Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 676 Chapter 306 You can become a film master

   On Friday, Ronald flew to New York.

  Nisita arranged everything for him. The New Yorker's famous film critic, and perhaps the most controversial, sharp, and most different from mainstream film critics of America's living film critics, Pauline Kael, would meet him at home to discuss Her blistering critique of "Top Gun."

  The old lady was born in 1919. She started writing film reviews for The New Yorker in the 1960s and 1970s, and was an important promoter of the New Hollywood movement.

  The beginning of the American New Wave film, "The Male and Female Thieves", was strongly recommended by her and gained public recognition in one fell swoop. It has become a double winner at the box office and commentary, and is destined to occupy a place in the history of Hollywood films.

  Pauline was also invited by Warren Beatty, the star of "Hands and Hers", to serve as a senior consultant for Paramount, but she resigned a few months later and went back to write a film review.

   Pauline's criticism of "Top Gun" was very intense this time. Paramount also had an old man who knew her. After coordination, she agreed to meet Ronald at home and talk about why she criticized the film so harshly.

   "Does Ms. Pauline Carr live here?" Ronald rang the doorbell, and it was a little boy who came to open the door.

   "Grandma, someone is looking for you, what's your name?" The little boy turned his head and asked Ronald.

   "Ronald, Ronald Lee."

   "William, please come in." Pauline came out and took her grandson aside and let him watch TV.

   "Hello, Pauline."

   Ronald didn't know how to communicate with film critics for a while.

  I was helped a lot by her in the initial stage, but this time the criticism was very merciless.

   "Come on, Ronald, the critics don't have much influence anymore. The New Yorker doesn't influence a lot of audiences. They don't care what an old lady says."

   "No, your review means a lot to me." Ronald felt relieved all of a sudden, went to the living room, and chatted with Pauline Carr.

"Movie reviews don't have the same power as Broadway drama reviews to determine the box office of a movie. What's more, your film company has also invented the film review unblocking system. Now film reviews can only appear in the media after the movie is released, first of all. Audiences have long since used film reviews as a reference for their choice of films.

   Besides, I'm writing for The New Yorker, which is even less influential than the film reviews of a newspaper like Albert. "

  Pauline laughed, mocking herself for her influence.

  Ronald knew she was telling the truth. Compared with Broadway theater reviews, which could decide the life and death of a new play, movie reviews were often a secondary marketing tool for film companies. Posters in movie theaters cost far more than PR critics.

   However, he still expressed his disagreement. He benefited from her film critics for his debut film "Fast-paced Richmond High School" in order to increase the number of copies, and tell her the story of national distribution, and once again thanked her in person.

"I love that movie, and your second movie 'Night of the Comet'. They remind me of Robert Altman. You don't dictate what perspective and method the audience will see your movie with, they go to the cinema, I was attracted by you, and then I discovered the plot and plot that exceeded my expectations. Everything was so roomy and it was an adventure.

   And the big productions you shoot later tend to be patterned. In the first five minutes of the movie, I know what you want to do. Not a great experience for someone who doesn't like to watch movies repeatedly for which they want to write a review. "

Ronald also liked Pauline's frankness, "I understand what you mean, but I can't continue to stay in those small production exploitative films. Hollywood is a very real place, and there are still people who want to shoot for decades. I remember the movie, I have to prove that I can sell. And to sell, these Hollywood routines are essential.”

  Pauline's hair was already gray, she was wearing a pair of reading glasses, and when Ronald said he wanted to make a movie that people remembered for decades, she couldn't help smiling.

   Ronald found that the old lady smiled softly, like a neighbor's grandmother, and she was very sharp when she was not smiling, which was very different.

   "I read you right, you really are someone who wants to make a classic movie. To make a movie that will be remembered, you have to stay away from those popcorn movies and pay more attention to the big issues of reality.

  All the classic Hollywood movies are concerned with the real major issues at that time. "

   "Real Major Issues?"

   "Yes", the old lady stood up and refilled Ronald a cup of coffee, then took several books of film reviews she wrote from the shelf, flipped to the catalog and handed it to Ronald.

"You don't find it, since the 1970s, Italian directors have occupied the mainstream position of Hollywood classic blockbusters. The original Jewish directors, Puritan directors, gradually withdrew from the stage of the drama and turned to comedy and popcorn. Well, in the 1930s and during World War II, they swept the directors and actors of almost all the classic movies."

