Chapter 344: Awards Ceremony

At the current stage, there is a specialized term domestically called "Chong Ao" (Charging for the Oscars).

This "Chong Ao" has nothing to do with the Olympic Games, but specifically refers to Chinese films charging for the Oscars.

Every year, the two sides of the strait and the three places will each select a film to represent the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to charge for the Oscars.

Of course, the main target is still the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Before Cao Yang went to Hollywood to film, as long as his films won awards at the Big Three in Europe, the Film Bureau would always ask if he was willing to represent the mainland to compete for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

If Cao Yang agreed, relying on the huge advantage of winning awards at the Big Three in Europe, there would be no business for other directors, and they wouldn't have to think of various ways to "fight to the death" for this quota.

However, Cao Yang has never been very interested in the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, so he has never agreed to represent the country to compete for this award.

After Cao Yang entered Hollywood and successively won big awards like Oscar Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, even if *Black Swan* won the Venice Golden Lion again last time, the Film Bureau didn't ask him anymore.

People know that Cao Yang looks down on the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film even more—even though the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is still something domestic directors break their heads for.

Last year, two Chinese films with great influence were released domestically, both by big directors: Zhang Zhang Yimou's *Curse of the Golden Flower* and Xiao Xiao Gangpao's *The Banquet*.

Both films were qualified to represent the mainland to compete for this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. However, the mainland only selects one film every year, so the thing that media and reporters love to see happened.

*Curse of the Golden Flower* and *The Banquet* started fighting.

Media reporters stirred up trouble, fearing it wouldn't be lively enough. This can also be considered a "reserved project" of the domestic annual media carnival.

To say that in the folk, that is, the influence among ordinary audiences, Xiao Xiao Gangpao is actually about the same as Zhang Zhang Yimou. Everyone's cognition of them is that they are domestic big directors.

However, the influence in the officialdom is not on the same level. Currently, the only one who can compete with Zhang Zhang Yimou domestically is the great poet Old Chen.

Of course, Cao Yang is now in a unique tier and does not participate in the competition. Domestically, whether it is official or media, everyone acknowledges this point.

Xiao Xiao Gangpao's influence in the officialdom is at least one level lower than Zhang Zhang Yimou's, and the box office of *The Banquet* is not as good as *Curse of the Golden Flower*.

So, with almost no suspense, Xiao Xiao Gangpao was out.

*Curse of the Golden Flower* is the only film representing the mainland to compete for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this year.

However, *The Banquet* has nearly half of its investment from Hong Kong's Media Asia company, and now that Hong Kong cinema is basically cold, there are really no films that can be taken out.

Thus, *The Banquet* changed its track and became the best choice for the Hong Kong Film Producers Association to represent Hong Kong to compete for this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

This is truly a bit caught off guard, but thinking about it, it is within reason.

If *The Banquet* defeated *Curse of the Golden Flower* in the Oscar selection, not to mention winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, even if it entered the nomination list, that would be interesting.

At least for Xiao Xiao Gangpao, it can be considered an inspirational film and a refreshing novel. It is estimated that Xiao Xiao Gangpao dreams of such a plot happening.

What a pity.

It is regrettable that whether it is *Curse of the Golden Flower* representing the mainland, *The Banquet* representing Hong Kong, or *Deep Sea* representing Taiwan, all of them were eliminated and didn't enter the Oscar nomination list for Best Foreign Language Film.

Everyone didn't enter the nomination list, which is actually not a bad thing.

The key is that *Curse of the Golden Flower* is a bit special.

Because there is capital investment from the American International Bank and the Hong Kong Bank, and the North American copyright is still in cooperation with Sony Classics, it has the qualification to compete for other Oscar awards.

What made Xiao Xiao Gangpao break his defense is that although *Curse of the Golden Flower* didn't win an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, it won an Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design.

Xiao Xiao Gangpao, who wants to be strong all his life, lost to Zhang Zhang Yimou again.

