From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

It was morning, peaceful. The California sun still dragged long shadows across the sky, completely oblivious to the approaching autumn. Yet, the golden halo lightly resting on the treetops lacked the heat and restlessness of high summer. The air seemed calmer, making one slow down.

Brad Ranfro had just finished a crazy night, and his whole being floated in the air, his steps as light as a hydrogen balloon.

The City of Angels was bustling, showcasing unprecedented vitality, but he was heading home, ready to put an end to today—or was it yesterday?

Right now, he only had one thought: to dive into bed and sleep soundly.

Groping around groggily, he pushed open the door, only to find it pitch black inside. Brad paused slightly, stepping back outside. The morning sun was still bright. He stepped forward into the room—no sunlight, no lights, just a blurry halo swirling around.

Oh, it was light and shadow.

Only then did Brad realize that someone had drawn all the curtains and lowered the projection screen, creating a cinema effect at home.

"Ansen?"

Slightly adjusting to the indoor light, Brad peered at the figure curled up on the sofa, silhouetted by the glow of the large screen. He called out uncertainly.

Then he clearly saw Ansen, the long-limbed giant, pitifully huddled into a ball, completely immersed in the movie, making Brad want to laugh.

Ansen glanced back, "Hey, good morning."

Brad walked over, his steps unsteady, his voice unsure, "Is it morning now?"

Ansen chuckled, "I'm not sure. You're the one who just came back from outside. Shouldn't you be telling me?"

Brad stopped behind the sofa, not intending to linger. "How would I know? The days in Los Angeles are all the same. You can't tell the difference between eight AM and eight PM."

Ansen nodded repeatedly, "Then let me correct myself. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening."

The lighthearted and humorous tone made the corners of Brad's mouth lift slightly. Originally, he had planned to immediately return to his room and collapse, his eyes almost unable to stay open. But seeing the projection in front of him, he couldn't help but stop.

Perhaps, he just didn't have the energy to go back to his room.

"Kieślowski?" Brad asked.

Ansen, "Yeah. 'Red'."

The Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski's famous "Three Colors" trilogy. "Blue" won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, "White" won the Best Director award at the Berlin Film Festival, and "Red" was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and won two Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film.

Undoubtedly, these are very, very famous works.

The imagery and visual texture made it easily recognizable. Brad saw it immediately, but the situation was slightly different.

Ansen wasn't rewatching the movie, but repeatedly watching the same clip.

After Brad appeared, Ansen had already rewatched it once. Brad wasn't sure if his appearance had disturbed Ansen's viewing, so Ansen chose to rewind and rewatch. But soon Brad realized that Ansen was doing it on purpose, actually rewinding for the third time.

Ansen was watching the most famous scene in the movie, the heroine standing in front of a red curtain, blowing bubble gum. Even if you haven't seen the movie, you should have seen screenshots or images of it.

Over and over again.

Ansen watched very seriously, very immersed, seemingly completely lost in the scene.

Brad also became focused, standing still and quietly admiring, his eyelids almost closing because of sleepiness. The whole room was shrouded in a halo, dreamlike, drifting into sleep.

The whole viewing experience was also different.

Clearly, it was the same clip, but each time the feelings were subtly different.

Brad finally couldn't resist, "What are you doing?"

Ansen's gaze remained on the screen, "Nothing. I just like her eyes and expression. In that fleeting moment, you can taste different emotions. It's a feeling that language can't describe."

Brad didn't speak again, but also became fascinated like Ansen, unknowingly sitting down on the sofa, his whole body completely relaxed, entering a dream in a world of interlaced reds and darkness.

Sometimes sad, sometimes happy.

Sometimes pure, sometimes complex.

As Ansen said, it was indeed a subtle viewing experience. The world constructed by the movie exuded a strange and vibrant charm, unrelated to the plot, only related to the image, the connection between oneself and the image, as if able to touch some essence of the soul.

Brad was really sleepy, his eyelids fighting each other, so much so that he couldn't distinguish the line between reality and illusion, but this feeling wasn't bad.

He felt a little top-heavy, and the thoughts in his mind broke free from their reins.

"Ansen."

"Hmm?"

"Do you think I can still get a chance?"

"Of course you can."

"You know what I mean, not just any acting opportunity, but a chance to reopen the situation and truly become an excellent actor."

In the silence, Ansen could taste the sigh and anxiety in Brad's words.

This wasn't hard to understand.

Hayden entered the "Star Wars Prequel" cast, James got the "Spider-Man" audition opportunity, Chris and Ansen also opened up their own situations, only Brad seemed to be standing still, stagnating.

It wasn't that Brad couldn't get roles, but that he couldn't see an opportunity to break through, couldn't see hope for the future. It seemed that was it. He would just play some insignificant roles, some independent productions that couldn't enter theaters, completely forgotten by the Hollywood mainstream market.

If Brad was already sixty years old, his career entering a semi-retired state, then regret was regret, but there was nothing to be done. But Brad wasn't even twenty years old yet, his life just starting, and it seemed he had already stopped moving forward.

No wonder Brad had been living a life of drunken stupor, wandering aimlessly.

He once had a chance, but he screwed it up, so was it all over?

All along, Brad had his own struggles. He was different from Ansen and the others, but he was also trapped in the noise and emptiness of the fame and fortune field, only occasionally, in the quiet of night, carelessly leaking his own fragility.

Ansen could capture Brad's carefully leaked sigh and anxiously concealed emotions.

He understood, completely understood.

Because in his previous life, he had also experienced countless sleepless nights, not daring to relax even in his dreams, tightly holding a string in his heart, fearing that revealing a little weakness would become a flaw, eventually evolving into the beginning of the collapse of his entire world.

Does life have a correct answer?

No.

Even though Ansen had lived two lives, he still didn't have the answer that Brad needed.

Perhaps, the only thing Ansen possessed was belief, from the past to the present, it had always been so.

Third update.