King of Hollywood

Chapter 73: Chapter 73: The Most Troublesome Scene

“So, Donna, do you dance the tango?” the well-dressed colonel asked after some small talk.

“Um… I wanted to learn, but… Mike didn’t want to,” the pretty girl answered with a smile.

“Mike? The person you’re waiting for?” the colonel asked, raising his eyebrows.

The girl shrugged, accepting the colonel’s assumption, and then explained, “Mike thinks tango is crazy.”

“Ha, I think Mike is crazy,” the colonel, although his eyes lacked sheen, clearly expressed his disagreement with a look.

“Don’t mind him,” Charlie quickly interjected, “Um… did I say that already?”

The girl burst into giggles at Charlie’s slightly awkward moment, prompting the colonel to exclaim, “What a beautiful laugh.”

Then he turned to the girl and asked, “Would you like to learn the tango, Donna?”

Donna was clearly surprised, “Now?”

“Free service, how about that?” the blind colonel said confidently.

“I’m a bit scared,” Donna didn’t know how to refuse politely, “scared of taking the wrong steps.”

“There are no wrong steps in tango, unlike life, it’s simple and therefore great. If you misstep or stumble, just keep dancing,” the colonel said with a smile, his confident demeanor never changing.

Perhaps influenced by the colonel’s confidence or genuinely wanting to let loose, Donna nodded, “Okay, let’s give it a try.”

The two of them then stood up, after Charlie described the surrounding environment to the colonel, the colonel, arm in arm with Donna, walked into the dance floor. Just as the previous song finished, the intro of “Gone With The Bullets” began to play.

“Stop!” Adrian yelled loudly, and after everyone halted, he stared at the dance floor for a few seconds before waving to everyone, “This segment, let’s do it again!”

He was currently shooting one of the most challenging three scenes in the movie—the breathtaking tango in the restaurant!

The reason this breathtaking tango is one of the three most challenging scenes is due to its demanding requirements on the director’s coordination and filming techniques. How to show that Frank is blind in the tango? And how to make the audience believe he’s just like anyone else? All these need careful handling, and even a slight mishap could ruin the crafts. Although Adrian had mastered the camera work and plot thoroughly, he still couldn’t afford to be careless.

In his view, the difficulty of this scene was greater than the other two, which respectively involved Colonel Frank driving wildly through New York City and the final speech in the school auditorium.

For the former, he had already learned about the various issues caused by road closures during filming, but those were the concerns of the assistant and executive producer. As for the latter, Adrian had experience with large-scale scene management and Pacino was in excellent form during filming. The grand speech was filmed five times, and each take was successful on the first try.

He had to admit that the veteran actor Pacino was outstanding. Among all the roles involving disabilities, the blind character was one of the hardest to portray. Ordinary actors rely significantly on their eyes to augment their performance—some even believe that Nicholas Cage’s eyes add greatly to his acting.

However, blind characters can’t utilize eye contact in their performance, so they must translate that aspect into their expressions, movements, and body language. Pacino did this exceptionally well, especially during the speech in the auditorium; his movements were minimal yet powerful, and he was able to impact the crew and the extras during filming.

Although Oscars often favor male protagonists with disabilities and Pacino had an advantage due to his experience, his excellent acting was also one of the key reasons he could win an Oscar statuette, and Adrian fully believed he would win again this time.

Now, back to the topic of the tango scene. Compared to the driving and speech scenes, the key to a successful tango scene lay entirely with the director. As mentioned before, it was necessary to make the audience feel that Colonel Frank was no different from a sighted person while also conveying that he was, in fact, blind—aside from the actor’s performance, everything depended on the director’s control.

For this reason, Adrian had put in a lot of effort, such as drawing up the dance storyboard from memory early on, then inviting two dance directors to complete the choreography based on these drafts. Meanwhile, during the filming of other fragmented scenes, he had Pacino and Vera Jamison, who played Donna, practice the dance steps.

Despite the difficulties and need for caution, Adrian did not believe this shot would defeat him. Even though his works were plagiarized and copied, that didn’t mean he was incompetent to this extent.

“Do you need eye drops, Al?” After shooting the scenes prior to the tango twice, Adrian declared a 15-minute break to prepare for the upcoming challenge and joked with Pacino.

“Don’t you know? Every time the camera moves away, I blink like crazy,” Pacino responded in the same joking tone.

“It looks like I should prepare an extra camera to capture these moments, so we can add some behind-the-scenes footage to the video release,” Adrian continued with a laugh.

Pacino didn’t respond this time but shifted the topic instead, “A few days ago, I went out to clear my mind and saw your new movie. It was very moving. Although I’ve met many directors and producers, someone like you is a first. Honestly, Ed, I’m suddenly very curious to see what ‘Scent of a Woman’ will be like once it’s finished.”@@novelbin@@

“You’ll see, Al,” Adrian replied with a smile, patting his shoulder, “and I’ll have a surprise for you then.”

After the break, filming continued. To minimize mistakes, Adrian repeatedly explained the scene to the main actors. Not that he said much—Caspar Jager, who played Charlie, fulfilled the role of a pretty boy well, and his tango had nothing to do with his character; as for Pacino, his method acting usually kept him in good form, requiring only gentle reminders. Thus, most of Adrian’s instructions were directed at Vera Jamison, who played Donna.

“Anyway, just relax and don’t be nervous, just like you practiced with Al earlier. The shots by the dining table earlier went well, didn’t they?” Adrian patiently reassured the somewhat anxious actress, as the initial test shots had been halted twice as soon as the music started, showing that Vera was clearly not in the right state.

Adrian had initially wanted Kate for the role; her looks were perfect for it. But considering her height of approximately 5 feet 8 inches, he had to rule her out. He couldn’t have Pacino dance tango with a woman who was a head taller than him. Thus, he ended up choosing a 23-year-old, slightly thin, black-haired young woman who had played supporting roles in some low-budget films and stood around 5 feet 5 inches tall. Unfortunately, though she was fine in ordinary shots and in practicing the tango with Al, she seemed to get nervous once the camera started rolling on her dance performance.

(Briefly mentioning, everything that should be there will be there; it’s just the beginning. Well, my book indeed starts slow… asking for recommendations)