Ronald looked at the cover of the first book, Pauline Carr's first collection of film critics, "KissKissBangBang." He flipped through the catalogs of several books, which included a review of Martin Scotia. Seth's "Taxi Driver", Francis Coppola's "The Godfather", Brian De Palma's "The Witch Carrie", and Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter".

   And the Jewish director is a lot less than the golden age, she only likes Spielberg. A traditional Puritan director, she admired Robert Altman.

   "Indeed, why is that?" Ronald never thought about the question. Why did Italians become popular in Hollywood after the 1970s?

   is definitely not a question of money, the Italian gangster invested in movies after the unexpected success of "The Godfather".

   is not so-called nepotism, ethnic care issues. When it comes to taking care of ethnicity, Jews are the best among them, and their gangs are much stronger than Italians. They have been involved in the film industry as early as the 1920s.

  Ronald scratched his head. He thought it was very interesting for the old lady's sharp question, but he couldn't think of an answer.

Seeing Ronald looking at herself like a grandchild, wanting to know the answer, Pauline Carr smiled, scolding him this time, it was a good effect, she didn't look like a master , slipped into the filming machine for the popcorn commercial.

   "Because the Vietnam War changed the minds of Americans, idiot."

   "Huh? Vietnam War?"

  Ronald raised his head. He found that he couldn't keep up with the old lady's line of thinking. He came from a family of Vietnam War veterans, didn't he think that he was different from others in thinking?

  Pauline Carr knew that Ronald hadn't thought about this deep artistic shift in the film market, and went on.

"It turns out that we Americans are from the Neo-Babylonians who think we are destined to be blessed by God. But the Vietnam War made us fall down from the moral level, sending the children of the poor to Vietnam to bomb those innocent people, and we failed, let us know He is not morally flawless.

   And the products of Dongying people are of high quality and low price, which further exacerbates this problem. We have no sense of superiority in industry and technology, except morally. "

   Ronald nodded and said yes, the Vietnam War did have a great psychological impact on the American people. A very obvious change is that the baby boom is over, and a new generation of young people is unwilling to have children.

   "The most serious consequence of the Vietnam War is a huge change in the understanding of guilt. The American people have a new and completely different understanding of what guilt is."

   "Guilty?"

   "We have lost the moral superiority of the Puritans among the immigrants on the Mayflower. We used to believe that we would get better and better, that we would conquer all evil and demons.

   And after the Vietnam War, we found that maybe evil is not so easy to defeat, we have the possibility of defeat, maybe we will have to coexist with them. We are not as morally, technically, or technically superior to other human beings as we think. "

   Ronald didn’t quite understand, what does this so-called guilt have to do with Italians dominating the New Hollywood movement?

"Italians, and many of the new generation directors, are Catholics. Unlike the Puritans that founded America, they were brought up with a full guilt education. We are all guilty, and every week Go to the pastor to confess.

   Just this mentality is consistent with the general feeling of modern American people, so the movies they make are also psychologically in line with the psychological state of the audience at that time.

   Plus visualization is the forte of Italians, look at those Renaissance paintings and architecture, they are born to make movies like world famous paintings. "

"Oh……"

  Ronald fell into deep thought, Pauline Carr, as a top film critic, looks at issues from a very different perspective than the director. He was pretty sure, at least when Scorsese and Coppola made the movie, there was absolutely no Catholic guilt in mind.

   But there may be some truths from different angles. These are all subconscious minds that are integrated into the bottom layer of the director's thinking. You may not be aware of their existence at ordinary times, but when you are making a movie, you are always affected.

"Then what kind of culture does your subconscious have? The new generation of consumerism in Hollywood? Or the teachings of Confucius from the previous life of Chinese descent?" Ronald thought about himself, the old lady's greatness was not in her cursing or the teaching of Confucius. Compliment people, but inspire thinking.

   "Looks like you agree with me," Pauline Carr mistakenly thought Ronald was thinking about the New Hollywood style of directing.

   "I heard you were educated, you've seen a lot of Hollywood movies from the golden age. At that time, Puritan and Jewish directors dominated Hollywood. It was a completely different era.

