Xinhua News Agency, Taipei, May 10 Title: Traveling Alone with Images and Time - Interview with Film Director Cai Mingliang
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Lixin Chen Jianxing
"What is a movie? Movies are the flow of time. Director Cai Liangming, 59, has always been sensitive to time. Over the past 25 years, his films have become more and more "slow", abandoning the traditional mode of film all the way, and striving to use pure and simple images to expose time and life itself, to impress most audiences who are accustomed to the eyes of image consumption.
Recently, at his home in a mountainous area near Taipei, director Cai Mingming was interviewed by a Xinhua reporter. The director's apartment is built in a small abandoned building, surrounded by "ruins" and surrounded by green mountains. He wears a black T-shirt, has a bald head, bright eyes, and a cheerful laugh, like a happy hermit.
Regarding film, he said that for many years he had been working on images, painting with light, slow, motionless, ethereal, as if nothing. "I don't tell stories, I just make movies." Cai Liangming said.
Moving the film into an art museum
"No Sleepless - Cai Liangliang Exhibition" was recently exhibited at the Taipei North Normal Art Museum, three short films "No Sleepless", "Journey to the West" and "Autumn Day" were played in different exhibition halls, the audience can enter at any time, can sit in any position to watch, can also lie down to watch, empty art museum for the audience stacked with many pillows.
For Cai Mingliang, the art museum is a more free viewing space, and the audience who enter the art museum is curious, open, willing to take risks, and has different viewing expectations. "In contrast, the cinema is a standardized consumption place, a store, what to sell is clear first, and there is no need for the audience to think more."
In several short films on display, Cai Liangliang used long shots to shoot daily life actions such as walking (slow motion), bathing, and sleeping in a carefully selected space, trying to liberate the action from the media form of the traditional film load information, so that the audience can look at those familiar actions with a different eye and find the patience of "seeing".
Changing one's vision requires a state of freedom and enough time, and all of this can be found in the museum.
"Although I walked into the art museum, I don't think of myself as a video artist, I am still a film director who relies on film." He believes that this cross-border cooperation between films and art museums provides new possibilities for both sides, and will also be his regular screening method in the future.
Recalling his previous experience of cooperation with the theater, Cai Liangming admitted: "I am tired of this model, and the theater pays too much attention to timeliness. In 2003, he took a 23-minute short film called "The Flyover Is Gone", and one by one he asked the theater who would like to show it. In the end, a newly opened theater accepted. In order to reassure the boss, he took to the streets and schools to sell movie tickets and sold more than three thousand tickets. Since then, every time a work has been released, he will drive, take the lead actor, and go around selling tickets. For more than a decade, almost all the people who entered the theater to watch his movies were "pulled" into it by himself.
In 2009, Cai Was invited by the Louvre museum in France to shoot the classic film "Face", which became the starting point of his cooperation with the art museum. In 2012, after the short film "Colorless", he decided to put it up, not to participate in any film festivals, not to do any screenings. He said confidently: "Good movies, like good works of art, can wait for us in the future, wait for us to accept and understand." ”
"Teenage Na Ga" was recently released at the Beijing Film Archive and received critical acclaim; last year, the old work was released in the United States. After more than 20 years, Cai Liangming has indeed waited for a "new audience".
(Subtitle) Pursue your own image aesthetics
At the end of 2013, Li Kangsheng won the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor for "Outing". At the ceremony, he held up the trophy, paused for half a moment, and then said: "This is not a tv broken, this is the style of Director Cai's filming." Intuitively speaking, Director Cai's film style is "slow": the narrative is slow (less plot, less dialogue), the character movements are slow, and the editing rhythm is slow.
In fact, Cai Liangming also slowly found his own image aesthetic road. When he first debuted, he worked as a screenwriter, wrote about children's shows, wrote a high-rated 30-episode series, and later made episodes himself. In the process, the usual requirements and too many preconceived things made him feel "disgusted".
"I am a student of drama, of course, I know that to make a movie, you must have a script, a plot, a character, you must analyze the characters, and find out the motivation, psychology, relationships, etc. But the plot is always similar, something we already know. Movies can't be trapped in a plot. Cai Liangming said, then, besides the drama, what is the attraction of the movie?" That is the image itself and the author's true feelings."
When Cai Liangming was in his 20s when he saw french director Truffaut's "Four Hundred Blows", he was shocked and made him think: "This director did not shoot a story, but filmed a mood, how can a character filmed by a Western director 20 years ago be so close to my feelings?" ”
In order to make the film close to this "reality", Cai Mingming discarded it all the way in his exploration: "My method of making movies is that I can lose it and keep discarding it, even if it is difficult to discard habits and indoctrination." ”
He "lost" the traditional film elements such as scripts, performances, and editing, but he only valued space very much. Whether it is filming, doing exhibitions or performing, he must first look at the space, think about the space, and decide what to let the actors do from the space.
In Cai Mingliang's view, every author is a person who knows what he can do and what he wants to do.
In response to many viewers complaining that they "can't understand", Cai Liangming responded: "I did not make a movie according to the ready-made program, because I did it according to my nature, according to my own feelings about the work, and my thinking about what I was doing. Someone asked him: What is the most important thing about being a director? He said: "My own aesthetic is the most important. ”
Movies are the flow of time
In order to promote the film, Cai Liangming often holds lectures to attract the audience. Recently, he walked into the students of New Taipei City and talked about his creative experience.
"What are we looking at? Look at the passage of time. In his view, the core of the film is not the plot, but the role of the image itself. Most movies try to create a sense of unity, when everyone should cry and laugh, so they rely on fictional plots, "but it's really ridiculous, I think it's boring".
Cai Liang's long shot is not deliberately prolonged, but restores time. He said he shot an 8-minute walking shot "to let the audience see and feel the 8 minutes themselves." He hopes that through his own images and time, the audience can regain the patience and ability to "see". True "seeing" takes time, just as the outpouring and perception of emotions takes time.
Since 1991, Cai Liangliang's film protagonist has been Li Kangsheng, and his face forms the core of the film. Talking about the relationship with Li Kangsheng, Cai Mingming said: "This is a kind of bondage, but I am willing to eat it, and it also allows me to gain greater freedom. This kind of bondage is much better than being bound by idols and genres. This bondage allows me to truly face the finiteness of life, and I will continue to photograph him until he grows old, which is a gaze and praise for the finite life. ”
Cai Mingliang's films can also make up a big movie, if there is a title, he is willing to call it: "The Life of a Well-off".
In 2014, Li Kangsheng performed "Xuanzang" with illness in Brussels, often unable to control his body, occasionally falling, Cai Mingming said that falling down, no need to control. The last performance in Brussels, due to physical reasons, the 2-hour performance became 3 and a half hours, and many audiences did not persist to the end, but Cai Liangming felt that it was the "best performance".
In the past year and a half, Li Kangsheng's body has not yet healed, and he is mainly cared for by Cai Mingming. Cai Liangming said: "We have to face physical problems, and the lifestyle will change, which will also affect my creations." But for the future, I have no plans, no dreams. I just cherish the time in the moment. (End)