Qianjiang Evening News hourly news reporter Lu Fang
The 92nd Oscars have come to an abrupt end, and the final award attribution is almost a row of fruit.
And there is one movie that is considered the biggest jewel of this year's Oscars, that is, "Original Diamond".
"Original Diamond" won many awards in the awards season, and the Safdy director brothers won the American Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Director and the New York Film Critics Association Award for Best Director.
Lead actor Adam Sandler won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor in an American Film and the National Critics Guild for Best Actor.
Stills from "Original Diamond"
The film also won the National Critics Guild for Best Original Screenplay and the Top Ten Films of the Year.
However, "Original Diamond" did not receive an Oscar nomination.
What kind of movie is "Original Diamond"?
Let's start with the American independent directors Safdy Brothers, Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie.
The brothers grew up in New York and know the living environment of the low-class people in Queens, New York. In 2008, their debut film The Pleasure of Being Robbed was shortlisted for the Cannes Directors' Biweekly Section as the closing film. In 2010, "Go Pick Rosemary" was again shortlisted for the Cannes Director's Fortnight.
What really made the Safdy Brothers a hit was "God Knows", which was shortlisted for the Horizon section of the 2014 Venice Film Festival, won the Best Picture at the Tokyo Film Festival that year, and won the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Picture in 2015.
"God Knows" also focuses on marginalized people in society, telling the story of a homeless couple in New York who fight a drug addiction in a crazy love.
Stills from "God Knows"
The Safdy brothers once said, "'God Knows' is to portray a group of people who live in pain and at the same time have to struggle to survive with the hope that tomorrow will be better." ”
In 2017, the Safdi brothers' "Good Time" was shortlisted for the main competition unit in Cannes, and the money reporter learned the talent of the brothers' director in Cannes that year.
"Good Times" tells the story of Robert Pattinson taking his mentally handicapped brother to rob a bank. The mentally handicapped brother is caught, he escapes, and then desperately rescues the younger brother and starts a "cat and mouse game" with the police.
The film's most notable features are the use of tremor electronic music, a large number of neon lights, and the use of handheld photography to create an atmosphere of urgency. Pattinson was agitated and gave a "crazy" performance.
Stills from Good Times
If you have watched "God Knows" and "Good Time", you will know that the noisy soundtrack, the tight rhythm and the restless "madness" of the male protagonist are the style that the Safdi brothers have always had.
"Original Diamond" is not a story of excavating a diamond, and the "original diamond" from Ethiopia in the film also has a slight metaphorical flavor.
Howard, the owner of the New York Diamond Exchange, is in a dilemma, as a gambler and talking cowhide king, hiding in Tibet, just to avoid creditors and thugs.
He is also facing a broken marriage, that is, there is a little third, and I don't know if she will wear a green hat for herself.
Howard bought a rare piece of Ethiopian uncut opal in the hope that bad luck would change. The stone was taken in by NBA star Kevin Garnett, who rented it as a lucky stone for the game. Howard is also counting on a knock from Kevin... But what happened next was unpredictable.
Many scenes in "Original Diamond" are in Howard's diamond shop, with small space, cluttered personnel, and inexplicable electronic soundtrack, giving people a feeling of irritability. Howard is also a big talker, constantly lying and bragging, making the whole movie extremely noisy.
What impresses people most about "The Original Diamond" is that the film is almost driven by the male protagonist's anxious and crazy emotions, except for the final ending, there is no excessive dramatic plot.
What Howard experienced was the frustrated routine of an ordinary little person. No one saved him, and neither was he saved. Under the guidance of the Safdy brothers, the character's daily actions are full of urgency and suspense.
Adam Sandler gave a wonderful performance to play the character of Howard, although he had a hard mouth and would die if he did not brag, but the embarrassment of being thrown into the fountain in the street and the frustration after a series of failures were still pitiful.
It's no surprise that "Original Diamond" was ostracized by the Oscars, it is an independent film with a strong author's style.
The Films of the Safdy Brothers are also considered different from flashy American films, where their protagonists are often overlooked socially marginalized figures who can see a slice of the real America through their films.