"How long is youth?" For Shunji Iwai, it may be a lifetime, and his films will never be separated from youth; for Wang Xiaoshuai, his adolescence is also very long, and he is still shooting "I 11" in 2012. ”
Cheng Qingsong has been doing "Youth Film Handbook" for ten years, and this time the theme, he chose "youth".
At present, the Chinese film market has produced a large number of "pseudo-youth films", and he wants to correct the chaos and let everyone see what good youth films are in the history of world cinema.
"This is the era when bad money drives out good money, and even the normal voice of film criticism has disappeared", but he is still reluctant to silence and insists on cleaning Up Chinese movies, just as he has been doing for the past decade.
Cover News "Dialogue with the Times" Series VIII: Cheng Qingsong.
Cover News - West China Metropolis Daily reporter Xue Weirui
Youth has two motifs
"Youth" is Cheng Qingsong's favorite theme, "Not only me, flipping through the history of film, almost all the masters have made a movie about youth, and even some directors have not come out of his adolescence in their lifetime." ”
Why is youth prone to the impulse to create? In his view, this is because youth has two important motifs.
"Many directors' youth films have chosen to return to their hometown to shoot, where his roots are able to capture the details he is most familiar with." ”
For example, Jia Zhangke's "Xiao Wu", "This is his first movie", tells the story of a young man in his hometown of Fenyang, who has a crooked head, falls in love with the singing lady Hu Meimei, accompanies her shopping and does her hair, listens to her call and deceives her family, and sings her favorite "Heart Rain" over and over again in the bathhouse.
There is also Yang Dechang's "Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street", a movie that Cheng Qingsong has watched many times, about the repressed and restless youth of the teenagers of the "Little Park Gang" and the "217 Village Gang", and the film is almost a record of Taiwan in the 60s.
Hou Xiaoxian's "Love wind and dust" was also selected this time, the small village in Tainan, Ah Yuan retired from the army and returned to his hometown, Ah Yun of the green plum bamboo horse has been married, he looked at the gradually unfamiliar land alone, went to the field to visit the grandfather who was taking care of sweet potatoes, listened to the grandfather nagging about everything that happened over the years, while looking at the clouds skimming over the mountain and the land steaming under the sun, "That's it, youth is often wrapped in nostalgia." ”
Outside his hometown, Cheng Qingsong believes that "self-awakening" is the second important motif of youth.
The first is the awakening of the body, "the first menarche of the girl and the first sperm of the boy, both are important experiences in life." Cheng Qingsong mentioned Shi Shujun's "Missing Female Middle School Students", which talked about a 14-year-old girl's first menarche and pure sexual fantasies, "It is remarkable that a youth film of the 80s can boldly pay attention to this." ”
There is also the restlessness and recklessness of the teenager, he talks about "Sunny Day", Ma Xiaojun does not understand why the memory will mistake the clothes in Milan's photos for swimwear; why he jumped from the high platform, just to attract Milan's attention; and he always inexplicably spoke ill of Milan later, inferiorly playing adult jokes.
Along with the maturity of the body, there is the awakening of consciousness, Cheng Qingsong said, "when people explore themselves, they are often the most likely to clash with the outside world."
For example, in 1985's "The Girl in Red", a girl who would point out the teacher's typos in class, in isolation and exclusion, wondered whether she wanted to be a real person, "Who doesn't have such a red shirt that wants to wear but doesn't dare to wear?" The film is a good expression of the confusion of growing up, and it also won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Picture that year. ”
There is also the Soviet film "Ugly Eight", which is also a story of a young girl being excluded and persecuted, and when she grows up to confront the entire external world, the sense of destruction is powerful, "The richness and complexity of this time may be no less than the whole life after that." ”
Youth is cruel
In this "Youth Film Handbook", Cheng Qingsong and his team selected more than 600 films in the history of cinema, and finally voted and screened 103 films, "The first is Bergman's "Bad Girl Monica" in 1956, and finally "Mustang". ”
There is no unified judging standard for the selected films, but if you want to choose a word to evaluate youth, Cheng Qingsong chooses "cruelty", which is "not the strong sadness in many youth films now, it is a very real pain." ”
"Excellent directors will express this cruelty of youth", in this interview with the cover character of "Youth Film Handbook", director Wang Xiaoshuai said, "Why am I so impressed with "The Cruel Story of Youth"? 'Cruelty' is accurate, everything in adolescence is magnified, including pain, which is the cutest point. In addition to itself, this point is caused by society, environment, and background.
