Chapter 11 Chapter 11 What can the director insist on

Lao Xia: I remember that you have directed two films, one is, and the other is "Living a Wretched Life", both of which were rejected.It seems that if you co-author a movie or something, it can still be aired, but when you really want to make a movie and make it exactly according to your own ideas, that's not the case. Wang Shuo: Yes.I can quit, I can write novels, who cares?When I was inside, I finally made myself lose my energy. I was too tired, bored, and I deserved to be wronged. I deserved it. It was inevitable that I would come out in the end. One is that you already feel bored in your heart, and the other is that there are external forces forcing you to quit.Feng Xiaogang was rather pitiful at the time. He didn't quit, so he had to eat this bowl of rice.It’s pitiful to be a director. If you want to adapt to this society, have food to eat, and get some money to spend, then you have to do what you like and make a New Year’s film. It’s a success at the box office and a success in the market. The stability and unity of the Chinese people add a bit of festiveness.Well, don't be fooled!Then go ahead!

Lao Xia: In other words, when you are a director here, you can’t be yourself when you make a film, you have to change your ways to cater to something. Wang Shuo: It must be so.During that process, I may feel uncomfortable and dissatisfied, and I wonder if I can shoot something else, but it is difficult to do.These are still in the second place.In my contact with some directors, I feel that they have a particularly strong need to survive, that is to say, their desire to survive as directors is particularly strong.Moreover, the cost of their survival is high, unlike me, which costs nothing and can be written by one person.How much does it cost them to survive.Really, very harsh!If a film fails or fails, if you want to make the next film, you will not be able to find money. How many heroes pass by in a flash, last year was still popular, and in the new year, it didn’t hit a hit, and then it came down. It is a failure as a director. .It's hard to make a film.

In such a situation, only by being in it can one appreciate the harshness of those constraints.The kind of courage you are talking about, when it comes to critical moments, when you encounter a crisis, you may be able to hold on to it when you feel hot in your head.I won't make it if I don't shoot!But after the momentary mood passed, he began to torment himself.Hang out together, everyone is making movies, but you can't. If you stick to yourself, you won't be able to shoot.Then you can only step back and compromise!For those directors who make pandering movies, from the most sympathetic point of view, they are forced by life.Of course, you can say, can we make it if we don’t do it?Some people said: I will quit this job and quit.But I think there are very few such people, almost none. I can quit because I was originally a novel writer, and I have a way out. If I don’t have novels, it’s hard for me to just quit.Most of them are irrelevant.On this point, I feel that even if I quit, it will be difficult to gain a personality advantage over them. I can’t tell people: Look at me, if I can’t continue, I’ll go back to write novels.Because people may really have no way out.

Old Xia: Do you have to get into the circle that obviously caters to something?To put it bluntly, it is not a question of survival, but a question of fame and money brought by the film industry, and it is actually a matter of profit.It is not so difficult to live alone without psychological pressure and have something to eat.But in order to live with a name and a lot of money, there is no other way to go here but to take advantage of it. Wang Shuo: So under this condition, you say that a movie can be something, but it cannot be a thing.If you want to personalize, it can only be a deformed thing in a general request.The whole movie, everything is fake, illusory, and self-proclaimed. Since the 1990s, there have been no good movies in Chinese movies, only very few places.There are local flashes.Now everyone says that Chen Kaige's performance is not good, but I think it's okay.Although his idea was wrong from the beginning, he still insisted on himself, trying to get some personality out of it.

In this way, he can only maintain his individuality under such circumstances.What's the situation?It means that what you want coincides with his request, and there is content to promote the spirit of the Chinese nation, which coincides with the main theme. Back then, our ancestors had a spirit of being generous to die. Promoting this kind of thing and our patriotism were inexplicably combined.A fit like this can come up with a little bit of your own personalization.People say that Zhang Yimou is speculative. Anyone who does not speculate is nothing more than good-looking and ugly.In a way, it might all be speculation.

