Hollywood Road - Chapter 705

The sky in Venice in August is clear and charming, and the water surface is as smooth as a mirror. Even the reflection of the sun will not shake at all. When you look up, it is a blue and tranquil, which can be called the water and the sky. At this time, Lido Island is the busiest every year At that moment, the famous Venice Film Festival kicked off on August 27th.

The long red carpet stretches from a distance to the top of the pier, welcoming the VIP guests coming by boat.

Among the guests coming by boat today, in addition to the members of the jury of this Venice Film Festival, the most important ones are the members of the “Focus” crew. “Focus” will not only participate in the competition of the main competition unit of this Venice Film Festival, but also It is still relatively rare to be selected as the opening film of this Venice Film Festival.

As the crew of the opening film, Murphy and other Stantonists were the last to walk on the red carpet.

This section of the red carpet gave Murphy a deserted feeling. There were a lot of media reporters, but very few movie fans.

According to what he had seen in the newspapers, this year’s Venice Film Festival had at least one third more media reporters than in previous editions. Many reporters came for Focus and Stanton’s followers.

Murphy will not be scornful. At the beginning of March, he won the Oscar for Best Director. Stanton’s James Franco and Margot Robbie won Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. It is the cost of multimedia attention, especially the contradiction between him and the Catholic Church, which has risen to the level of Hollywood movies. Twentieth Century Fox has done enough publicity and hype for “Focus”, and it is difficult not to attract media attention.

The dense crowd of protesters not far from the red carpet is the best proof.

Before the “Focus” crew arrived, the 71st Venice Film Festival opened amid protests and whistles. The various whistles and slogans came from the protest team of Catholic believers on the side of the red carpet. They were numerous and held high. The number of slogans supporting Catholicism completely surpassed the number of fans watching the red carpet…

The lack of fan attention is not a year or two. This is a problem that the Venice Film Festival has often encountered in the past ten years.

However, Murphy came here for his own purpose, to create momentum in the place closest to the Catholic Church. The original crew did the same, and the final result also proved that the actual effect is very good.

“Look here!”

In the media area in front of the Venice Cinema Palace, Murphy and Gal Gadot stood in a row with all the Stantonists, allowing the media reporters to take pictures.

This is also a big gathering of the Stanton party members.

“There are a lot of reporters.”

At the end of the group photo, Robert Downey Jr. looked around, “There are so few movie fans.”

James Franco shrugged, “The Venice Film Festival is down.”

Murphy and others nodded slightly, fully agreeing with James Franco’s statement.

Indeed, as the crew of the opening film, this evaluation of the Venice Film Festival is not quite authentic, but the actual situation lies here. It is not that Murphy and others will not say that it can get better.

“If there weren’t those protesting guys.” Jonah Hill looked at the place where the protesters gathered, “This Venice Film Festival is too deserted.”

Margot Robbie seemed nonchalant, “The more people protesting, the better. Only then will there be a topic.”

Several people walked to the front of the Venice Film Palace, greeted the members of the jury of the film festival headed by Alexander Disprat, and then walked into the main entrance of the Film Palace under the leadership of the organizer’s staff.

“You and Gadot don’t seem to be in good spirits.”

Seth Rogen found that Murphy and Gal Gadot spoke very little today, “Is the jet lag not bad?”

“Don’t mention it.” Murphy shook his head. “Last night was a nightmare.”

Compared to Venice’s reputation, the service in the hotel industry here is simply terrible.

Last night, his experience of staying in a hotel in Venice was terrifying. At two o’clock in the middle of the night, he and Gal Gadot were awakened from their sleep by a scream, then the door slammed loudly and the windows creaked in the wind. The screams, the sound of constantly moving furniture, one after another like a weird sonata…

After tossing for nearly two hours, Murphy had to change the room.

During the two days in Venice, if it wasn’t for another purpose, to create momentum for the film and make the people who attacked him look good, Murphy may have left with the “Focus” crew a long time ago.

In the past two days, including today’s opening ceremony, the impression given to people is very direct-the Venice Film Festival is really in decline.

Not only Murphy, but many people who came to the festival have expressed such sighs. The market is shrinking, the guests are shrinking, the stars are dimming… This world’s oldest film festival has encountered another predicament. There have been several blows before. The Venice Film Festival is deadlocked or even closed, but the pain in recent years has been particularly real.

Of all the films that were premiered or released during the film festival, the most sold movie ticket was “Focus” as the opening film. The average pre-sale of ten screenings was close to one-fifth. In this era, such pre-sales The sales are really low enough, but the pre-sales of other films are even worse, not even one-fifteenth of the pre-sales.

