Chapter 718: The Law of the Jungle

"Hey, Duke, over here!"

"Miss Theron, please look over here!"

Stepping off the red carpet, Duke and his group had barely taken their places in the photo area in front of the Festival Palace when countless reporters swarmed them. Standing behind the designated barricades, the press constantly shouted the cast and crew members' names, rapidly snapping shutters to capture every moment.

Due to his advanced age and frail health, Anthony Hopkins bypassed the photo area and walked straight up the steps.

Duke, Charlize Theron, Tom Cruise, and James Franco stood side by side for the cameras. Whenever the three actors heard their names called, they turned and waved, showing off their best sides.

Beside them, Duke remained his usual self. This was the actors' moment to shine, after all.

Charlize Theron's hair had grown considerably longer, carefully swept to the right. Wearing a pale yellow, low-cut evening gown paired with a few simple accessories, she looked elegant and noble. With her naturally tall figure boosted by five-inch heels, she was easily the tallest person in Duke's group.

Fortunately, the others didn't mind. Duke didn't care, James Franco lacked the status to complain, and Tom Cruise was already used to it from being with Nicole Kidman.

After spending a few minutes in the photo area, Duke and his group walked up the grand steps of the Festival Palace. Having already held a press conference, they declined any further interviews.

Famous directors and actors from all over the world stood in front of the Festival Palace. Aside from those from Hollywood and across the Pacific Ocean, Duke barely recognized any of them and had no interest in socializing. When it came to cinema, he and they belonged to two entirely different worlds.

Walking over to the jury, Duke shook hands with Isabelle Huppert first. They exchanged simple greetings but didn't say much else.

Duke knew very well that Warner Brothers had already laid a lot of the public relations groundwork, so he didn't need to say anything more.

"Hi, Robert," Duke said, extending his hand as he reached a Latino director.

Robert Rodriguez clasped it. "Hello, Duke."

This director with an absurd style—who once attached a machine gun to his wife's leg to shoot zombies in a movie—was undoubtedly a leading figure of Hollywood cult and exploitation films. He looked at Duke and asked, "I hear this is an extraordinary film? With a very, very interesting style?"

"You'll see it soon enough," Duke replied.

Robert Rodriguez nodded. "I've always wanted to see what it looks like when a guy like you plays around with the cult genre."

In Hollywood, Duke had always been an orthodox mainstream director, never having anything to do with cult elements. Fury Road had already received plenty of promotion highlighting all the bizarre elements packed inside it.

After shaking hands with several jury members from around the world, Duke finally stopped in front of a petite woman.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Nat."

He extended his right hand to Natalie Portman. She merely touched it before withdrawing her own. "I didn't expect it either."

With that, she clamped her mouth shut, though her eyes landed squarely on Charlize Theron behind him.

But Charlize didn't even glance at her. Walking right past Natalie, she caught up with Duke in a few strides. "I hear she tried to compete for the role of Furiosa?"

"I rejected her," Duke said, not bothering to hide it.

Charlize glanced back and whispered to Duke, "I suggest you stay away from her. She's a very hypocritical woman."

Seeing that Duke didn't seem to care, she added, "Everyone in the industry is fake, but few can reach Natalie Portman's level."

Duke shook his head. "I know what I'm doing."

Even though she hadn't produced any standout works in recent years, and her film V for Vendetta had been banned in many countries and regions—including Britain—Natalie Portman maintained an excellent public image. She was absolutely an outlier among Hollywood actresses. As for what she was truly like in private, who really cared?

Glancing back at Natalie again, Duke recalled a quote he had once read: "I tattoo, I drink, I smoke, I swear... but I know I'm a good girl. The real bitches like to play innocent, act pure, pretend to be shy, and wear pink. Men are shallow and only look at the surface. So, they miss out on the good girls and get played by the bitches until it hurts like hell. Only women can tell who the real fucking bitches are."

Out of the corner of her eye, Natalie Portman kept watching Charlize's retreating back. Her incredibly clear eyes carried a distinct hint of jealousy and resentment. She had already seen all the trailers for Fury Road. Regardless of the film's overall quality, the female lead was simply phenomenal. For a role she had personally fought for to fall into the lap of a former model who didn't even know the meaning of acting—it was a massive stroke of irony.

When it came to acting skills, she could leave that woman in the dust. But regarding their respective status in Hollywood, how far apart were they?

Camera flashes lit up across from her. Natalie Portman lowered her eyelids slightly, erasing the jealousy in an instant. She immediately reverted to her usual sunny image, presenting her best self to the press as if none of it had ever happened.

