Hollywood Road

Even the best director cannot be completely immune to the interference of external factors. Murphy is determined. When writing the script in the early stage, everything went smoothly and normally, but when the team assembled again at the warehouse studio in Venice, After the preparations officially started, the situation that Gal Gadot was worried about inevitably appeared.

Murphy and Ross had an unusual relationship, which led him to want to minimize the chances of the film failing or becoming a bad film, so he began to consider all aspects of the situation.

Once people think too much, they tend to deny themselves. Not long after 20th Century Fox received the first funding, Murphy, after thinking about it in many ways, suddenly felt that the original shooting method was not very good.

With this thought, he thought more, shut himself in the office for two whole days, and reconsidered the theme of the film.

Just like "City of Chaos" reflects fear and conflict of ideas, Murphy first determined the theme of the film before making the film. The current film is mainly about the influence of the social environment on people, as well as personal choices...

Would such a theme apply to Rose? Being violated by a Catholic priest was the direct cause of his path of no return, but Ross was not the only one who was violated, what about the others?

In just two days, countless thoughts flashed through Murphy's mind, but he couldn't make a decision until he remembered the class on biographical films he had taken when he was studying on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

"Yes, Ross is an exception."

Thinking of the same biographical films and TV series, Murphy finally abandoned his doubts and strengthened his original thought, "But this is a personal biographical film of Ross, why bother with other people?"

No matter what kind of biographical film, artistic processing is inseparable after all, but the degree of artistic processing must be mastered. Murphy has enough negative teaching materials in this regard.

Murphy then began to reflect on biographies and movies he had seen across the Pacific, as well as theoretical questions that would keep him sane and avoid making the most basic mistakes.

Contemporary movies are almost inseparable from the description of characters. Almost all movies are about the relationship between characters and time and space, and biography is the best and most difficult kind of movie. The good thing about it is that, When watching certain documentaries, I feel like I’m watching a person’s chronicle Discovery History Channel, which is so dull that I can’t squeeze out a drop of oil; and speaking of difficulty, the biggest difficulty of biopics is that the creators have to maintain a relatively neutral attitude and reject value. While judging, make the story wonderful.

This is quite demanding for the director, especially when the protagonist is still a notorious figure.

With the education that Murphy once received, shooting a biopic of someone like Ross must send him to hell, but the problem is that someone like Ross seems to have helped him and Robert Downey Jr. and some other people in prison People like that, don't they have a good side?

Of course, you must not just stare at his good side and make Wei Guangzheng, that would be too low-level, childish and cheeky.

After reconfirming the idea and keeping the original theme unchanged, Murphy recalled the relevant theories he had learned in the opposite professional school, as well as some typical questions raised by the director at that time that led to the failure of the biographical film.

During the time when he was receiving film education, there was hardly a single outstanding biographical film in the opposite film industry.

Why has it been difficult for the film industry over there to make good biographical films for a long time? Murphy still remembers that when analyzing the reasons, many people said that the shooting of biopics is often due to the existence of the character prototype or the interference of his descendants, which makes it difficult for the director to view the protagonist in the biopic from an objective perspective when shooting.

But in his mentor's view, such a reason seems to be an excuse for the film's own shortcomings. In the history of world film, there have also been many disputes between the director of biopics and the prototype characters of biopics.

As early as 1941,

At the age of 25, Orson Welles took out his debut novel "Citizen Kane", because the film alluded to Hearst, the newspaper tycoon at the time, and Hearst was dissatisfied with the treatment of his image in the film. , he tried his best to obstruct the release of the film. On the one hand, he published an article in his newspaper criticizing Hollywood, trying to force Hollywood to give up the distribution of the film "Citizen Kane"; The copies and negatives were destroyed in a unified manner, which made it impossible for many theaters to show "Citizen Kane" at that time.

Despite encountering such difficulties, Orson Welles still did not give in, and decided to let the film be released as scheduled. As a result, it is conceivable that "Citizen Kane" suffered a box office Waterloo.

Today, "Citizen Kane" has not affected its own value because of the failure of the box office. In the "Top 100 Movies of the Century" selected by the American Film Institute, "Citizen Kane" ranked first.

At that time, the instructor analyzed the reason for the success of "Citizen Kane", first of all because director Orson Welles dared to choose a controversial character as the protagonist of his biopic.

