The original version of The Intouchables had some charity mentality. Although the image of black people has various positive characteristics in the movie, it cannot get rid of some inherent prejudice against black people.
In Levi's film, he doesn't want these prejudices.
In the movie, in addition to being non-discriminatory towards white people, another requirement for black people is to lead them to open their hearts and accept their relatives.
Although Driss is humorous, engaging, and helpful in the original story, some issues, such as racing, lust, aggressiveness, and others, are all reflected.
When Levi was filming, he tried his best to deal with these issues from a more objective and peaceful perspective rather than condescendingly criticizing the lives of black people like the original work.
Indeed, black culture is not mainstream culture, coupled with the fact that the black caregiver has a history of incarceration, which means that it is possible that he has no culture and cannot explain various profound principles to white people.
However, there should be no distinction between him and the rich white man in this story. He does not regard himself as a disabled person because people see him as a friend, but if black people have always been non-mainstream in his eyes, how can he treat Driss as a friend?
Friendship is always mutual, and it must be reflected here.
In fact, many of their stories reflect this mutual friendship.
The artwork is an example: Driss' questioning of white culture has changed his thinking about the concept of culture. This is a change.
At the same time, Philippe has also changed under the influence of Driss. It's just that he didn't realize it.
And now, Levi wants to strengthen all of these. Levi has also strengthened some of the help that black people have given white people, such as dealing with problems between Philippe and his daughter and the people he corresponds to. Thus, it is even more apparent that the two people help each other.
The rich white man is disabled, and the black caregiver is a released prisoner. To a certain extent, both are the type that the mainstream of society hates. And this story should also be about them helping each other and getting rid of their psychological shadows.
The rich white man has money and conforms to the tastes of mainstream culture. However, his disability caused a certain amount of psychological trauma to him, and the problem of handling emotional issues that were not good at all was further fragmented and amplified. Being sensitive and fragile, he made up for his psychological issues with the help of black people.
The black care worker was poor and experienced arrests and jail terms. It is not in line with the requirements of mainstream society. But with the rich white man's tolerance and indulgence, he opened his heart and began to face society with a better attitude.
In this story, it should not be one person who is saved but two people.
The original movie didn't show that; now Levi wants to show it.
The Intouchables is a very heartwarming movie. But in terms of racial discrimination, some issues are indeed there. Compared to the film Driving Miss Daisy, the thinking in this regard is slightly worse. It is precisely because of this that Levi made a lot of changes.
In his story, he changed the original intention of the black man to find a job in the original story. The image he created was that although he still lived in poverty and had many problems, he was at least an optimistic person.
Only then is it possible to save each other and achieve friendship with white people. Only with this arrangement will it be easier for black people to accept that living at the bottom is not an option. But working hard is a choice black people can make.
"Let's continue. The filming of the movie is already going well. I am satisfied with your performance. If we work harder, our movie can be better. Moreover, we need to be more serious. Our movie should be released in September. The production work has to be completed next month, and we don't have much time now."
Inside the studio, Levi clapped his hands again and spoke to several people again.
It's May already, and the movie has to be finished in June. Although he talks about trying to catch up with the release in September, Levi is actually not particularly confident about this. Although this movie does not have much post-production, Levi also hopes to make it exquisite. He doesn't know whether it can really be completed on time.
The time this movie took has actually exceeded its time limit. Compared with his original idea, this movie has taken too much effort.
These efforts are mainly used in preliminary preparations.
When making a movie this time, Levi put forward some new requirements for filming the movie. Compared with previous movies that paid more attention to the atmosphere of life, this movie pay more attention to artistic taste and quality of life this time.
It is a bit difficult to arrange such a set, and in order to fit this set, the overall film also needs to be adjusted in terms of light and tone. Otherwise, the setting has a classical beauty, but the light and color tone always reflect a modern feel, which would make people laugh.
Therefore, during this shooting, Levi made many shooting adjustments when shooting the movie. If you want to achieve different effects, you must try many times.
Levi knows that maybe the audience won't understand the matching of light, tone, and scenery, but they can tell whether a movie has the right taste.