This is also the reason why Xiao Xiao Gangpao felt a bit happy after hearing Cao Yang say that *Inception* received many nominations but was very hard to win big awards—it can't be that only my small heart is hurt, it can't be that I am always the one breaking defense.

Although Xiao Xiao Gangpao heard Cao Yang explain that it was because the box office was too high that it was very hard to win big awards, and broke his defense again, the original intention was to find self-comfort and balance.

Domestically, the news that Cao Yang's *Inception* received nine Oscar nominations was also reported heavily before the New Year.

However, even though everyone thinks *Inception* is a very classic film, even enough to be recorded in film history, the industry is not very optimistic about how many awards it can win this time.

Just like the famous film critic Zhou Li Ming said when he was a guest on the Sina program:

"The Oscars are actually about the same as most film festivals, just like our Golden Rooster. If a film's box office is too high, it will automatically be classified as a commercial film, even if this film has very high artistic value."

"It cannot be denied that *Inception* is a very classic film, having both exceptionally wonderful watchability and innovative storytelling, as well as exploration and humanistic care."

"I checked the rating on the famous American film review website IMDb, and *Inception* is still as high as 9.0, ranking in the top ten of the film list."

"But what cannot be denied is that *Inception*'s box office is too high, which makes many Oscar jurors subconsciously classify it into the category of commercial films."

"So I think everyone shouldn't hold too much expectation and treat it with a normal mindset."

Regardless of whether *Inception* can win an award, it received nine Oscar nominations, and the media still reported it in large length.

It's Cao Yang. His *Milk* received ten Oscar nominations, and *District 9* received seven Oscar nominations. The nine nominations now are not fresh news.

If it were replaced by other Chinese directors, if the film they directed received nine Oscar nominations, that would definitely be a big event that shocked the entire Chinese entertainment industry.

It is estimated that because the CCTV broadcast had a mistake last year, the live broadcast on Sina attracted too much attention. Sohu was jealous and also held a live broadcast this time.

Different from Sina, they didn't invite guests to objectively analyze and guess the award attribution, but focused on "Jianghu grudges."

This kind of gossip is actually very worth watching and attracted many netizens to watch.

Sohu also invited three guests, each representing one side, to "argue" about who could become the biggest winner of this Oscar.

It was also because this Oscar was "powerful" that Sohu grabbed the hot spot.

Look at the nomination list of the 79th Oscars, and you will know how deep this "grudge" is.

Cao Yang's *Inception* received nine nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing.

Martin Scorsese's *The Departed*, remade from the Hong Kong film *Infernal Affairs*, received nominations for the 79th Oscar Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing.

Clint Eastwood's *Letters from Iwo Iwo Jima* received four big award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound.

Is this scene very familiar?

The 77th Oscars was Cao Yang competing with Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood for big awards like Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.

Cao Yang's *District 9* received three big award nominations for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Clint Eastwood's *Million Dollar Baby* received three big award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor.

Martin Scorsese's *The Aviator*, although winning the most awards, won five awards, but they were all "small awards," which couldn't compare with Cao Yang and Clint Eastwood in terms of weight.

The most important Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress were "divided" by Cao Yang and Clint Eastwood.

This time, the three met again at the Oscars and were competing for big awards like Best Picture and Best Director, which is naturally a very big highlight.

Cao Yang estimated that perhaps this was the reason why Oscar president Sid Ganis called him and asked him to attend the Oscars.

Sid Ganis, before being elected as the Academy president and Oscar president, was a Columbia executive and served as the executive producer of *District 9* when Cao Yang was filming *District 9*.

At that time, the two cooperated well, and their relationship was quite good.

Cao Yang felt that since it was very hard for him to win big awards, Sid Ganis should give him some "compensation" in other "small awards."

The Oscars indeed regarded the "grudge" between Cao Yang and Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood as one of the highlights of this Oscar. Many American media reported this matter.

Whether it is us Chinese or Americans, we all like to watch the excitement. This is probably one of the commonalities of people.

