Li Tang likes to perform, a very pure kind, but he has no literary problems and will never pretend to be an artist. And he is very discerning and knows how to adapt to this society and adapt to various explicit or potential rules.
In the past, he may have been somewhat contemptuous of TV dramas, but since "Return of the Pearl" became popular and he himself benefited from it, his view of TV dramas has changed.
China's current situation is special. In the extremely sluggish film market, TV dramas are the mainstream. If you want to be recognized by the mainstream of society, you must keep up with the mainstream instead of pursuing those illusory things.
People often say that actors should keep a distance from the audience and have a sense of mystery so that the audience can buy tickets to see you. But this has a prerequisite. The premise is that you are popular enough and the audience wants to watch you. If you don't even know who you are, the audience still has a sense of mystery.
And if you really love performing, you must first have money, and at least you won’t be bothered by chai rice, sauce and vinegar tea. Movies are a luxurious art. If you want to go to a higher level and be able to choose the roles you like as you like, then being famous and rich enough are necessary conditions, and both are indispensable.
In Hollywood, superstars such as Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon are not only stars but also capital themselves, so they can create various classic characters.
Maybe there are still people who want to be a pure actor like Daniel Day-Lewis rather than a so-called superstar. But don’t forget that Dai Lewis’s ancestors were British aristocrats, and they had a lot of money. People can wait four to five years for a role, or seven or eight years before making a movie. Can ordinary people do that?
Li Tang is just a little star now. He wants to be famous and become a big star. Now that TV series are mainstream, he must work hard on TV series.
When he becomes famous and when the film market is once again brilliant, it won't be too late to talk about keeping a distance from the audience and maintaining a sense of mystery!
Or when he, like Tom Cruise, DiCaprio and others, is both a superstar and capital itself, then you will be able to create the character you want to create as you wish.
Only in this way can we have the conditions to build ourselves into a real performing artist instead of just pretending to be an artist.
The next day, Li Tang received the script sent by Jiang Xuerou. The script is quite thick, with a total of thirty episodes. Li Tang said hello to his work unit and took the script home to read.
The unit is like this. As long as you make achievements, win honors, and bring glory to the unit, then everything will be easy. Li Tang is very free now and can basically come and go back whenever he wants.
In fact, the income of the drama center is linked to the performance. If a drama is arranged, rehearsal subsidies and performance fees will be arranged. If there is no drama, then you can only receive a dead salary. Fortunately, most of them don't live on wages. Even if they don't get a role, they can usually shoot commercials, dub a voice, or go to various private acting training classes. These are all extra money.
Anyway, everyone has his own way.
It took Li Tang two days to read the script, and the fourth male lead Xing Zhengyang he was to play did not appear until the eighteenth episode. Fortunately, it is not a soy sauce character. As Jiang Xuerou introduced before, this character has an independent emotional line with the leading female daughter Xiuyun.
This is a drama with a female protagonist. The role of the female lead is actually a mother and daughter. The whole drama is divided into two parts according to their respective roles. The first half is about the emotional entanglement between the first female and the second female and the first and second male. Basically, the first female and the second female fall in love with the male one at the same time. The first male and the female first are in love, but they cannot be together for some reasons. The girl is also pregnant with the boy's child.
In the end, the first male had to marry the second female, whom he did not love but was rich and powerful. As for the two families that the first male and the second male belong to are hostile, the second male also falls in love with the first female, but he cannot fall in love.
The first girl was pregnant with the first boy's child, so she found the third boy, who had always had a crush on her, to be her successor, and gave birth to a daughter. But there was a conflict between the first man and the second man, and the first woman was also involved. The third man went crazy and wanted to kill the first man, but the first woman was accidentally killed by the third man in order to save the first man.
Then the third male was sent to the border for murder. The second male, who loved the first female, was angry with the first female because of the death of the female first. He vowed to be incompatible with the male one who indirectly killed the female first. At the same time, he adopted the female first's daughter.
Such a complicated relationship paves the way for a more complex plot in the second half.
In the second half, the daughter of Girl 1 and Boy 1 has grown up and looks almost exactly like Girl 1 back then. Because the adoptive father, Boy 2, can never forget Girl 1, he always has a special and subtle feeling for his adopted daughter, which in turn arouses the boy's feelings. The second wife was dissatisfied, but the biological son of the second man fell in love with the daughter of the first woman.
But the daughter of the first girl and the fourth boy grew up as childhood sweethearts and fell in love with each other. As a result, a series of emotional entanglements similar to those experienced by the first daughter more than ten years ago were triggered again. Fortunately, the daughter of the first daughter did not follow in the footsteps of the first daughter. After efforts from all parties, she finally got married to the fourth lover.
When Li Tang finished reading the script, he breathed a long sigh of relief. This was the most complicated story of emotional entanglements among all the scripts he had seen. To be exaggerated, he had to draw a character relationship diagram while reading, for fear of missing something. Be careful to get the relationship between the characters wrong.
According to Jiang Xuerou, the person who plays the role of the first daughter and the first daughter is Shui Ling, a new generation of Qiong girl. Li Tang watched her starring role in "There Are Tears in the Sky", and she is indeed as her name suggests, as ice-cold as water, and extremely beautiful and moving in her agility.
The male lead is played by martial arts actor Zhao Wenzuo, who was also known as "Li Lianyuan's Second", and the second male lead is Hong Kong singer and actor Liu Ximing.
It is precisely because of the joining of Zhao Wenzhuo that compared with the old version of "One Cut Plum", there are many more martial arts scenes.