If people perceive these things to be out of place, the movie's taste may be off. It's like the characters appearing in the movie are obviously in ancient costumes, but they use a few Internet vocabulary.
Although it can't be said to be wrong, it always makes people feel awkward - and a movie that makes people feel awkward in this way is definitely not a good movie.
Movies are art, and the characteristic of art is that it seems to not exist at all, but it is manifested everywhere.
In order to make the overall layout of the movie more classical, the tonal arrangement naturally needs to be thicker, and in order to adapt the black people when they break into this world, the light must be brighter.
Arranging these things took a lot of time and slowed down the shooting.
As a result, it will be more difficult for the film to be completed in September. But fortunately, this is a literary film. It's not something that can sell at the box office.
If they miss the release at the end of September, it will be fine if it's released in December.
In the past, when he was not famous, doing this would have dissatisfied the publishing company, but now that Levi is doing this, there is no need to worry about anything.
Only he didn't intend to say this to the actors: There's nothing wrong with asking them to work harder.
A few people returned to work again and made no mistakes. This time, their shots passed quickly.
"Very good, you did a good job this time." After the filming, Levi walked over in person and congratulated several people, "After this part is filmed, we switch to the back, which is the part where Driss dances to the music. That part can be said to be the climax of the movie. Cuba, perform it well."
Cuba Gooding Jr. raised his hand, gave Levi a thumbs up, and winked at the same time to indicate that everything was ready.
"Don't worry, there is absolutely no problem. As long as there is music, I can dance. There is no difference to me, whether it is classical or modern music."
In response to his statement, Levi extended his hand to give a thumbs up.
He knew that Cuba Gooding Jr.'s confidence could still be trusted. He comes from a musical family and is no stranger to music and dance. Although it is unrealistic to expect him to dance particularly well, he can still fulfill the requirements in the movie.
After shooting this section, the next thing to be photographed was Philip's birthday party, where Driss danced to the music. In this section, there is a combination of classical music and black dance. It can be said to be the biggest climax of the movie, and this is what Levi deliberately wanted to express.
Thinking of this, looking at the memo in his hand and the long list of song names prepared here, Levi nodded with satisfaction again - he believed that with these, he could express this scene beautifully.
The shooting was obviously so slow this time, but he could still be so leisurely and not in a hurry. In fact, it was because of this.
In past film shoots, Levi has been learning from the problems of making his own films. After filming his movie this time, he also summarized some issues.
He found that he had never paid much attention to the artistic design of the movie, as well as the soundtrack and interludes of the film.
Although he has always been willing to spend a lot of money to find famous composers to score music and has also hired some artists to design for movies, he never paid much attention because he does not have a deep grasp of art and a sufficient understanding of music.
He has shot so many movies, but the only ones that really left a deep impression on people are the images and music of Emily's Latin-style tones. Besides that, there aren't many applications of good music in Levi's films. Although the unique coldness of The Departed is also a style, it is much worse than Emily.
The reason is that he was deeply impressed by Emily and almost restored the original work, but he did not delve too deeply into the cold style of The Departed, and the movie was inferior in this aspect.
In the final analysis, this is because he did not pay enough attention to tonal composition and music.
Therefore, this is also the problem that Levi focused on solving when filming this movie. It is precisely because of this that he put so much effort into this movie.
A good movie cannot work without enough supporting art design, and it obviously cannot work without good enough musical interludes.
This time, this is also a problem that Levi wanted to correct.
He did not hesitate to choose this movie that uses artistic design to show strong contrasts, and the highlight part is singing and dancing, which is why it came about.
For Levi, his current filming is more about improving his ability to make good movies of his own. Now that he knows his problems, he will naturally pay more attention to practicing in these areas.
He believes that after such practice, his level will be further improved.
*****
Thanks and kudos for my patreons
Marcelo Maia
Britanna
Mandy G
Scott DePaepe
Oluwatimileyin Olayemi
Herylle Ian Gloria
You can read advanced chapters on my Patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.