Brandon Fisher won the Oscar, planting the seeds in this film 17 years ago

Author of this article: Li Xiaotian

I never expected that this year's 95th Oscar winner would go to Brandon Fisher.

However, for "Whale" director Darren Aronofsky, probably everything was expected by him, and it came at the right time.

Darren Aronofsky , once sent Tanali Portman to the Oscar with "Black Swan". With "Fighter", he helped "Batman" Christian Bale and Melissa Leo both win the Oscars for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actress. Moreover, his "Wrestler" was only so close to sending Mickey Rock to the Oscar throne, and lost to Sean Penn ("Milk") at the last moment. In addition, it also made Tanally Portman again nominated for an Oscar for "The First Lady", and Alan Burstyn received an Oscar nomination for "Requiem for a Dream".

Therefore, Darren Aronofsky has long had a pair of brilliant hands that have shaped several Oscar winners.

However, since 1998's "π", "Whale" is only Darren Aronofsky's eighth film. That is to say, in the first 8 works, he has contributed a total of 4 Oscar performance award winners with one emperor, one queen, one man and one woman, and three more nominations, 8 films and 7 mentions 4, which is already very, very efficient. Therefore, Brandon Fisher has been on the bumper since he took over "Whale", and the probability of winning has been greatly improved.

"Whale" is not an original work by Darren Aronofsky, but an adaptation of Samuel Aronofsky. D. Hunt's 2012 play of the same name. At the beginning, when this drama was staged, Darren Aronofsky was immediately moved, and immediately had the idea of adapting it into a movie. However, he couldn't find the right actor to play, so he kept shelving it, waiting for an opportunity and waiting for a suitable actor to appear.

And the person he was waiting for was Brandon Fisher.

Everyone is familiar with Brandon Fisher, it was his early starring in "Tarzan" and "The Mummy", two fiery series, which made him popular and became the top Hollywood star at the turn of the century. And, at the most popular, he also starred in "Crash", which won the Oscar for Best Film. In the literary film "Gods and Beasts", there is also a good performance, comparable to the old drama bone "Gandalf" Ian McLean. Business and literature can all be put down, and Brandon Fisher can supposedly walk sideways in Hollywood.

However, from 2014 to 2019, Brandon Fisher did not make a movie at all. His mother also died of cancer in 2016.

What happened to him? What the hell are you doing?

It wasn't until 2018, when Brandon Fisher was interviewed by GQ magazine, that he revealed the truth: it turned out that at a luncheon in 2003 he was sexually assaulted by Philip Burke, who was then president of the Hollywood Foreign Correspondents' Association (HFPA), which was the organizer of the Golden Globe Awards. What should I do when a popular actor meets the big guy behind the scenes? Of course, Brandon Fisher could not swallow this breath, and immediately filed charges against Burke. But Burke's claim that Fisher's claims were fabricated, despite his own 2014 memoir mentioning that he had "jokingly" scratched Fisher. Although it is an understatement, it also admits in disguise that he has acted against Fisher and misbehaved. But at that time, Burke was a big guy, and the energy of operating in Hollywood was huge, and the result was that Fisher was refrigerated, and just like Red, he suddenly had no chance to make a film. It was allegedly Fisher's accusations against Burke that led to him being blacklisted by Hollywood. So, no one called him, no one asked him to film, and he was treated coldly.

Fortunately, there are no people left here, and there is a place for people. In order to survive, Brandon Fisher also took on some small productions outside the mainstream of Hollywood, but this kind of film is basically a bad film due to the limitation of the script. In addition, he traveled to Brazil to make a Brazilian film called "Night Journey", which was released in 2006.

It was precisely this little-known Brazilian film that was seen by Darren Aronofsky, and he was attracted to Brandon Fisher. Just like when he was moved when he watched the drama version of "Whale", he felt that the actor he had been looking for had been found.

In Darren Aronofsky's own words:

"That's right. I knew him from this low-budget Brazilian film. I considered a lot of different actors, but none of them really made me wake up the next day still feeling excited. Then when I saw Brandon, I thought things had finally turned around. When we met, he was clearly a gentleman and took his work very seriously, a trait I valued. Then we read through the script, and from the second or third line, he proved himself to be Charlie at all. ”

Q: "Does this role have to be Brandon?" ”

Aronofsky: "The most exciting thing is that no one has seen this side of Brandon. Or rather, for sure, no one has seen this side of him for a long time. Once a movie star, always a movie star. It's exciting to see him reborn and play such a complex role. ”

When Brandon Fisher won the Oscar, I also learned about the existence of "Night Journey" through an interview with Darren Aronofsky, and only through his description, did I know the significance of this film to Brandon Fisher. So, hurriedly looked for the resources of this film, but I didn't expect that this film was too niche, even our resource god Du Sir couldn't do anything, fortunately, our Yiren film group was full of talents, and Teacher Cang jumped out in time and gave a film source with a very vague layout, asking me if I want it? God, it's good to have a look, it's not my turn to pick and choose, quickly kneel to Teacher Cang, and can't wait to lick her toes.

Hurry, show "Night Journey". Moreover, try to figure out Darren Aronofsky's intentions as much as possible, and observe Brandon Fisher in the film with his eyes to see how he really impresses the big director.

