Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Hello, Kiki! How are you?" Peter Bogdanovich greeted a puppy.

Ronald accepted Bogdanovich's offer to meet Orson Welles, the Hollywood wonder.

"Don't mess with her, Qiqi will bite." Sitting on a chair in a corner of my Little Chef restaurant was a fat, old man with a beard.

"Orson, this is my friend Ronald Lee. He is also a film director. His film 'Fast Richmond High' took 40 million at the box office. He likes your movie very much. He heard that I want to Let’s have lunch with you and come to see you.”

"Ah, I've seen that movie. It's a standard B-level exploitation film."

"Hello, Mr. Welles, nice to meet you. I didn't expect you to have seen one of my movies." Ronald said to Orson Welles.

"I have very mixed tastes in movies. As long as my legs and feet are convenient, I will go watch them."

Although Orson Welles is very old, and he hasn't made a movie for a long time, the genius of his time is still there, and he can dominate a conversation with just a few words.

"I don't have enough money right now, Orson. When my 'They All Laughed' is re-released and I make enough money, I can reboot your movie 'The Other Side of the Wind.'" Bogdanovich said Wells said.

"It turns out that Orson Welles still wanted to make movies." Ronald couldn't help but respect him. He was still working hard to attract investment for his own movies when he was nearly 70 years old.

"You make fewer movies now. In the 1970s, you made a lot of good movies." Orson Welles began to praise Bogdanovich in his words.

"Many directors of our generation have struggled to produce works. Marty Scorsese's recent films have all failed at the box office..." Bogdanovich once published an interview with Orson Welles, and the two They were old friends and we started chatting.

"They watch too many movies. Creators shouldn't watch too many movies. Spielberg, Scorsese, and that Brian De Palma. He's always imitating Hitchcock, In fact, his shots are better than Hitchcock, there is no need to imitate him.”

Ronald was a little confused. As a director, shouldn't he watch more classic movies to absorb nutrients? Why did Orson Welles say you shouldn't watch too many movies?

It would be fine if this were said by an ordinary director. Welles was a genius who made the masterpiece "Citizen Kane" at the age of twenty-three, and is a figure respected by many directors. He may have some profound meaning in saying this.

"Why don't you talk, young man." Orson Welles talked a lot, noticed that Ronald didn't say a word, just listened to him and Bogdanovich bragging quietly, so he asked him .

"I thought your conversation was interesting, so I didn't interrupt."

Orson Welles winked at Ronald, "I often eat at my little kitchen. Their seafood salad is pretty good. Would you like some?"

"Sir, we are out of seafood salad."

"Why is it still on the menu if it's gone? It shouldn't be on the menu if it's gone. I want to eat but I can't order it. Isn't that a disappointment?" Wells couldn't eat his favorite seafood and complained a few words, " Then have some chicken salad.”

"I don't like the capers in your chicken salad," Bogdanovich said. "Can you please take the capers out?"

"Have you not seen how many customers there are now? You want the chef to pick out pickles for you when you are so busy?" Orson Welles was surprised, "It's up to you."

"Is there crab salad? If so, give me some." Ronald decided to follow Wells's suggestion and order another dish. For such a busy chef, Bogdanovich still made such a request. It would be bad if the chef added some ingredients to it.

"Smart choice." Orson Welles praised, "You seem to be very silent. Listening is a very important director's ability, but I am not good at it."

"He's an admirer of yours and loves your movies very much. Don't scare him, Orson." Bogdanovich triumphantly introduced Ronald to Welles as his fan.

"Oh, you are so young, have you ever seen my movie?"

"Yes, I attended the film department at New York University for two years. One of the courses was classic film appreciation. Sometimes CBS Evening Theater would also show your films, Mr. Wells."

"Orson is a genius, and his 'Citizen Kane' is an eternal classic. I think that movie should be ranked first in the history of Hollywood movies."

"Giggle..." Orson Welles still laughed happily when he heard the praise for his movie, even though it had been many years.

"Which Orson movie do you like? Ronald?" Bogdanovich turned to Ronald.

“I actually prefer ‘Toubsp;of Evil’.”

"Oh, the long shots of that movie are very good. Today's film students should study hard." Bogdanovich began to express his opinions again.

"What about you? Which part of The Lost Lady do you like?" Orson Welles seemed to be more interested in Ronald and started to ask him.

"I like the beginning, but that long shot still confuses me. I don't know how it was shot. I've always wanted to ask you in person, Mr. Wells."

"Orson spent a whole night shooting that long shot, and finally finished the last one before dawn. Can't you see it? It's actually the movement of the camera and the coordination with the actors. The car and the bomb are always placed in the middle of the picture."

"I'm talking about the long shot in the hotel, Mr. Bogdanovich." Ronald interrupted.

"Hahahaha... Few people can tell that it is a long shot. The producer of Universal cut a roll of film in the middle, and it looks like it was shot in two parts. In fact, it is a complete shot."

Orson Welles was very happy. After the biography written by Bogdanovich was published, many people regarded him as a master, but most of them had never seen his own movies. It was boring to use Bogdanovich's evaluation to flatter him.

Ronald, who had seen his movies and shot them himself, could also point out some things that others didn't notice, which just scratched his itch.

"The wall of the hotel is movable. After I finished shooting this side, I moved the camera over there. There are many sets and props. I feel like I have to tear down the wall here. When the camera goes back, I can shoot the scene in the room from the outside."

"Actually, there is one thing I don't quite understand, Mr. Welles. Why do you have music and subtitles in the opening shot?"

"That's a Hollywood convention." Bogdanovich began to popularize science again.

