Hollywood Road

In the movie palace on Lido Island in Venice, the screening of Focus has already started, and everyone's eyes are fixed on the big screen, wanting to see what this very topical movie looks like!

The story of the film began in 2001 when the Boston Globe ushered in a new editor-in-chief, Marty Barone. When the new official took office, Marty Barone suggested that the Focus group start to investigate the previously reported sexual assault by priests. The children's case, because in the view of Marty Baronti, who is calm and composed on the outside, the case is not over yet.

As a result, the four reporters of the Focus team began to sweep away the dust of this dusty case, and re-investigated the deeper truth behind this case.

The result is of course astonishing. There are several to dozens of priests involved in the case, non-governmental victim groups, important evidence unsealed by the court, and the truth that everyone knows but keeps secret...

In the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI is still standing in front of the window. He seems to be looking down on all living beings, watching the crowds coming and going in the small square below. Facing Hollywood, a community of interests worth hundreds of billions of dollars, facing the Modern media and the pervasive Internet viral hype, even the Catholic Church, even as the current pope, he has a deep sense of powerlessness.

After all, this society is no longer a Catholic society.

Your Mightiness……

The middle-aged pastor suddenly said, If Murphy Stanton's film has an extremely wide impact, it will be difficult for Archbishop Marquez Costello to satisfy everyone in the church.

Benedict XVI stood there without saying a word, seemingly lost in thought.

Some of the things reported by the US media before have flowed to all parts of the world.

In today's society, it is undoubtedly very difficult to block the news, especially in the West, so the middle-aged pastor said, The influence is very bad! If this film is successful, I'm afraid...

I know. Benedict XVI sighed.

The middle-aged pastor continued, Your Excellency, the archbishop of the South Central Diocese of California, I am afraid that it will be difficult to calm down the various emotions within the believers and the church.

Benedict XVI did not speak. Knowing that the middle-aged pastor was telling the truth, he just waved his hand to the back and told the middle-aged pastor to leave on his own. After the sound of opening and closing the door, he turned around and looked at the church. Zong's private office was once again lost in thought.

Lido Island, inside the Venice Film Palace, the screening of Focus is coming to an end.

The screening hall was always quiet. During the two hours, there was no applause, laughter, or discussion. Everyone just watched the film in shock.

Among them are the many judges of this Venice Film Festival.

They have known for a long time that the Catholic Church has encountered a series of criticisms in the United States since last winter, and it has not subsided until now. The scandals exposed by the American media have appeared one after another, and it seems that there will never be an end. But they were just watching it as a good show.

But seeing this video, they were all a little silent, some didn't know what to say, and some were grateful.

Many of the judges have children, and they also believe in Catholicism...

The Frenchman Alexandre Desplat, who is the chairman of the jury, is one such person.

Maybe it's time to remind the children. He muttered in his heart, You can go to church, but you must not be alone with those priests!

Compared with those written reports, the impact of film and television images on Alexandre Desplat is too great!

As the chairman of the jury of this year's Venice Film Festival, Alexandre Desplat quickly put aside Catholicism and children, and put all his energy on the film itself.

There is no doubt that Murphy Stanton has brought a masterpiece! Even though he is a French film practitioner who doesn't like Hollywood very much, he admits this.

Focus gave him the first impression that it was a classic film,

Part of this impression comes from Murphy-Stanton's calm narrative style, part of it comes from not pursuing a dramatic rhythm, but more, perhaps, it comes from the nostalgia for traditional paper media contained in the story itself.

On the one hand, this kind of emotion is reflected in the presentation and expression of the daily work of the newspaper office. During the entire investigation process, the Focus team did most of the work of interviewing the parties, collecting materials, and screening news. The film tirelessly shows this repetition. The monotonous process, a large number of newspaper clippings cut into small pieces, piles of documents, cost notes, and repeated phone calls make people almost doubt how far this kind of work is from the real core of the case.

The most representative one is that the investigation team discovered the list of priests in the area. From it, the priests who had committed sexual abuse were transferred from the original diocese by the church under various pretexts, and the details of serving in the new diocese , in the face of voluminous materials, to find those priests who have violated the law is tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack.