As for the second female lead played by Qinggege and Wang Yan, she is a tragic character. First, I fell in love with someone I shouldn't have fallen in love with. Even though I couldn't get the love from my husband, I still had no regrets.
To be honest, in Li Tang's opinion, this drama, whether it's script or characters, is not brilliant, but it is at least better than "Returning the Pearl II".
Since he had nothing to do during this period of time, he didn't put up too much airs and directly told Nai'an that he had accepted the drama, leaving Nai'an to handle the rest.
As for Nai'an, Jiang Xuerou had actually contacted her earlier and was waiting for Li Tang's reply to start contract negotiations. This also showed from the side that Hainan Zhouyi valued Li Tang.
The negotiation went smoothly, and the fourth male lead appeared in a total of 14 episodes and was paid 8,000 per episode. In terms of this salary, Li Tang has already reached the level of a third-tier star.
…
After more than a year of hard work, "Suzhou River" was finally completed.
He is looking forward to this movie more than his debut film "Shanghai Chronicle". Maybe it’s because I spent more energy, maybe it’s because the collision with Zhou Xun made me feel better.
Nai'an also rushed back from the capital today. She was already preparing to get married. In her words: At the dawn of the new century, she wants to start over with a new identity.
In a screening room at the Shanghai Film Technology Factory in Baotong, Zhabei, Li Tang and Nai An sat together and chatted for a few words, mainly about work. "Xin Yi Jian Mei" will start shooting in November, because Li Tang's role is relatively low, and he will not join the cast until late December. Moreover, most of his scenes were filmed in Shengqiang Film and Television City in the suburbs of Shanghai. It is only half an hour's drive from his hometown in the suburbs, which is very convenient.
After Lou Ye fiddled with the projector at the back, he finally started showing it.
The lights dimmed, but the screen didn't light up.
After a while, a thin, broken sound came. It was very vague and I couldn't make out what it was. Immediately afterwards, Zhou Xun’s hoarse and iconic voice came:
"If I leave one day in the future, will you look for me?"
"Yes!"
"Will you keep looking?"
"Yes!"
"Will you always find death?"
"Yes!"
The conversation ends, and layers of fluctuations begin to appear on the screen.
Just like a stone was thrown in, as the fluctuations unfolded, the screen finally began to slowly light up, becoming more and more clear, and it could be seen that it was the fluctuations of the water surface.
Finally, a piece of black-green river water appeared.
The camera moves from the water to the old buildings that have been demolished into empty houses on the shore. From west to east, accompanied by melodious music, it sweeps over the towering chimneys, dull pedestrians, and mottled ferries...
The camera is set up on a boat and slowly slides along with the water, recording everything it sees.
Lou Ye sat aside and helped explain in a low voice. It is said that he used expired film for this opening. The rough grains and mottled colors on the picture, coupled with the slightly magnetic narration he dubbed himself, made the film very interesting. That kind of decadence, decline, sadness, and hypocrisy are vividly displayed.
This beginning shocked Li Tang. To be honest, this was probably the most outrageous beginning of a movie he had ever seen in his entire life.
Immediately after the main film begins, the shaky camera and subjective perspective advance the plot. From the beginning, it is Zhou Xun's one-man show, putting on makeup, chewing gum, smoking, and shopping. The familiar emerald green skirt and black stockings brought Li Tang back to the filming scene more than a year ago.
During the filming, it was repeated over and over again according to the director's wishes. The logic was confusing and the plot could not be connected. However, the finished film that I saw at this time was completely different.
The structure of the movie is actually very Western, with messy editing, various messy elements mixed together, and Lou Ye's narration to advance the plot simply and clearly.
Although the photography styles are very different, Li Tang has the same feeling as when he first watched "Pulp" in his previous life. The Ma Da he plays has very few lines and is always cool, with emotions mostly conveyed through his eyes. Although in the highlight, Nai An whispers her surprise in his ear, there are some plot points where he feels he should be better.
For example, when getting drunk at the Mermaid Bar, if he danced like Vincent in "Pulp", it might increase the tension of the character.
Compared to his plain and restrained character, Zhou Xun, who plays two roles, is undoubtedly bright, flamboyant and dazzling. Although she is thin and skinny, she can perform as sexy as Uma Thurman.
At the end of the movie, the camera is still facing the black-green Suzhou River, with the ferry undulating in the distance, and the twilight scene is dim.
Lou Ye's narration sounded again: "In this city, some people leave, some people decay, nothing lasts forever, and the only thing that remains unchanged is love..."
When the subtitles started rolling on the screen, Li Tang and Nai An unconsciously clapped their hands. Lou Ye undoubtedly brought them a surprise once again.
"Maybe it can be better." Li Tang clapped his hands and said to himself.
His applause was for the director, and even more so for Zhou Xun. He was the only one who couldn't help but feel a little regretful.
"What?"
Lou Ye, who was sitting next to him, had very pointed ears.
Li Tang turned around and said frankly: "I think I can be better."
"How to say?"
Li Tang told Lou Ye what he had just thought.
Lou Ye lit a cigarette, thought for a long time, and finally shook his head regretfully: "It's too late."
Because the film will be sent to the Netherlands to participate in the 29th Rotterdam International Film Festival in December.
"How was the review?" Li Tanglin asked again.
Lou Ye and Nai'an looked at each other and smiled bitterly. It turned out that the finished film had already been submitted for review, but just like the previous two times, there was no news as if nothing had happened.
Second update
(End of chapter)