Lao Xia: You said that directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige are well-known directors at home and abroad, and have won international awards. Take a lot of it.Why not make a film that you want to make?Do you think that if you become a famous director, they don't need to... Wang Shuo: No need, I said there is no end to it, he will not stop just because of what you say, at least think about it.There is another problem here. They may have speculated along the way in their early years.In other words, they did not insist on something in the early years to achieve today's success.What opportunity did he cast in his early years?I thought it was an opportunity for popular ideas.He shot whatever was fashionable at that time.In fact, it is similar to Xie Jin's approach, and no one has really insisted on anything.But Tian Zhuangzhuang is better. His movies "Zhasa in the Hunting Ground" and "Horse Thief" are ugly movies, but he said, I like it, and I will make this one. If you don't let me make it, I won't do anything else. I took it.

Old Xia: Zhuang Zhuang finally made "Blue Kite", but he didn't pass. He really won't make films anymore. Wang Shuo: Yes, you can say that he insisted on himself to some extent.Others, not to mention sticking to their own positions and sticking to their own interests.If you insist on your own aesthetic point of view, even the lowest and most sensational MTV can do it.Chen Kaige, the producer and art director, filmed an MTV of "The National Flag". Barefoot children in the countryside ran out of Shanghai's alleys holding the national flag. Coming and waving, and then the armed police went to raise the flag, and there were many bayonets.The solemn expressions, the neat steps, the shaking of the ground, all these pictures are stacked together, and everyone is solemnly watching the scene of raising the flag, which makes people feel tears streaming to their hearts.Are you saying he won't be sensational?I said he is too provocative, in the same kind of MTV, I have seen the most provocative.

Old Xia: Looking back, in fact, they were sensational and poetic from the very beginning. "Yellow Earth", "Red Sorghum" and other things are completely influenced by the most fashionable concepts in the 1980s. They want to use a movie to summarize history and show the vitality of the whole nation, so they have attached importance to the concept of big and empty from then on. , they take a bird's-eye view of people, condescending.In contrast, look at "The Man from the Wind Cabinet" by Hou Xiaoxian from Taiwan. The filming is extremely realistic and smooth, and it is the best youth film made by Chinese people.Hou Hsiao-hsien's concern for people is close, concrete and equal, and he really puts people in front of the camera to shoot.And Chen Kaige.Zhang Yimou used foreign film techniques to package false romantic feelings, which I call "romantic feelings of the yellow land" and "romantic feelings of the red sorghum land".When foreigners come to China, most of them want to see the ancient Great Wall. Zhang Yimou used movies to build a Chinese spiritual Great Wall.What is the Great Wall?Is there any great wisdom to speak of, isn't it that the emperors used power to drive sheep like people to perform the most primitive physical labor in order to sleep well and have sex dreams?There is no wisdom at all, but there is fear, stupidity and cruelty. He does not spare manpower, does not care about life, and he does not care how many people die in cultivation.What's the use?Didn’t the few Manchu people still drive straight through the Shanhai Pass and conquer the huge Han nationality?Besides, what does the Great Wall have to do with contemporary China?It doesn't matter.Chen Kaige was interviewed by CCTV after watching the 50th National Day Ceremony, and he said a patriotic rhetoric, which is completely consistent with his filming MTV, and it is also consistent with Zhang Yimou's filming while building Hope Primary School. They themselves are big archways up.

Wang Shuo: I think Chen Kaige is still insisting on his own interests to a certain extent, of course under the matching conditions, what about Zhang Yimou?I think, he seems to have always had some, you can say that he is born, he is always able to catch up with the tide, this big wave is coming, this kind of wave-rider is born with the ability to hold the red flag in his hand without getting wet kind of.Therefore, every time the trend comes, he has the ability to turn himself into an ideology while making a film. In a way, I don't think it's difficult for them.Now is the time to play truth, goodness and beauty. Of course, playing truth, goodness and beauty may not look good, but it can also play well. This is what he is.Therefore, some people say that he pursues the truth, the good and the beautiful, and he himself said so. He essentially pursues the truth, the good and the beautiful, and the films he makes reflect his essence.Then I think that he has nothing in essence, who would not pursue truth, goodness and beauty? If you pick one, you will say that I also pursue truth, goodness and beauty.So, he can't continue to play hard, and it just so happens that his essence and your policy requirements are combined. When his essence shines, there is such a film, "No One Less", and it is a film that tells people that as long as they work hard will be successful.

