Recently, Lou Ye brought his new film "Lanxin Theater" into the main competition unit in Venice. Because of its strong star lineup, unique image tone presentation, the usual Lou-style long mirror, and the drama in the play which was praised by the original author. , Dominates the hearts of movie fans, and is eagerly looking forward to the arrival of December 7 this year (the theater line-up date).
Rainbow Shadow (4th from right in the upper row) and "Lan Xin Grand Theater" debut in Venice
"Lan Xin Grand Theater" adapted from Hong Ying's novel "Death of Shanghai". The story of the film takes place on the eve of the Pearl Harbor incident in 1941, in Shanghai during the "isolated island period". In between being banned and banned by Lou Ye, I understand the past and present of "Lanxin Theater" from Hongying's mouth.
Hongying
adaptation and a thousand years of marriage to the original
Q: Teacher Hongying, it was the first time to watch "Lanxin Theater" yesterday. What do you think of this movie? Do you think you have made some changes in your novel?
A: Lou Ye is a genius. He photographed what I had and what was not in my novels. He used superb techniques to visualize the psychology of some of the characters in the text and the image in my heart. , I was particularly pleasantly surprised.
Q: What do you mean by the part that you did not refer to?
A: It is the relationship between the characters buried in my novels, such as Bai Mei. Although I also wrote about her history and the double agent, he unearthed the good part of her and presented it very finely. .
Q: Do you think that the actors in the movie are in line with your imagination? Whether it is the image of the character or the personality? When the producer was planning to make a movie, did he communicate with you some ideas about choosing actors?
A: Each of these actors is in place, and each is like the character I imagined. Gong Li especially surprised me. Gong Li has never played a spy, a specially trained female killer! Whether it's playing or designing, they are quite professional. Lou Ye is also very particular about the shooting. At the beginning we thought about another actress, but finally it was Gong Li. She was unexpectedly good, but whether it was her performance or the black and white tone of the film, it was unique.
actors are very well selected. Japan’s Odagiri Joe, and from Pascal Gregory’s adoptive father to Sol, they all seem to be people in the novel, living there, so I and these two actors also Say: just really really satisfied with your acting.
I found out that they will not be that role anymore, which is very strange. For example, the French actor Pascal Grego looked like a very ordinary old man, but when he picked up the crutch in the movie and started talking, the soul of the character he played came out. I really like the tone presented.
"Lanxin Theater" stills
Q: When Director Xie Fei was filming "Black Steed" before, he adapted the original novel, which was Zhang Chengzhi’s "Black Steed". Although he was a second creation, he also wrote the screenwriter. Wrote Zhang Chengzhi's name, what is your status as a screenwriter in "Lanxin Theater", how is your participation? Including the previous "Shanghai King".
A: I think Lou Ye is a director who studies the text very thoroughly and has his consistent style. However, when doing "Lanxin Theater", I think he put aside all his styles and his previous ones, and restored that era.
was in China, in the isolated islands of Shanghai, in various concessions, before it started as a battlefield as big as the Far East. Lou Ye showed the chaotic life at that time, whether it was from people's lives, their inner beings, or the crisis of the times they lived in.
In addition, he still has to eat, drink and have fun, read poems aloud, and perform plays. There is also a stage play in my novel, the play in the play, which is also dancing, and it is also the love of men and women. So when he performed the drama in the play, it gave me a great shock, as if entering the real life from the drama. The
music is also in that tune. Once these people move, they are very good. From one space to another, it is natural, artistic, and inviting. People immediately entered Shanghai in 1941.
"Lanxin Theater" stills
19The woman in the picture of 41 years
Q: You also shared your feelings after watching this movie. What do you think is the difference between text and video? When you write a novel yourself, do you have pictures or words in your mind?
A: I am a picture thinking mode, all my novels, every one of my novels has a director looking for me. I always think about this picture first, and then describe it. Of course, my work has also been adapted by the directors, but the film adapted by Lou Ye, I think it restores the spirit of my novel. What he shows is his style, a new style he created: silent film plus black and white A set of free space conversion, advanced.
I watched this movie and thought that he just put the box well, the play in the play, the play in the play, the ingenious connection with reality. This movie is actually quite brain-burning, like Quentin's "Shameless Bastard", and the one I think is the most similar is the American "Artist", which is also a black and white film.
