"I'm deeply shocked by your coldness and cruelty, Dufrey. I can even feel the coldness in front of you. On behalf of the Supreme Court of Maine, I sentence you to two life sentences in this order, one for each person, immediately, without parole, without the above!" Andy Dufrey's face turned pale as the judge's cold sentence was announced.
What would be worse than being thrown into jail? What could be more serious than this? When they passed through the prison gate, the camera looked up and made the viewers feel suffocated. The warden's blatant words, "Give your faith to God, give your body to me", gave the viewers a preliminary understanding of the despair in prison.
However, surprisingly, most people, whether it was Rhett in the movie or the audience in front of the screen, thought Andy would cry on the night of his imprisonment, but he accepted his situation very calmly. Just like what Rhett said during the break, he was like a free man among these prisoners.
The story continued to develop. Reid was like a fish in water in prison, the brutality of the prison guards, and the perverseness of the three sisters were revealed one by one. The audience was worried, angry, and confused at the same time. Did Andy really kill his wife?
The answer to this question was revealed when they were repairing the roof. Andy risked being pushed down the stairs by the prison guard captain in exchange for 3 bottles of beer for each of his friends. Under the morning sun, the prisoners drank the refreshing beer. Andy watched them with a smile, like a normal worker taking a break.
After Andy helped the prison guard captain evade taxes, he started to enter the warden's sight. He was then transferred to the library to keep Ol 'Butch company. Then he started to launder money for the warden. He was like Ol 'Butch who was released from prison on parole but ended up hanging himself in his room. Slowly, he was institutionalized. Writing a letter to the state parliament to ask for funds to build a library seemed like a last ditch effort, until The Marriage of Figaro started to play in the prison.
"That day, I didn't understand what the two Italian ladies were singing, and I didn't want to understand …" Rhett's narration rang out, but in the audience's heart, another line echoed: Some birds are not meant to be kept in cages, because every feather of theirs shines with the light of freedom!
Finally, the climax came. Tommy, who was imprisoned for theft, was cleared of suspicion. Unfortunately, the warden did not intend to speak up for him. How could he let a prisoner who was in charge of his secrets slip away? Andy angered the warden and was put into solitary confinement. Although he fought back, he failed and even lost Tommy's life.
Was everything about to end? When it was revealed that Andy had taken several feet of rope from his friend, when the camera paused on Andy sitting quietly on the bed, when Reid said, "Everyone has a hard time," the audience held their breath. At this point, no one was willing to see the tragic ending.
Indeed, they did not see the sudden twist of the plot. When the camera zoomed out from the hole that Andy escaped to, when the warden's twisted face was captured, when Andy carefully planned his escape through the stinking sewer, when Andy stretched out his hands to look at the night sky in the rain, under the powerful and passionate music, the audience's suppressed emotions were released. Long sighs of relief could be heard everywhere in the theater.
The movie finally ended. All the bad guys were punished, and Reid, who was sincerely remorseful because of Andy, was released on parole. Then, the two reunited on the sunny beach and embraced.
The lights in the theater came on. After a few minutes of silence, applause suddenly broke out. At first, there was only one person, but soon, two more joined in, and more joined in. In the end, the applause was so loud that it could flip the roof.
"Looks like everyone still likes this movie." Adriaan, who was sitting in a private room, looked at the scene in the theater and said proudly. Laffern glanced at him but did not say anything. He lowered his head and started writing in his notebook.
Soon, an employee reported back the information from the pre-screening. Adriaan, who was holding the report, whistled. "Look, Laffer, the reviews are basically 8 to 9, and there are a few 10. As for the suggestions, they are all within my expectations, so I can ignore them."
"This is indeed a good movie." Laffern nodded in agreement.
"Then, I will inform Universal and leave the promotion to you." Adriaan stared at him without blinking.
"I understand." Laffern stopped what he was doing, raised his head, and nodded seriously again.
He knew very well the reason why Adriaan was speaking so seriously. The Oscars! As the most influential film award in the United States, the honor that the Academy Awards represented was incomparable to other awards, whether it was the Golden Globes, the Directors Guild Awards, or the Film Critics Association Awards. Every year, when the Oscars were held, there would be a war. Every film company would do everything in their power to promote their films and actors, from nominations to awards.
