This director needs to apologize

Chapter 293 It’s not my problem but your problem
The story of Chen Yiming is adapted from the 2009 Hollywood movie "500 Days with Summer", produced by Fox Searchlight and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel.

This movie can be regarded as a love movie that is not a love movie. The beginning of the movie also clearly advertises itself, "This is not a love story."

From heartbreak to love, breakup due to pain, and rebirth from self-defeat, it has all the popular elements of a love movie, but it is indeed not a love story.

Chen Yiming has a personal definition of this type of film. He calls it a love education film, or a love education film for short.

Just like military education films such as "Mine Warfare" and "Tunnel Warfare", telling stories is only one aspect, and educating sentient beings is also one of its functions.

Different from the various toss-ups between men and women in ordinary love movies, the heroes and heroines in love education movies are mostly unforced lovers. The reason for their breakup rarely comes from sudden external pressure, but from innate Structural contradiction.

To put it in human terms, it means meeting the wrong person at the wrong time.

Two people with flaws meet, get to know each other, stay with each other, want to kill each other, collide, test, hurt, and grow with each other, turning each other into nourishment for their own maturity.

This is a kind of formulaic love, which is very immersive at first glance, because the male and female protagonists are all down-to-earth ordinary people, and the audience can find some shadows of their personal experiences in them.

But after being immersed in the story, the movie will inadvertently lead the audience to notice the typical characters of the male and female protagonists, and then analyze and explore based on their own experiences, why the male and female protagonists cannot be long-term, and who is the problem between them.

So who is right and who is wrong?

This is the narrative logic of love education films. There are only sketches of life, without right or wrong or attitude.

It's almost like, sitting up in a dying illness, the clown is myself.

Making movies has to make money. Just like military education films are just embellishments of war films, love education films are nothing more than porridge and side dishes compared with mainstream romance films.

In a sense, waiting for a person to grow up is also a kind of suffering.

Is Zoe really taking this relationship as lightly and calmly as shown in the movie?
Not really.

As the saying goes, when humans think, God laughs.

However, it is just right to deal with Xiangrui's "difficulty" at the moment.

Because when the audience starts to think in the screening room, the selling point of the movie has substantially shifted.

At this time, the audience's emotional projection is no longer the hero and heroine, but themselves.

Different audiences will have different interpretations, and their opinions are not even based on gender. There will be girls who sympathize with the confused and confused Joseph who was shocked, and there will also be boys who recognize Zoe's cautious attitude towards relationships.

The heroine Zoe has an erratic temperament, and her response to Jonzef is half-hearted. At best, it's called a trial relationship, but at worst, it's PUA.

The people on the stage are not the key to this discussion. When it comes to the discussion stage, every audience member participating in the discussion is the real actor.

Watching movies is to store your brain and have fun. No audience wants to sit in the screening room and take a big class.

Therefore, don't watch love-education films because their "ideological nature" generally has high ratings, but their box office and popularity are average. Such projects have never been popular.

Each flower enters each eye.

But if you watch the movie carefully and pay attention to every detail, you will find that the male protagonist is actually a big kid who is getting along. The female protagonist has given him many opportunities overtly and covertly, and the final decision to break up was also carefully considered.

For example, in "500 Days with Summer", the male protagonist Jonzef appears to be a young man with good conduct at first glance. He has an excellent job, a healthy life, a single-minded love, and MAX boyfriend power.

What the audience consumes is no longer the sensory stimulation of handsome men and beautiful women falling in love, nor is it just watching other people's love stories, but a general sense of participation in the social topic of men and women's interactions.

The male and female protagonists of love education films are equivalent to providing a stage for the audience to exchange opinions, allowing everyone to have a common basis for discussion.

Watching a movie with your brain is obviously not thinking, and therefore cannot make God laugh, but the movie director can indeed laugh.

The original cast of "Love Letter" is a two-parter, a romance film, breaking up the CP, but also to maintain the audience popularity of Dongxixi.

The only novel that Chen Yiming could think of was a love education film about demons.

Anyway, when Chen Yiming first watched "500 Days with Summer", he basically viewed the pairing of Jonzef and Zoe as teaching aids. There was no spark when they talked about it, and they were not disappointed when they broke up. plain.

While listening to the argument between Da Zhuang and Xiao Mei, Chen Yiming was thinking wildly, from "500 Days with Summer" to the movie "Love Like a Bouquet" from his childhood.

There are so many directors who like to break down the psychology of love for the audience!

Just as he was complaining secretly, the person listening to the story, Xiangrui, finally spoke.

