Chapter 95 Normandy (III)

The drill lasted for seven days in total. Even the temporary soldiers felt that they could go to the battlefield and died like a warrior.

Even the picky people will think it is OK. As long as Li Siming gave the order, the one who should run away with his head and pretended to be dead, and the one who should lie down and pretended to be dead, and even his own mother would not know him when he came. The groups, props, clothing, makeup, explosions, fireworks, and photography have already adapted to the requirements and can keep up with them.

Everything looked smooth, but there was one thing that Li Siming could not change, that was God. During these seven days, the wind was bright and the sky was bright and the clouds were light. In previous years, there were often strong winds and waves here.

"Maybe God is going out for vacation!" Li Siming thought so.

"Maybe we should shoot the last part, so that the progress can be faster and save some costs." Coppola suggested. He was looking forward to good weather back then, but Li Siming looked forward to bad weather.

Li Siming actually prefers shooting in the order of the storyboard scripts, because this allows the actors to better grasp the characters and plots, so that they will not be unable to adjust the rhythm of the performance because of the jumps in the plot.

Just as Li Siming was about to move to the UK, good news came from the weather forecast: when tomorrow morning, there will be about ten meters of wind and waves nearby, and the weather will be mainly cloudy to cloudy.

...

Under the dim morning light, dozens of landing craft loaded with US soldiers rushed towards the unknown beach through the waves. The wind and waves slapped violently on the boat, pouring the cold sea water back into the cabin. The soldiers' temperatures were quickly lost. The landing craft were thrown up and dropped in this vast sea like an abandoned leaf.

The soldiers were not home in front of them. The fear of the unknown enveloped their whole body, but their bodies betrayed them. Someone kept vomiting during the bumps, as if trying to discharge the fear with the gastric juice. The shaking camera pointed at the right hand of an officer, which was trembling. In order to cover up this, he took out the military kettle with his hand and twisted the lid with that hand. The camera slowly pulled away. The protagonist and his soldiers looked serious, and they were gone with their usual jokes and dirty words. Some were praying and some kissing the cross necklace.

"There are thirty seconds left, may God bless you!" Finally, facing death. The cabin door of the bow opened, and bad luck came. The dense heavy machine gun bullets shot towards him, and there was nowhere to hide. The soldiers kept falling down. Captain Miller ordered the soldiers to jump from both sides. Under the water, shrapnel pierced the water surface and still tenaciously maintained lethality. The soldiers died before they could surface. Swimming soldiers surfaced and rushed forward with the troops that had lost command. The caltrops covered on the beach became a cover to avoid dense rain of bullets. The bodies were filled with corpses, blood and ubiquitous threats on the beach, which put the soldiers in a desperate situation.

This is hell. Captain Miller, played by Hanks, was stunned by this sudden heavy blow: the bullet cuts through the air and makes a harsh sound. When hitting the caltrop, it flashes with a heart-wrenching spark. It hits the body and brings out a long line of blood. The shells fly across and smashes the soldiers and throws them up. Young soldiers scream or cry. Some even take their broken limbs to look for medical soldiers. The blood dyes the sea water red. Most people have no chance to step onto the beach. The short shallow water area has become a collective slaughterhouse for the soldiers.

The cruelty of the war is undoubtedly revealed here. Li Siming's photographer Zhan Nuoz Kaminsky recorded everything with a portable camera, canceling the traditional moving guides, and the constantly shaking picture presents people with the same news documentary taken by a field photographer: the field photographer seems to avoid the bullets flying in that can harvest life at any time, following the pace of the soldiers who charge into battle, the lens is shaking.

Remove the protective mirror from the camera lens, but bringing this modern camera closer to the old machine in the 1940s. Without the protective mirror, light can directly enter the lens and reflect it, which makes the light more dispersed and softer than before. This makes people feel like traveling through time and space and being in the real scene of history.

Hanks could no longer tell whether this was true. He was a hardworking actor. Before coming to this beach, he looked at the script countless times, pondering the characters and story clues. However, when he was riding on the bumpy landing craft and looking at the dark beach, he felt that he was a real soldier from World War II. He began to think randomly. Only now did he realize how fearful the soldiers 40 years ago were: they were exhausted, wet, and then jumped off the landing craft, but they were greeted by dense bullets, and they watched their partners die by their side, and all they could do was leave the beach as soon as possible.

Immersive, or real life, are the best mentors for performances. The performance theories I learned before are so pale and powerless. When flesh and blood swarms, when the explosions are blowing one after another, his mind is blank. Although a voice deep in his heart tells him that he is filming, he is instinctively afraid.

Li Siming is the director. He knew his identity very clearly a few minutes ago. But when the explosion points sounded one after another, batches of soldiers fell down, "blood" splattered everywhere, and "limbs" flew everywhere, he forgot his identity, and his eyes were blood red, just like the sky he had seen a few years ago. He seemed to be in the battlefield again, where he lost his closest team members: Xie Wu's blood-red eyes, Yuan Jingxiang's bomb drop posture that he still insisted on until his death, Xu Feng's body that was blown into a funnel, and Liu Dan's spirit of dying with the enemy at the last moment. The damn bloody sky and the last scenery occupied his brain, controlled his thinking and limbs, and the blood in his body was boiling.

Li Siming had already turned a deaf ear to everything around him and made an unexpected move. He was already puzzled by the character played by Hanks. Although this was what the script wanted to express, Li Siming instinctively believed that officers should bravely stand up in the battle between blood and fire, make the right decision quickly, and lead his soldiers out of the slaughterhouse. In Li Siming's past experience, he knew that any hesitation would cause greater casualties to his subordinates. He believed that an excellent officer never regarded the lives of his subordinates as his ladder for promotion. Li Siming once did this, and now he thought that Hanks should do it too. He had forgotten that this was a movie.

