Many people may have this fear: they are eager to achieve a certain dream, and finally made up their minds, put in all their efforts, but in the end it backfired.
At this moment, apart from regretting that my hard work and enthusiasm were all overwhelmed, the more terrifying epiphany was that I realized that my ability had reached the limit, but my dream was still far away. I can always see other people succeeding smoothly, but for myself, this is just a mirage that is hard to reach in my life.
The easiest way is of course not to work hard, or not to dream at all. Doing things within my power, the results are expected, but occasionally think of the unfulfilled original intention, and feel a little melancholy.
Or, if you don't want to be silent and give it a go, you have to face the possibility of final miserable failure. Because life has never been like a movie, there is no neat structure and patterned characters, and there is no law that everyone can be happy with hard work and kindness.
This is where the film "Disaster Artist" directed by James Franco (Fu Lanlan) resonated most with me.
The film was full of gimmicks before it was released. It is said that it was shot at the level of Oscars, and it is about the story behind the scenes of the famous American bad film "The Room." Tommy Weissau, played by Fu Lanlan himself, is a weird and mysterious actor. His pale skin and greasy long hair are like a vampire. He refuses to reveal his age and hometown. He has a peculiar European accent. Where's the money that can't be used up. After repeatedly hitting walls in Hollywood, he and his friend Greg wrote, directed and acted in a movie called "The Room", invested $6 million, but it became the worst in the world due to the naive script, chaotic logic, weird scenes, and poor acting skills. One of the movies. However, its ridiculousness attracts the audience to come and find it, and finally turned into a cult masterpiece, and it still has a large number of fans.
"Disaster Artist" is adapted from Greg's memoir of the same name, which basically complies with the facts, and has also been recognized by Weisso himself in reality. Fu Lanlan and the crew (including her brother playing the second male Greg) highly restored the "Room" scenes and behind-the-scenes stories. Fu Lanlan herself played Weisotau, a "crazy artist" who had no real identity and growing background. Be able to fake it and become a popular "movie king" candidate during the awards season.
Fu Lanlan claimed that this film was "City of Philharmonic" for the underdog. In the same way, they wanted to realize their artistic dreams in Los Angeles. The heroes and heroines of "City of Philharmonic" had their dreams come true after splitting and reuniting. One became a movie star and the other opened a jazz bar. The male protagonist at the end of "Disaster Artist" has made a terrible movie, which is not recognized by the industry and the audience (it is another thing to be famous for being bad). The male protagonist himself is still a person who has no past and no social relations. The lone ghost. This stands on the opposite side of the traditional American dream.
This could have been made into a venomous comedy, mocking how a weird person was turned into a laughing stock because of his overwhelming power, but the Weisuo portrayed by Fu Lanlan has a peculiar sense of inspiration, cute and even respectable. His simple dream seems to have the protagonist's aura: he was engaged in other jobs in his early years, and was almost killed in a car accident before finally realizing that he had to live for his dream. When he first met Greg, he reminded him to be the best actor and never give up. They went to visit the place where the actors they admired died in a car accident. They agreed to trust and supervise each other like elementary school students, and prove their strength to those who had doubted them.
Putting aside the awkwardness, Wei Suo is very persistent in his career. The first time he caught Greg’s attention was his almost crazy performance in acting class: volunteering to improvise on the stage, yelling over and over again at the names of the characters in "A Streetcar Named Desire", jumping up and down and finally falling to the ground, not paying attention. Will the audience think he is insane? When Greg asked him for his experience, he directly picked up the script and played it out loud in the restaurant. When he went to Los Angeles, he was unwilling to play the villain of a third-rate movie and actively participated in various auditions. Hearing that Greg has found an agent, he will be flexible and ask Greg to recommend him. When he met a well-known producer when he went out to eat, he took the initiative to recommend himself, and directly began to recite Shakespeare's "survival or death". And when he heard the producer pouring cold water and saying that he "will not succeed in a million years", he still had a glimmer of hope and asked "What about in a million years". Finally, inspired by Greg, he was determined to make a movie by himself, write a script without sleep and food, spend money on equipment, find a studio, and build a crew, hoping to create a chance for success.
The story is developing in the direction of "Heavens Helping Self-help". He is as ambitious and terrified as any fledgling creator of this movie called "The Room". When filming the first scene on the first day of the startup, he and Greg showed the excitement of seeing the work gradually taking shape and coming to life in their hands when they saw the intense confrontation between the two supporting actors in the play.
In the story of "The Room", he probably wrote his most memorable experience, causing colleagues on the crew to privately speculate whether the tragic love triangle in the film was adapted from his real experience. He also tried to explore the deeper meaning behind the work, reminding the actors not to talk about facts, but to see more abstract elements in the plot about betrayal, about the nature of love, about the mutual control between people, and so on. He still doesn't forget to pay tribute to his favorite actor. The famous line in the film "You broke me to pieces" completely imitated the scenes in the movie of his idol James Dean.