Old Xia: The reason why Zhang Yimou overwhelmed the other fifth generations in the late 1980s and 1990s is that he knew what could be popular.In fact, his films are not avant-garde at all. Aside from the big idea of ​​building a false spiritual Great Wall in his films, he is very popular even in terms of materials. This is because he focuses on "sex", and they are all taboos. There is "the nature" that stimulates victory. "Red Sorghum" is "wild marriage", "Ju Dou" is "incest", "Red Lantern" is "groups of wives and concubines", he wants to use images to exaggerate and publicize the vitality of Chinese people. The film technique packs the poorly fabricated "orgasm". His hardware is all themes of popular pornographic novels. When it comes to "Our Father, Our Mother", it becomes a pop song of love. And Chen Kaige walked into the experimental film. Desperate situation, a complete failure, won the "Golden Alarm Clock Award" at the International Film Festival, that is, the most boring movie. So he also had to turn from the popular to the mainstream and turned to the mainstream. He once said that Zhang Yimou followed the path of mainstream Hollywood movies, And he is a heretical movie, which will never cater to the mainstream. But he couldn't hold on anymore, so there was, his hardware was even more aggressive, homosexual, and appeared in a Chinese movie for the first time.

Famous actors, strong lineup.I heard people say this movie is great and won the "Cannes Award", so I went to see it, but I didn't finish it, I couldn't watch it anymore, everything is so false, the scene of Gong Li and Zhang Fengyi having sex in the film is even more false. It's not surprising that he has achieved such vigor.He will not be like Zhuang Zhuang, who would rather be lonely in his persistence. He must turn around to cater to the market and the mainstream, and re-establish himself for himself if he cannot get through a road. Wang Shuo: Well, I still think Chen Kaige has something of his own.What is the most unbearable thing about Zhang Yimou's latest film?It is a concept instilled in the society in "No One Less", and I think it is particularly harmful to the Chinese people: as long as you work hard, you will reap, and if you work hard, you will reap something.He seems to think that everyone else is changing their positions, and he is the only one who insists. He thinks he is like this, insist!Then I have to ask, what are you insisting on?It's just that you keep chasing the trend and doing it there!If you won't let me do it, I'll do it, pick what you like, and I'll be here anyway.I'm going to dig, no one can hold me down, dig! I think, if it were me, if I really insisted, then I would dig like this, and if you don't let me dig, I won't dig.My insistence is to use this shovel to dig in this way on this land.This is persistence.As for him, he just wants to dig, and if he doesn't let me dig, I can go to the ground secretly.Not allowed to use a shovel, I use a pick; not allowed to use a pot, I use my hands to create. In exchange and exchange, there is always something that satisfies you and asks you to allow me to dig down. Old Xia: In fact, what kind of logic does Zhang Yimou teach people about persistence? The reality and mainstream logic are connected.No means can be used for a noble purpose.Zhang Yimou is in order to insist (making movies) that he can do whatever he can.By extension, in order to live a decent life, one must persevere by whatever means.If the digging fails to achieve the goal, I will create it.If the romantic, poetic and colorful shots are not enough, I will change to a simple and plain documentary-like shot.His "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit" and "No One Can Be Less" are all the same, and they are so messed up. The extras use the most simple and realistic film techniques to unravel a big lie.Qiu Ju also persisted, until the end, the leaders of the Public Security Bureau and the city came forward to help her solve the problem and complain for her. Isn't this nonsense?The helplessness of the peasants under the rule of the modern emperor is gone.He is also telling others: As long as you persevere, you will surely have a bright future.He only cares about living, no matter how he lives, and this way of living without asking how to live happens to be the kind of "living is worse than dying" in the Chinese concept.The most ridiculous thing is that there is also a law professor at Peking University who uses "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit" to demonstrate the local resources of China's rule of law and opposes the integration of internationally accepted legal rules.Base a serious argument on a lying movie and all I can say is that the professor's argument is also a lie, intellectually dishonest and morally irresponsible. Wang Shuo: The two behind him are even more outrageous lies. Qiu Ju said in the end that she was legally illiterate. The one in "Not One Less" is only grateful. Once the society cares, all problems will be solved.The problems of China's education can never be solved by the Hope Project, donations from a few well-meaning people, and kindness. Old Xia: He does not touch on the most fundamental issues, but makes a fuss about the Hope Project. Just using earth blocks to build the Great Wall of truth, goodness and beauty seems to be a concern of the people, but it is actually mediocre.You have saved three or five poor children, can you save out-of-school