Chapter 387 Teacher Lin, I'm so happy

Under everyone's intense questioning, Lin Weimin recounted his experience.

When Lin Weimin mentioned that he is also the editor-in-chief of Contemporary, Arthur Miller added: "Contemporary is the most famous mainstream literary magazine in China, with sales of more than one million copies per issue."

"Genesis!" Woody Allen was so surprised that he almost swore, "Genius! I was right, you are indeed a genius!"

Everyone's expressions were equally astonished.

"It's hard for me to imagine such a situation happening in the United States, even though Lin is a genius!" said Sean Adam.

The others nodded in agreement.

Lin Weimin's situation is really special.

After only a short period of literary creation training, his creative inspiration was unstoppable. His works were published one after another, and were even published from the ancient East to the United States across the ocean, and were adapted many times.

At the age of twenty, he became the editor-in-chief of a large publication.

Such an experience is something that no one would dare to imagine, even in the United States, which is famous for its "American Dream".

This is not called fantasy, this is called magic!

"So, Lin, have you thought about it? Which work do you want to bring to the Broadway stage?"

Arthur Miller had praised Lin Weimin enough, and when everyone was busy asking about Lin Weimin's legendary experiences, he finally remembered the real business.

Lin Weimin pondered, and everyone stopped discussing and looked at him.

"The Horse Tamer, what do you think?"

Arthur Miller frowned and said, "Although this work is set during World War II, the war in the Far East is unfamiliar to us Americans. I'm afraid it will be difficult to arouse the interest of most people."

“Just like The Intouchables, we localized it and changed the background of the war of Nihong’s invasion of China to the war in Afghanistan.

There is a kite-flying game in Afghanistan where each kite flyer can challenge those around him or her and use their own kite to cut off the strings of others' kites.

The person who cuts the string of another person's kite is called a kite fighter, and the kite with the string cut off will belong to the person who catches it. The kite fighter and kite chaser correspond to Bayin and Bater respectively. "

The Afghan war that Lin Weimin mentioned was not the one launched by the Americans in 2001, but the one when the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

Lin Weimin is from Northeast China and has no good feelings towards me. Don’t ask why.

So I have no guilt in treating the Russians as villains; on the contrary, I feel a little happy.

"The Horse Lassoer" was originally created by his modified version of "The Kite Runner". Now that it has been exported to the US market, it is so easy to modify it!

When Arthur Miller heard Lin Weimin's idea, he couldn't help but applaud, "Great! Lin, your idea is absolutely brilliant. Ivy is right, you are a genius!"

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union has lasted for more than 30 years and is now in its white-hot stage. The Russians are now clearly in decline, and the American people have long hated the Soviet Union under the influence of ideological propaganda.

Arthur Miller could tell how much it would appeal to American audiences just by thinking about changing the background of "The Horse Lassoer" to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

He didn't care about the many guests present and couldn't wait to discuss the specific adaptation details of "The Horse Catcher" with Lin Weimin.

The two asked and answered each other, and the others did not feel left out at all. Instead, they listened with great interest.

Woody Allen listened to Lin Weimin expressing his thoughts as smoothly as a typewriter, and felt astonished.

The man in front of me was born for drama!

A welcome dinner seemed to be transforming into a drama salon.

Even after the meal, Arthur Miller and Lin Weimin were still discussing, Woody Allen and Sean Adam occasionally interjected, and many other guests just listened quietly.

"If the film is modified along this line of thought, it will totally suit the tastes of American audiences!" Woody Allen exclaimed after listening to their discussion.

Arthur Miller said: "Not only that. Ivy, don't you think Lin's adaptation is more powerful? The re-adapted "The Horse Catcher" fully reflects the compassionate portrayal of the Afghan people suffering from the war. Compared with the original "The Horse Catcher" which was full of national hatred and family feuds, it is more humanitarian."

For a small country with few people, it would be too incongruous to talk about national hatred and family feuds when facing a behemoth like the Soviet Union.

In his adaptation, Lin Weimin emphasized Amir's mourning for the loss of his homeland, the hardships of his efforts to integrate into American life, the joy after his success, and the mental torment he suffered after atonement for Hassan and his son, making the adapted "The Horse Lathers" fully in line with American values ​​and ideology.

Teacher Lin is doing this all to make money, there's nothing shameful about it!

"It's really great!" Arthur Miller stood there and walked back and forth twice, saying, "I was still worried about this adaptation, but I didn't expect you to have such a mature idea in your mind. Lin, you really surprised me!"

Lin Weimin shrugged, his expression nonchalant.

The other Lao Mi in the room couldn't help but smile. For Lao Mi, who had never known what humility was, his relaxed and easy-going attitude was just what they liked.

"But the scale of your adaptation this time is really too big, especially compared to your original novel. The name of the play can no longer be called "The Horse Catcher", right?"

Lin Weimin nodded, "Of course!"

Arthur Miller looked at him expectantly.

"The Kite Runner, how about that?"

"The Kite Runner?" Arthur Miller muttered the name, "Hassan is the 'Kite Runner'. Although this play is performed entirely from Amir's perspective, Hassan is the real soul. Yes, this is the name, The Kite Runner!"