Even his unpleasant performance at work can also be interpreted as trying to imitate the industry's vices when he tried to imitate Hollywood blockbusters. For example, he spends a lot of money, buying cameras that were originally used for renting, contracting huge billboards for publicity, and celebrating the premiere of a movie with a high profile, because he feels that successful movies should do so. He insists on acting passionately and does not shy away from exposing private parts because he believes that "selling meat" can increase the movie's viewing point. He had a bad attitude to his opponents, insulted the actresses, and refused to give the actors water in the heat, because he heard that Hitchcock had abused the actors and finally stimulated their potential and made masterpieces. Even the twists and turns of his friendship with Greg is in line with the imaginary "golden partner" from confidant to break to reconciliation. He obviously has many misunderstandings about Hollywood, but this also confirms his simplicity.
"This is not just a movie, but my life," he said, taking this "debut" as a summary of his past life experiences and Hollywood dreams. However, such a film made with heart has become a disaster. The audience looked confused and disgusted, and finally regarded the tragedy as a comedy, and the laughter continued outside the theater. He spent $6 million for the movie, but the box office for the first weekend was only $1,800. This is not just a waste of effort and money, but his life and thoughts that he wanted to show in the work were trampled underfoot by the audience. Later, "The Room" became a cult because of "too bad", which made Weisso famous, but this was not his original intention.
This is exactly the cruel aspect of "Disaster Artist", which tells the secret behind the "Room". It tells us that a person who has dreams and is desperate, puts his heart and soul in hard, and inevitably has some shortcomings, is not taken for granted to succeed. . On the contrary, failure is the more common end.
In the film, Weisuo is not alone in such serious losers. Wessot’s friend Greg is also relentlessly pursuing, from when he first appeared on the stage, he took the initiative to ask for his experience and went to Los Angeles despite his mother’s dissuasion. Later, he actively looked for other performance opportunities from TV dramas to dramas. The actress who starred in "The Room" touched the creator by saying "I really want to act in a movie", not afraid of Weisso's verbal insults, and without the need for comfort from others, and calmly finished the most difficult and passionate filming. A dragon actor doesn't have many scenes, but he will continue to practice his lines and actions alone before the filming begins. He enters the role at the beginning of the filming, and the emotional outburst almost loses control. An old lady actor woke up at 5 a.m. every morning and drove to the set. After fainting and waking up from heatstroke, she chatted with other actors enthusiastically, saying, "We are actors, the worst day we had on set. It’s better than the best day in other places.” This is a group of respectable portraits of dream chasers, but in the end they did not get close to their dreams. Their performance in "The Room" was ridiculed, except for this bad film.
They are just a microcosm of the city of dreams in Los Angeles. There was a long line outside when Weisso and Greg organized an audition for "The Room". This was clearly a small movie made by an unknown amateur director. However, so many men and women with star dreams found soliciting advertisements in the newspapers, chanting eloquently. Prepare carefully. The producer who met in the restaurant told Weisso that under the fierce competition in Hollywood, even if an actor has the talent of Marlon Brando, the probability of success is very low.
This is why Fu Lanlan, also an actor and director, was touched by Wei Suo's story. In 2013, after reading the original work, he published an article in Vice, saying that many other artists, like Weisso, hope that his works can find like-minded audiences, so as to gain love and understanding. The somewhat absurd attempt of "Room" has actually become a model for those who desire to create something in a difficult environment. "In many ways, Tommy (Weissot) is me," Fu Lanlan wrote at the time. Although Fu Lanlan has been more successful than Weisso, he must have experienced similar pursuits and frustrations as Weisso, and he has also seen countless examples around him. And this is the origin of the movie "Disaster Artist".
Outside of the showbiz, whether it’s literature, music, art, or other forms, as long as you try to express your own thoughts or feelings, most people will encounter frustrations that are not understood and appreciated. No matter how much effort is put into it, under the circumstances of limited ability and hard to find opportunities, anyone may be buried, or may become a "disaster artist". And to continue working hard with such a sense of fear is still the nature of people eager to tell and eager to resonate, just as Weissot must shoot the story about his life no matter how much money or energy he spends.
In fact, when I watched "Disaster Artist", I was always a little scared. Many years later, bad films such as "Living in Fuchun Mountains" and "Dream of the Performing Arts" will be recounted as inspirational "dream-chasing" stories. As an ordinary audience, I still think that "the director works hard" should not be a reason to recognize bad films (the clumsiness of "Room" is obvious at a glance and will not be "whitewashed" by "Disaster Artist"). But perhaps the conclusion of "Disaster Artist" is not that "the people who fail also work hard", but "the people who work hard are also likely to fail". The two overlap, but they do not completely overlap. "Disaster Artist" photographed this seemingly depressing reality, but in reality, how could it not hide the distant but still firm hope of countless serious ordinary people?
(Originally issued in the public account weimustudy)
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