Murphy has contacted several reporters, and they lamented that the movies are not so crowded. This is a good thing, but it just shows the lack of popularity of the film festival. There will definitely be no sessions in the future to fill up, and there will always be rows of empty seats. Compared to the crowded Cannes, this scene is a bit sour.

The Venice Film Festival has encountered a lot of trouble in recent years. Marco Muller resigned and left a movie palace unfinished. The new head, Barbera, prefers the artistry and purity of film, but happened to catch up with Toronto. With the rise of the film festival and the aftermath of the economic crisis in Europe, he originally wanted to revitalize the film festival market, but found that no one was buying it.

Before this film festival, there were various rumors. There were news that Venice might be rescheduled to avoid Toronto’s edge. Even the mainstream Italian media “Evening Post” wrote an article pointing out that the number of film festival registrations has dropped sharply…

The shrinking European market and the unsuccessful Italian film industry cannot save Venice’s decline. It can be seen at the opening ceremony that Hollywood stars are always the most popular.

Hollywood movies are the culprit in all this.

Beginning in the 1990s, the globalization of Hollywood films has made major film festivals “going down to earth”, whether it is Venice, Cannes or Berlin, failing to maintain the youthful posture of the last century.

The fading of the “Golden Lion” is obvious. In the past 20 years, the Venice Film Festival has been the most preferred starting station for Oscar-seeded players, and it is also the most important focus of major Hollywood film companies, especially companies that own Oscar films. On the battlefield, many Oscar-winning films have used this place as the starting point for their long journey to the Austrian road.

But today is not what it used to be. Taking this year’s film festival as an example, in addition to the very topical “Focus” that has attracted much attention, other seemingly “cold” film lists have been complained by countless people for boring.

In the media articles of various countries, “starlight”, “anticlimax”, and “award upset” have become the labels of the Venice Film Festival in recent years. Although a little harsh, they are considered appropriate.

Nowadays, Barbera, the head of the Venice Film Festival, regards the excavation of films from the periphery of the world and countries without a history of filmmaking as the primary task of this oldest film festival. At the beginning of his appointment, the Italian domestic media once said, ” Barbera is trying to separate the Venice Film Festival from Hollywood, and independent art may become a new feature of the Venice Film Festival.”

This is what Murphy didn’t understand before, he was too strange to the Venice Film Festival.

Therefore, after seeing that the Venice Film Festival has become more and more distant from Hollywood in recent years, the number of films with Hollywood backgrounds in Venice has been declining, and after several years have not won the major awards of the Venice Film Festival, Murphy also commented on “Focus “I have great doubts about whether I can get the Golden Lion Award.

Like this kind of film festival, the personal will of the controller has a very obvious influence on the final awards.

During the two days he came here, Murphy has already seen that the reason why the Venice Film Festival agreed to “Focus” to participate in the competition unit, and was selected as the opening film, on the one hand is the result of the decline of Catholic forces in modern society, on the other hand It is the topic and attraction that the Venice Film Festival needs him and “Spotlight”.

To put it bluntly, the organizers of the film festival want to use Murphy’s reputation to attract more people’s attention.

However, Murphy also needs the stage of the Venice Film Festival to let the nearby Vatican see what they are doing.

In the words of Margot Robbie, countless Hollywood colleagues are waiting for Murphy to invade Hollywood’s Catholicism again!

Entering the movie palace, Murphy took the crew quickly to the screening hall, and there was a warm applause.

“Focus” is about to start screening.

In a sunny office in the Vatican, the elderly Pope Benedict XVI suddenly put down his pen and asked the people standing next to him, “Is the Venice Film Festival opening today?”

“Yes, sir.” The middle-aged priest looked at his watch. “The opening film should begin to be screened.”

Benedict XVI stood up, walked to the window, looked at the small square outside, and said, “You are a public relations expert in the Vatican. I ask you, will this be a film that has undergone a lot of falsification or production. Bad movie?”

“No.” The middle-aged pastor was very honest. “The director of the film is Murphy Stanton. This person has always only produced high-quality films. After he became famous, the influence of every film is world-class. We…”

He shook his head, “We shouldn’t have extravagant hopes. I think we must deal with the worst.”

“I have been at the Cardinal Council and proposed to remove Marquez Costello’s regional archbishop’s position.” Benedict XVI’s eyes looked a little cloudy, “return him to the Vatican to look at the library.”