Chapter 109: Christian Bale
The 70th Oscars passed like this in the midst of people's attention. This year's Oscars left a lot of talking points for people: Titanic won 11 awards in 14 nominations. The nominations and awards tied the record, and everyone lucky enough to see this movie talked about it for a while. And at the same time, The Lives of Others won 8 nominations and two awards, which also dissatisfied the entire critics.
"If there is only one movie that can stand the test of time this year, then this movie must be The Lives of Others instead of The Titanic. From depth, structure, and narrative perspectives, The Lives of Others is better than The Titanic. It's too strong, and it's a disgrace to the Oscars to give them the award just because Titanic is a big production!" Almost
everyone in the critic circles scolded Oscar loudly at this time, and The Lives of Others came at this time; it also bears the name of one of the most wronged movies in history and has been repeatedly mentioned by people. Although in terms of awards, it still somewhat won, their tragedy is not on par compared with Spielberg's movie Purple with 11 nominations and 0 wins in 1985, and Citizen Kane's ten nominations and one win.
Also, the movie is very much like Citizen Kane. For Orson Welles also, it was his debut at that time, and it caused a great sensation, but unfortunately, there were no awards in the end, which was quite similar to Levi.
"After Citizen Kane, people expected the director to have a new masterpiece, but Orson Welles has never shown anyone a comparable work. After The Lives of Others, there is also a huge doubt about whether there will be new good works from Nicholas Levi. It is undoubtedly very wrong to deny his qualifications to accept the award because he is too young." They complained for Levi, and what they said was quite speechless: Orson Welles has never made a work that surpassed Citizen Kane since then; of course, this is also because Citizen Kane is too good. Using him as a metaphor for him always made Levi a little weird.
However, this is not difficult to understand: in many people's eyes, The Lives of Others can be regarded as the best political film of these years. Such a movie as a debut is a huge test for the director. It is also a huge test for the director himself to surpass such a movie and achieve continuous improvement.
After the Oscars, many people are also discussing what will be filmed in Levi's new movie. At this time, Levi held his own press conference in New York, and he announced his new plan for filming, and this plan, from the moment it was revealed, caused an uproar.
A romantic comedy with Winona Ryder? And according to the press conference he held, is this romantic comedy a surreal romantic comedy?
From a dark director who shoots realism, it is too big to jump to the director who shoots surreal love all at once. When the media saw Levi's idea, there were a lot of discussions.
Even Levi's friends are similar. After seeing Levi's new plan, Leslie called Levi, "Man, your idea. The response is not very good."
"What's wrong?"
"It's too big! You are a person who shoots serious political films. What kind of romantic comedies are you shooting? Is romantic comedy the type of film you should consider?" On the other end of the phone, Leslie was quite excited, "Nick, you can have better scripts if you need them. I can contact others and introduce new movies to you. Warner Bros. is not against serious movies. With your current reputation, you can ask them to invest, and as long as it is less than 100 million, you can choose whatever you want. As for the subject matter, you can choose from Kennedy, Roosevelt, and Hoover. Why would you give up on yourself and shoot a romantic comedy?"
"What are you doing? If one always shoots heavy subjects, people will be too bored. You have to change your taste and shoot something else."
"Oliver Stone has changed his taste and filmed other things, but in the end, he still has to return to his field of expertise. Nick, you better not waste your talent. I don't want to see you because you are too foolish. If you've exhausted your talents early, you won't be able to produce good enough TV programs for me when you get there."
"Don't worry, no matter how bad I am, I can still handle the TV series." Levi knew that this was not Leslie casually calling himself. On the one hand, he is worried about himself because he had cooperated for a long time and had a friendship with each other. On the other hand, if this movie is not good and his talents are exhausted, he is afraid there will be no new TV series from him.
"Don't worry. This movie will be very good, and my talents will not be exhausted. After this movie is over, our company will also consider making new dramas this summer." In addition to filming, those friendships also have to be maintained. Levi knew that he should help Leslie from time to time so that he could get help from CBS.
Levi has such confidence in himself, but other media have expressed disapproval of Levi's idea of filming a romantic comedy.
