1980 My literary era

The next day, Lin Weimin ate breakfast and flipped through the latest issue of "Variety Show", a long-established American entertainment magazine.

Lin Weimin found news about this Cannes Film Festival on it. Calculating the time, the Cannes Film Festival should be closing by now.

What was published in Variety was indeed the news of the closure of the Cannes film industry. By the way, it also published a list of award-winning films and reviews.

This year’s Palme d’Or went to director Roland Joffe’s film “The Mission,” the Special Jury Prize went to Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice,” and the best director went to Martin Scorsi. Si...

Lin Weimin looked at the awards one by one. After careful search, he found the word "lover" among a bunch of award lists. The film "Lover" won a total of two awards for Best Cinematography and Best Screenplay.

It is not the biggest winner, but among the award-winning films, except for the three or four films that won heavyweight awards, the results achieved by "Lover" are already very good.

At least before "Lover", no Chinese-language film had achieved such results at the Cannes Film Festival.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the works of Li Hanxiang, Hu Jinquan and others also won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, but they were all insignificant technical awards with little gold content.

After finishing breakfast in a happy mood, Lin Weimin was about to start writing a script when the phone in the apartment rang.

When he picked up the phone, it was Yang Meng's voice.

"Mr. Lin, I'm so sorry. I've been so busy lately that I even forgot to call you to tell you the good news."

Yang Meng said and explained to Lin Weimin.

The schedule for "Lover" to participate in the Cannes Film Festival itself was extremely hasty.

After the closing of the film festival, the award results were announced, and "Lover" became one of the focuses of the major distributors attending the Cannes Film Festival. She has been busy with this matter these days, and the distribution countries that have been confirmed include The United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain are more than ten countries.

But they all follow the path of literary films, and the copyright fees are not high. The advantage is that they can be sold in more countries.

There is also the matter of the release of "Hong Kong". "Lover" was completed as quickly as possible and then participated in the exhibition. Now that it has returned with great success, the release of "Hong Kong" naturally needs to be well publicized.

"Understood! Congratulations to Ms. Yang!"

"It should be a mutual joy. Mr. Lin, please give me an address, and I will mail you the award certificate and a red envelope later."

"The red envelope is unnecessary." Lin Weimin declined.

Yang Meng insisted: "It's a must. The Best Screenplay Award is all due to you."

On the phone, Yang Meng also invited Lin Weimin to take a trip to Xiangjiang when he had time after returning to China, but Lin Weimin could only decline.

He has been out for two months at a time, and it is impossible for him to go out again within this year.

"Lover" won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Although it is not a major award, it can be regarded as not participating in the film festival in vain, and it can be regarded as showing its worth.

It can be heard from Yang Meng's tone that the movie must be selling very smoothly, but he doesn't know how much he can make.

After the pleasant chat, Lin Weimin hung up the phone.

A few days ago, I was busy investing in "Phantom of the Opera", and the script creation progress was delayed a lot.

Lin Weimin decided not to go out for the next few days and just code in the apartment.

A week passed like this, and it was already early June, and Lin Weimin finally completed the script of "The Kite Runner".

When he handed the complete script to Arthur Miller, the old man was overjoyed and said, "Lin, your efficiency is so high!"

High?

It has been almost a month and I have just finished writing a script. Teacher Lin feels a little ashamed for no reason.

With Lin Weimin's script, preparations for the drama "The Kite Runner" can begin, and Arthur Miller begins to get busy.

He also didn't forget about the strong man who supported Lin Weimin, and discussed the script with him almost every day.

However, Lin Weimin was still idle most of the day. Occasionally he would take a car and drive around various districts in New York. When he had nothing to do, he thought of Mark Meng and called him.

After receiving a call from Lin Weimin, Mark Meng shouted excitedly, "Lin, I didn't expect you to really come to the United States. Where are you now? I can't wait to see you."

"I'm in New York now."

"I will look for you!"

"I'd better go find you. I have nothing to do in New York."

"No, no, I haven't had a good trip to New York yet. I just want to go and have fun this time."

Mark Meng insisted on driving to New York. He is now a teacher at the University of Kansas, which is equivalent to traveling from the center of the United States to the east coast of the United States.

For Lao Mi, it is normal to drive across the entire country, let alone half of the country.

After waiting for two days in New York, Lin Weimin finally saw the long-lost Mark Meng.

"Lin, my friend!" As soon as they met, Mark Meng couldn't help but give Lin Weimin a big hug.

Lin Weimin was also a little excited, "Old Ma, long time no see!"

"Yeah, we haven't seen each other for almost three years!"

After the hug, Mark Meng was still a little excited and looked at Lin Weimin carefully, "You don't seem to have changed much."

Lin Weimin joked: "You have matured a lot, why did you grow a beard?"

"Don't you think that's cool?"

Dude, do you have any misunderstanding about "cool"?

The two chatted for a long time, and Lin Weimin said: "Let's go, arrange the place to stay first, and then I'll treat you to dinner."

Mark Meng laughed and said: "Man, this is the United States, I should be the one to treat you to dinner."

He pulled Lin Weimin to get into his Buick. Huang Guangsheng quickly got out of the Mercedes-Benz waiting there, "Mr. Lin!"