The era it presents is the era of the United States. On the surface, it is saying that after silent films move toward color films, the fate of those actors is actually talking about the fate of the entire United States from an old era to a new era. The same goes for "Lan Heart", showing Shanghai before and after the Pearl Harbor incident in 1941. The most interesting thing is that Lou Ye is actually a very feminist director, and his expression is very powerful.
In this respect, I think he is the best director to restore my novels. A young woman picked up a gun and a knife to deal with the role symbolizing male hegemony, and she sacrificed her happiness and love to save a country, even the world, for justice and peace.
"Lanxin Theatre" stills
Q: You also mentioned feminism just now. Some media will also call you a representative of feminism, or neo-feminism. How do you understand feminism?
A: I think feminism requires equality. This is the minimum, and everything else is nonsense. Life is not equal, we women deeply feel it. When I was a child, I received a lot of unequal treatment in this area, and even in my dreams, I was often bullied and pushed out of the queue!
I think among the characters I wrote, for example, there are two typical women in "Lanxin Theater". They were born without parents, very isolated and weak. During their growth, they saw Because of the terrible and inequality of this world, they have to rely on their own strength to survive. The whole process of growing up is suffering. Their understanding of the world is deeper and more thorough than ordinary women in the wind. Such equal rights.
Q: When we communicated with Hao Lei before, she also said that patriarchal or feminist rights should not be emphasized, it should be a kind of equal rights, just like what you said should be equal, so do you recognize the term feminist representative? ?
A: I think it is different in every period. For example, the meaning of equality we demand now is different from that in the 1940s. As an era advances, women themselves must advance, an era needs revolution, and we women also need revolution. First of all, we must revolutionize our lives. The same goes for
movies. Now, how many Chinese movies really reflect women’s lives from a feminist standpoint? The core of "Lanxin Theatre" is here, in such a complicated era, to reveal how we women should control our own destiny. What moved me in this movie was the last scene.
Q: Are you satisfied with the creation of female characters in this movie? Also, in "Death of Shanghai", what kind of considerations put the love between the two women into it?
A: I am very satisfied with these two women. Their all-round devotion is also related to Lou Ye's directorial style. He allows actors to have autonomy. The friendship between these two women,
, is vivid and vivid in my book, and it is more violent than this movie, because these two people have a relationship with Ni Zeren at the same time, one as a husband and the other as a lover. The scenes designed by
have very good dialogues.
"Lanxin Theater" stills
in front and behind the scenes of the masterpiece
Q: Screenwriter Ami said that screenwriting is a director’s nightmare, and the director is the editor’s ceiling. The director of Wanma Caidan, who came to our Wuxi Grand Canal to communicate before, saidThe difference between novel creation and movie script is quite big, because novel creation is more personal, free and unrestricted. But the script of the movie will take a long time, and it may be considered from all aspects to the first draft and second draft until the final script. What do you think is the choice between suitable literary description and suitable image description?
A: These are two creative ways, one is to present a story with words, the other is to present a story with a lens. Generally done better, like Quentin Tarendino, he writes and directs himself, and also plays a small role, so this problem does not exist.
is like Hou Xiaoxian in China, he has to change the script temporarily, or even put it aside. He has worked with Zhu Tianwen for a long time and created great films. Almost every time Wong Kar-wai writes the script himself, he needs to adjust it temporarily, and the whole process may take several years. I remember I saw an exhibition of Marilyn Monroe in Rome, and part of it was a screenplay of a movie she had acted in. There are also some of her daily necessities, clothes worn, medicines used, including cosmetics.
I was very shocked when I saw the script. There are a lot of her own editing and writing on it. This is how an actor re-creates another kind of processing and creation in his mind through words. Therefore, a good actor, a good book, and a good director, including good editing and good music in the later stage, are all integrated together to present a perfect good work.
Q: Do you think your collaboration with Director Lou Ye is a process of integration? Have there been any disagreements or discussions because of which scene?
A: No, the first thing we actually wanted to collaborate with was my other novel "K—British Lover". This is the movie we two wanted to collaborate with when we first met. Regarding this movie "Lanxin Theater", we only did a lot of exchanges with Shanghai on that era in the earliest days.