Looking at Focus from this perspective, Alexandre Desplat found that Murphy Stanton made the film achieve a delicate balance between the shocking story itself and the professionalism that the simple and plain style tried to show. It is so rare.

Even though he already knew that this story came from a real event, and that all crimes would eventually be announced to the world, but when the priest involved went from the reported cases, to 13 in the statistics of victim groups, to 9o estimated by folk researchers, Until the Focus team finalized the list, the 87 displayed on the computer screen was still shocking.

This film with no Hollywood model, no action scenes, no love and sex, and no big scenes is bound to become a good work, even a classic!

Whether it is Murphy Stanton, or the Stanton party members who have turned brilliantly from comedies and commercial films, they have repeatedly given the best shortcut to realize their ideals in and out of the play, and perhaps it is to maintain the persistence and firmness of the original intention.

The big screen suddenly went black and the subtitles fell down. Alexandre Desplat was the first to stand up from his seat and slapped his palms with all his strength. Even though it hurt, he never thought of stopping!

Immediately afterwards, all members of the jury on both sides of Alexandre Desplat stood up and applauded enthusiastically.

A standing ovation from everyone in the back, including the hundreds of journalists and general audience sitting in the back!

Alexandre Desplat was not surprised at all when he heard the landslide-like applause coming from behind. It is entirely conceivable what kind of attitude those reporters would have in the face of such a film praising the power of the media. .

As for the average moviegoer...

For Focus, which is adapted from real events, in the face of the scandal of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, the outraged audience has already seen the development of the whole story clearly in the numerous reports. , may have already preset in his mind the drama of exposing the darkness of the church again, thus standing on the same front as the protagonists of the film.

Just to the left of Alexandre Desplat, the famous Chinese female director Joan Chen applauded and sighed in her heart, Focus by Murphy Stanton is simply the best film textbook!

From her years of directing perspective, this Focus is very suitable for learning the most basic and common film audio-visual methods. Murphy-Stanton chose to complete the narrative by enriching scenes and emphasizing dialogue.

The whole film is composed of a well-designed script with simple scenes; the huge amount of lines, rich scene switching, and strong character initiative make the rhythm of the film unimpeded and very smooth-let the viewers follow along with Boston Reporters from the Globe conducted an investigation together, and there were basically no particularly prominent and emphasized scenes. All the creative emotions were tightly suppressed under the storytelling, allowing the torrent of emotions to be released in the narrative.

So, all the characters in this movie are talking constantly, they're talking in the office, they're talking at home, they're talking outside the house, they're talking in the office hallway, they're talking in the kitchen, they're talking on the baseball field, they're talking on the golf course, they're talking on the sidewalk. , Talking in cafes, talking at parties... In fact, from a certain point of view, isn't this the norm for media workers?

She has lived and worked in the United States for a long time, and knows that Murphy Stanton is not an academic director, but this time the technique used is very academic, the shooting technique is very traditional, and every conversation scene is compact. , Exquisite, stable, and plain, none of the scenes have a particularly strong conflict, no one's performance is overdone, and no shot is particularly out of line.

It is such a seemingly unremarkable technique, but it completes a beautiful story with calm surface and inner ups and downs; Murphy-Stanton has nothing new in film techniques, but it is very solid because of this, The whole film is very exciting, with prominent contradictions, tight rhythm and distinct characters.

In fact, Joan Chen is very clear that making a film that almost conceals the director's personal style to the deepest level is more difficult than having a strong style on the surface.

How to tell a wonderful story honestly? This requires Murphy Stanton to have strong self-confidence and steady control

Now, when she looks back and thinks about the story of this film, she may not be able to make it well in other ways.

The solid, steady, academic approach Murphy-Stanton uses is the one that best suits Focus.

The applause continued, and it lasted for several minutes without subsiding. This film may be a bit dull, but this is the Venice Film Festival, not the summer festival in North America.

Murphy and the main members of the crew also walked to the stage in front of the screen to call the curtain amid applause.

Later, there will be a very important press conference, and the impact of Focus has just begun! 8