"Yiming, I don't like stories told from the male protagonist's perspective, and the characters you described are so fragmented that I don't like either of the two protagonists. Is there a version of this story from the female protagonist's perspective? What kind of experiences has Xiaoxia suffered before? Emotionally traumatized, why did she agree to date Xiaodong after a week of resignation?

She said she didn't believe in love, so why did she meet the right person just a few days after the breakup? Why did she make such a judgment and even skip dating and directly get the marriage certificate?

I believe in your ability to tell stories. Xiaoxia's decision must be logical. I need details that support her decision. "

Xiangrui asked questions like a barrage of questions, as if he would not give up until he got an answer.

Chen Yiming smiled and said, "Aren't these the responsibilities of you as a director and screenwriter? As a project planner, I am already overloaded with work to the extent I am now."

Chen Yiming's perfunctory behavior attracted a lot of boos and denunciations, and no one was willing to let him go just like that.

In addition to the director Xiangrui reserves, Liu Dongjun and An Xixi, who have already booked the male and female protagonists, also showed additional concern.

In the current version of the story, the characters of the male and female protagonists are somewhat unpleasant. One is an eighty-and-a-half percent bitch, and the other is a ninety-nine percent scumbag.

Liu Dongjun was a junior with no human rights in the private room, so he could only choke in silence with a grimace on his face.

Miss An Xixi hugged her shoulders and expressed a clear uncooperative attitude, and even poured tea for Chen Yiming.

In the conscience of heaven and earth, Chen Yiming's evasion really has something to say. It's not that he took Qiao, but that he didn't think about it, or he didn't think about it at all.

There is no problem in building a framework based on "500 Days with Summer", but directly changing it into a Chinese story in one step is not something that can be completed in a short time.

The original film takes place every day in the gunfight. It is normal to lie down before confirming the relationship, and no one will make a fuss.

People put desire before love. After they have finished sleeping and feel that life is in great harmony, it is their turn to communicate with each other. The order of falling in love is completely opposite to that of Chinese people.

Not to mention that Chen Yiming wrote a pure love story, which is only a small step forward compared to "Love Letter". From the entanglement of eyes to the connection of hands, it can't go any further.

As a result, several key external performances are missing. Without chirping and hitting the bases, how can the audience understand that the relationship between the two has progressed?

Although this love affair was an untimely fate, the male and female protagonists had a serious and devoted relationship after all, and there was always a progress bar.

Otherwise, Xiaoxia would really be a scumbag who deceives her feelings.

The negotiation process needs to fill in the localization details, and the distribution process also needs to be carefully considered.

For example, what Xiangrui just asked about why Xiaoxia put on someone else's engagement ring soon after they broke up is worthy of careful consideration.

Different motives represent different characters and different intentions of the director.

The original film chose to ignore this and did not comment on the reason for Xiaoxia's engagement. Whether it was due to her true intention or the situation was completely impossible to guess from Zoe's performance.

Chen Yiming can understand the director's treatment.

"500 Days with Summer" is a story from the perspective of the male protagonist, and the main plot is the growth of Jonzef. Perhaps the director felt that it was enough to only show the external performance of the female protagonist, and the internal motivation was not important.

But now that Xiangrui wants to tell the story from the female protagonist's perspective, the entire book needs to be reconstructed.

Whether it is a major change to a story about the growth of the female protagonist, or a minor change to a story about the growth of the male protagonist in the eyes of the female protagonist, compared with Chen Yiming's original story, it is already a completely different story.

After thinking about it for a moment, Chen Yiming suddenly stopped thinking and used his good topic-changing technique. He looked at Xiangrui and asked, "Details aside, do you think this story can be filmed?"

Xiangrui was stunned for a moment, then nodded after a moment and said, "There's a lot of room for performance, I want to shoot it."

After finishing Xiangrui, Chen Yiming reached out and touched Liu Dongjun and An Xixi.

"What do you think? Xiaodong and Xiaoxia, do you want to act?"

Liu Dongjun replied with a confused look on his face, "To be honest, I don't know. I've always been chased backwards and I don't understand the psychology of dog licking.

But if Sister Xiangrui asks me to act, there is no way I can say no! "

An Xixi frowned and fell into deep thought. After a moment, she said, "I don't have much to say about the story itself, but it sounds like Xiaoxia has very high requirements for acting. She is completely different from the school beauty in "Love Letter". I feel that it is difficult for me." competent."

Chen Yiming spread his hands towards Xiangrui and said, "Look, it's not my problem now, but your problem."

(End of this chapter)