Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Isn't this an Ingrid Bergman-style witch hunt? Why are we still doing this now?" After hearing the description of Brooke's mother Terry, Ronald was a little surprised.

It turns out that Brooke Shields' public service announcement against smoking among teenagers was banned by the U.S. Department of Public Health some time ago. The reason is that Brooke's previous movies were indecent and as a youth idol, it has not had a positive impact on young people and it is not appropriate to appear in a public service announcement about anti-smoking.

This incident caused some waves in the media, both for and against the Ministry of Health. However, some conservatives have long been dissatisfied with Brooke Shields's controversial plots in the two movies "Beautiful Girl" and "Blue Lagoon."

Now that they had found a reason, they finally launched a full-scale attack to ban all her movies in America.

Some conservative congressmen from southern states on Capitol Hill also took the opportunity to launch an investigation into whether Brooke Shields violated the law during the filming and whether she filmed age-inappropriate footage.

Fortunately, this is 1981, not 1951.

People have been educated by Hollywood for many years and know that what appears on the screen is not necessarily what happened in reality. It would be almost impossible to get a majority in a congressional vote to repeat a resolution like the one in which Congress condemned Ingrid Bergman for moral turpitude.

Even so, Brooke Shields was also summoned to testify before Congress. He was grilled by members of both houses of Congress on Capitol Hill about whether he had acted inappropriately while filming the movie.

It is difficult for them to find any advertisements for ck jeans that are technically illegal. Because this advertisement uses pun-suggestive advertising slogans to stimulate the secret desires of teenagers. It's not easy to catch the handle.

Therefore, several conservative congressmen focused their investigation on Brooke's first two movies and the yet-to-be-released "Endless Love", especially since the latter has been rated X by the MPAA four times.

Terry hired a lawyer and tried every means to obtain written testimonies from witnesses from the productions of "The Legend of Love" and "Blue Lagoon". He also found the director of "Endless Love" to testify. Ronald was also asked to provide evidence this time. Testimony.

"I, Ronald Lee, swear by the name of God that the following written statement is the truth, the complete truth, and no lies other than the truth.

As a temporary assistant on the set of "Endless Love", I assisted director Frank Zeffirelli in filming... During this period, all the nude scenes of Miss Brooke Shields' character Jade were done by a body double..."

Ronald signed the deposition and then asked attorney Lindsay, "Is this OK?"

"That's it.

There is nothing wrong with Brooke. Today's youth culture is open and high school students still maintain their innocence. It has become a psychological burden. It seems that she is not attractive enough.

Except for a few particularly conservative states, most lawmakers are just doing it. Maybe they just want to meet the most popular girl idol in person and get an autographed photo for their granddaughter. "

It seemed that Brooke was just crying on the phone out of fear. After her mother found a famous lawyer, she should be less panicked.

"What is this?" Lindsay found the outline of "Golden Jade Alliance" written by Ronald on the table.

"That's the synopsis of an old movie I wrote, The Golden Jade Alliance."

"Oh, CBS showed it two days ago. It's my favorite. Every time I see Cary Grant waiting for Deborah Kerr on the top of the Empire State Building, Helen and I burst into tears."

"Why do you elite lawyers also like to watch this kind of romance drama?" Ronald didn't expect it, "I thought only housewives liked it."

"Who doesn't like watching Cary Grant? He just got married again, for the fifth time, this time to a hotel publicist who is 47 years his junior."

"Actually, I also love watching his movies." They were just suspense films made by Hitchcock, Ronald added in his mind.

After thanking the lawyer who stopped by to help read the written testimony, Ronald began to prepare his sales speech again.

"I wanted to make 'Fast Time' into a movie about the growth of teenagers, reflecting the living conditions of high school students in California. When the audience sees it, they will feel that these high school students are so real, as if they are in the high school next door. go to school.

Therefore, the background of the movie is realistic, the tone is a slightly exaggerated light comedy, and the five main student characters represent the five typical types of students today...

This will be a group drama about modern high school students..."

After a few days, after he became proficient in practicing in front of the mirror, Ronald called his agent Niceta specifically to do some phone rehearsals and asked the experienced Niceta for advice.

"No, no, don't talk about the group scene." After hearing Ronald's confession on the phone, Niceta was still very satisfied, but this group scene was a bit taboo.

"Don't talk about ensemble dramas. In the ears of studio executives, ensemble dramas are equal to box office failures. There is only one person in Hollywood who can auction blockbuster ensemble dramas, and that is Robert Altman."

Altman is the director of the low-budget films "Nurse" and "Nashville." Both films were ensemble dramas, and not only were box office hits, they also received Oscar nominations for Best Director.

"But this is just a group drama? It's almost the same as being famous all over the world." Of course Ronald couldn't be compared with Ultraman, but he didn't understand why he couldn't mention this term.

