Chapter 45 Preparation
Hearing Kubrick's words, Su Yun was reminded of a joke she had seen before, which was said to be Kubrick's favorite.
The joke says that after director Spielberg went to heaven, an angel told him that God liked the movies he made and asked him to fulfill his wish. Therefore, Spielberg said that he only wanted to meet Kubrick.
The angel shook his head and said Kubrick did not want to see anyone.
When Spielberg was frustrated by the rejection, he suddenly saw a familiar bearded old man riding a bicycle passing by him, so he hurriedly asked: "Isn't this Kubrick?"
"No, that's God, but he always thinks he is Kubrick," the angel replied.
Although it is just a joke, it also accurately shows the status of this great director who is known as "having a God's perspective". He is the well-deserved "God of Custo" in the hearts of many movie fans and many Hollywood first-line directors.
Of course, his tyrannical madness on the set during filming is as famous as his works.
Perhaps because of his popular works, most people think that he is like a high god, and he has an almost abnormal indifference to the characters in the story: his ideas are avant-garde and even a little unorthodox, he likes to dissect human nature bloodily, his pictures are absurd and exaggerated to the point of being surreal, and he is never vague about handing out knives...
So much so that some people believe that his films are actually made for future generations, because people of his generation are simply unable to fully appreciate the potential depth of their films.
This is also the reason why his films often receive mixed reviews when they are first released. Then, as time goes by, people gradually begin to see the advanced ideological revelations contained in some of the films, and develop them, interpreting some of the truths of those masterpieces.
"I just like to try new things, that's why I like you so much." Kubrick said on the phone, "Your eyes seem to have something beyond the times... I don't know how to explain and describe it, but I know that's what I've been pursuing."
If Su Yun had not confirmed with the system that he was the only reborn person with the system in this world, Kubrick's words would have caused him to panic.
Kubrick is undoubtedly one of those Hollywood directors who is particularly capable of technological innovation, but it is unexpected that his meticulous and imaginative mind almost makes him touch upon the details about the world, the future, and technology.
No matter what, no matter how well she pretends on the surface, the essence of the future hidden deep in her heart can never be erased.
Because that is the mark of an era engraved on her.
Just as people of this era cannot understand the rapidly changing technology of later generations, the knowledge engraved in her by information technology has become her vision and essence that transcends her time. When she meets people like Kubrick, they will discover the side of her that is incompatible with this era.
Fortunately, Kubrick is a person who takes big steps, walking the line between genius and madness, so it does not exclude her nature of transcending her time, but rather makes her deeply obsessed with it.
That is why Kubrick wanted to use her to test the tolerance of the art world, to test the invisible "line" formed by barriers such as skin color, country, and history, to see if this line can be crossed by great "art".
The most important and advantageous point is that she is still a minor. Even if the racial boundaries are drawn because of skin color, adults will naturally resist adults with different skin colors from themselves, but they will always be somewhat tolerant of children with different skin colors.
This is one of the reasons why people are called human beings, a kind of tolerance that comes from "love" and "morality".
For this reason, Kubrick said she was "God's favorite child."
Combined with that joke, Su Yun had some different ideas.
However, what Su Yun didn't know was that because of these reasons, in the films she collaborated with Kubrick, her characters always had endings that were different from Kubrick's typical characters. Later generations made a very ambiguous comment about this: Kubrick was basically willing to step down from his altar and become a human being only when he collaborated with Mary...
One is to allude to the fact that when Su Yun and Kubrick collaborated on a movie, she was not tortured or killed; the other is to say that Kubrick really favored her, and when he collaborated with her, he no longer had the usual "God"-like indifference, but instead possessed human warmth.
Many people believe that this is why the movies they collaborate on are different from other Kubrick-style movies, which take time to accumulate before they can become popular. Instead, they become a huge hit as soon as they come out and stand the test of time.
When the almighty God possesses human tenderness, perhaps the profound connotation he has always possessed will be diminished, but he will also touch the softest part of people's hearts with this seemingly ruthless affection.
After briefly talking about the preparations for the film, Kubrick got to the point: "I'm trying to get Warner Bros. to invest as much as possible in this film - since I worked with them on A Clockwork Orange, I have a much stronger say."
After talking about his imagined production requirements in a rambling manner, he started from the perspective of salary: "My price has been set and it will basically not change, so I am trying to increase your salary. After all, according to convention, you may only be paid tens of thousands of dollars for starring in this movie..."