children all over China?Can it contribute to the reform of the education system? Wang Shuo: Kind people rely on kind people, and Zhang Yimou's career is built on relying on kind people.His clod-like sensationalism is getting worse and worse. "Not One Less" is still a movie, but "My Father and Mother" is no longer a movie, and it is a big lie. An MTV song has become a swan song of love, and the length of MTV has been stretched to the length of a movie.What decades of waiting, decades of living in the countryside, how difficult it is... ...these two things don't go together at all.Zhang Yimou has a kind of perseverance in making movies, maybe like, no matter how difficult it is to live, and no matter what way of living, he has this kind of thing. Old Xia: If he insists on living in this persevering and unscrupulous way of living, human beings are fundamentally nothing.This kind of unscrupulous way of living, I don't know if he is making a movie, or he is completely using the movie as a survival strategy to regain a prominent position.His later films became more and more eager for quick success, including his sensational films, which enlarged an MTV into a feature film.His bright smile when he received the Golden Rooster Award was in stark contrast to the resentment that he was not shortlisted in Cannes.This is him, Zhang Yimou, a great director in China. Wang Shuo: I don't think there is anything more dishonest than emphasizing poetry and painting in Chinese folk.It is tantamount to replacing the beauty of the scenery with the so-called beauty of human nature, and replacing the simplicity of the Chinese rural scenery with the truth, kindness and beauty of the Chinese people, thus building confidence in the nation and in mankind.A letter to the good life.Even if this kind of replacement is advertised as a kind of artistic packaging, it is relatively clumsy.And I think that if you use such a simple method to do this kind of sensationalism, then I can only think that his whole purpose is just for the good and the good, and he doesn't bother to spend much time, just get a simple thing for you.Of course, some people will admire poetry, poetry seems to be simple.But I think he can’t deceive people. If there is nothing there, there is nothing. He finally achieves beauty, and there is nothing but the whitewash of beauty.Sometimes process is important. His process is equivalent to telling everyone the answer directly when he comes up. If there is no process, the answer is when he comes up, and he will play around with the answer that has been completed.Such a simple thing, why make a movie?Filmed as MTV, I think even if it is dishonest, it is technically passable.But now, the current answer to such a simple thing is made into a movie, and even the basic elements of the movie are not there. Old Xia: Then do you believe it is that simple?I think he also has a kind of twists and turns in his survival strategy, a kind of nine twists and eighteen twists and turns, just hinting but never telling the truth directly. Wang Shuo: He himself said it was that simple, so I don't know if it is.He really thought it was a good thing, his best film.If he really thinks so, then the films he has made in the past have taken a lot of effort.Pretending here, pretending there, pretending this, that, is actually arty.He summed up that your essence is this, then your essence is this, and you think this is the best, then you do it like this.Since you have such confidence in human beings and society as a whole, and you also believe that truth, goodness and beauty are the main theme of our society, what we want to tell everyone now, and try to make people believe that we are all good and everyone is good, then you Just do it!I think it would be easy if he was really like that. Old Xia: In the newspapers recently, it seems that the "Beijing Evening News" said that Zhang Yimou has served as a judge of a model competition. It is not guaranteed that he will play with clothes again one day, and also create a famous brand series of Zhang Yimou.Today's "wrists" are all versatile, and full bloom is the trend of the times.You said that if you don't pay attention, you might come up with one, but this is still in your field, and it is a novel.But other stars, like Zhao Zhongxiang became an autobiographer without paying attention, Zhang Yimou became a judge of a model contest without paying attention, and Chen Kaige went to the National Day viewing platform without paying attention... I think all Zhang Yimou's movies are added. Together it is him.Everything remains the same. Wang Shuo: When the trend changes, he will change, but no matter how he changes, he is in order to survive. Lao Xia: The way he lives now is to make movies, and to make movies is to live. Does he really have a fanatical love for movies? Wang Shuo: His life can be said to be a movie. If he can't make a movie, I think he will die in pain.So, just being alive was probably his number one concern.To live, to make movies, to shoot by any means, to live by any means. Lao Xia: There are also some directors who claim to be folk standpoints, independent producers, etc., have you seen the films directed by Zhang Yuan?How does it feel? Wang Shuo: I have seen Zhang Yuan's films.What I like most about him is that he writes about a drunkard, two sons, alas, the drunkard, the acting is really authentic, just a psycho, he is disorganized, but the real things there will have an impact on