Poster for the movie "The Cruel Story of Youth"
Cheng Qingsong talked about his cousin, because of her poor grades in high school, her youth was spent in continuous re-reading, but in the end she was not admitted to college. "It seems very ordinary, every day after class, take the college entrance examination. However, many years later, she told me about the days at that time, all of which were invisible inner struggles, and many times she did not want to live, and even wanted to kill her mother. ”
"Psychological problems in adolescence are common," and these may be due to feelings of shame, self-doubt, or lack of identity due to lack of self-confidence.
Cheng Qingsong also talked about his most recent experience, he has been avoiding flying because of his fear of flying, and went to a psychological hospital to consult a doctor some time ago. "The hospital has 16 consultation rooms, and I wait from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., during which time I see many young children accompanied by parents." One of the boys he was impressed by, the parents asked him questions, he didn't speak, he kept crying and crying, "I think, there are many, many stories under this youthful face." ”
This reminded him of Shunji Iwai's "Dream Traveler", about three children in a mental hospital who walk out along the walls of the hospital and wander the city. In addition to the aesthetic love, the film expresses more of the cruelty of youth. "In an interview with Shunji Iwai, he said that the film comes from a true story," Cheng Qingsong said, "The real youth is like this, but some movies do not touch the core." ”
My youth was love and movies
When asked if any of the selected films could represent his youth, Cheng Qingsong thought about it and said, "Not yet, my youth is more special." ”
He shared some of the experiences of adolescence. In 1983, he was just a freshman in high school, and that year he published an article in the magazine "Middle School Students" and received a payment. "A girl named Wang Zhaomei in Luanping County, Hebei Province, wrote to me saying that she liked my articles, saying that she graduated from high school and was doing flower farming, hoping that I could support her cause."
He didn't care if the other party was a liar or not, but with a letter that he felt was very sincere, he sent all the money to the girl. Later, Wang Zhaomei became a model of national entrepreneurial success at that time, "just like Ma Yun now." ”
Acting on his feelings, such a character did not change when he faced his life choices.
In the 1986 recruitment examination, he took the second place and had four places to go, namely Xinhua Bookstore, Cinema, Grain Bureau and Tax Bureau. His mother worked in the university library, and he had endless books since he was a child, so he didn't have to go to the bookstore; and the food bureau and the tax office, "What can I do when I go?" Sell rice or stick invoices? ”
So he chose to go to the cinema as a projectionist, in a small town on the Yangtze River with only one stone street, and stayed for nine years.
"I haven't counted how many movies have been played in the past nine years, but I have to play eight times a day during the Spring Festival, and I usually play at least three times a day." "Red Sorghum", "Old Well", "Border City", commercial films "Emei Flying Bandits", "The Last Clue to the Strange Case of the World", "Dangerous Honeymoon Trip", these are all films that I let go at the time. ”
"After working in the town for a year, I went to the street to put up posters, and they called me 'Cheng Movie' from afar."
His first love was also at that time, the two people were in the small town of Chongqing, "swimming together by the river, playing badminton together, walking together, reading Gu Cheng together, watching the pictures in the movie together, as if that was the life we yearn for." ”
However, the relationship was blocked by the parents, who were forced to separate the two places, and he could only take an hour's boat ride every day, and the two took advantage of the gap between work to secretly date.
