1980 My literary era

After September, the summer in Yanjing has only come to an end.

The leaves on the roadside are still green, but they no longer have the restlessness of being burned by the scorching sun in summer.

"Life is Beautiful", which swept the Cannes Film Festival in May this year, was officially released in China at the beginning of this month. There was no decent publicity, but once the movie was released, it triggered a movie-watching frenzy.

Chinese people are no strangers to "Life is Beautiful". The original work of the film comes from Lin Weimin's "No matter what, life is beautiful".

Although it is a story about foreigners during World War II, this is Lin Weimin's novel after all. Over the years since its publication, it has sold more than 8 million copies in China and has a huge influence.

In May, the film adaptation won four awards at Cannes, and the news spread back to China, triggering a wave of public opinion.

Because of Lin Weimin, Chinese people naturally have a favorable impression of this film.

Three days after the movie was released, it had a box office of more than 1.6 million in the Yanjing area. A few days later, nationwide box office information was compiled, and the box office of "Life is Beautiful" in the first week reached more than 33.8 million.

As the movie becomes popular, the word-of-mouth effect is also growing.

Roberto Benigni, who is a screenwriter, director, and starring actor, perfectly restored the plot of the novel in the film, which is absurd and humorous, and contributed a classic that brought laughter and tears to the audience.

The fermentation of word-of-mouth boosted the movie's box office. Countless viewers who were attracted by the people around them walked into the cinema. In just a few days, a movie-watching craze that was rare in recent years was formed.

41.93 million, 29.6 million...

For two consecutive weeks, the box office of "Life Is Beautiful" has soared into the sky, breaking the 100 million yuan mark in just three weeks, becoming another box office hit after "Farewell My Concubine" and "True Lies" in recent years. billion movie.

Compared with the envy and hatred of other foreign blockbusters when they achieve high box office in China, the domestic film industry has a relatively peaceful attitude towards the success of this film. After all, it has something to do with China.

In the third week of the movie's release, many pirated discs appeared on the market. The impact of piracy has begun to be revealed. The fourth week has just begun, but the box office curve will definitely not be as amazing as before.

As the influence of piracy continues to expand, the potential of the movie may fall off a cliff, and the box office it can achieve in the next two weeks will be limited.

Before "Life Is Beautiful" just hit the domestic market, the 53rd Venice Film Festival opened on the 28th of last month. After 10 days of competition, the film festival held its closing ceremony in the early morning of September 8th, Yanjing time.

A total of 24 films were shortlisted for this film festival. The Golden Lion Award for Best Film was awarded to "Michael Collins" directed by Neil Jordan. This film is based on the Irish Independence Movement in 1916 and tells the actual story of the Irish Volunteer Army. The historical story of leader Michael Collins who led the Irish Revolutionary Movement for Independence and ultimately died for it. The film also won the Best Actor award.

Zhang Yimou won his second Jury Prize for "Speak Well". This was Zhang Yimou's second Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival after "Raise the Red Lantern".

But at this film festival, the one who stole the show was not "Michael Collins" who won two heavyweight awards, nor Zhang Yimou who won the Silver Lion again, but a 4-year-old actor named Victor El. Kivesol.

Victor El Quiversol is the heroine of the movie "Little Lone Star". She plays a child who becomes lonely and depressed because of the loss of her mother.

During the review process, Victor El Kivesol's outstanding performance in the movie impressed the judges, and they boldly awarded the Best Actress Award to the 4-year-old actor.

The award results quickly aroused the attention of major media, directly stealing the limelight from the Golden Lion Award and Silver Lion Award works.

When Zhang Yimou communicated with Lin Weimin on the phone, he could only smile helplessly when talking about this situation.

Fortunately, after winning the Silver Lion Award, the overseas copyright sales of "If You Have Something to Say" are booming.

The film festival has ended, but Zhang Yimou and Yu Dong are still staying in Venice, mainly to sell the overseas rights of "Speak Well".