Although Hearst, as a newspaper tycoon, even concocted fake news in order to get more attention for his newspaper. However, in the movie "Citizen Kane", the director was not eager to make a one-sided value judgment on Kane as the incarnation of Hearst, but chose to present Kane in their eyes through the memories of five people who have been with Kane. Kane.

In the eyes of Kane's adoptive father, Kane is a young man with lofty ideals and political ambitions; and in the eyes of Kane's partners, Kane is a demon who will not hesitate to violate his previous vows in order to achieve his goals. Based on the memories of different people, a multi-faceted, three-dimensional and in-depth image of Kane was established.

On the other hand, biopics over a long period of time often use heroes and great men as the protagonists, and the value judgments are clear at a glance. The good guys are excellent, and the bad guys are extremely bad, which does not reflect the complexity of the characters themselves.

However, Murphy also knows that most of the time it is not the director who wants to do this, and the reasons are extremely complicated, especially when you stand in Hollywood and watch the other side of the movie. Fortunately, there are too many restrictions on personal biographical films.

The biopics over there have always been difficult to shoot. There are too many constraints and it is not easy to play. They can neither fabricate plots out of thin air like many so-called "personal biopics" in Hollywood, nor can they record truthfully like some biographical movies. In short, it not only restrains the imagination, but also dismembers the real history. Generally speaking, it is mainly based on praise, and the negative history is implicitly mentioned or not mentioned as much as possible.

Those people are not perfect like human beings, but just perfect symbols.

Therefore, these films not only lost audiences, even the latecomers had almost no spread.

In this way, only the positive side is described, there is no negative side, the characters themselves have no contradictory levels, and there will be no huge conflicts in life with the surrounding people, and the plot will be calm. Let alone an excellent movie, I am afraid it is far from a qualified movie. They are all as far away as one hundred and eight thousand miles.

Of course, the director over there is also aware of the existence of the problem, but it is limited to various unspeakable reasons, so he can only find another way to solve it.

For example, there is a lack of character levels. In order to increase the sense of contradiction in the film, many directors can only substitute the characters into the environment where the country and the nation are fighting against the enemy, and use big contradictions to replace the small contradictions of the characters, so the effect is a high-spirited temple. Temple image.

It is not an exaggeration to say that this is simply building an altar, which is too far from a real character with seven emotions and six desires.

Compared with the directors on the other side of the ocean, Murphy's filming and production environment is undoubtedly much more relaxed, at least there will be no political restrictions.

Not only that, but there is also a more favorable side, that is, Murphy will not face troublesome characters like Jordan Belfort. After all, Ross will not sue him and the crew for the adaptation of some parts of the movie.

Don't underestimate these, the parties or descendants of personal biopics often become obstacles to the filming, production and release of the film.

Murphy remembers very clearly that when a movie starring a certain Liu surnamed king was released, he was accused by the so-called "descendants" of Zhao Yun who suddenly appeared, claiming that Zhao Yun did not die in battle, but died of his life, and threatened to sue him in court.

It is estimated that the director must have been sweating when he heard the letter.

At that time, Murphy's classmates discussed it with him, so the director thought, "I'm just imagining it out of thin air. Is it so real that it makes people feel romantic? Why don't you sue Luo Guanzhong for making up the miscellaneous name General Zhao Yun in the historical facts?" Are you in the Five Tigers? Dare can only be made up to make it sound good, and then Zhao Yun will be resurrected with full blood in the next shoot, and he will live forever."

The movie of Guan Erye filmed by someone later is much better, at least it will not be harassed by the so-called descendants, because historical facts record that when Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army, he killed Wei Guo’s general Pang De, and later when the Wei Army invaded Chengdu , Pang De's son, Pang Hui, was the vanguard.

After that film was broadcast, if a "descendant" of Guan Yu appeared to complain, he could just take off his shoes and smack him in the face...

Even these highly entertaining movies that cannot be called biography at all will be troubled, let alone real biographical movies. Murphy does not need to consider the disadvantages in this regard, whether it is for him as the director or for the entire crew All of these are extremely powerful conditions.

After three days of retreat, Murphy completely solved the conceptual problems, called a meeting of all department heads of the crew, and the preparation of the film named "Diego Ross" was also on the right track.

In terms of actors, although Stanton's party members have joined together, they still need to find suitable actors. For example, the bald black actor next to Ross needs to find a black actor who is not difficult or glass-hearted.

In addition, the crew will shoot on-site in Los Angeles, and Murphy also brought people back to the long-lost place where he made his fortune.