you.You may drink too much on a regular basis, but you won't be so crazy.He's just so disorganized.The actor himself is insane, he is very difficult to control, that is, he acts like that when he gets there.Without any processing, it recorded a lot of real things in human nature. You are not allowed to talk about the play as a director, and you are not allowed to schedule here and impose your ideas on the actors.The actors are crazy, they are really crazy, the actors are crazy, a family plays a family, during the filming process, all the real emotions, old and new, old and new hatreds between the family members come out, that is really fucking powerful.That's not writing lines, so give it a try!There are sons fucking nagging their dads, and each other and stuff.I think once the truth of human nature appears, especially in art, it is particularly shocking. I now feel that, sometimes, the reality of life is what art is all about.I now have such a point of view that real power really is better than carefully constructed perfection.Later, I didn't like Zhang Yuan's "East Palace and West Palace" very much.In fact, this story is a very interesting one to tell.However, he shoots more dramatically, and even wants to forcefully form a story, a direction, and a narrative direction, which makes the director's ability a bit stretched, and he has to stop and think about it from time to time.He also wanted to add a lot of customary things, obviously for the purpose of winning some kind of international award, but it couldn't be dissolved in a story structure that won't win.So he has to go back, and there will be more scenes of memories.In addition, to make a good film sometimes more money is not necessarily a good thing.Zhang Yuan didn't have much money for the filming, so many technical things had to be kept simple and correct. His stories just couldn't have too much artificial technology in them.When he had a little more money in "East Palace and West Palace", he could set up the lighting and set the scenery, so I am used to seeing the things he made when he had no money, and I am also used to seeing many things made by rich directors. As soon as he had some money, he wanted to make it more refined, but he felt artificial traces everywhere.It's the feeling that actors are in a well-arranged space as soon as they come in. This kind of feeling is definitely not good. Lao Xia: Do you think there is any difference between the sixth generation of directors and the fifth generation? Do you have any unique places or advantages in art? Wang Shuo: I don't watch many of their films. Apart from Zhang Yuan's, I also watched Jia Zhangke's "Xiao Wu", which is not bad.What kind of feeling do the films of the sixth generation give me? I think they have something innate, they rely on talent to shoot, and in this regard, it is their preciousness compared with the fifth generation.They don't have the cunning and cunning of the fifth generation.Don't look at the fifth generation, they are not even fifty years old, but they are full of old and cunning... Lao Xia: People in their twenties and thirties are already very old and cunning, and it seems that the younger they are, the older and cunning they are. Wang Shuo: That kind of cunning and cunning, that kind of proficiency in technical grasp, including the control of the tone, the control of the actors, no matter whether he uses professional actors or non-professional actors, they are all in control. I feel that this kind of movie is lifeless, and everything is a prop for the director's concept. Laoxia: This kind of cunning and cunning control has reached the extreme in Zhang Yimou's films. Wang Shuo: For the sixth generation, I shoot by instinct.They often get messed up, don't they?But in that messy place, I feel the smell of someone, a real smell.Sometimes, the whole shot is not long enough for him, and he can't do anything. You can clearly see that a scene has been split and used in two places.It's because they don't have money, and they can't take care of the exquisiteness. Either you are talented, just shoot genius works, and shoot by instinct, and you will show timidity when you use your brain.To paraphrase a foreign folk proverb, when the Chinese use their brains, the whole world laughs. Old Xia: Jia Zhangke said that his "Xiao Wu" was shot in a traditional handicraft workshop.The Chinese become hypocritical as soon as they use their brains, playing some clever tricks, once the instinctive feeling is lost, the replacement must be dishonest.Once dishonesty has to be compensated by the delicacy that comes out of the brain, the more dishonest the more delicacy, the more delicacy the more dishonest.The wisdom of the Chinese became more and more meticulous in painting and short essays later on. The elegance of the whole nation is all in a pair of exquisite embroidered shoes sewn with small embroidery needles. Wang Shuo: I think writing novels may also have this problem.What is written with talent and instinct is good. Of course those people included me. When I figured it out, mastered the technology, and improved my understanding, it would be ridiculous.Of course, there are still some short-lived people who write a good thing or two.But as soon as I debuted, I started to use my brain, and once I used my brain, it was over. Old Xia: Maybe after the sixth generation becomes famous and has a big investment, they start to use their brains, just like how you feel about Zhang Yuan.