Lin Weimin waved his hand and said, "Jack, please drive the car back to the apartment first. You can take the next two days off!"

Huang Guangsheng nodded, got in the car and left.

When Lin Weimin got into the car, Mark Mengcai asked in surprise: "Lin, what is going on?"

"A car was arranged by a friend. As an old Chinese saying goes, it's easier to do things when you have more friends."

Old friends reunited, and Lin Weimin returned to his playful nature.

When Mark Meng followed Lin Weimin's instructions and drove the car downstairs to the Dakota Apartment, looking at the apartment standing in front of him, Mark Meng asked: "You won't tell me this is where you live, will you?"

Lin Weimin patted him and said, "Not only where I live, but also where you live."

After saying that, he got out of the car, and Mark Meng quickly got out of the car and followed Lin Weimin into the apartment. Mark Meng looked around all the way.

Until he entered the apartment, he still couldn't believe it and asked, "Lin, how on earth did you do that?"

"You mean apartment and car?"

"certainly."

Lin Weimin did not sell out and told Mark Meng about his cooperative relationship with Arthur Miller.

Mark Meng was confused after hearing this. He left Yanjing in 1983. That year happened to be Arthur Miller's visit to Yanjing. He heard Lin Weimin mention entertaining Arthur Miller, but he didn't expect Lin Weimin and Arthur ·Miller's relationship has a follow-up.

He never expected that Lin Weimin's play would have been moved to the Broadway stage.

"Oh my God! If I had known that your play would be on Broadway, I should have come here earlier!"

"Haha, it's not too late to come now. Let's go to dinner later, and I'll take you to watch my play tonight."

Sardis on West 44th Street is one of the restaurants frequented by Broadway theater workers. Like the Green Garden Lounge, it has witnessed the premiere celebrations of countless Broadway plays.

In 1946, after the death of actress Antoinette Perry, her friend, theater producer and director Brooke Pen Burton had the idea of ​​establishing a drama prize in Toinette's memory while having lunch in Sardis. This idea led to the subsequent "Tony Award".

For many years, Sardis was the place where Tony Award nominees were announced, making the restaurant well-known on Broadway.

While Lin Weimin was eating, he told Mark Meng the story about Sardis, which made Mark Meng sigh.

"Obviously I am an American, but when I arrived in New York, you became the master!"

Lin Weimin smiled and said, "Who gave me time?"

Lin Weimin is right. For many people living in big cities, life there only consists of work and sleep. The enthusiasm of those cities is only open to those who have time and money.

"The Big Apple City is like a bitch!" Mark Meng sighed with emotion and cursed.

After the two of them finished eating, it happened to be dark outside when they came out of Sardis.

At this time, it is also when Broadway really wakes up. The darkness lights up all the details of Broadway, including the neon lights of the theater, the posters under the spotlights, and the audiences waiting to enter.

Mark Meng is an American, but this was his first time in New York and his first time on Broadway. He actually felt like a country boy coming to the city.

"Lin, I suddenly realized that I have to thank you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I just discovered that New York still has this side!"

After Mark Meng finished speaking, the two looked at each other and laughed.

The two came to the Barrymore Theater, bought tickets and entered the theater.

"The Intouchables", which has been running for more than a year, is very popular on Broadway. This may be related to the theater world's blind pursuit of reflection on war in the past few years.

The background of the American version of "The Intouchables" is the Vietnam War. From the local war in 1965 to the retreat in 1975, the ten years of Vietnam War brought bone-breaking pain to the United States.

More than 58,000 U.S. soldiers died, and as much as 445 billion US dollars in various investments were lost. The two governments of Johnson and Nixon were dragged into the quagmire and sadly resigned.

This war caused more divisions in American society and conflicting opinions among the people than any subsequent war.

Against this background, a large number of news, biographies and literary and artistic works appeared in the cultural circles of the United States that described the cruelty of the war, reflected on the gains and losses of the Vietnam War, and analyzed the causes and effects of the Vietnam War.

The most representative of them is David Leiber and his "Vietnam War Trilogy".

"The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel", "Streamers", and "Sticks and Bones", three drama works won numerous awards in the United States in the 1970s.

But it may be that years of reflection, contradiction and opposition have made Americans tired of this way of thinking.

At this time, with the same background of the Vietnam War, "The Intouchables" appeared in front of American audiences in a relaxed, humorous and warm style, sweeping away the depth, sadness and melancholy that everyone had seen in the "Vietnam War Trilogy". It allowed many people to feel the pain brought by war to the people in another relaxed way, and brought countless audiences a feeling of laughter and tears, which was impressive.

Mark Meng walked out of the theater and sighed again: "Lin, this version of "The Intouchables" is so well adapted! No wonder it is so popular!"

There is no need to read the media comments. Just from the audience's reaction in the theater, Mark Meng knows the popularity of "The Intouchables" on Broadway.

"Mr. Arthur Miller contributed a lot to this work."

Lin Weimin is not being polite. Without Arthur Miller, the localization of "The Intouchables" would not have achieved such great success.

Mark Meng nodded and said, "You are such a lucky guy!"

Lin Weimin smiled and said: "You can't envy this kind of luck!"