Venice is a veritable water city. The rivers crisscross the sky, and the entire city is simply floating on the water. The opening location of the first Venice Film Festival is in the square in the city center. According to general operations, we should be invited to a hotel near the square, so that we can appear very smoothly at the opening ceremony.

But the Italians strangely arranged us to another urban area, with rivers in the middle of the city center.

In my doubts, the committee members claimed that this was a big secret of the opening ceremony and one of the most complimentary plans for the opening ceremony.

They didn't want to say it, so I was embarrassed to ask.

The opening ceremony began at 10 o'clock in the morning. At 9 o'clock, these people were taken away from the hotel. When I arrived at the pier in front of the hotel, I suddenly understood the so-called plans of these Italians.

The small pier was already crowded with reporters everywhere and cheering crowds. In front of the pier were rows of motorboats. These guys obviously asked us to take a motorboat through the winding river in Venice to head to the opening ceremony.

I really appreciate this creativity. On the one hand, the filmmakers can cross the entire city and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Venice. On the other hand, this form is used to highlight the characteristics of the water city of Venice. Such a unique creativity is really surprising.

We rode in the river in a motorboat and headed towards the city center. The buildings on both sides of the river and the bridges on the river were covered with Italian people. Countless flowers were floating down from the high buildings on both sides of the river. The reflection of water and the long-lasting buildings on both sides of the river were breathtakingly beautiful.

Who doesn't like Venice like this?

The airship stopped at a dock near the city government, from there. We walked to the opening site.

There has become a sea of ​​cheering, the Italian flag flutters in the wind, and under the protection of soldiers, flowers, applause, fluttering Italian dance music and those beautiful and sexy Italian girls with blond hair, made the eyes of these people who came to attend the film festival blurred.

The opening ceremony was a lengthy process. In addition to introducing some basic situations, it was a long process to walk the red carpet alone. We were busy until twelve o'clock in the afternoon before officially starting.

When the chairman of the film festival committee chairman walked up to the podium and raised his right arm to make a Roman courtesy, the audience suddenly became quiet.

Then, surrounded by a group of people, a person appeared in front of the middle-aged man.

With this person's appearance, the square was completely turbulent and the cheers were deafening.

This person is strong, wearing a military uniform, square face, and a high nose bridge. When walking, he can only be described as a heroic and arrogant word. His chin is high and he looks arrogant.

Benito Mussolini, the master of this country, is now in front of me.

He seemed to be accustomed to the cheers of the people around him, but waved his hand and then walked over. The Italian officials walked over and nodded and shook hands. He met one by one, and looked like a polite and polite person. But there was no smile on his face, as cold as a stone.

"He's Mussolini?" Lenny asked me in a low voice.

"If it's not him, who else can you do?" I sneered.

I am not very good about Mussolini. In my impression, this is a arrogant, arrogant person at the same time, and a powerful person. He concentrates on the shortcomings of the Italians.

In later generations, people always like to compare him with a mustache and attribute them to a kind of person, but in fact, they are not at the same level in terms of inner cultivation or personal ideals and talents.

In fact, if you use one sentence to express the difference between a mustache and Mussolini, it is: a mustache is a pure person, while Mussolini is not.

Xiao Wangzi is an idealist. No matter how future generations evaluate him, at least he is great at one point, that is, he devoted his whole life to his country and nation, and remained unchanged throughout his life. This is his ideal.

But Mussolini is not. He is a thorough Machiavelliist. He values ​​personal power, selfishness, and even a little greedy.

These can be seen from a person's words and deeds that in normal times, the mustache is restrained, even gentle, and can be said to be approachable. Only when he speaks, he is passionate, and in the hearts of the Germans, they are sincerely supported.

But Mussolini was arrogant and even domineering. He was as high as the monarch of the Roman Empire. The people were in awe and fear of him.

This can be seen from the expression of the people who shake hands with him. Those people, laughing on their faces, laughing completely falsely, and walking on thin ice. When I was in Germany, when I met my subordinates or the people, those people were excited and even fanatical. Many people often contained tears when holding their bearded hands.

So no one knows these two people better than me. Perhaps because of this, Mussolini had such an end in history: the country did not create any glory in the war at all. He was driven away by the people and finally hung on the square and was completely humiliated by the people.