Three big directors met so coincidentally at the Oscars and were all nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, which is a very difficult thing, so the media used many very exaggerated words when reporting.

Things like "Martin Director's Revenge," "Clint's Determination for Best Director," "Cao Yang Fighting Alone Against Two Old Big Directors in Hollywood," etc.

Anyway, it was how to attract eyeballs.

The reason for the topic of "Cao Yang Fighting Alone Against Two Old Big Directors in Hollywood" is because *Inception* received nine nominations, while *The Departed* and *Letters from Iwo Iwo Jima* each had four nominations.

The two films added together were not as many as *Inception*.

February 25, 5:00 PM local time in the United States, 9:00 AM on the 26th Beijing time, the 79th Academy Awards were held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.

The red carpet starlight of this Oscar was still very dazzling.

Depp received a nomination for Best Actor again because of *Inception*. Even if he knew it was almost impossible to win, he definitely had to come.

DiCaprio also came. He also received a nomination for Best Actor.

What is more interesting is that although he was the male lead of *The Departed*, he didn't receive a nomination for Best Actor because of this film.

The film that made DiCaprio receive a nomination for Best Actor was *Blood Diamond*, a crime-type film similar to *The Departed*.

Sometimes it is very strange. Where there is DiCaprio, there is Kate Winslet. She also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress because of *Little Children*.

In this film, Kate Winslet hadn't become "Fat Winslet" yet, but she clearly looked much older.

But we cannot blame someone who is willing to sacrifice for art. Those scenes without clothes and passionate scenes were all performed by her personally. Before becoming "Fat Winslet," her current figure is still quite good.

Gu Gu Changwei, this old boy, was nominated for Best Cinematography again. He is now a bit "numb" to the Oscars—well, this is his original words to the domestic media.

No way, who let him be nominated for Oscar Best Cinematography time and time again, and even won this award.

He said he was "numb," and everyone knew he just wanted to pretend to be cool.

But you know this old boy owes a scolding, yet you can't say anything. Gu Gu Changwei has been nominated for Oscar Best Cinematography for the fourth time. No matter who is unconvinced, they have to hold it in.

He came earlier than Cao Yang and brought his wife Jiang Jiang Wenli with him.

The Oscar awards ceremony allows bringing family members.

Cao Yang rarely brings girlfriends to reduce unnecessary trouble.

Sometimes too many will indeed cause quite a few troubles, and bringing anyone is inappropriate.

Of course, there are some special situations where it won't cause trouble even if brought, like this time, he brought Fatty Bing to walk the red carpet openly, and no one would definitely say anything.

After all, Fatty Bing is considered the female lead of *Inception*. Even if she didn't receive an Oscar nomination, there is no problem coming to attend the Oscars.

Fatty Bing is not as high-profile as before, and she won't buy press releases to "crush" others at every turn.

Status and mindset are different, reliance is different, and behavior will definitely change accordingly.

Fatty Bing wore a white waist-cinching evening dress. The tube top design used pearl embroidery to outline the classic vine pattern. It was not deliberately low-cut or tight-chested. The waist was covered with fine diamonds, as if the galaxy fell on the waist.

The skirt was stacked with three layers of thin gauze to create a cloud-like fluffiness, and the train extended like a snowfield, every step like stepping on broken silver.

This made Fatty Bing look exceptionally bright and atmospheric.

Fortunately, the temperature in Los Angeles in February is quite good, and it can be ten or twenty degrees during the day, otherwise, these female guests wearing skirts would have to suffer.

After walking the red carpet, entering the first floor of the theater auditorium, two aisles divided the guest seats into three obvious rows.

What is interesting is that Cao Yang and the *Inception* crew sat in the middle row.

On the left row sat Martin Scorsese and his *The Departed* crew.

On the right row sat Clint Eastwood's *Letters from Iwo Iwo Jima* crew.

Moreover,

The Oscars have learned to put on a show too.

The host of this year's Oscars, Ellen DeGeneres, took the stage, and the 79th Academy Awards ceremony officially began.

(End of chapter)