Chapter 35: The New Film’s Publicity
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As the plot developed, the viewers finally figured out the basic threads and frames. Not only did the male lead, Leonard, lose his wife due to rapists, but he also suffered anterograde amnesia—the director specifically used the scene where a bar waitress spat into a wine pot to describe it, which also caused the crowd to laugh—the male lead used photographs to remember things, and began searching the rapists tirelessly to avenge his wife’s death.
However, the director used two interspersed sequences shown in chronological and reverse orders to describe the story. Although it was a new structure, it was harder to watch, whereby one would miss clues by not paying full attention. For instance, the male lead was clearly related to Teddy whom he killed in the beginning, and it was very strange that he described his condition by talking about another man who suffered the same illness and accidentally killed his wife. Unfortunately, there were too many threads that were tangled together, and the plot developed very quickly, so it was hard to catch everything.
Nevertheless, it was what made the film attractive. If they were not in the theatre, the viewers would have requested to replay certain parts.
Finally, everything was revealed at the end of the film, and the audience understood the ending even though they missed some sequences. Teddy was a police officer who already found the rapists that hurt Leonard’s wife, and Leonard had taken his revenge, but he forgot. Later, Teddy used Leonard to kill a drug dealer so as to keep 200,000 dollars for himself, but Leonard later found out and decided not to trust him anymore. As such, Leonard took a photograph of Teddy, then wrote on it to remind himself not to believe his lies. At last, due to various factors, Leonard mistook Teddy as the person who killed his wife and killed him. This led to the opening scene, but it was unknown if Leonard would still remember.
Following the credit scene, the lights in the theatre lit up. Despite that, no applause was heard, only discussions from the crowd. Even though they roughly understood what the story was, there were many parts that still required discussion. For example, did the other anterograde amnesiac whom Leonard mentioned really exist, or was that only his imagination? Was his wife actually killed by the rapists, or did he cause it? As the audience exchanged their points of view, they completely forgot that the film had ended.
“Looks like the film failed, there isn’t any applause at all,” Adrian who sat on a seat reserved for the crew said with a “sigh”, “I must say, Dan, you really disappointed me.”
“Me?” Dennis who was sitting beside Laverne looked at Adrian strangely.
“That’s right. You’re the cast, aren’t you responsible for this?” Adrian put on a serious face.
“This…” Dismayed, Dennis looked around him, then mentioned after some time, “Kate and Joe were the cast too.”
“They’re different.” Adrian waved his hand. “You played most parts.”
Kate who was beside him could not hold back her laughter anymore, so she burst out laughing. “Alright, Eddy, stop teasing Dan. Didn’t you hear their discussion? We’ll probably hear applause soon.”
Right after that, the applause was heard. It only came from one person in the beginning, but the rest of the crowd slowly joined in. Nevertheless, there were not many who clapped because they were busy discussing the film.
“How was it?” Kate stuck her chest out proudly.
“Good, very good.” Adrian laughed, then planted a kiss on her face.
Joe Pantoliano who was watching them tapped on Dennis’ shoulder, then told him, “Let’s go, Dan. This has become a place for them to flirt.”
A few crew around them instantly chuckled, so Kate looked away to let out a dry cough as she was embarrassed.
“Alright, fellas. It’s about time, we should leave.” Seeing as the crowd had begun to leave, Adrian stood up, but he was stopped by a few people as soon as he reached the aisle.
“Hello, Mr. Adrian, I’m John Bateson from ‘Los Angeles Evening Paper’, may I ask you a few questions?” The first was a well-featured, brown-haired man.
“Mr. Adrian, I’m a reporter from ‘L’Est Républicain’, can we talk about your film?” The person behind Bateson reached his hand over to Adrian. He had a pair of jug ears and was from France as he spoke in French.
There were a few others behind them who introduced themselves in their language, or in English with strange accents. Adrian nodded at them, then glanced at Laverne behind him, who shrugged at him.
‘Are they all from small newspaper companies? Alright, it doesn’t matter.’ Adrian raised his hand with a smile. “Thank you for your support. Ask away, but of course, don’t ask tricky questions, I’m sure you want answers to your questions.”
Although the main trend of the Berlin Film Festival was political films, many other excellent films still participated in it as it was one of the most influential film festivals in the world, such as ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ that won the Best Picture, the Best Actor, and the Best Actress awards at the 64th Oscar. Similar to Dennis and the others, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, the main casts for that film, attended the Berlin Film Festival too.
