Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 171 One after another
Every year, Harvey Weinstein's Miramax Films holds a so-called Miramax cocktail party, "Max Awards," in Beverly Hills on the eve of the Oscars.

Yesterday, Cao Yang was also invited to participate.

As the cocktail party was about to end, Harvey Weinstein put his arm around Renée Zellweger's shoulders, walked over to Cao Yang, let go of her hand, and introduced them with a smile.

"This is Miss Renée Zellweger, who is also nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Cold Mountain."

Harvey Weinstein clinked glasses with Cao Yang and continued, "Cold Mountain is a key project controlled by Miramax. It received seven Oscar nominations and is also a hot favorite this year."

He drank the rest of the wine in the glass in one gulp, handed the glass to Renée Zellweger, who was smiling all the time, and waved goodbye to her.

Renée Zellweger did not show any displeasure. She smiled and nodded to Cao Yang, then left.

At this moment, a sentence suddenly appeared in Cao Yang's mind: come when called and go when dismissed, which is probably the current situation of Renée Zellweger.

But some people do not feel ashamed of doing so in order to get to the top.

"Cao, I'm a person who speaks my mind. This year, I gave up "Cold Mountain" for "Mean Milk". I only want one Best Supporting Actress out of seven nominations. So, I'm sorry, you can understand, right?"

What can I understand?
There is certainly more to Harvey Weinstein's words than meets the eye.

What he meant by sorry was probably that in the competition between Renée Zellweger and Anne Hathaway for Best Supporting Actress, he chose to work for Renée Zellweger.

This is understandable. Judging from Renée Zellweger's appearance, she must have paid a heavy price.

Moreover, "Cold Mountain" is a project controlled by Miramax, while "Mean Milk" is a project jointly produced by Columbia and Miramax, so he will definitely choose "Cold Mountain".

What's the other meaning?

Take credit?
"Cao, you know how much effort Warner has put into The Lord of the Rings 3. They want to recreate the glory of Titanic and sweep away everything. We will try our best to stop it, but it's difficult. You have to be mentally prepared."

Cao Yang nodded. He had vested interests in Colombia and he certainly couldn't tell Xavi about this.

However, it is indeed doubly difficult to win the grand prize against "The Lord of the Rings 3" this year.

"Cao, I heard you shot a Chinese fantasy movie and it's almost finished?"

Cao Yang nodded and said with a smile: "Harvey, my status in China is equal to that of Zhang Yimou, but in Hollywood, he can't compare to me. You should understand what I mean."

Don't play tricks on me. I know all your tricks.

Harvey Weinstein laughed without any embarrassment and said, "Cao, you are a smart man, don't worry, I will pay first, after all, we will cooperate in the future.

Let’s put it this way. After Hero is released, if the box office is good, I will buy the copyright for North America and several other places at a price higher than the market price.”

……

Through this cocktail party, Cao Yang knew at that time that Anne Hathaway would have no chance of winning the Best Supporting Actress award, and the award would most likely be won by Renée Zellweger.

Sure enough, his guesses were confirmed one by one, including losing to "The Lord of the Rings 3" in several technical awards, which was not unexpected.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Gu Changwei won the Best Cinematography award.

From the footage projected onto the big screen, it can be seen that Lao Gu himself was surprised.

The previous moment he was still smiling, without much expectation. The next moment when the award presenter read out his name, he was obviously stunned and a little confused.

Cao Yang stood up, turned around, and applauded him with a smile.

Don't just stand there, the whole world is watching. Don't embarrass yourself, hurry up.

When Lao Gu saw Cao Yang clapping for him, he realized what was happening and quickly stood up, very excited and thrilled. Although he hated the Americans and probably suffered a lot during his years here, he still cherished the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

This is the second time that Gu has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography. The last time was at the 93th Academy Awards in 66, when he was nominated for Best Cinematography for "Farewell My Concubine", but unfortunately he did not win the award in the end.

This time, with Cao Yang's "Despicable Milk", he finally got his wish and won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

This is not the first time that a Chinese has won this award.

In 1956, Chinese American Huang Zongzhan won the Best Cinematography Award at the 28th Academy Awards for "The Rose Tattoo", becoming the first Chinese to win an Academy Award.

In 1964, he won the Best Cinematography Award at the 36th Academy Awards for his performance in "A Fistful of Hands".

The second person to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography was Bao Dexi.

In 2001, he won the Best Cinematography at the 73rd Academy Awards for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", becoming the first non-Chinese American photographer to receive this honor.

Gu Changwei is the third Chinese to receive this honor, the second Chinese to receive this award, and the first person from the mainland to receive this award.

"Director Cao, even though we are family, I still want to say thank you, thank you!"

Old Gu hugged Cao Yang and said excitedly.

"Don't be nervous when you go up. Just say whatever comes to mind. If you can't think of anything, just say thank you."

Seeing that Lao Gu was so excited, Cao Yang was afraid that he would embarrass himself if he went up, so he quickly reminded him.

"Yeah, I remember."

Remember the hammer!
Old Gu went up to the microphone with his hands and feet a little stiff. He took the little golden man handed to him by the award presenter, said "hmm" into the microphone, and then was stuck. He was stunned for about ten seconds, and no one knew what he was thinking.

The audience and guests in the audience thought that this guy wanted applause, so they started to applaud out of respect.

Old Gu finally reacted, waited for the applause to stop, and began to give his speech.

“I was just wondering, who should I thank first?”

Lao Gu tried to save face, "Then I thought, there are too many people to thank, and there is no particular order."

I wonder if foreigners can understand his statement “there is no particular order of ranking”, which is a Chinese way of joking.

"First of all, I want to thank Director Cao Yang. He is my junior fellow student. Although we are not from the same profession, I think he is my junior fellow student. He is the pride of our school and a talented director... In short, I am very grateful to him..."

Cao Yang wanted to cover his face. This guy really said whatever he thought of. There was no logic and it was all mixed up. But it didn’t matter. At least he didn’t take out a piece of paper and read from it.

The next Best Adapted Screenplay award was unsurprisingly won by "The Lord of the Rings 3".

After the Best Adapted Screenplay, the next award is the Best Original Screenplay, and Cao Yang was nominated for this award.

Although there is a high probability that he will not win the Best Director award, Cao Yang still has expectations for the award. His biggest competitor is Sofia Coppola.

Sofia Coppola is the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, who directed the famous "The Godfather".

Now it depends on whether the Coppola family has more connections, or whether Harvey, who is better at winning awards at Columbia United, is more powerful.

The award presenter opened the envelope, looked at it, then looked at the audience, and said into the microphone: "Cao Yang, 'Despicable Milk'."

It seems that it was right to give the film adaptation rights of "District 9" to Columbia, and they really put in a lot of effort this time.

(End of this chapter)