The feelings of adolescence are mostly fruitless, and they are not together after all. In 1995, he went to the Beijing Film Academy with the first place in his professional course. Two years later, the married lover said in a letter to him, "You have left this sad place, and I will stay here forever." ”
"The details of all the love stories in the world, the ups and downs, are all presented in our first love", and now, the grumpy part of the story has passed, and the rest is the gift of this youth, "I have written the story of this decade into a script, just waiting for the right opportunity to make it into a movie." ”
It's not so scary to tell the truth
Of the 103 films selected by the Youth Film Handbook, only two domestic films from 2008 to 2017 were selected. In such a situation, Cheng Qingsong is very worried, "Just like Wang Xiaoshuai said, if the director loses his expression, then the youth of this generation will definitely be missing on the screen." ”
This era of lack of youth records is the time when the production of youth films is the largest. The problem lies here, in Cheng Qingsong's view, any work of art needs time to polish, "even Hollywood commercial films, but also to do several years, and now China's films can be made in a short period of time, many know that the quality is problematic, or rush to cash out." ”
"There are too many shoddily made pseudo-youth films on the market", in his opinion, these movies are full of kitsch routines, "car accidents, abortions, tearing away, no one's youth will be like "Little Times", "To Youth 2" is not good enough, "Gardenia Blossom" is extremely irresponsible to do movies because of a song. ”
Not only youth films, but also other poor films in the film market, he has also been making a critical voice.
In 2009, he held the first "Golden Broom Awards", a program similar to the foreign "Golden Plum Award" that awards the worst film of the year every year. In March this year, the "8th Chinese Film Golden Broom Awards Ceremony" was still held, and "Legend of the Fengshen Gods", "Macau Storm 3" and "Ferryman" won the most disappointing films.
Many people have asked him if he is afraid of offending people, and Cheng Qingsong has also said many times that since he dares to do it, he is certainly not afraid of offending people. And, "I'm targeting the film, not the right person." Zhang Yimou's "Qiu Ju Fights a Lawsuit" is very good, but his "Three Guns Shooting Surprise" and "Three Guns" are rotten does not mean that "Qiu Ju" is also bad. Deng Chao was nominated for Best Actor for "Burning Heart", but his "Villain Angel" is terrible. ”
"Telling the truth is not so terrible, I can't tell lies, this may be related to my personality since childhood, I am also like the people around me, I can say whatever I want," Cheng Qingsong said, and the "most disappointing collective performance award" of the "Golden Broom" was awarded to Tan Weiwei and Huang Yi, "although they are all good friends in my life." ”
In previous years, no one received the award, and some difficulties in sponsorship also made him unable to do it for a while. "But I don't think it's anything now, and most of the time the 'Golden Plum Award' is not and no one goes to receive it."
"Moreover, someone still came to face it later." Xiao Shenyang once said on Weibo that the "Golden Broom" should be held, and he humbly accepted this award; director Ma Weihao also said after winning the award, "I think this is an award without shading and internal determination, I recognize the spirit of this award"; Zheng Laizhi, the director of "To The Love We Will Eventually Come", also came back and humbly took the stage to receive the "Most Disappointing Small and Medium-cost Film Award".
He also felt relieved that there were people who supported him every year, chen jianbin and Liu Xiaoqing last year, and Hao Lei and Wang Xiaoshuai this year. "Some people support me, I think because I am very frank, everyone can see, I am not doing this award to make money, I only hope that someone can hear this voice." 」
He didn't know if he could change the status quo, he just instinctively did something he could. "It's natural for me to do these things, and that's how I was early on." In his first year of high school, Cheng Qingsong published a film review in "Popular Movies", making a summary review of all the films in the national film studio in a year, and the name of this film review was "A Year full of hope".
With one more person who tells the truth, the quality of Chinese films will have more hope of improving. "You must insist that with such a person as you, you can still influence some people more or less," Wang Xiaoshuai encouraged him.