Chapter 78 fourth quarter

Eileen Chang has a long relationship with movies. In addition to being both a movie fan and a screenwriter, and her works have been put on the screen many times, her own story has become the theme of many movies and TV dramas, and "resurrection" cameos on actors He has played the heroine many times.And her relationship with filmmakers is often more legendary than the film itself and worth pondering. The first script Zhang Ailing created for MP & GI was "A Field of Love Like a Battlefield". As early as in the November 1956 issue of "International Cinema" (the official pictorial of MP & GI), it had already advertised in advance: "The famous female writer Zhang Ailing, with She is well-known in the literary world for writing novels such as, etc. Her writing talents are multi-faceted, and her stage and movie scripts have her unique style. Last year, the international company established a script editorial committee, and she was invited to be one of the editorial committee members. "She admires Lin Dai's acting skills very much. Originally, she planned to make a special trip to write a script for her. It happened that a publishing company in the United States hired her as an editor and immediately asked her to go to the United States to take up the post. Therefore, the scriptwriting matter was aborted because of her sudden departure from Hong Kong." It was delayed. Until the month before last, Eileen Chang sent a script from the United States to the international company. She said that she had written it in her busy schedule, and she repeatedly urged that this play should be played by Lin Dai anyway, because of the personality and appearance of the heroine. It was created with Lin Dai as the subject... After Yue Feng accepted this task, he often asked Lin Dai to study the script together, and they felt that Zhang Ailing's story script and character creation were really extraordinary..."

Released in 1957, "A Field of Love Like a Battlefield" set a record for the highest box office of a Mandarin film in Hong Kong and won the "Golden Tripod Award".Its director, Yue Feng, is none other than the husband of the heroine Roland in the play, and later directed a movie.The couple actually collaborated with Zhang Ailing in different ways in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which is considered a romantic relationship; and the heroine Lin Dai, I don’t know if she has met Zhang Ailing in person, the promotional draft on "International Cinema" It's for a gimmick, and it shouldn't be taken too seriously—but if it's true, if Zhang Ailing really admires Lin Dai in this way and appoints her to be the heroine of this show, then I can't help but sigh again and again, because Lin Dai and Zhang Ailing are so in love with each other. The stories of the two people are too much like a drama.

Lin Dai, formerly known as Cheng Yueru, was born in Guilin, Guangxi in 1934.Her life experience is quite similar to that of Eileen Chang. She is also a descendant of a famous family (her father is Mr. Cheng Siyuan, the former secretary of Li Zongren, the famous vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference). Her parents divorced, and then she lived in Hong Kong with her mother. She entered the film industry with a photo, and changed her name to Lin Dai, which is a transliteration of the English name LINDA; she also fits Zhang Ailing's ideal of "being famous early". "was an instant hit, and has since become the object of contention between Hong Kong's two major film companies, "Dian Mao" and "Shaw Brothers", and has won the title of "Asian Best Actress" for four times in seven years. This record has never been broken. ;Looking at Zheng Peipei's "Talking with You", she described Lin Dai as "no matter how many people are around her, and everyone is 'complimenting' her, she just nods perfunctorily. Back to her own world again. Sometimes she can sit on her special canvas chair for hours at a time, so quiet that people forget her existence." This character is also very similar to love Ling; and her ending is what Zhang Ailing called "a desolate gesture". On July 17, 1964, Lin Dai committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills and inhaling gas in her apartment. She was only 30 years old; None of them were screened in the mainland, but this did not affect her outstanding achievements in the history of film. In 1995, she was named a Chinese movie star, and Eileen Chang passed away in this year...

A few days ago, I specially found the "Blue and Black" disc nostalgia. I wanted to find a little bit of the atmosphere of that era from Lin Dai's voice, and try to figure out Zhang Ailing's thoughts from the atmosphere of that era. This is Lin Dai's last work.She was thirty years old that year, but she was already a little old, and she was slightly fat.Wearing heavy makeup, the long eyebrows and the corners of the eyes are slanted into the temples, every move has a dramatic tone, but the eyes are still charming and intimidating.It was her usual sad scene. The movie just started, and the dance hall manager asked her not to rush to take leave, at least after the New Year.She replied: "I'm sorry, the doctor said that I will die if I don't rest. What do you say?"

I listened, and it was a bit of a thrilling feeling——she died before the movie was finished. As for "A Field of Love Like a Battlefield", I have only read the script, but I have no chance to see the movie. It is said that a lot of changes have been made, from the outline of the story to the character of the characters and the dialogue, it is very different from the original.The heroine is glamorous and scheming. She likes to capture the hearts of men all over the world, even her sister's sweetheart. Her cousin is determined to be different, but in the end she still can't escape her "trap of tenderness"—— It is very convincing for Lin Dai to play this role.

