In 2016, when Lou Ye was preparing to shoot "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind", he remembered the photos of Xian Village in Guangzhou taken by Zhang Zhiyou many years ago. He came back again and found that the village in the city was still in a ruined state, in the CBD center full of tall buildings. In the anthology "Where did I Miss You", Lou Ye described how he reproduced the past city and time through the film. Editor's note:
"It's another Saturday evening. The tram is still passing along the familiar and lively street." This is the short story "Where did I miss you" published by the writer Zhang Xinxin in "Harvest" in 1981 "The first sentence of the opening. The story tells the love affair of a female tram conductor passing by. The man and woman cherish each other but missed each other. It is deeply regrettable afterwards. "Missing"
has almost become a motif about shortcomings and influence.
In 2018, Peking University professor Hong Zicheng, artist Liu Ding, and the director of Zhongzhong Art Museum Lu Yinghua borrowed this topic to plan a "missing" writing collection, and named the collection "Where did I miss you". The event is hosted by Beijing Middle Art Museum, inviting writers, poets, researchers, scholars, artists, architects, etc., to select some texts that have been missed, almost missed, or thought should not be missed. They have, are, or may think about them and The creative practice has potential, profound, and even fundamental influences. The selected texts of
are not limited to poems, novels, essays, essays, but may also be creations such as paintings, sculptures, installations, dramas, music, photos, movies, and architecture. These texts are not the so-called "most" (the most influential, the most classic, the most worthy of reading...) texts, and whether they are Chinese, Western, contemporary or classical, "it may have changed your thinking, or you may be rereading and reviewing repeatedly. The normative ones may be words that you think the younger generation should read, or words that you hope to be exposed to early in the practice." The editors of
wrote in the foreword: “From the perspective of Chinese art history in the 20th century, literature, history, film, fine arts, drama, and other fields have always cared for and enlightened each other. However, since the 1990s , The trend of academic specialization and standardization in our country has made scholars and creators in various fields rarely have the opportunity to communicate, and lost the precious opportunity to rely on each other: this kind of "missing" is undoubtedly a loss."
The writing of scholars and artists of different identities has also established the intersection of the arts that we have missed, and regained the times that were once “together” and inspired each other.
Among them, the film director Lou Ye described how he reproduced the past cities and times through the film. "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind" released this year tells a family and personal story with a background of reform and opening up. In 2016, when Lou Ye was preparing to shoot "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind", he remembered that he had seen photos of Xian Village in Guangzhou taken by Zhang Zhiyou from the Internet many years ago. He returned again and found that the village in the city was still in a ruined state, in the CBD center full of tall buildings. Through his reminiscences, we can glimpse the profile of his concerns, thoughts and emotional pulses, and understand how he responded to the times and his own problems.
Lou Ye, born in Beijing on March 1, 1965, is one of the sixth generation directors in Mainland China. His representative works include "Suzhou River", "Tuina", "Mystery of the Floating City", "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind" "Wait.
The following is Lou Ye's "Miss: A Narrative About Space, Time, and Performance", selected from "Where did I Miss You", reprinted with permission from the Commercial Press and Intermediate Art Museum.
"Where Did I Miss You", edited by Hong Zicheng, Liu Ding, and Lu Yinghua, The Commercial Press, July 2019 edition
Missed: Narratives about space, time, and acting
Authors | Lou Ye
once accidentally, from the Internet I have seen Zhang Zhiyou’s photos of Xiancun, and I am deeply impressed. In 2016, I was preparing a movie called "Clouds Made of Rain in the Wind", which is a family and personal story with a reform and opening up background. , I naturally think of those photos! So I decided to go to Guangzhou again and see Xian Village.
This trip to Xiancun is not the same, and it is even more shocking. Due to the economic development, the surrounding CBD area has been formed more perfect, with tall buildings, but Xiancun still exists in the center of the CBD as a ruined land. . This is a very special kind of voidThe situation presented by it does come from a kind of social and ideological conflict. Such a space is a social and human creation. And this regional space itself is like a "specimen of space and time", presenting too much information for us to analyze, discuss and think again from all aspects. This also includes images and movies.