"I just think that the subtitles and music destroyed the suspense of the bomb explosion." Ronald replied.

The opening plot of "Touch of Evil" is that a bad guy sets a time bomb to three minutes and puts it in the trunk of a car. The audience knew there was a bomb from the beginning and waited to see when it would explode.

The subtitles and the opening music are exactly three minutes, but if it is handled this way, the audience knows that the bomb will explode when the subtitles end and the music stops, and loses the expectation of suspense.

Ronald never understood Welles's treatment of this section, and asked it on the spot when he had the opportunity today.

"That was added by Warner. There were no subtitles and soundtracks in my original storyboard." Orson Welles looked at Ronald. The young man just asked about his pain point.

This movie happened to be the first movie Orson Welles shot after returning to Hollywood from Europe. The senior executives of Universal thought that he could no longer direct, so they re-edited the movie according to their own ideas.

Because of the contract, they had to give Welles the final edited version, but only once.

After watching the finished film, Orson Welles suppressed his anger and wrote a memorandum, listing several inappropriate places in the finished film, and in a humble tone, asked Universal to correct it according to artistic views. Including removing the subtitles and soundtracks at the beginning to keep the audience in suspense.

But Universal was one of the eight major studios at the time, and ignored his request. The film was still screened according to their editing, and the box office was not good. After that, Orson Welles was considered to have run out of ideas and rarely had the opportunity to get investment to shoot movies.

"At that time, directors had no right to edit?"

"Of course, in the so-called golden age, the studios took back the right to edit. You may not know this because you are too young. In our era, aspiring directors never shoot master shots."

"Why?" Master shots are the standard method in Hollywood. Why don't aspiring directors shoot them?

"With master shots, they can edit randomly. Without master shots, the general plot can only be edited according to my wishes. John Ford and others at that time did not shoot master shots."

"So that's how it is." Ronald returned to the listening mode and began to listen to the two directors bragging.

"Katharine Hepburn was messing around on the set, and I didn't like her. She used that high school accent to say vulgar things, saying how John Hughes had... fucked her on the sofa."

"Clark Gable's wife, Carol Lombard, was also full of swear words, but she wasn't annoying. She came from the lower class and didn't know how to talk without swearing. She was really vulgar, but cute."

"Grace Kelly was also messing around, and she would have sex whenever she got the chance in the dressing room, but she never talked about her love affairs, and I liked her very much."

"I have to go, Orson. I have to meet with the top executives of Time magazine in the afternoon and ask them to sell the distribution rights of They All Laughed back to me. Wish me good luck." Bogdanovich boasted to Welles for a while, finished his lunch, and stood up to leave.

Ronald stood up, called the waiter over, and paid the bill. Orson Welles's clothes looked like he didn't have much money. Bogdanovich was also raising money to re-release his girlfriend's posthumous work, so he should pay for it.

Maybe Bogdanovich brought him here for this reason.

"Ronald, my knees are starting to hurt again. Can you take me home?" Orson Welles suddenly said to Ronald.

"No problem. I'll drive the car to the door." Ronald replied.

"You don't like Bogdanovich?" Sitting in the back seat of the car, Orson Welles suddenly said to Ronald.

"Not really. I just don't understand his private life." Ronald replied.

"Are you morally obsessed? Do you think Peter is morally corrupt?"

"No, I don't condemn him. It's just that Stratten is still married, and since Peter is living with her, he should help her solve this matter." Ronald expressed his thoughts.

"Peter is just like that, hard on others but relaxed on himself," Orson Welles said. "His wife was an art director. Polly Pratt was the one who made the biggest contribution to the success of many of Peter's early films.

But he abandoned Polly for the heroine of a movie, Sybil Shepherd. Of course I don't blame him, Sybil is a beauty, anyone would be fascinated by her.

My movie is not finished, and now I have to rely on Peter to get financing, so I can't say too much bad about him. Hahaha."

"You You should relax a little. The emotions of artists are their greatest advantage. The good actors I know are not very smart. Emotions are their greatest advantage. Artists are not a group of people who are bound by the moral constraints of the public.

Without strong emotions to express, you can't direct good works. Find more beautiful women, which is the source of creation. When I was shooting the movie "Women of Magic City", Rita (Rita Hayworth) said that she still loved me. I was motivated all of a sudden and made the best movie of Rita's career. "

"Maybe it's my family background. I hope to have a complete family life." Ronald said a little about himself.

The car drove to Orson Welles's home. He had lived in Peter Bogdanovich's villa for a long time. His new home here is a small house he bought by saving money by participating in talk shows as a guest.

"Ronald, come here and help me." Ronald helped Orson Welles into the house.

"This is the editing and modification suggestions I wrote to Universal that year, a total of 24." Wells found a copy from the study and handed it to Ronald.

"If, I mean if, you have the opportunity to re-edit my 'Touch of Evil' in the future, here is a reference."

Ronald lowered his head and took it. There was Orson Welles' handwriting on it. He only read it once, and then wrote down many opinions. Ronald was amazed by his mastery and genius of his own movies.

"Talk to me. I haven't seen such an interesting young man like you for a long time." Orson Welles saw Ronald put away the copy and stopped talking about it.

"Why do you think directors shouldn't watch more movies?" Ronald remembered his evaluation and began to ask.

"Directing is divided into learning and creation stages. In fact, all the technical aspects of being a director can be learned by a smart person in a week."

Ronald remembered his own experience and nodded.

"If you always watch other people's movies, you will be influenced by others, and then you will never have your own way of expression. When I was shooting 'Citizen Kane', my director of photography was very happy because I didn't know anything, so the shots I shot were very free. Not constrained by Hollywood clichés..."