After "Love is like a battlefield", Eileen Chang created "Love is like a battlefield" (1957), "Man and Wealth" (1958), "June Bride" (1960) and "Peach Blossom" (1959) for MP & GI. , "North and South Family" (1962), "Little Children" (1963), "An Unforgettable Song" (1964), "North and South Happy Meeting" and many other plays.Song Qi won her a generous remuneration of 800 to 1,000 U.S. dollars for each film, which was Eileen Chang's main source of income during that time. From the materials of these films, it is not difficult to see the influence of Lai Ya on Eileen Chang - the story outline of "Love is like a battlefield" is adapted from the stage play "The Tender Trap" by Max Shulman of the United States; "Obviously born out of "Broken Blue Bridge", while "Soul Returns to the Sky" is the same as the series, and the later far-reaching North-South series were also adapted from Hollywood films. These can be said to be American culture. Or the biggest influence of Hollywood culture on Eileen Chang, and more likely it was Lai Ya's idea.

It is worth mentioning that the star in the "A Celebrity Lawsuit" she mentioned in her letter to Lai Ya actually refers to You Min. Eileen Chang had no relationship with her when she wrote this letter, but The following year, her play "Little Children" premiered in Hong Kong, but it was directed by Wang Tianlin, starring Lei Zhen and You Min.Later, it won the Taiwan Golden Horse Award for Outstanding Feature Film in 1963. When I read the script, I always think of "Unfeeling Love" written by Zhang Ailing and the novel "How Much Hate" rewritten from it. I always feel that "Little Children" seems to be the sequel of "Unfeeling Love", or another ending Version.

However, You Min is much prettier than Chen Yanyan.I have watched some of the clips of "Little Sons and Daughters", and You Min is the most beautiful heroine in all the films written by Eileen Chang I have seen. This is a love story about two generations.The girl Wang Jinghui and her classmate Sun Chuan met again on the bus because of a basket of crabs, and they fell in love.Jinghui's father, Wang Hongchen, has lost his wife for many years and has not married for many years. He and the female teacher Li Qiuhuai admire each other, but he dare not talk about marriage because he is concerned about his daughter.Li Qiuhuai traveled sadly and went to Qingzhou Island to teach, but unexpectedly met Jing Hui who was looking for a job. The two talked to each other without knowing each other's identity, and gained the deepest understanding-the story is a happy reunion ending.

In "No Love", the female teacher Yu Jiayin fell in love with the married man Xia Zongyu, but in order not to destroy the other's family, she shed tears and traveled to the ends of the world to teach; while in "Little Children", Wang Hongchen finally died of his wife, and his daughter replaced him He found his lover Li Qiuhuai. ——Zhang Ailing used the double body technique in "No Love", both the orphaned Queen Jinghui who lost her mother, and Li Qiuhuai who fell in love with someone else's father.And the little flower in the book that she cried for when she was a child also appeared here and became a meaningful prop in the movie: Sun Chuan and Wang Jinghui's family went on an outing. Pressing a withered flower, he said thoughtfully: "This is the flower my mother picked here."

This small detail allows us to see once again the seemingly ruthless Zhang Ailing's deep thoughts of her mother. Another play she completed while writing in Hong Kong, "A Family in the North and South", started filming in 1962. In September, "Entertainment Pictorial" reported: "The outline of the story was written by Qin Yifu, and the script was written by the famous female writer Zhang Ailing. This is the one that the MP & GI authorities had reached a tacit understanding with Eileen Chang. However, Eileen Chang had lived in the United States for many years and was unfamiliar with the real environment in Hong Kong, so she was unable to write. Eileen Chang went deep into various social strata for on-the-spot observation, collected materials, and prepared well before starting to write..."

These are obviously advertising slogans, because Zhang Ailing’s letter shows that she is as busy as “a dog”, writing from ten o’clock in the morning to one o’clock in the morning every day, and has no time to “in-depth field observation of all walks of life”.But at least it can be known from this that although Eileen Chang had a quarrel with Song Qi, the friendship with MP & GI was at least superficially maintained, and the Hong Kong customs and slang allusions in the script were all added and rewritten by Song Qi on behalf of her. ——If people in the world infer that Zhang Ailing and Song Qi are against each other with the angry words of "they are not my friends anymore", it is too underestimating the hearts and virtues of the two people. Humans are not gods after all, even husband and wife bicker and quarrel, let alone friends?We can't ask our friends to be as fraternal and perfect as Jesus. As the saying goes, "When the water is pure, there are no fish, and when people are pure, there are no disciples." Ai Ling and Song Qi are both pure, but not pure. In fact, before Ailing left Hong Kong, she moved to live with the Song family for two weeks. Although due to inferiority and restraint, the two weeks of "cohabitation" life must have been unpleasant; I kept in touch and reported my writing progress from time to time. Until the summer of 1964, MP & GI’s boss, a wealthy Singaporean businessman, was killed in an air crash on June 20. MP & GI was subsequently disbanded. Zhang Ailing and Song Qi’s script The cooperation was forced to be interrupted. But they have been in contact since then. The cooperation between Eileen Chang and Crown Publishing House in Taiwan was also led by Song Qi; in 1984, Hong Kong Shaw Brothers filmed, and Song Qi was the bridge, and because of the old friend relationship between Song Qi and Run Run Shaw , and won a lot of royalties for Zhang Ailing; later, Dan Hanzhang's filming in 1988 and Guan Jinpeng's filming in 1990 all followed Song Qi's path. After Zhang Ailing died, she even handed over all her inheritance to Song Qi——their friendship lasted for a lifetime.