"Yes, Ronald. It's an ensemble drama. But don't say it's an ensemble drama. You can say it's a teen screwball comedy, it can be a romantic comedy, but it can't be an ensemble drama."

"I do not understand……"

"It's easy to understand, Ronald. Studio executives are extremely busy people. They have 15-20 theatrical movies to produce each year and an equal number of potential scripts to prepare for next year. In order to achieve this Numbers, the same number of scripts must be put in the circulation warehouse, and three times the number of scripts that are not for production must be thrown away.

So they simply can't remember the specific plot of each movie. They can only put a label on each movie, this one is a Star Wars knock-off, this one is a new version of The Wizard of Oz, this one is a group movie - it doesn't make money.

If the movie you are striving for as a director is labeled as an ensemble drama, and your name is not Robert Altman, there is only one outcome: you have to find your script in the trash can and then find a producer. Let’s talk. "

"Okay, I get it, this is a teen romantic comedy..."

Brooke Shields' hearing was held as scheduled, and sure enough, several conservative lawmakers' questions focused on whether there was any nudity during the filming of the movie.

Brooke and Terry, who were well prepared, told them many protective measures during filming. For example, during the filming of Blue Coral Reef, Brooke would wear a long wig and fix it on her chest with glue, so there would be no suspicion of exposure.

During the filming of the passionate scenes of endless love, all nude scenes were shot using body doubles. Pieced together through post-production editing, Brooke actually only shot a few reaction shots. Ronald served as a temporary filming assistant at the scene, and his written testimony was also presented as evidence.

The stills and schematics from the filming scene left conservative congressmen speechless. They could only issue a statement condemning the increasing number of morally corrupt scenes in American movies and calling for stricter classification standards and cinemas. Censorship of teenage audiences, young people watching R-rated movies must show identification.

There was another uproar in the media about the results. The New York Times mainly called for better self-regulation in the industry, while the New York Daily News did an in-depth analysis of the situation of teenage actors. Of course, the best seller was the New York Post, which published the stills of Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon again.

The happiest person I have ever seen with a congressional investigation is "Endless Love" director Zeffirelli.

Brooke Shields suddenly became the focus of the media again. Guber, the president of the producer PolyGram, saw the potential of the movie and could ride on Brooke's news.

He immediately approved a multi-million dollar marketing budget. Taking advantage of Congress's opportunity to clear Bo Ji's innocence, he submitted the revised film to MPAA for the fifth time, and finally received the desired R rating.

"When they are together, it's like the outside world doesn't exist." Zeffirelli read the title of the poster prepared by PolyGram to Ronald on the phone. "Listen, this line is so Shakespearean."

"So you decided to use love words between couples for marketing?"

"Yes, we are mainly targeting teenage couples. PolyGram has also made an agreement with the distributor Universal. At the ticket office of the cinema, there will be a discount for watching 'Endless Love' and enjoying popcorn packages for couples."

Ronald felt something was wrong and quickly said, "Franco, during the last test screening, I clearly saw that the teenage couple's perception of the movie was not as good as that of the junior high school girls who came with their best friends.

The high school students laughed a lot, but a few junior high school girls cried. "

"No, no, Ronald. I underestimated the literary and artistic accomplishments of the younger generation of ordinary people in America. They can indeed feel the lingering and pathos of endless love, and they are not disgusted with Shakespeare..."

Ronald felt that Zeffirelli was full of fighting spirit again, and he might not be able to listen to some of his own observations.

However, when this movie was previewed, little girls who had never been in love liked it more. But this has nothing to do with me anymore. Maybe the test screening may not accurately reflect the audience's preferences.

Ronald is more concerned about the establishment of the "fast-paced Richmond High School" project. A few weeks have passed since the Oscars, and there is still no definite news from Universal as to whether David Lynch will be replaced and another suitable director will be found.

This afternoon, Ronald was helping Spike Lee, who had received another grant from the Black Human Rights Organization, to shoot his graduation film. Filming has stopped, and two years have passed, and the film about barbershops in black neighborhoods has not yet been completed.

Ronald also pulled Li Ang over. Tisch College encourages students to help each other make films and work on other people's crews, which can also be counted as credits for professional courses.

After shooting a scene, Ronald went to look at the pager in his bag. In order to prevent it from interfering with the crew's live broadcast, Ronald put it in his bag and turned it into silent mode.

There is a pager.

Taking the coin, Ronald found the phone booth, called the paging station and asked if it was Niceta.

Ronald then stuffed the coins one by one and made the long-distance call to Los Angeles.

"Ronald, you can leave for Los Angeles. We will find time to meet with Tom Mount, the president of Universal Pictures."

"What, he finally fired David Lynch?" Ronald said happily while continuing to insert coins.

"No, Lynch fired Universal."

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