After Xiaomou's death, his men not only faithfully carried out his will to cremate him, but many of his troops and people still firmly fought against the troops of the Allies until the government announced their surrender.

This is completely two different people, two different endings.

"Mr. Corleon, I'm glad to see you!" Walking to me, Mussolini was still holding his chin, and he looked at me with a hint of arrogance.

This is his virtue.

"Yuan is born first, this is my honor." I held his hand and just nodded slightly to indicate.

This made Mussolini a little unhappy because others were basically arching when shaking hands with him.

Next, Mussolini walked onto the podium and started his speech. His speech was very long, lasting for about forty minutes, and it was very lively during the speech. Mussolini stood on the podium, dancing and roaring. The people below responded with warm applause and cheers. But in fact, this guy's speech level was really not very high. Not only was he not as good as a mustache, but he probably was even worse than mine.

His speeches were filled with empty slogans, such as restoring the glory of the Roman Empire, the honor of the Italians, etc., which had no practical content at all and could not touch people at all.

However, I still appreciate his insights on movies. Mussolini's understanding of the nature of movies and the functions of movies is so profound that few politicians in the world have the same mind. In addition, when talking about movies, he also listed many other art examples, such as sculptures, such as architecture, and especially the understanding of architecture, which basically reached a master level, which surprised me.

Looking at the man on the stage, I suddenly felt that if he had not become a dictator but was an architect in the industry, he might have made a lot of achievements.

After Mussolini's speech, I took over the event. This guy had already occupied about twenty minutes of my event. So I finally gave up on my prepared speech.

I praised the influence of the Venice Film Festival on world films, affirmed the efforts of Italian filmmakers, and wished the success of this film festival, and then I stepped down.

After the opening ceremony, Mussolini invited me to his fascist party headquarters, but I refused. In fact, I did not refuse sincerely, but because if I went to his local party headquarters, I would definitely not be able to participate in the opening of the Cannes Film Festival evening.

This made Mussolini very angry. He shook hands with me with a pale face, and then walked away without looking back. This made the Italian filmmakers worried about me.

But Mussolini was still a little stubborn and did not make things difficult for me in this matter.

After finally sending this guy away, I got along with the filmmakers. Unlike the Cannes Film Festival, which used "The Godfather" as the opening ceremony. The Venice Film Festival used "The Godfather" as the closing film. On the one hand, this is to distinguish it from the Cannes Film Festival, and on the other hand, it also shows their emphasis on "The Godfather".

And this time, the opening film of the film festival is an Italian film.

Originally, I didn't plan to participate in the opening film viewing event, but I couldn't withstand the enthusiastic invitation of the Italian filmmakers, so I had to accompany them to watch the movie.

This movie has a very Italian name called "The Lady's Afternoon".

"Mr. Corleon. This movie is a very excellent film that emerged in Italy this year. It has been recognized by the people and leaders, and the filmmakers also appreciate the artistic nature of this movie. It can be regarded as one of the best films in Italy this year. More importantly, the film was shot by a young man. He was not very famous in the film industry in our country before, and it was very consistent with our positioning of attracting newcomers in the film festival." The head of the preparatory committee of the film festival said to me in a low voice.

I really don't care about this movie because in my mind, there is really no such one in Italy's excellent movies.

One big difference between Italian movies and movies in other countries is that movies often have long subtitles at the beginning, so I feel a little embarrassed to the subtitles above.

But when two lines of subtitles appeared at the end, I suddenly sat upright.

The names of these two lines of letters suddenly made my head buzz! Although there is still a difference between Italian and English, I still feel familiar from the spelling of these two names.

The people next to me noticed my expression.

"Mr. Corleon, what's the problem?" the head of the film committee asked me in a low voice.

"Can you tell me the names of the two people just now?" I whispered.

He murmured and said the names of these two people in Italian, and I basically understood the pronunciation.

The two names that just appeared, one is the director and the other is the screenwriter.

The director's name is Roberto Rossillini, and the screenwriter is Michelangelo Antonioni!

When the person in charge read the names of these two people, I was completely trapped in a petrochemical state!

These two people started making movies at this time!?

Roberto Rosilini, the leader of Italian neo-realistic films in history. It is a well-deserved film master in Italy! The series of masterpieces he filmed remained forever on the world cinema gallery.