"Levi shoots movies with realistic themes. The advantage of his movies is that they are heavy and can arouse people's thinking rather than sketching romantic love. Not only in movies but also in his TV scripts, there are no love scenes. For romantic description is not what he is good at, why would he try this field at which he is not good?"
Many people's comments think that Levi's approach is a bit too risky, and even some kinder ones hesitate at this time.
"The emotions of the three protagonists in The Lives of Others are delicately portrayed. It's just that such delicateness comes after people's emotions are magnified under the heavy background. A romantic comedy needs more romance than this kind of emotion. Can Levi really do it?"
It's no wonder that people complain a lot now: political films with realistic themes and romantic comedies with romantic themes are really irreconcilable. After filming the former, he immediately went to film the latter, which naturally puzzled people: what was this director thinking by shooting such two completely different works?
A good director only shoots one scene in his life - a director shoots the same theme all his life. Except for those who are desperate to make money or people who don't care about the theme of the movie at all, directors who are pursuing artistry always have to think about what theme their movie is for.
And to say that political films and romantic comedies have the same theme... This commonality is really hard to find.
In fact, even Levi himself admits it. He wouldn't have chosen this movie if he didn't have a ready-made movie.
But now... he can still find common ground between the two films.
Amidst the discussions, Levi was also in New York, meeting with other actors of the crew.
The props for the film, the studio, and the working group are almost ready. For the special effects company, Alexander has already followed Levi's instructions. As a city where countless great directors and films have been born, building a studio in New York is not a problem. Winona has already contacted some necessary locations for live-action shooting, plus the soundtrack, photography, and editing contacted by Levi himself. The behind-the-scenes working group of this film is fully prepared.
Apart from the behind-the-scenes working group, the actors in front of the stage are almost in place. When Levi arrived on the set, he first saw Christian Bale, the leading actor.
When he saw him, he had shaved his hair short and was wearing an old-fashioned dress. But it is the clothes that set off the temperament. These are also the looks that he is required to have in the movie.
Inside the crew, Christian Bale is ready. As the titular male lead in this movie, he has also read through the script many times. In order to meet the needs of the movie, he also adjusted his image appropriately - he knew very well how lucky he was to be able to appear in this movie.
Levi's last movie just got rave reviews, and now he's shooting a film that will surely get much attention.
In addition, the heroine of this movie is a top actress like Winona Ryder. A good director is directing, and a good actor is a co-star. Such opportunities don't come along all the time. Bale knew that it was very difficult for a foreigner to act in the United States. He caught up with this excellent opportunity because of his girlfriend and didn't want to miss this opportunity.
Bale made his debut as a child star. He has been working hard all these years, but there were fewer opportunities. In his many years of acting career, he has also accumulated a lot of experience. Compared with the lucky Winona, he is more aware that in acting, attitude is often everything, and he is not ambiguous at all about trying to make himself meet the requirements of the characters in the play.
"The only thing I hope now is that you adopt a little more of your British accent. This is a movie shot in New York, and it would be better to have more New York accents."
Levi made only one request, and Bale immediately agreed to this request: Although many actors have their own natural accents, in addition to their natural accents, they will also practice their voice and accents for their acting careers. Good actors will work hard to practice different intonations. For example, Depp used British English when filming Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and even learned an Irish accent so that in Pirates of the Caribbean, his British accent is better than that of Barbossa. Actors are pure. And Bale has also learned and practiced American pronunciation, but he needs to use New York slang and still has to learn it.
"I will try my best to speak the language well. Please give me some time." Of course, Bale immediately agreed. Out of respect for the movie, he still decided to ask a professional drama actor to help him correct his pronunciation.
"Okay, your scenes in this movie can be arranged later, and we can shoot the scenes without lines first."
Levi agreed to his request, which was not too much.
Compared to Bale's efforts, his request is nothing. Levi is still very happy to have such an actor: Winona is a bit lazy, and the actor she shares the screen with is more hardworking. For her, it may be a big boost, right?
She has to perform well, but she said that she wants to win an Oscar.
*****
Thanks and kudos for my patreons
Cherif Doghri
Adam LV
Danny York
Scott DePaepe
MMMCMXCIX, or 3,999
The Main Man.
Sandra Torres
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