The literary era since 1979

The next day, Musso&Rank Grill Restaurant, built on Highland Avenue in Los Angeles in 1911, has a retro and elegant style.

Each wooden seat in the red compartment is dark in color and shiny, with a clothes hanger next to it.

Alan Leyden waved when he saw the bartender leading Fangyan and Gong Xing over. He sat in the only private room next to the window in the restaurant, which was called the "Chaplin" private room. In the past, Chaplin often raced horses past this window glass, hence the name.

"Haha, we meet again."

"Yeah, you look like you're in a good mood, so maybe there's some good news?"

As soon as Fang Yan got off the plane, he received his dinner invitation, so he and Gong Xing changed into formal clothes and went to the designated restaurant.

"Haha, just as you expected, look at this."

Alan Leyden took out a few newspapers that were gathered together from the chair and spread them out.

"Farewell My Concubine is an epic film that spans half a century of contemporary China!"

The eye-catching and bold title immediately caught Fangyan's attention. He glanced at the Times and then looked at the Wall Street Journal.

The headline was even more shocking, "Zhang (Guo Rong) deserves to be nominated for Best Actress. He can play female roles better than women can!"

At this time, the waiter brought fillet steak, roast beef roll, and a martini.

"These are all newspapers owned by the Murdoch Group, right?"

Fangyan flipped through the newspaper and raised his eyebrows.

"That's right. Competing for an Oscar requires not only public relations, but also media efforts. It just so happens that 21st Century News Group has the resources!"

Alan Leyden said that since "Farewell My Concubine" was released worldwide right after the Cannes Film Festival, it was too far away from the awards season, so Fox deliberately chose to re-release "Farewell My Concubine" after its big win at the Golden Globe Awards. Although from the box office perspective, the box office after the nomination contributed very little to the overall total box office, it was of great help in boosting the momentum of the award, and it also allowed the judges who missed it to watch it again or deepen their impression.

"We Chinese have a saying, 'Listening to one side leads to ignorance, listening to both sides leads to enlightenment.' I want to see what other media think of this."

Fangyan smiled and asked, "Do you have any other newspapers here?"

"I expected you to say that."

Alan Leyden handed over a bunch of newspapers including The Hollywood Reporter and San Francisco Times.

Gong Xing took a closer look and saw that the New York Times was unabashedly fanning the flames. Farewell My Concubine, nominated for 10 awards, versus Rain Man, nominated for 8 awards. Which one won more awards? Which one won more valuable awards? Who is the biggest winner of the Oscars?

Even casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City have set odds for the Oscar battle between "Farewell My Concubine" and "Rain Man"!

"It looks like it will be a tougher battle than the Ballon d'Or."

Fangyan put the newspaper aside, picked up the knife and fork, and cut the steak.

"You are absolutely right, so Murdoch has approved a special fund for Farewell My Concubine."

Alan Leyden smiled. When award season comes, Hollywood film companies will spend a lot of money to hold so-called "campaign publicity activities" in order for their Oscar-nominated films to be seen by the approximately 1 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The cost of public relations activities during the prize-winning period may cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

"I once heard someone say that the most important thing to conquer the Oscars is to conquer the arrogant and prejudiced Oscar judges, right?"

Fangyan narrowed his eyes into slits.

Alan Leyden nodded meaningfully and said that since the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are scattered all over North America, in order to maximize public relations, the wealthy Hollywood film companies generally hold many special screenings and prepare generous viewing gifts.

"It's actually possible to do this?" Gong Xing looked incredulous.

"Hollywood award-winning is like the presidential election, they are essentially the same, both are money games."

Fangyan winked at her.

Alan Leyden did not refute, "Indeed, it cost about three or four million US dollars."

“It will all pay off soon.”

Fang Yan didn't care. Even if he couldn't make back the cost of his Oscar bid with Farewell My Concubine, he had already made back the small amount of money with the movies he wrote for Fox, such as The Intouchables, Die Hard, and Baby Smart.

"That's what we thought too."

Alan Lydon said, "For example, I heard from the people at Golden Harvest that you have tailor-made a new action blockbuster for Jackie Cheng?"

"You are really well-informed."

Fangyan admitted openly, "This movie is not inferior to Die Hard. Once it is released, it will easily make Fox earn twenty or even thirty times the return from its Oscar bid. You guys are really making a fortune!"

"That's why we will spare no effort to help you."

Alan Lydon picked up his glass and said, "I wish us a triumphant victory at this Oscars!"

"cheers!"

Fang Yan clinked glasses with him, his eyes sparkling.

The reason why "Farewell My Concubine" didn't even win the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in its previous life was, according to the Oscars, not because they looked down on the movie, but because of a lack of communication. In fact, the root cause was that after Chen Kai and his team won the Palme d'Or, they did not carry out further publicity activities at the Oscars, and did not challenge the Oscar judges, which led to "Farewell My Concubine" winning nothing at the Oscars.

But this time it’s different!

…………

With three days left before the Oscars, Fox has fully ramped up its publicity machine and launched a financial offensive for a final 3-hour attack, including but not limited to arranging for Fang Yan, Gong Xing and other cast members of "Farewell My Concubine" to accept various television interviews.

Until the day of the Oscars, everyone appeared at the Dolby Theater in a stretched Cadillac.

“So this is what Oscar is like.”

Gong Li sat in the car, looking at the crazy fans on both sides of Hollywood Boulevard exclaiming in amazement.

“It doesn’t seem to be much different from the Golden Globe Awards.”

Gong Xing blinked.

"There isn't much difference. The only difference is that the Oscars are bigger and have more people than the Golden Globes."

Fangyan didn't take it seriously, but he noticed from his peripheral vision that a staff member walked up and respectfully opened the car door for them.

Gong Xing got out of the car. She was wearing a black satin cheongsam, and she contrasted with Gong Li, who was wearing a moon-white cheongsam, and immediately attracted a lot of people's attention.

Everyone walked on the gorgeous red carpet that stretched all the way to the theater entrance, with flash lights flashing non-stop, dazzlingly bright.

After taking a group photo in front of the autograph board, Fang Yan strode into the hall. Seeing the two huge golden statues on the left and right of the stage, the corners of his mouth slightly raised:

"Let's go in!" (End of this chapter)