And this man's wife is nothing but the infatuated Ingrid Bowman who was fascinated by others! The passionate love between the two in the 1940s made American audiences furious. Hollywood filmmakers and American audiences united to resist the love between the two, but Ingrid Bowman still chose to be with Rossellini and conceive of his child. For this reason, Rossellini became the director that American audiences disliked the most because he kidnapped the goddess of Hollywood.

This guy, both in movies and in love, is an absolute top master. As for this classmate Michelangelo Antonioni, if someone said something about such a movie director in later generations, he would probably be laughed at to death. One of the greatest movie directors in history is called the film master with the greatest influence on film aesthetics.

Now, a movie has been created!

If I remember correctly, Antonioni is in his early twenties now, and Rossellini is a little older, but it should be just 25 or 26 years old. In history, these two people started to be awesome in the 1940s. Why did you make a movie now?

I couldn't believe my eyes. Then I asked the head of the committee next to me, "Sir, can you introduce these two young people to me in detail? How could they make movies?"

The Chairman of the Committee was very helpful to me. He thought the film shocked me, so he said proudly: "Mr. Corleon, this is due to our great leader. Under his instructions, our Italian film department has established a leader support bonus, which was learned from you Hollywood. The purpose is to support, autonomous Italian young filmmakers and encourage them to devote themselves to film creation."

"Since last year, we have supported a lot of people. These two young people are beneficiaries of this fund, but at the beginning, they each submitted a script. The people in the foundation felt that the script styles of the two of them were very similar, so they took them over and suggested that they might as well make a movie together. The two of them were also very good at talking, and finally they jointly filmed such a movie, and the result turned out to be very good. Mr. Corleon, do you like this movie?"

The head of the committee smiled.

"It's very good." I then agreed. At this time, I didn't care about the movie at all, and all my thoughts were focused on these two people.

"Sir, can I arrange for me to meet these two people?" I asked.

"Yes, of course! Now?"

"Yes. Now!" I'm completely out of place.

We left the cinema. After half an hour, I met these two people.

When he walked into the room, I was looking through their information given to me by the head of the committee. I was worried that there would be people from the same name, but judging from the information, these two people were not wrong, they were the two people in the history of film.

"Hello, Mr. Corleon." As soon as they entered the room, the two of them came straight to me, their faces flushed with excitement.

Rossellini was wearing a black suit and tie, very formal, with very little hair and a little bald, and a typical Italian face shape.

Antonioni was wearing a tweed jacket with a black sweater inside, a white shirt turned out from inside, and a beige scarf wrapped around her neck. I liked this outfit very much. Compared with Rossellini, Antonioni looked much younger, and under her curly hair, there was a childish face. I have seen this face countless times, but now it actually appears in front of me.

"Please sit down, two people." I pointed to the sofa, suppressed my inner excitement, and tried to make it as peaceful as possible.

The two men were at a loss, sitting down with red faces, half of their butts were stained with the sofa.

"I just watched your movie and I like it very much, so I want to meet you." My words made the two of them look at each other and became more and more cramped.

"Mr. Corleon. This is our greatest honor!" Rossellini stuttered.

As for Antonioni, he was completely speechless.

Next, I started chatting with them casually. In order not to make them nervous, I did not talk about the movies, but about their respective lives.

Rossellini's life experience is basically the same as Visconti. His grandfather and father were both famous architects. In Rome, this was the most winning and most profitable career. Their family lived in a well-known residential area in Rome. Rossellini had a superior family background. He was also the eldest, so he was loved. When he graduated from high school, he was very passionate about movies. Later, he simply gave up the college entrance examination and entered the film industry. He started out in the simplest jobs such as sets. Later, he studied photography and was a photographer before directing the movie.

Compared with Rossellini, Antonioni's family is not so wealthy. Born in the historical city of Ferrara, he is from an average family and is still in school. He is a college student at Bologna University. During his time at school, he wrote for local newspapers and reported movies. Since the Italian film department issued such a support fund, Antonioni couldn't wait to write a script and send it to him. He originally thought there was no hope, but unexpectedly he was attracted by some directors in the film department. He collaborated with Rossellini to shoot the movie, which was very good in reflection.

After learning about the situation of these two people, an evil thought gradually arose in my heart.
To be continued...