollywood where artists have the final say has also been bankrupted by you. If you say Hollywood lacks artists, I think you are the culprit."
Ronald looked at him and said coldly. Ronald was not sure if Cimino still remembered that he said in a TV interview that Deer Hunter made people sleepy. He also gave himself a nickname...
"Haha, what do you know about art? Look at Quentin this year, he won the Palme d'Or in the United States, that's why Hollywood praises him so much. When it comes to art criticism, Hollywood always follows behind Cannes and Venice..." Cimino's true colors were exposed, but he still calmly fought back verbally.
"So that's what he was planning..." Ronald chuckled.
After all, Cimino is the winner of the Oscar for Best Director and became famous earlier than Oliver Stone. Now he has to follow Quentin Tarantino to climb out of the deep pit and have another chance to make a big production.
If you want to win the favor of Cannes, of course you have to criticize Hollywood. The harsher you criticize, the more the Cannes judges will like it.
Seeing that Cimino was still going to criticize him, Ronald didn't want to play along anymore. "You'd better think carefully about what you're going to say next. People should be responsible for their words and actions..."
“Haha, I was wondering who it was, it turned out to be you…” Cimino took off his sunglasses, as if he had just recognized Ronald. “I didn’t expect you to make it this far. It seems I underestimated you back then.”
"Maybe you overestimate yourself."
Ronald turned around and smiled. At that time, Cimino won the Oscar for Best Director, and he was an unknown person. Time passed, and now it was his turn to stand on the Oscar stage.