While Adrian received a lot of attention during the past few months because he was the director and producer of ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, he was still new. Besides, from the perspective of a reporter, the news value of a director was far from a famous celebrity’s, hence famous media were interviewing the more well-known directors and celebrities.
Nonetheless, it was better than nothing. A few months ago in Venice, even after ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ received good reviews, there were not many reporters who interviewed him—although one of the reasons why that happened was because he brought Kate around.
The reporters were fond of Adrian because of his cooperative attitude, and the French reporter was the first to ask him a question, “I’d like to know what’s the purpose of your editing style, Mr. Adrian?”
“Of course, it’s to tell the story. Editing methods that surprise, shock, or confuse the audience are actually meant to tell the story well,” Adrian answered with a smile, but was secretly cursing to himself. Though it was good to have attention, the reporter asked a dumb question. After all, he was from a small newspaper company.
“This is a surprising movie, may I ask who exactly killed Leonard’s wife?” Next, it was John Bateson from ‘Los Angeles Evening Paper’ who asked.
‘Another one…’ Adrian shrugged. “I’m sorry but I can’t disclose that to you directly, I can only say that the clue is in the film. If you have any more questions or feel like something’s not right, you can watch it again in the cinema.”
The other reporters asked questions revolving around the plot as well, which was very frustrating for Adrian. However, it made sense because small newspapers usually go after attractive, sensational news. They probably interviewed him because they happened to notice him, or because the film’s suspense was too interesting. Adrian wondered. ‘If that’s the case… It’s not too bad.’
Since they conversed while walking outside, they eventually arrived outside the theatre, and Adrian signaled Laverne with a look. Laverne nodded at him, then announced, “Everyone, if you’re still not satisfied with the answers, how about you ask Mr. Dennis Knight himself? He’s the male lead of the film.”
The reporters were stunned for a while before they quickly surrounded Dennis. As expected, from a reporter’s point of view, especially media reporters from small newspapers, an actor’s worth was much higher than a director’s. Dennis was clearly overwhelmed even though there were only eight reporters who were from small newspapers because he was never treated like that before. Not even after he acted in a high-reputation, high-sales film. Despite that, he quickly composed himself and responded to the reporters with a smile. Clearly, he was enjoying the moment.
Seeing as the reporters were paying full attention to Dennis, Adrian sneaked away with Kate. He believed that Dennis would do fine since Laverne and Pantoliano were around too.
“Seriously, I wanted to stay there longer for them to ask me a few questions,” Kate suddenly complained after they were two streets away from the reporters. When Adrian noticed the smile of her face, he knew what she was thinking.
“Alright then, famous celebrity, Ms. Kate Beckinsale, what do you think of the character you played?” Adrian asked smilingly.
“Uhm… ” Kate tilted her head, then her face sank.” I… I don’t feel great.”
“Why?” Adrian was rather surprised.
“Let me think. My first character was a fella who’s always unconscious because she smoked too much weed, and she didn’t have a single line; My second character always cursed and had a drug dealer boyfriend who was killed… None of them are normal.” Kate sighed. “Especially the makeup I had in ‘Memento’… It was so awful that I didn’t dare to look at myself on screen. It’s strange, I didn’t think that I looked so ugly when we were on set…”
Adrian burst out laughing. “Alright, when you have the time, I’ll give you a role in a romantic comedy film. A sexy, beautiful role who will attract everyone’s attention.”
Just as Kate was about to agree, she swallowed her words when she noticed the look on Adrian’s face.
“Is something… Wrong?” Kate murmured.
“No, nothing.” This time, Adrian sighed. “Honestly, you acted great in ‘Memento’. You did better than Dan, but you’re second to Joe.”
Adrian meant it. Though Dennis did well, by which his makeup and acting skills generally met Adrian’s requirements, he was not that great in certain details as he was too young. Normal viewers might not notice it, but Adrian was very aware of that after watching the scenes multiple times during editing. Fortunately, the interesting plot compensated for it.
On the other hand, Kate was much younger, but firstly, she did not have as many parts as Dennis; secondly, the younger she was, the cleverer she was, and the stronger her plasticity. On top of that, Adrian who was extremely familiar with the film guided her and even requested that her makeup be uglier than the original cast to mask her beauty, thus it made her more outstanding.
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