Arthur Miller became more and more excited as he spoke, and finally clapped his hands and shouted, "It's called The Kite Runner!"

Lin Weimin was also very excited.

What is this called?

This is called export-to-domestic sales and then export!

Teacher Lin, I win!

The two finished talking about "The Kite Runner", and the people around them still felt a little unsatisfied.

Back then, Arthur Miller spent six weeks to create one of the most classic plays in the history of American drama, "Death of a Salesman", which was talked about by countless American drama lovers.

Tonight, we listened to the collision of inspiration between Arthur Miller, a figure at the top of the American drama pyramid, and a talented writer from the far East, and witnessed the birth of an outstanding drama. This event itself is full of legends.

"Arthur!"

Just as Arthur Miller was immersed in the excitement of the afterglow of his creation, his wife Inge Morath raised her camera at some point and pressed the shutter in the direction of Arthur Miller and Lin Weimin.

With a "click", the picture froze.

Inge Moras shook the photographic paper. The newly taken photos needed to be shaken to promote the evaporation of the potion in the air.

Inge Moras stopped when the image on the photographic paper was completely fixed.

On a large sofa, the young Lin Weimin sat there with his legs crossed, looking calm. Woody Allen leaned sideways as if listening, his eyes focused. Arthur Miller stood behind the sofa, patting the back of the sofa with one hand, leaning forward, his face excited and happy.

The three men in the center of the picture have different expressions. At the edge of the picture, there are Bloomgarden, Sean Adam, Laurentice and others.

The whole picture looks full of tension and story.

"What a shame, it's just a Polaroid picture!"

Inge Moras said with some regret.

Just now she was looking at the picture of Lin Weimin and two other people together. Out of her photographer's instinct, she captured the storytelling sense of the picture, but there were no professional cameras around, so she had to take the nearest Polaroid camera and captured the picture.

Woody Allen took the photo and said with a smile: "It doesn't matter what camera you use to take the photo. What matters is what you take the photo of, isn't it?"

He looked at it for a long time and said in a teasing tone: "Arthur, it is not a wise choice for the two of us to appear in the same picture with Lin."

Arthur Miller said: "I am over seventy years old and don't really care about this."

Woody Allen muttered, "No wonder I felt so out of place when I looked at the picture. It turns out it's because of you, an old man!"

Everyone burst into laughter when they heard this!

After the photo interlude ended, Woody Allen pulled Lin Weimin aside and kept talking about his movie "The Dark Knight".

"Lin, have you ever thought about making "Chasing the Murderer" into a movie?"

"Movie?" Lin Weimin was a little surprised.

"That's right. I think your novel is very suitable for adaptation into a movie. It's constantly constructing, breaking, reconstructing, and breaking again... What a fascinating story! It will definitely be very interesting if it is made into a movie!" Woody Allen said excitedly.

Lin Weimin thought for a moment and said, "If this novel is to be adapted into a movie, I'm afraid it won't quite fit your style."

"My style? Have you seen my movies?"

In the 1980s, Woody Allen had never released his films in China, so he was naturally very surprised to hear Lin Weimin say this.

Lin Weimin gave an apologetic smile. "Although it's not good to watch pirated movies, I have to admit that I have indeed seen your movie. Foreign movies are called 'internal reference films' in our place, and only a few people can see them."

Woody Allen doesn't care whether it is pirated or not. He is just curious about the so-called "internal reference films". He never thought that his movie would be watched in this way on the other side of the ocean.

Of course, Lin Weimin was just making up the story about the “internal reference film,” but it is true that he watched pirated copies.

Few of Woody Allen's films are introduced into China, and his movie-watching experience basically relies on pirated resources.

"If this film 'Chasing the Murderer' were to be made into a movie, it would probably be a film full of techniques," said Lin Weimin.

Woody Allen's films have always been known for their romance and humor, with emotion more important than technique. However, a story like "The Mind" is just the opposite. It uses technique to build up the emotions, progressing step by step, and finally exploding in the climax at the end.

There is no superiority or inferiority between the two styles, but different styles are not easy for directors to control.

After hearing Lin Weimin's words, Woody Allen thought about it seriously for a moment and said dejectedly, "You make sense! That's true."

After discussing the topic of "The Dark Knight", the party at Arthur Miller's house was coming to an end.

At ten o'clock in the evening, everyone got up and said goodbye.

After leaving Arthur Miller's house, everyone went to the underground garage and got their cars.

Woody Allen and Laurentice came together, riding in the same car.

Before getting in the car, Laurentius called Lin Weimin, a film producer who was planning to shoot a movie with oriental elements.

Just now at the party, he listened to Woody Allen telling the story of "Farewell My Concubine" and was very interested in the novel. He wanted to ask Lin Weimin to talk about the novel "Farewell My Concubine" to see if there is any possibility of adaptation.

"Lin, your movie "Farewell My Concubine"..." Laurentius just started to speak.

A woman's voice suddenly came from the empty underground garage.

"Mr. Laurentius!"

Lin Weimin and Laurentius were both startled by the sound. Anyone would be startled by such a sound suddenly coming out in the underground garage in the middle of the night.

The two looked in the direction of the voice and saw Lin Weimin with a surprised expression.

(End of this chapter)