Lou Ye's knowledge is very rich. It should be one of the domestic directors who likes to read. Another one who has read all the works about Shanghai is Zhang Yibai. Back then, we might be cooperating with "The King of Shanghai." I remember Zhang Yibai opened a lot of books to me. I have read all those books. I also opened a lot of books for him, and he read them all. One set was written by all foreigners edited by a publishing house in Shanghai. He got it to our house one day. He has these books. I am very happy. The reserve of
knowledge will be of great help to a director. If you have a large knowledge warehouse, you can use it endlessly. It is not surprising that when you give action, you export a different good movie.
Q: There are actually three titles in your work that directly refer to Shanghai, "Shanghai King", "Death of Shanghai", and "Shanghai Magician". Time also happens to string together Shanghai in the first half of the last century. What makes him particularly attractive to you?
A: Shanghai's modernity. I have been talking about Shanghai since the end of the Qing Dynasty, and describing Shanghai as a city that blends East and West. Its richness has deeply confused me. From "The King of Shanghai" to "Death of Shanghai" to "The Magician of Shanghai", I want to write about the fate of Chinese women as a whole. For example, in the past, women in China were three wives and six concubines, with flat breasts and small feet. Women served and obeyed men.
I wrote Xiaoyuegui in "The King of Shanghai". She has big feet and full breasts. These are modern expressions of feminine characteristics. What I want to show the most is not the outside, what I want to show most is their inner awakening, that is, they are looking for their own happiness. Including temperament and marriage, they have their own opinions. I have written a lot, such as the relationship with the concession, and the relationship between women and the world in "Death of Shanghai".
For example, the "Shanghai Magician" before and after World War II, before the liberation of Shanghai in 1949, the social state of China as a whole involved not only historical aspects, but also geographical, political, and economic aspects. The deeper the design, the richer the female characters it presents.
I want to write a modern version of "Biography of Flowers on the Sea". For example, Yu Jin in "Lan Xin" is one of the flowers, the little laurel in "Shanghai King" is a flower, and so is Lan Huer in "Shanghai Magician". Many new women like the Song family sisters are also, they can touch and change the lifeblood of the times.
"Death of Shanghai" novel cover
Past and present between ban and ban
Q: So we also feel that we can map to ourselves today, as if there is no sense of chronological distance. There are also shadows of you and your relatives and friends in your novels, such as "The Hungry Daughter". Sometimes there is a little controversy about the things written in this novel. What brought you this kind of kind when you wrote courage? Will such writing affect your interaction with these relatives and friends?
A: It is inevitable to write "The Hungry Daughter"! That is my autobiographical novel. Of course, my family also read it later, probably spanning more than ten or twenty years. A good work is a touchstone. As the years pass, more people will understand this work.
As a writer, I have never feared the world since I started writing. For me, writing is my survival and my expression. I will not write for anyone.
Q: Hou Xiaoxian said that the creation with your back to the audience has just begun, so you can finish your own expression. It is particularly good. Some of your works will be considered as prototype characters in the story, such as the "Hungry Daughter" mentioned above and " K-British Lover, how do you view the fiction and reality of novel creation? Because your creation makes people feel that this is a real thing.
A: "The Hungry Daughter" is about my own life, in a non-fictional way, about the lives of my sister or my mother, and the lives of ordinary women on the south bank of the Yangtze River.
"K—British Lover". I used the form of a novel. I used the lives of four women to synthesize a new female image. Of course it is the most feminist image. She knows her happiness. , Dare to pursue sexual happiness, to smash the shackles of the old society on women. The book was banned by the court because it caused a lawsuit.
After I appealed to the High Court, I was still banned, but I was allowed to change my name and republish it. I wrote the Shanghai Trilogy because I resisted the court's unfair judgment on this book. On the first page of my "Shanghai King", it says: Everything I wrote is true, please check in.
"The Hungry Daughter" novel cover
Q: Your personal experience and director Lou Ye's literature and video are actually like a parallel time and space, there are some intersections, because some audiences expect him to be between ban and ban, you There will be some controversies in your works, but you have overcome some of your own problems and some other external factors, and move forward bravely. After watching this film, we felt that it showed a historical story after removing some tags from his previous background. The image above will feel that a small paragraph will also be deleted. What do you think of this response?
A: Things gather in kind, people are divided into groups. The same people will always walk together. I think that in art, we should express politics, we should not shout slogans, but tell true and touching stories. It will be convincing in itself. I think Lou Ye's performance in "Lanxin Theater" is more adept in artistic techniques than in his earliest films.
