Chapter 58 – A Benchmark for the Future
To be honest, Mariah Carey admired William—but not to the point of being unable to live without him.
However, beneath her effortless glamour flowed the proud blood of a diva. And nothing irritated her more than being subtly targeted by another woman for no reason.
If you're going to speak in veiled barbs, then don't expect me to stay polite.
Sure enough, her deliberate emphasis on "personally promised" and "looking forward to it" caused Nicole Kidman's gaze to cool instantly.
Inside Nicole's mind, the internal "bitch radar" had begun blaring at full volume.
The dim lighting of the screening room provided perfect camouflage. Both women wore smiles polished enough to win Oscars, yet where their eyes met, the air felt electrically charged—sparks snapping invisibly between them.
Caught between two goddesses, William felt waves of cold pressure rolling in from both sides.
The silent warfare between women—subtle, precise, deadly—was so thick with tension it nearly overpowered the psychological intensity of Before I Go to Sleep playing on screen.
For once, even William felt slightly on edge.
Fortunately, as the film's twists deepened and the narrative tightened its grip, both women gradually became absorbed by the screen. The charged atmosphere dissipated almost imperceptibly.
William quietly exhaled.
Only then did his back fully settle against the chair.
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When the final frame froze and faded to black, the audience rose like a tidal wave.
Thunderous applause erupted.
It was not merely approval.
It was recognition.
Though Before I Go to Sleep held almost zero commercial blockbuster potential, the techniques William showcased—the structural daring, the psychological layering, the precision of visual language—were enough to carve the film into cinematic history.
This wasn't just a private screening.
It felt like a declaration of rebellion against conventional filmmaking.
In conservative 1989, Hollywood's industrial machine was still firmly gripped by producers.
Directors were monitored. Controlled. Trimmed.
A long take?
Risky.
The audience might get dizzy.
William rejected that entire philosophy.
Armed with the original capital he'd earned from his San Fernando Valley ventures, he placed full independent financing on the table like a royal decree.
No producer interference.
No committee dilution.
In this film, he was absolute authority.
A god in the editing room.
A monarch behind the lens.
A director's director.
He deployed camera movements ahead of their time, narrative misdirection that forced the audience into psychological freefall, and a visual aesthetic that felt hypnotic and elevated—unseen in its era.
Nicole and Mariah were transfixed.
They had never realized cinema could be constructed like this.
When the final sound dissolved into silence, the room fell into that rare, sacred stillness reserved for the birth of something extraordinary—half shock, half reverence.
Only a few broad-shouldered former Soviet soldiers seated in the back row seemed unmoved.
Men who had crawled out of literal battlefields did not easily resonate with onscreen psychological chess matches.
They scanned the room with detached boredom, the only true outsiders in an evening of artistic rapture.
The private screening room lights slowly brightened from darkness to a warm amber glow, washing away the silver afterimage of the screen—yet unable to quiet the tide of sustained applause.
Surrounded by the crowd, William rose unhurriedly. A faint smile curved his lips as he lifted both hands and gently pressed downward.
The gesture carried an undeniable authority.
The restless room gradually fell silent. Dozens of eyes—burning with reverence and near-fanatical admiration—locked onto him.
They were waiting for the victor to speak.
William cleared his throat, his tone measured and composed.
"First, the success of this film is not mine alone. From Nicole's remarkable performance to every crew member present tonight—none of this would exist without all of you."
The applause, barely subdued, erupted again.
Everyone in the room understood the truth: even if William had arrogantly pointed at the screen and declared, This is entirely my achievement, no one would have objected.
Every frame of the film—from storyboarding to editing—bore the imprint of his will.
A stage manager at the back could only smile wryly. William's control over the production had bordered on obsessive precision. For months, he hadn't felt like a coordinator—more like a finely tuned mechanical part executing William's commands.
William coughed lightly.
The sound wasn't loud, yet it rippled across the room like an invisible wave, smoothing the noise into silence once more.
The spotlight settled.
The air grew still.
"It's often said that Hollywood has become a slave to box office numbers—a watchdog for money," William began, sweeping his gaze across the audience.
"In front of producers waving checkbooks, directors are losing what little dignity they have left. We are told to abandon artistic conviction and kneel at the altar of 'the market,' nodding obediently like trained puppets."
He paused.
"But tonight, with Before I Go to Sleep, I say no—to the arrogance of the old order."
"Hollywood does not belong solely to producers. From this moment forward, the director's voice will become the gravitational center of the next era."
This was not empty arrogance.
It was prophecy.
William understood better than anyone that history's gears were turning violently. The industry stood at the painful threshold between a producer-dominated system and the coming rise of the director as auteur.
Within a few years, filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch would begin dismantling Hollywood's rigid structures with audacious originality.
The tide would shift.
But William did not intend merely to witness history.
He intended to ignite it.
He would make Before I Go to Sleep a monument—one so formidable that future directors seeking creative freedom would have no choice but to measure themselves against the standard he set.
A flicker of fervor passed through his eyes.
His true prey had never been the fluctuating numbers in a bank account.
It was power.
The power to define rules.
He understood something fundamental: once one holds authority, money becomes nothing more than ornamentation on the scepter.
If he became the benchmark of a new era, wealth would come seeking him.
When he finished speaking, the room hung in suspended silence for a breath—
Then applause detonated like a tidal wave, threatening to lift the ceiling itself.
As the screening concluded and guests slowly began to disperse, a natural vortex formed around William. Everyone wanted a place within his line of sight.
Nicole Kidman stood closest to him.
Her ice-blue eyes, once cool and restrained, now seemed to thaw like summer ice. There was something raw in her gaze—something almost tangible.
As William had commanded the room moments earlier, her slender fingers had traced the rim of her wine glass unconsciously, her breathing faintly quickened.