According to the usual concept of "movie script" (I understand, it is actually a semi-literary text with a rough technical description of future images). We quickly decided that Xiancun was the main scene, which was discussed with art director Zhong Cheng. It is the spatial structure of these cities and the relationship with the characters in the story. Remember that those scenes and art design conferences involve the relationship between the large layout space of the city and the small layout space of the characters, as well as the changes in the same space, etc. It is not like making a movie. Art work is more like talking about urban planning. For me, this is a very special art design (or visual design) work, involving a large number of urban spatial pattern divisions (because there are a lot of aerial photography, overlooking), and Changes in different eras in the same space.
Legend: The picture on the left is a photo of Guangzhou Chengzhong Village (Zhang Zhiyou), and the picture on the right is a picture from the movie "Clouds Made of Rain in the Wind".
Because of the story of the film, this film takes the real urban area space as a "movie space" (the so-called story space) to understand and use, including the character design is placed in a category that spans time and space. Internally, because of the particularity of the background of reform and opening up, the modeling involves a lot of popular history and regional aesthetics. This is a process from image to image, and because the image and the image are specific to the individual's behavior at a specific time and a specific space. Behavior interception (if there are characters), then the job of the movie is to restore the behavior of the intercepted person, which involves "removal".
So from a certain perspective, the movie is actually a kind of "behavior".
is similar to this kind of rehearsal. If it is a transformation of past time, space, and behavior, or an evaluation, it involves some complex systems, which means that you can’t actually avoid the so-called "authority", that is "Viewpoint."
Zhang Zhiyou, "Guangzhou City Village", photographic work
Therefore, in fact, whether the film is willing or unstoppable, it has already had a complicated "relationship" with the "reproduction reality" in front of its camera. This complex relationship system also includes film recording, and the intertextual relationship between the "recording history" of the same space before the film recording. That is, the relationship between the previous recording of historical images and the recorded images of movies. Whether this relationship is shared, shared, critical, corrective, or deceptive, it will constitute the "recorded history" that cannot be cut off. What is interesting about
is that this kind of film, brought about by photography, seems to be the "nature" of the "material restoration" (Kracauer) of real space, due to the technical scope of the camera's "view" and the camera operator The subjective, active or passive choice of (photographer or director) has actually become a kind of "subjective" "covering" "fake" in the name of "objective" "restore" and "real" time and space. Deception", the camera itself (mechanical) and the controller (human) recording of time and space have actually completed the modification of time and space at that moment, and the modification will also constitute that moment. Part of time and space. That is to say, the reality with a camera and the reality without a camera.
Lv Nan, "Mental Hospital", the photograph
It can be seen that the camera and the recording itself do not have inherent legitimacy. It cannot be a verification of "reality" or "authenticity". The camera is at best a temporary replacement for the human eye. As the concepts of "camera eye" and "camera pen" are full of loopholes, and questioning the authenticity of the human eye, the so-called "seeing is believing" has become a ridiculous statement. If you enter the social level, you can be sure: "Seeing is not believing." The
world is just a built-up time and space. People living in it are just a “rehearsal” of predecessors or other people, and the camera is not a “bystander” of this worldwide “rehearsal” at all, but this Participants of the "movement" and the components of the "movement". This is completely in line with the fundamental paradox of "camera presence".
Li Qianjin, "Chinese Sauna", the photographic work
. The recording and performance of the same space at different times are enough to present the political and social conditions of the "recording moment" from a textual perspective. In other words, any image that records his "object" at the same time also records the political and social complex information of that "recording moment".
Therefore, whether the recorder wants it or not, any record that is presented as art can not be avoided being political and social. Technically speaking, it can be understood as having nothing to do with the "author", or to some extent " Responsibilities are not assumed" because no matter what, these records, including rehearsals, will constitute history. Because the text that is modified, suppressed, and deleted is also text, and the history that is covered up is also history.
author丨Lou Ye
excerpts丨Dong Muzi
editor丨Li Yongbo
proofreading丨Zhai Yongjun