Her manager mother had once told her that she was Jewish and had specifically gone to Jerusalem for further studies; as long as the time was right, what belonged to her would eventually be hers, and no one could take it away...

But how long would she have to wait?

Watching the figures of Duke and Charlize Theron, Natalie Portman gradually formed an idea.

In front of the Festival Palace, Duke also ran into several Hollywood acquaintances, including Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman.

However, this was no place to talk. They merely exchanged simple greetings. In a sense, he and Quentin Tarantino were rivals, as the latter's Inglourious Basterds was also participating in the competition section of this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Given the film's spoof-like nature, however, it was virtually impossible for it to take home any of the most prestigious awards.

The sky gradually darkened, and the attending guests made their way into the Festival Palace. Following the tradition of the Cannes Film Festival, the cast and crew of Fury Road entered last. They waited briefly in the VIP lounge until a staff member came to notify them. As Duke and his entourage were led into the screening hall, everyone inside stood up and applauded to pay their respects to the crew.

Someone like Duke would never breach etiquette in public, so he nodded to the surrounding crowd as he walked. Over 2,000 people had poured into the main hall of the Festival Palace. Aside from guests and media personnel, there was a massive turnout of ordinary moviegoers.

Compared to the guests' routine applause, the cheers from the audience in the back were much louder. This accurately reflected the completely different opinions that various groups held regarding Duke as a director.

Naturally, the audience in the back was who Duke cared about most.

A director had once said: "When shooting and producing a film, the audience isn't there, and you must ignore them."

That perspective wasn't entirely unreasonable. But if a filmmaker truly believed the audience could be ignored, then after completing the movie, they should just hide in a screening room and enjoy it alone rather than releasing it for public exhibition.

If they disrespected the audience and treated them as if they didn't exist, yet still expected them to pay for the film—to put it bluntly, how was that any different from acting like a whore while demanding a monument to your chastity?

Amid the applause, Duke and the others reached the crew's designated seats in the very front row. They waited until the people around them settled down before taking their own seats.

"I don't understand how the work of a purely commercial director gets to be the festival's opening film." Sitting in the back where the guests were seated, Im Kwon-taek from South Korea spoke with a faint hint of disdain. "The Cannes Film Festival is simply degenerating!"

Beside him, Kang Jegyu nodded in agreement. "Indeed!"

Park Chan-wook, who had always been at odds with the other two, glanced over and said to Kang Jegyu, "How much of your most famous work, Taegukgi, was borrowed and plagiarized from Saving Private Ryan? Just because the domestic media doesn't mention it, do you pretend it doesn't exist either?"

"You..." Kang Jegyu turned to glare at him.

Park Chan-wook simply shook his head and tapped his forehead. "Could you try using your brain before you speak?"

The views of these three South Korean directors were merely a microcosm.

Quentin Tarantino looked toward Duke, faintly visible in the front row. There was no contempt in his eyes; he just wanted to watch the movie as soon as possible. Judging from the trailers and promotional posters, he felt this would be exactly the type of film he loved.

Brad Pitt, the male lead of Inglourious Basterds, sat right next to him. He, however, was pondering a different question: how could he secure a collaboration with Duke?

His production company relied heavily on Warner Brothers, which meant he and Duke Rosenberg shared numerous mutual interests...

The overhead lights went out row by row, and the buzzing hall gradually quieted down. The massive screen lit up, first displaying the Warner Brothers logo.

The film had no preamble and cut straight to the theme. However, the first thing to appear wasn't footage, but a brief line of text: "This is a post-nuclear war world. The land is arid and severely acidified. For the surviving humans to live, they must..."

"Interesting!" Quentin Tarantino rubbed his chin.

This method of abruptly jumping into text introductions was incredibly common in Hollywood. Yet, accompanied by the somewhat eerie score and voiceover, it surprisingly carried a bit of his own stylistic flair.

The scene cut directly to a sweeping wide-angle shot. The colors were highly saturated; the deep yellow representing drought and desolation was so rich it seemed to bleed right through the screen.

A bizarrely shaped car was parked amid the yellow sand. A man with unkempt hair and a dirty face stood with his back turned. But before anyone could get a clear look at his figure, a mischievous lizard darted out to steal the spotlight.

The scene-stealer didn't meet a good end. As the lizard scurried behind the man, a massive boot stomped down on it. It quickly became the man's meal!

This graphic, heavy-handed scene also projected a clear message: this was a world with an extreme shortage of food, a world ruled by the law of the jungle!