So in full view of everyone, he ran to Hanks and shouted, "Get up quickly, you are an officer, your brother is bleeding, take your people away from here quickly, you are a malfeasance! You are the executioner!"

Hanks was already stupid. The photographer and his assistant director Coppola were stunned.

But Hanks didn't know whether it was "discovering conscience" or reacted, and continued to act. He saw the despair and regret in Li Siming's eyes, as well as courage and responsibility, which was the complex emotion that his character wanted to reflect. Hanks understood this complex emotion for a moment: his trembling right hand showed the protagonist's fear of war, his fallen subordinates made him feel sorry for him, and the terrifying guns made him deaf for a while, but the duties and courage of the soldiers made the protagonist stand up and command his soldiers to complete the task.

"Maybe the director is more suitable for this role!" At that moment, he even had this strange idea. It was not until several years later that he suddenly realized that his intuition was so accurate.

Li Siming forgot his identity. He ran around on the "battlefield" to boost morale. He was more like a US military officer commanding a battle. He forgot that bullets could "hit" him at any time.

Coppola reacted and signaled everyone to continue working. The camera carefully avoided Li Siming's figure until the protagonist played by Hanks finally left the beach and found a place to live.

"Lee, although you are called the most talented director in Hollywood, I have to admit it today." Coppola sighed, "You are full of passion and everyone is infected by you. It's so smoother to cooperate than during the drill. This is really incredible. I think this piece of film is enough, and it's excellent enough!"

"However, this editor is probably busy," photographer Janet Kaminsky joked. Since he wanted to avoid Li Siming's figure, he had to change his original movement route, so the picture is relatively messy, and the post-production production may be a little more troublesome.

Li Siming was shocked and had not calmed down yet. At this moment, he was very depressed by his crazy life just now. He was just making a movie here.

"Well, something happened today. I promise there will be no next time!" Li Siming said embarrassedly. He just left his post without permission and robbed someone else's work.

"So next?" Coppola asked.

"I'll take a closer look!" Li Siming. He needed to take a cold shower to wake himself up. For several years he has been away from the army. He has always considered himself a strong-willed person, but now he has to admit that the experience of killing and blood cannot be forgotten.

Li Siming stayed alone in the tent, took off all his energy, poured a basin of cold water from his head. The cool water sootheed his passion for blood flow, and his blood-congested eyes had returned to normal.

Li Siming quickly returned to the beach. He also wanted to take a reshoot of this shot to provide more options for post-production.

"Are you okay?" Coppola asked with concern.

"I'm fine!" Li Siming nodded.

"Are you sure?" Coppola expressed doubts.

"Of course!" Li Siming joked, "So far, I remember that I am still a genuine director, and you are the deputy director, so I can't let you take my power!"

Coppola laughed. This guy hasn't forgotten to be happy with himself, which means he is in good condition now. Perhaps the so-called "genius" looks like this.

The poor "cleaner" Carlson, who was hiding next to the temporary toilet, secretly wrote in the record book:

"Today is the first official filming of "Save Private Ryan". After a week of drills, the teams and actors cooperated perfectly.

In the hell on earth that director Li Siming tried hard to shape, everything looked like it was real. Everyone had the feeling of their own sudden acceleration of adrenaline secretion. Because as soon as the shooting started, the entire shooting site was in chaos: people kept falling down, and bombs exploded one after another near you. We can imagine the scene of soldiers falling in batches in the rain of bullets. Our eyes were full of fear. We knew that this was not true, but it was because of this that we really felt fear. In short, this was a big scene.

But Chinese director Li Siming was shocked. He once gave up his responsibilities and seemed to have become a real US military officer. Oh my God, he actually ran to the camera and inspired the 'soldiers' to fight back at the 'Nazis', which forced the photographer to change his movement route. He was the person who was most involved in the scene. Inspired by him, the extras seemed to think that they were really US soldiers in World War II, and their performance was impeccable!"

After writing this article that looked like news and diary, Carlson had to sigh again: Because he had to work harder to finish the disgusting work, and then take advantage of the opportunity to transport garbage to associate with another person. He felt that he was more suitable for secret work, and he had to be careful now. If the director discovered it, he might sweep himself out.

The most important scene today has been filmed. Even if at least one-fifth of the entire movie is completed, Li Siming is very satisfied with the performance of the actors today. Hanks interprets an officer's fear before the war, hesitation during the war, and the final courage and responsibility, which is extremely true and credible. The extras also completed their respective tasks well. The only thing that is dissatisfied is that the two surrendered but killed German soldiers in tomorrow's play became the most popular role, but Li Siming has someone else to choose, which disappoints these extras. Now these extras hope to show their faces next to the protagonist in the later play.

On the battlefield of fire, some people hesitate and some people fear. This is the human nature that a real soldier has when facing the test of life and death. In the rain of bullets, life is so fragile that anyone who survives should feel glad, so this laid the groundwork for the development of the subsequent story: Is it worth it to exchange for another person with eight people?

In fact, war movies with truly humanistic meaning are rare even in the history of American cinema. They are more of panoramic war movies, expressing idealism, heroism and patriotism. War, motherland, honor, responsibility, spirit, and growth are set as keywords, at least in the Pentagon recruitment advertisement.

"Tonight I will give you some extra meals to comfort everyone's stomachs." Li Siming said to his assistant, "The soldiers should be comforted by working hard for the country in this way."

"Do you want to comfort someone who is 'dead in battle'?" Coppola also joked, "The dead are not allowed to eat!"

"By the way, the 'Nazis' should also comfort them, otherwise they will never die if they don't cooperate, and it's not a solution!" Li Siming laughed.
Chapter completed!