This damn 2020 has taken away a great director again.
The morning before yesterday, Uncle Fish learned the bad news:
The famous director Joe Schumacher died at the age of 80.
After battling cancer for a year, he died in New York on Monday morning, US time.
Joe Schumacher, at first glance at this name, may feel strange to many people.
Not surprising.
He is a typical director of the category of "the work is more famous than himself".
But his work, you must have heard of.
Representative works include two "Batman" movies "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin";
There are also "City Heroes", "Sniper Phone Booth", "Phantom of the Opera", and the American drama "House of Cards" and so on.
After the news of his death, many actors who had worked with Joe Schumacher sent out articles of condolence.
Amy Rosen, the eldest sister who starred in "Phantom of the Opera" and "Shameless", tweeted:
"When I heard the news of Schumacher's death, I shed tears. He played a big role in shaping my life. I don't know what to say now."
Bauer Willimon, producer of House of Cards, remembers:
"I've had the privilege of working with him, smart, funny, talented."
Corey Feldman, the star of Ghostbuster, writes:
"Please take care of us, our friends who have gone to heaven, and maybe now you can talk about all that we can create when we reunite in eternity."
In this special period when "movies don't seem to matter", Uncle Fish wanted to borrow his work to talk about Joe Schumacher again.
I would like to remember this great director.
And once again to express my deep love for cinema.
Among the many works of Joe Schumacher, the most familiar to domestic audiences is probably the movie "Sniper Phone Booth".
Douban scored 7.9 points from more than 160,000 people, making it the most rated work by Joe Schumacher.
The creative process of the whole work can be described as a one-shot process.
Screenwriter Larry Cohen has long wanted to write a screenplay for a movie that revolves around a phone booth.
By the end of the 1990s, with the advent of mobile phones, the status of urban public telephone booths was encroached upon.
Taking this as an opportunity, he completed the script of "Sniper Phone Booth" in less than a week.
After director Joe Schumacher got the script, he was also fierce, and it took only 10 days to shoot.
The final film is only 80 minutes long, but every second is high energy.
Joe Schumacher chose the new Irish actor he single-handedly unearthed, Colin Farrell.
He plays Shi Du as a publicist in New York.
An assistant and two mobile phones built up his vast network of relationships.
He is rich in means, good at provoking dissension, with a variety of crooked ways to help artists increase exposure, quickly become popular.
On the surface, he calls the wind and rain, and the scenery is full of scenery;
In fact, it is full of lies and tired of navigating between customers, entertainment publications, wives and lovers.
He had a habit of calling a lady at the same phone booth at the same time every day.
That lady was Stu's lover.
Before each phone call, Shi Du would take off the wedding ring he was wearing on his hand.
It seems that doing so will alleviate one's guilt and deceive oneself.
But after he hung up, the phone at the public phone booth suddenly rang.
Out of reflex, Stoo picked up the phone.
A good play officially began.
The mysterious man on the other end of the phone said what Shi Du was wearing and every move he was making.
It turns out that he is spying on Scott.
At first, Shi was very dismissive, deliberately comparing the middle finger to provoke this terrible prank.
But then, the mysterious man successively said Shi Du's full name, detailed home address, and even the business between him and his lover.
Then hung up the phone in the same defiant gesture.
Shi Du panicked.
He stood outside the phone booth, suspicious and hesitant to leave.
After that, the phone rang for the second time.
At this time, Shi Du's tone and attitude underwent a one hundred and eighty degree change.
Just as the so-called one goes by one, Shi Du retreats step by step, and the mysterious man presses forward step by step.
He even threatened to call Scott's wife and expose his infidelity.
Stud began to beg for forgiveness:
"In fact, my life is also very stressful, please don't call my wife."
Watching Shi Du's psychological defenses shattered, the mysterious man also began to issue a series of unbelievable orders.
Of course, no one wants to be at the mercy of anyone, but the mysterious man threatens:
"As soon as you hang up the phone, I'll kill you."
He then shot a robot outside the phone booth to prove he could do what he could say.
In the face of death, Shi Du had to tie his hands.
Except for the 10 minutes laid at the beginning, the remaining 70 minutes of the plot almost all take place in a public telephone booth between the inches.
For such a single scene, the picture of the movie is not monotonous.
Instead, it's constantly switching perspectives.
It was Also Stud's first point of view, looking out through the glass of the telephone booth or staring at the tall buildings on either side.
The picture shook violently, zoomed in, and he tried to find the hiding place of the mysterious man.
Sometimes it is the perspective of a bystander, looking across the street at The Capital in the telephone booth.
There's also a fisheye view of the monitor in the phone booth, and a sight shot in the sniper scope of the mysterious man.
Although only a phone call such a small love affair occurs, through the sharp editing, multiple camera positions are quickly switched, which looks gripping.
The situation became more and more noisy, and innocent people died because of it.
Policemen, journalists, Stu's wife and lover, all rushed to the scene.
Everyone gathered outside the phone booth.
Shi Du was toyed with by the mysterious man, and he was forced to carry out a cruel soul torture.