Although "Speak Well" is an adaptation of Lin Weimin's novel, it has not been published in many overseas countries, its sales volume is not high, and its readership base is not deep. If it enters overseas countries in the form of a box office split, the box office performance may not be too great. Outstanding. Therefore, after careful consideration, Wenhua Film and Television decided to choose conservative copyright sales.

During the film festival, "Speak Well" sold overseas copyrights to 36 countries, earning more than 21.6 million US dollars in copyright revenue.

If this number is calculated based on the overseas box office, it must reach at least over 100 million US dollars. For a literary film that tells a Chinese urban story, it is almost impossible to achieve this box office in overseas countries, so this The price-performance ratio of the transaction is still very high.

After the film festival, they stayed in Venice for less than a week. Zhang Yimou and Yu Dong finished handling the overseas copyright sales of "Something to Say" and returned to China.

The next thing to prepare for is the release of "Something to Say". There is still half a month before the National Day. Although "Life is Beautiful" is still raging in the market, by the time "Something to Say" is released, its power will have been greatly weakened. , when the time comes, "Speak Well" will not only not be affected by "Life is Beautiful", but will also benefit from the overall enthusiasm for watching movies in the movie market driven by "Life is Beautiful".

Yu Dong is busy with the release of "If You Have Something to Say", Zhang Yimou has put aside the honor he just won and seamlessly joined the crew of "Hero".

There are still 10 months left before July 1997, and there is not much time left for Zhang Yimou.

In fact, there is plenty of time, but the main problem is the difficulty of framing.

The most praised thing about "Heroes" in later generations is not the story and characters, but the beautiful scenes and use of colors.

Populus euphratica forest in EJNQ, Jiuzhaigou Valley in southwest China, Dunhuang Yadan National Geopark in Mobei...

For a movie with such grand scenes, it is very difficult to complete the shooting in a short period of time and to seize the best opportunity of each scenic spot.

At the beginning of preparations, Zhang Yimou decided on a group shooting method.

As soon as the movie started shooting, Team A shot the literary drama, and Team B shot the martial arts drama. There were two groups of people. The scale of the entire crew was the largest in the domestic film industry, and everything was going on in an orderly manner.

At the same time, far away in Hengdian, Zhijiang, the Qin Palace, the most important scene in the movie, was under intensive construction.

In later generations, the Qin Palace was built in Hengdian to cooperate with Cheng Kaige in the filming of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin".

Nowadays, "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" has not yet been released. The Palace of Qin was built by Wenhua Film and Television after contacting Hengdian Film and Television City, and the two parties decided to build it after negotiation.

When Cheng Kaige makes movies, he always likes to pursue perfection in some insignificant places, such as the construction of the Qin Palace.

The scale of the Qin Palace in later generations was huge, with 27 palaces and palaces. The main hall, "Four Seas Returned to One Hall", was 44.8 meters high and covered an area of ​​17,169 square meters. The towering city wall with a length of 2289 meters and a height of 18 meters complements the royal palace hall, fully demonstrating the majestic momentum of the Qin Dynasty to annex the six countries and dominate the world.

Including various supporting markets, roads and other facilities, Cheng Kaige hired a group of designers to design the blueprint of the entire Qin Palace.

Compared to Cheng Kaige, Zhang Yimou is much more practical. He only cares about scenes that can be used in making movies.

This also makes the construction of the Qin Palace this time much simpler and faster than that of later generations. Of course, there is definitely no way to build it as grand as that of later generations, but it is enough for making movies.

Ever since I went to Italy to participate in the Venice Film Festival, the film promotion of "Let's Talk" has been launched. Media from various places will often publish some news about the film during this month.

After the film won the award, the public was no longer surprised that Zhang Yimou won an award overseas, but media reports remained as usual.

Taking advantage of this wave of public opinion, "Speak Well" was officially released in theaters across the country.