As Adriaan said, all award ceremonies were just a way to divide the cake. Whether it was the European Film Festival or the Oscars, as long as they were qualified to participate, they could hope to get a piece of the cake. As for whether they could get a piece of the cake or not, it depended on the means of promotion and PR.
Generally speaking, for a film or an actor to be nominated and win an award, promotion and PR accounted for at least 40% of the credit. Especially if they won an award, this proportion would increase by 5%. Unless the film or actor had an indisputable advantage, for example, 90% of the film critics and the public agreed that the film or actor should win the award, or the other nominated films and actors were too far behind the film or actor.
This sounded unacceptable. Shouldn't the judges of such a well-known film award be impartial and fair? However, the reality was so regrettable. Humans would be affected, and humans would be biased. Of course, it was impossible for the judges not to be human, so it was certain that they would be influenced or have subjective opinions about certain films.
As long as the promotion was in place and the PR was effective, the judges would naturally be biased towards certain films and actors unknowingly and vote for them. It wasn't that the Film School hadn't thought of a solution. One of the measures was that all 5,000 members were judges. This did ensure fairness to a certain extent. After all, compared to the Golden Globes, which only had 99 judges, it was not easy to influence 5,000 people.
However, this impartiality was only to a certain extent. The 5,000 members of the Film Academy seemed to be quite large, but less than half of them could really influence the judges. It was just like those European film festivals, where the judges from their own countries always had a greater say. Therefore, after ensuring the quality of the film, the competition other than quality became the main factor that determined the winner. If there was a huge publicity tool in hand, it could be seen, heard, and noticed by the judges at any time. Then, it would almost be in an invincible position. This was the power of the media.
Of course, ordinary people would not see these. They would only see the various predictions of the critics, the various shows on the red carpet of the Oscars, and the beautiful and gorgeous pictures. They would not and could not notice the various things behind the scenes. This was also the power of the media.
Therefore, Adriaan had fulfilled his promise to produce a film that was qualified to be nominated. As such, whether or not he could get a ticket to next year's Oscars depended on Laffern's publicity work.
"Well, then let's talk about another problem." Adriaan immediately changed the topic. "The preparation of the new film."
Laffern suddenly showed a wry expression. He really did not know what to say about this. Adriaan's pace was too fast and too big, and he felt that he could not keep up with him. It was undeniable that since he acquired Bosworth Films, the two low-budget, high-box office films that he produced immediately changed the company's current situation. In particular, the box office of "Fragments of Memory" was only a few million less than "Two Smoking Pipes", but it won a high reputation. The last time this happened to Bosworth Films was several years ago.
In addition, his vision for investing in films was extremely sharp. For example, "Terminator 2", which was released in July, had a global box office of more than 400 million, and it had not been released in several countries yet. The final global box office was likely to exceed 500 million!
Since there was a good start, it was natural for the company to develop steadily and steadily. However, Adriaan chose to rush forward. Before "Fragments of Memory" went offline, he began to prepare for the medium-scale investment of "The Shawshank Redemption". This time, his goal was no longer some film festival, but the Oscars! In addition, he also invited director Spielberg to produce "Jurassic Park", and he was preparing to cooperate with Disneyland to produce a live-action version of "Ghost Horse and Fairies".
Well, Laffern admitted that "The Shawshank Redemption" was an excellent film, and was fully qualified to compete for the Oscars. He also admitted that with the precedent of "Terminator 2", if "Jurassic Park" could really make a realistic dinosaur CG, it might make a lot of money; and "Ghost Horse and Fairies" had the accumulated popularity of the animation, as long as the director and producer could grasp the selling point, it was also possible to make a lot of money. But not only did Adriaan not stop, he ran even more crazily. The post-production of "The Shawshank Redemption" had just ended, but he was already preparing for a new film, and he was going to produce three films in the next year. He also said that he was going to support a Best Actor and a Best Actress to the stage, and he was going to be nominated for Best Director!
As a senior in the entertainment industry, Laffern had seen many arrogant, paranoid, and eccentric directors and producers, but it was the first time he had seen someone like Adriaan. He was neither arrogant nor paranoid, and he was very cultured, but when it came to movies, he would become extremely confident, as if he was always right. Indeed, there was no doubt about Adriaan's ability. He had been right so far, but the question was, could he always be right?
Maybe … he could? Although he had raised objections to Adriaan's approach a long time ago, deep in Laffern's heart, he did not want to see another miracle happen.
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