The mysterious man forces Shi Du to confess all his dishonest behavior in public, in front of the TV camera.
As big as the infidelity to his wife, using the trust of his assistant to exploit him, as small as the brand-name watch he carries on his body is a fake.
I almost "plucked" myself.
About honesty and lies, about human good and evil, about the nothingness and meaning of life, all condensed in this short 80 minutes.
In addition to suspense, there is also a cautionary significance.
Compared to many of the great works that have entered the history of film, Sniper Phone Booth may lack a grand epic temperament.
But the strong experimental style, ingenious creativity, sharp and precise insight, is enough to be regarded as a masterpiece.
After talking about "Sniper Phone Booth", Uncle Yu next wants to talk about the director alone.
Joe Schumacher has made a lot of movies, and his own life has been extremely exciting.
Joe Schumacher was born on August 29, 1939, to a working-class family in Queens, New York.
His mother was Jewish from Sweden and his father was a Baptist in Tennessee, USA.
So Joe Schumacher called himself "American Mongrel."
When he was 4 years old, his father died.
In order to make ends meet, his mother went out to work six days a week and had no time to spend with him.
"In a sense, I lost my father, and then I lost my mother."
Unattended Joe Schumacher is completely in a state of "free-range" and has also allowed many complicated things to take advantage of:
Learned to drink at the age of 9, and began to have sex and take drugs at the age of 11;
In the summer of 16 years old, he left home and went out alone.
He was pulled by life to grow up quickly, to adapt to a lot of things that he shouldn't have touched at that age.
After leaving home, he worked around and saved up money to go to college and study fashion design.
With a keen sense of smell and design talent for fashion, Joe Schumacher quickly made a splash in the fashion world.
But the easy success also allowed him to sink again and begin "vengeful pleasure".
Later, recalling that indulgent time, Joe Schumacher called it the "vampire period".
During the day the whole person is not awake, only at night out.
It was not until 1970 that he finally decided to change his past and become a man again.
Moved to Los Angeles, ready to dream hollywood.
In 1972, with his old career, Joe Schumacher participated in the costume design of the movie "Let It Be", and has officially entered the film and television industry ever since.
He went on to design costumes for Woody Allen's "Fools In Science City," "Deep in My Heart," Herbert Rose's "The Ghost Game," and Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love.
"Fools Make a Fuss about Science City"
Through cooperation with some famous directors, Joe Schumacher began to become a little famous in the circle.
In 1981, he won the opportunity to direct the first directing tube, shooting the movie "Shrinking Wife".
In the following ten years, Joe Schumacher made a lot of movies, which can be regarded as the pulse of the times.
Among them, 1993's "City Hero" was also shortlisted for the main competition section of the Cannes Film Festival that year.
But unfortunately, none of these movies sold well.
The films that are really commercially successful are the "Batman" series.
In 1992, Tim Burton quit Warner Bros. after batman returns, and Joe Schumacher took over the coaching position.
He is a fan of Batman comics when he is young, and pays more attention to visual effects, making the picture of the movie look closer to the comic.
In 1995, his first "Batman" film series, Batman Forever, was released.
It brought together Fang Kimmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Kim Carey, Nicole Kidman and many other big names, and earned more than $300 million at the global box office.
In 1997, he followed up with Batman and Robin.
Unfortunately, this movie is still the worst "Batman" series in the minds of many fans.
Years later, in the face of this doubt, Joe Schumacher also generously admitted that this was a major mistake he had made:
"I shouldn't have listened to the marketing executives of film companies because they wanted to target movies to children."
After that, Joe Schumacher filmed "8mm", "Tiger Company", "Sniper Phone Booth", "Poison News", and took the "small and dark" route.
The protagonists are all imprisoned and testing humanity.
Poison Home News
In 2004, Joe Schumacher filmed Phantom of the Opera, an adaptation of the classic musical, which received three nominations at the 77th Academy Awards.
In 2013, Joe Schumacher was invited by his friend David Finch to direct the first two episodes of House of Cards.
In 2015, at the age of 76, Joe Schumacher moved behind the scenes as executive producer of the American horror story: Hotel.
After that, due to physical reasons, he completely retired.
In addition to his magnificent career, Joe Schumacher has two other stories that are talked about.
One is his erotic private life.
The second is the contradiction between him and the critics.
During the filming of Batman Forever, Joe Schumacher revealed his homosexual identity.
As an openly gay man, Joe Schumacher is known for the honesty of his private life —
He was blunt and had about 20,000 or so sexual partners.
Then there is the fact that he has a very bad relationship with critics.
In an interview with Vulture magazine, Joe Schumacher also explained this hostility:
"Maybe it's my success that annoys a lot of people who always think I don't deserve it, even though my films have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide."
Joe Schumacher's legendary life, with ups and downs and ups and downs.
From the grief of losing one's father at a young age, to the depravity of drug addiction, to the self-awakening after the establishment.
It was the film that saved him in the sea of suffering and changed his life.
Today, he finally returned himself to the movie.
This good drama of life, Joe Schumacher finished.
But his films will never go out of style.