During his busy schedule, Zhang Yimou also took time to attend the premiere press conference of "If You Have Something to Say".

This film is Zhang Yimou's first foray into urban themes, and it is adapted from Lin Weimin's novel. It has a large cast of celebrities, including guest stars like Ge You and Zhao Benshan, so it naturally attracted media attention.

At the beginning of the press conference, reporters focused on Lin Weimin, Ge You and Zhao Benshan who were not present.

"Today is the press conference of "If You Have Something to Say", all the protagonists are here. Ge You and Zhao Benshan are just guest appearances, and they are also very busy with work recently. Teacher Lin is in a meeting, and he should come over if he is free."

Zhang Yimou explained a few words, which finally settled the topic.

Afterwards, reporters continued to ask questions enthusiastically, especially about the style and scale of the film.

A female reporter asked Qu Ying: "Are some of the scenes between you and Jiang Wen in the movie a bit slutty? As a supermodel and actress, what do you think about **?"

As soon as these words came out, the scene was in an uproar.

This question is not only bold, but also quite offensive.

After Zhang Yimou heard this, he couldn't sit still and Qu Ying's face was full of shame and anger. Jiang Wen angrily planned to get up and talk to the reporter, but was stopped by Li Baotian who was beside him and whispered: "Don't get excited, they are just Find a topic, don’t fall for it.”

After a while, Zhang Yimou felt a little embarrassed, so he had to step forward to answer the question.

"Movies come from life. It is normal for some scenes to have passionate scenes, but when it comes to sex scenes, we are not yet open to that level."

Seeing the director talking, the reporters at the scene became even more excited, and then the female reporter came up with a series of tricky questions.

Several actors looked ugly and said nothing when faced with reporters' questions.

This was very painful for Zhang Yimou. He kept being asked to drink mineral water. When he attended film festivals abroad and faced the cameras of many foreign media, he was never as nervous as he is now.

When a reporter asked: "It is said that your latest movie "Hero" is highly similar in theme to "Qin Song" produced by West Film Studio. "Qin Song" will be released next month. I would like to ask you about the script of this movie. How was it written? Did it refer to "Song of Qin"?"

Zhang Yimou has always been known for his good temper, but when faced with this reporter's question, he did not hold back. They almost pointed at him and said that he plagiarized "Qin Song".

Zhang Yimou's face was ashen and he said nothing. The atmosphere at the scene fell into a stalemate.

At this time, Lin Weimin walked into the venue accompanied by Yu Dong.

He originally didn't plan to attend the press conference today, but Yu Dongfei said that the film was adapted from his original work, and he had to show up no matter what.

Lin Weimin had no choice but to run over right after the meeting.

When he came to the stage and saw that the atmosphere was not quite right, he asked, "What's going on?"

Zhang Yimou was kind and had an ugly face, but he didn't say anything. Jiang Wen, like a primary school student who had just been beaten and saw his parents come to support him, muttered in Lin Weimin's ear.

Lin Weimin nodded clearly after hearing the whole story, and Jiang Wen sat back in his seat with satisfaction.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Lin Weimin tried the microphone, and then under the gaze of many reporters present, he pointed at the female reporter who just asked the question and said: "Comrades in your TV station should not be so gossipy, especially female reporters who always mention such vulgar things. Question, what interest do you want to attract the audience to?

After all, it’s a serious TV station, so how come it’s like a third-rate tabloid in Hong Kong? Is this what your local publicity department requires of you? "

In the 1990s, the domestic news media field was full of chaos. Especially after some places absorbed the bad habits from Xiangjiang, Bay Island and other places, they embarked on the path of public opinion propaganda by any means to gain attention.

Capturing people's attention and eating steamed buns with human blood is not a habit that was only acquired after the rise of self-media in later generations. At this time, some media used this set of things, and there was no bottom line.

Lin Weimin's words were outspoken and did not save any face. The female reporter's face turned livid, and there was a burst of whispers in the press conference.