  Jews like to expose the dark side of society and then correct him, so they are in tune with the social reality of the 1930s and World War II. Society has problems, someone exposes them, then someone corrects them, and our society moves on.

  The Puritans have more destiny beliefs, such as when we fight the Germans and the little Japan, the whole world depends on the Americans to save..."

  Ronald understood what Pauline meant. Movies reflect social reality. If your cultural and educational background coincides subconsciously with the culture of the majority of American audiences, then your film will not only sell well, but also have a foothold in film history.

   I wonder what the cultural subconscious of the new generation of young people after the 1980s is? Maybe their own movies just fit their cultural subconscious?

   "Nowadays, Jewish directors and actors don't make serious dramas anymore. It's not that they don't want to make them, but they don't get the audience's love when they make them. Now Jewish people mainly go to make comedies, just like Jerry Zucker and the others.

   They don't make movies about the mainstream values ​​of social reality, even Spielberg doesn't make movies that reflect social reality anymore. Spielberg is great, his innocence, detail, a lot of it is great, but he's not the one to reflect on the big issues in society today. "

   "Whereas directors from Puritan backgrounds, such as George Lucas, prefer to explore science fiction and film technology, and without one to reflect social reality, the art of film will die."

   After saying that, Pauline Carr looked at Ronald with burning eyes.

   "Huh? Me?" Ronald found the old lady's subtext, the future of the movie depends on you!

   "I can't, I just follow my intuition to make movies, hoping to entertain the audience. If I think about it decades later, I can still use it as a talking point, then I will be satisfied."

   Ronald waved his hand quickly, joking, to be the successor of Hollywood classic directors, to reflect major social real problems, and he was not that material. And now Hollywood is no longer the Hollywood of the past. It can't make money. Anything that reflects the dark side of serious reality is suicide.

"No, I always thought you had the potential to be a movie guru. You act on your gut, regardless of the clichés. That's the typical quality of a guru. Human intuition doesn't need to be quantified by theory, human intuition is human emotions and minds All the sums of , only second-rate directors need formulas, and first-rate directors only need to act according to their intuition.”

   "You're overrated. There's very little room for directors in today's films. If you don't find out what the audience likes to watch, it's likely to fail at the box office. If it's three times in a row, I'll have to say goodbye to Hollywood."

   "Hey..." Pauline also knows that the Hollywood market is shrinking now. If a movie can drag the audience from the TV to the cinema, the industry is very different from what she was familiar with back then.

   The two put down this topic and continued to chat about some other movies. Pauline Carr's comments on the major directors are very sharp, and she is more maverick. She especially likes some movies that are not favored by mainstream film critics, and also hates some movies that are generally favored.

  According to her statement, most of the current film critics are the sister-in-law of the producer who can't find a job, and they just give them a position to make some money.

"The left-wing novels and movies are where masterpieces come from, because they dare to attack the major problems of society. You can pay more attention to left-wing art. Stop making those popcorn movies, if you want to If Qing Shi leaves his name."

   When Ronald finally left, Pauline Carr still instructed him to read more left-wing literature and art.

   "Left-wing novels?" Ronald doesn't really believe this. The economy has developed well since the chief took office. Now everyone is busy making money, and no one is interested in caring about the dark side of society. If you have this skill, you might as well invest in stocks, or work two jobs to get a mortgage and buy a house.

   But what Pauline said is very enlightening. If you want someone to remember her movie decades later, you must grasp the pulse of the times and consciously grasp the psychology of the audience today.

   Just like the current "Top Gun", it fits the American people's mentality of wanting to defeat the Soviet Union. Ronald went to a movie theater in New York to check the box office again.

   In the afternoon, the box office of "Top Gun" was still very good, and many young people, including fathers and children, came together.

   "Huh? What is this?" Ronald found a booth under the "Top Gun" poster, and there were two men in navy uniforms watching everyone from behind the booth.

   "Is this Paramount's new marketing method? Or is it selling a model of a fighter jet?" Ronald stepped forward to take a look.

   "Sir, do you want to join the Navy? Do you want to be a carrier fighter pilot like the Lone Ranger? Just fill out the form here."

   "No, but thank you."

   Is this movie so popular? Is the navy recruiting?

   Happy birthday to infinityykz, a reader who studied film at NYU, and a successful study.

   (end of this chapter)