"This price is really too bad for a leading actor, screenwriter, and post-production director!" Kubrick shouted neurotically, and then said, "I plan to let you, as the author and screenwriter, strive for the customary 2.5% and 5% box office profit share for the author and screenwriter respectively."
"Are you so confident about this movie?" Su Yun was very moved, but couldn't help but ask.
"Mary, you know what? The two 'people' that matter most to me in my life are Napoleon and my little artificial intelligence robot." Kubrick sighed, "But if I want to film them, according to the production costs I calculated before, the figures are astronomical."
At this point, Kubrick sighed deeply: "Napoleon" and "Artificial Intelligence" were themes he had thought of a long time ago but had never been able to start filming.
The former was expensive to shoot, and coincided with the failure of several recent Napoleon-themed films, just like history.
Therefore, the Napoleon theme that failed at the box office one after another made no production company willing to take the risk of investing. Even if he wrote a sincere and detailed production note that was like a guarantee of saving money and submitted it, he still couldn't get past the "money" barrier.
As a last resort, he was forced to stop this project he had been dreaming about and switch to filming "A Clockwork Orange".
As for the latter, "Artificial Intelligence", in addition to financial reasons, the technical reasons are more serious.
Kubrick originally thought that these two projects might accompany him into the grave, but he never expected that one night he would meet a magical girl from a mysterious ancient oriental country, who might make one of his dream projects come true...
"For example, the film I originally envisioned, Artificial Intelligence, would most likely require a production budget of more than $30 million - maybe even more." Thinking of the previous records about the project "Artificial Intelligence", Kubrick was deeply moved, "But because of your arrival, the cost of this movie may be compressed to $5 million, and I will try my best to get a more generous figure."
"Most importantly, you introduced me to a whole new technology that is even better than anything I had imagined!"
Su Yun, who stood on the shoulders of many predecessors and was dragged to heaven by the system's golden thigh, smiled somewhat embarrassedly.
Sure enough, the knowledge you learn will never let you down.
With this knowledge, she became the most important factor in triggering "God" by attacking with dimensionality reduction.
After thanking Kubrick for his preference for her, Su Yun mentioned the list of candidates she had selected for the second round of interviews.
"The production of a movie is about how to save money after spending money," Kubrick said with a laugh. "I never really wanted to use big-name stars with high salaries because the return on investment for these people is too low."
"Of course, for the sake of box office, I will also consider some stars with good value for money, because even though people watch movies to appreciate the story, art must also make adaptive adjustments to reality."
Su Yun breathed a sigh of relief when she learned that Kubrick was not one of those "artist" directors who only cared about art and not the box office. It would be best if she could take both artistic effects and commercial box office into consideration, but if she had to make a choice, she would choose the commercial box office without hesitation.
Investors and production companies are not wealthy people, but sharks that are most adept at pursuing profits. Even if a film wins many artistic awards, if it fails to make money, it is box office poison and there is no hope that they will invest more money.
For example, those art film directors in the Hong Kong circle, they were on stage accepting big awards with their actors, while their investors backstage were so angry about losing money that they had to go to the hospital... This is not a joke, but real old news.
Su Yun's calculations were very clear: in the early stages, everything was focused on the box office, and she chose to invest in "normal" commercial films; once external factors such as fame, status, and money were gradually accumulated, she could start to slowly try to gain a good reputation and invest in art films regardless of profit or loss.
Don't seek perfection, but seek stability.
When she was still in the rising stage, she could make money, which led to her future.
After a long talk with Kubrick, Su Yun got Jane Fonda's contact information from Kubrick.
"We Chinese have a saying that goes 'Hearing is deceiving, seeing is believing'. Although I recommended her to you, you still have to go and see the real situation with your own eyes." Seeing that Jane Fonda's address is not far from here, Su Yun plans to go there in person tomorrow.
When I am extremely tired, I always fall into a deep sleep.
Early the next morning, after telling Zhuang Long, Lin Jingying, Vivian and others that she had to go out for something, Su Yun quickly ate breakfast and prepared to go out.
Unexpectedly, as soon as I opened the door, I saw Tom carrying a basket.
Su Yun casually flipped Fang Xi off the basket and took a look. She was delighted: This kid is really smart. The role was almost predetermined for him, and he even knew to bring delicious-looking pie and jam to "bribe" her!
"Come in quickly. I'm done with your audition. I have to go out!" Considering the time constraints, Su Yun quickly pulled the confused Tom into the cabin.