Love is nourishment, courage, and hometown
Q: When you were interviewed in 2003, when you talked about love, you said: I believe in love, and I have always spared no effort in pursuing love. Now that more than ten years have passed, has your mood changed?
A: No change, I am a person who believes in love. If a person does not cherish love in his heart, or does not believe in love, that person will live a particularly miserable life, which is equivalent to a walking dead, just like Mo Zhiyin, the poet playwright in "Lanxin Theater".
On the contrary, people have love in their hearts, just like Yu Jin. She can actually go away, but she still comes back to save her lover. I think that people live in this world and exist for love.
Stills from the Lyceum Theatre
Q: You have said before that life is more like a novel than a novel, but it is also more cruel. Just like the director Gasparo said, nothing is more violent than reality, because this time "Irrevocable" was also screened at the film festival. You also mentioned that the historical events as the material of the novel will be closely tested. Then, between your novel and the real events behind it, which one do you think is more cruel or violent?
A: I think they all have cruel parts! Sometimes reality is more cruel than our fictional world, and sometimes the fictional world can attack us more than our reality. Because many things are in reality you don’tWe can say, but we can say in our fictional works.
Of course, all creations come from the real world and are recreated. A story wrote about a person's life. After ten people read it, they thought it was him. This is art. So why do we need writers, we need artists.
Q: Some time ago I saw your "Mimidora", which is a fantasy literary story you wrote to your daughter. A Sino-Japanese joint venture animation production company is said to invest in the filming of this "Mimidora", right?
A: It is already being done. It is a cooperation between a Chinese film company and a Japanese animation film company. There is another "Audang Girl" which is also being produced jointly by the Shanghai Art Studio and the producer of "The Return of the Great Sage".
Q: Okay, in addition to "Midola", it seems that I have written a series of "Fantastic Boy Sangsang". The style of "K" is very different from your previous "Hungry Daughter". You wrote these novels. What is the source of inspiration?
A: My daughter. Because I absolutely refused to have children as a mother before. It was fate that turned my whole life upside down. After having a child, the child gave me another artistic life. The process of a small life growing up.
I told her stories and found that China's children's books are far inferior to Western fairy tales and illusions, and the country's legends are used to hit harder. For example, a story like "Nezha". So I started to work in this area for ten years and wrote a total of six books.
Hong Ying holds the work "Midola"
Q: You lived in Chongqing before and Shanghai. Have lived in London, also in Beijing, and also in Italy. What are your memories of these cities and countries?
A: We are now in beautiful Venice. I remember that when Marco Polo went to China to meet the Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan, Kublai asked him the same question. Marco Polo replied that every time I describe a certain city, I am actually saying Venice.
To me, all cities represent Chongqing. I am in London, I miss Chongqing, I am in Venice, I miss Chongqing. Because that is my root, the birthplace of my art.
All my memories are related to Chongqing. I was dreaming. I also frequently dreamed of the old courtyard when I was young. When the door rang and the door opened, the neighbors inside were all talking about eating. Even though they were so poor and didn’t have food, they were still living. Talking about how to cook, this kind of memory is in my blood.
Q: Are you living abroad for a long time now? Do you still insist on writing in Chinese? Will Chinese stories try to use English? Latin?
A: I think Chinese can be written quickly, and my poems are all in English.
Q: Finally, please recommend "Lanxin Theater" to our Chinese fans.
A: Chinese movie fans. I watched "Lanxin Theater" twice. It was the first time to watch two same movies on the same day. So I was quite surprised, I found that when you watch it the second time, you will see that you didn't see
the first time. Where you will be excited the first time you see it, you will be excited again. I won’t be spoiled. Why do I like it so much? I hope you can watch it anyway. Thank you.
The interview with Liu Xiaodai and Hongying
ends with a quote from Gong Li’s husband, French electronic music master Jean-Michel Jarre’s evaluation of the black and white images of "Land Heart Theatre":
movies are not black and white, but different levels of gray It is an excellent example of describing the feeling of an era.
Yes, being in the present, feeling the fiction in Shanghai in 1941 in "Lan Xin", Lou Ye and Hong Ying have given us many tangible levels.
"Lanxin Theater" stills
interview | Liu Xiaodai, Dong sir
editor | Zhu Lingyi
