Background Story

Chapter 112 Background Story

"If I get robbed one day, you'd better come quickly," the actor playing the convenience store owner said to David, who was sitting next to him.

This is an old-fashioned neighborhood convenience store that also sells alcohol; it's also called a liquor store. The store is decorated with Christmas-themed colored lights and wreaths, along with retro ceiling lights.

An old-fashioned car was parked outside. The overall style was that of a mid-20th-century American street shop. These kinds of shops were very common on the streets of Los Angeles at the time and were classic filming locations used in many crime movies to create a sense of street life.

From the appearance of the three main characters to the final shift of the narrative focus to Bud, the movie was actually less than ten minutes in.

In less than ten minutes, four different scenes were cut, a frequency that is very high even in fast-paced Hollywood commercial films. This shows that the pacing of "L.A. Confidential" is not slow at all, and the information density is very high.

The reason for the frequent scene changes is, of course, for box office revenue.

From the underlying logic of film and television creation, audiences who are confined to a single, enclosed space for a long time are prone to fatigue with repetitive visual elements and fixed spatial atmospheres.

The changes in time and space in a movie cater to the audience's natural curiosity. The constant switching of scenes is equivalent to continuously providing the audience with new visual stimulation. Without relying on complicated special effects, it can maintain the freshness of the movie.

The reason why Quentin Tarantino's two Western films, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, had such a large difference in box office performance despite having the same subject matter is largely due to this.

The former, almost entirely, dynamically switches between scenes, from a slave plantation, a dentist's mobile wagon, and the streets of a southern town, all the way to different functional areas of the candy plantation.

The film takes place in completely different spaces, such as the western wilderness, taverns, and manor houses. Each scene brings new conflicts and dramatic tension, leaving no room for the audience to experience aesthetic fatigue. The smooth adventure narrative is very much in line with the general public's viewing habits.

In the latter case, the vast majority of the plot is crammed into a small grocery store at the foot of the snow-capped mountain, with only a few scenes inside the car and a final flashback providing additional spatial information.

The film relies heavily on long dialogues between characters in the same confined space for most of the movie. Viewers are easily bored by the highly repetitive interior settings and the dense, verbose narrative, making the viewing experience much more challenging and tedious.

The final market feedback fully proves this point. The former became Quentin Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date, while the latter became a niche stylistic expression, significantly lagging behind the former in terms of mass appeal and box office revenue.

The reason Bud, played by David, is here is because his partner mentioned earlier that he was going to buy alcohol for his colleagues, which serves as a way of catching up on that foreshadowing.

Upon hearing the boss's words, David looked up at him but didn't say anything. Then, Catherine, dressed in a cloak, entered through the door.

"Hey Nick, bring me some liquor over." Catherine greeted him familiarly as she approached the counter. "One case each of gin, rum, and whiskey."

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"It sounds like a big party. Just a moment, it'll be ready soon."

This is a rather subtle foreshadowing, hinting at Lynn's identity later in the film.

The camera position begins to move, following David's movements, simulating his perspective to enhance the audience's sense of immersion in Budd.

"Merry Christmas."

David, unable to see the other person's face, had no choice but to greet them first, and as expected, the other person turned around.

Merry Christmas, officer.

David looked slightly surprised and raised an eyebrow, saying, "You figured it out at a glance?"

"It's written on your forehead."

"Your wine." David was about to say something more, but seeing this, he had no choice but to pick up the box and leave.

The camera pans to a car parked outside, a very standard old-fashioned car, full of the atmosphere of that era.

Overall, the story told in the movie "L.A. Confidential" has very clear and specific background information such as time and place.

A specific time and space setting brings its own unique atmosphere, which can not only render the emotional tone that fits the story, but also amplify the core theme that the film wants to express by leveraging the characteristics of the era, making the story more profound.

Therefore, when most movies are being filmed, the director usually determines the background information of the story, unless it is a high-budget international film that cannot recoup its costs by relying solely on the domestic market and has to pay attention to overseas markets.

Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle" is a prime example.

This film, widely regarded as the best in Stephen Chow's career, had a production cost of US$2000 million, approximately HK$1.7 million or RMB1.7 million.

Kung Fu Hustle was scheduled for release in 2004, while the highest-grossing film in mainland China in 2003 was Feng Xiaogang's Cellphone, which grossed between 5300 million and 5600 million yuan.

Therefore, when Stephen Chow was making this movie, he couldn't have relied solely on the mainland market, otherwise he would have lost everything. He had to pay extra attention to the overseas market.

His previous film, "Shaolin Soccer," performed best in the overseas market in Japan, where it grossed 28 billion yen, or about 1.91 million yen, accounting for roughly one-third of its global box office.

Therefore, the background information of time and place in the movie "Kung Fu Hustle" is always handled vaguely in the main film.

If you say the story takes place in Shanghai, it has Pigsty Alley; if you say it takes place in Hong Kong, it has the Axe Gang.

So this is a fictional city that combines Shanghai and Hong Kong Island. Since the location is fictional, the timeline must also be fictional.

It's definitely not Shanghai in the 1940s. As mentioned before, the biggest overseas market for Stephen Chow's "Shaolin Soccer" was Japan, so he must have taken the Japanese market into account when he made "Kung Fu Hustle".

The story that took place in Shanghai in the 1940s cannot completely bypass the broader context of that time, so even if it were purely for market considerations, he wouldn't have set up such a story background.

However, that only happens when the domestic market can't support the film's box office; at that point, the North American market was still very resilient.

Small- to medium-budget productions don't need to consider overseas markets too much, so the story of "L.A. Confidential" is set in a very American context.

David, who had just bought alcohol from the convenience store, didn't get in the car immediately.

He saw the bandage wrapped around the nose of the woman in the back seat of the car opposite.

Yes, the persona he built for himself in the previous scene is coming into play again here. He put the box and the wine in his hand into the car, and then walked over.

He leaned closer to the car window and tapped on the glass with his badge. The man in the back seat, seeing this, said, "Go see what's wrong, Buzz?"

The woman rolled down the car window, and David was about to speak when the burly man named Buzz got out and shouted, "Hey, can you move aside?"

Without saying a word, David walked around the back of the car and subdued the man, twisting his hands behind his waist and pressing them against the rear of the car.

At this moment, David's character, Bud, fully demonstrated his professional qualities as a police officer, subduing his opponent and disarming him immediately.