Therefore, the motivation for watching the film is not pure, and the following is mainly to talk about the performance of Brandon Fisher from the perspective of production. As for the artistic achievements of the film, let's just say it briefly.

Simply put, "Journey to the Night" is not a very high-quality film, and the Douban score of 7.1 is already quite an objective score, not a bad film, but not good enough. If you want to watch the pros and cons of a film from Douban, basically with a score of 7.5 or more, it is worth watching. Films with a score of 7 to 7.5 belong to the category of what can be seen or not. If the score is below 7, it can be ignored. Of course, some films are maliciously scored, and this part is a different matter.

The story of "Journey in the Night" can be regarded as a Brazilian version of "Ice and Blood Storm".

For the story of "Ice and Blood Storm", it is roughly that the protagonist of the story originally wanted to design a perfect criminal plan, and colluded with others to fake the kidnapping of his wife, in order to blackmail his iron rooster father-in-law. I thought that the plan was seamless, and it would not hurt anyone except to let my father-in-law come up with some money. The case is not a big case, just go ahead and implement it as planned. However, I never imagined that there is no perfect crime in this world, only Murphy's law. As long as something has the potential to go wrong, someone must go wrong. The protagonist's plan, implemented from the beginning, quickly became full of holes and became out of control, originally a small crime, but turned into a mortal crime and could not be cleaned up.

The directors of "Ice and Blood" are the famous Coen brothers, who are the best directors of the Oscar, and although this film is their debut, they still won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and by the way, they won the first of three Oscars for "Cohen's sister-in-law" Francis McDormand.

The story of "Journey in the Night" is a weak version of "Ice and Blood Storm", I don't know if I bought the copyright. In this story, it is about an old man who runs a bar, and one night a drug lord takes a chick to spend money in the bar, and his daughter-in-law breaks in, shoots the drug lord, and then swallows the gun and kills himself. The old man picked up a large bag of drugs out of thin air. It is said that he can and should be handed over to the police. But he refused, and neither would his son. Therefore, the old man planned to sell the drugs and could make a lot of money. Then, he took the money and took his wife out of the country, found a safe place to live in seclusion, and inherited the bar to his son.

This son is starring Brandon Fisher, this son is not very troublesome, he is a bastard. Being able to inherit a bar for nothing is said to be a blood earning, but Brandon Fisher is still not satisfied because he is addicted to gambling and owes a lot of gambling debts. He wanted to not only take the bar, but also get half of the money earned from the old man's drug dealing. His method is to plan to intercept secretly, rob the money after the transaction, keep it for himself, so that he can pay off his gambling debts, and then leave a lot more for himself to escape.

In short, the story plan of "Night Journey" and "Ice and Blood Storm" is to calculate their elders and engage in the old man's money without harming the old man's life. But as the plan progressed, flaws began to appear, and the case quickly went off the rails and went in an uncontrollable direction.

The quality of "Journey in the Night" is certainly not as good as "Ice and Bloodstorm", which has its own humor, a strong story, and a wonderful performance. "Journey in the Night" is relatively much more discolored, or nothing.

So, how exactly did Darren Aronofsky take a fancy to Brandon Fisher?

Is it because he plays it well?

No. In "Night Journey", Brandon Fisher did not perform well. It is said that he plays a bastard boy, and he should exude a nasty atmosphere, just like the "little peel" in "Game of Thrones", which is more in line with the temperament of this film.

Brandon Fisher's performance is obviously soft, obviously a mixed ball, but watching him always ruthless, the performance is obviously not good. Moreover, at that time, his figure had become significantly fatter and stronger than that of "The Mummy", and he was no longer good-looking.

However, if you compare Brandon Fisher's performance in "Journey in the Night" with "Whale", which won him an Oscar, you can clearly see the characteristics in him. And this is exactly what Darren Aronofsky really wants.

What is this trait? is that in "Journey to the Night", it is obviously a bandit, obviously a bastard, but there is a very clean thing in the eyes, and it can't be ruthless. In "Whale", it is clear that Brandon Fisher plays a man who is lost and dying, but he still retains a unique tenderness in his eyes. Obviously fat has become a pig, obviously sloppy to the point of disgusting, but you look at him, but you don't feel disgusting, and you can't be cruel to him. Through the layers of fat shells, you can still see his innocent and sincere heart, which can't help but arouse people's love and make people involuntarily sympathize.

So, back to the title, in "Night Journey", it can already be seen that Brandon Fisher can finally get the temperament of an Oscar actor. However, this temperament needs to be discovered, and it needs to be discerned. And with this pair of eyes is director Darren Aronofsky.

Darren Aronofsky's splendor is that it is obviously a fairly average film, and he has never found the difference between Brandon Fisher and his acting skills. In this film, it is not that Brandon Fisher is not good enough, but that this film does not conform to his temperament. In other words, the style of the alternative bastard he played made the big director see another possibility, and saw his radiant appearance from a glimmer.

So, Darren Aronofsky invited Brandon Fisher, the two hit it off, and then the amazing "Whale" was born.

You can not like the film "Whale", but you can't deny Brandon Fisher's acting skills, especially those gentle and sad eyes.