▲ "Love Myth" stills
It's good if someone can see my expression, and it's good to see a story if they can't.
This article was first published in Southern People Weekly
Text / Contributing Writer He Doudou
Yang Nan, a reporter from Southern People Weekly, sent from Beijing and Shanghai
Figure / Courtesy of the interviewee
Before the release of the movie "Love Myth", director Shao Yihui had no expectations for the box office. She knew it was a niche film, and everyone in the company knew it. From the very beginning, the participants did not link this film to the so-called "blockbuster". "Otherwise I wouldn't have chosen to make all the characters speak Shanghainese." Shao Yihui said.
The story is not complicated, Xu Zheng plays Lao Bai is a Shanghai uncle, painter, warm-hearted, very good at cooking, middle-aged and three women have different emotional implications. As soon as the movie was released, the Douban score reached 8.3, and the topics involved in the film, such as Shanghai landscape, middle-aged love, and gender awareness, triggered a heated discussion. Many people think that the film presents a real Shanghai of the city — men and women, young and old, coffee culture and a little bourgeois atmosphere. Of course, there are also people who think that there are no outsiders, no the bitter struggle of Shanghai drift, not the real Shanghai, but after "purification". Shao Yihui saw similar criticisms and communicated with writers, and she was happy to have such a sincere exchange and use it to sort out herself.
She never wanted to shoot a full-blown, real, real Shanghai, and she felt that no one could even do it. The actors in the film are all Shanghainese, and speaking Shanghainese is completely from the perspective of performance. "Once there is a foreigner, he can speak Mandarin, everyone speaks Mandarin, Shanghainese have this quality, will not be in front of a foreigner, you can't understand me shanghainese I still have to say, this is too impolite, they are not like this." 」
Lao Bai has a prototype, but the "white hard work" that enters the writing process has little to do with the prototype, drawing on the profession and some shadows, and the stories are fictional. However, the three female characters and the little cobbler are even more Shao Yihui's ideal characters. There are many people who say that they have a Gloria around them, and Shao Yihui feels that this is a universal embodiment, so that different audiences can see the shadow of their own lives.
▲ Gloria Stills from "Love Myth"
Movies are a very limited thing, "I just want to write a very simple, very small love story, and that's what it is now." So don't try to see it all in one movie, that's why we need all kinds of movies. ”
At just thirty years old, Shao Yihui achieved such a reputation for his first feature film, and it seems that everything is smooth and lucky. After talking, it is not difficult to find the reason for this luck. From the beginning of the script, she is written according to the shooting, and each scene has figured out how to shoot, so there is basically no waste scene on the script, what is written can be filmed, and what is filmed can be cut in; even where to shoot, what props to use, how to shoot, she has already had the corresponding picture in her mind.
In 2020, "Love Myth" gained initial attention in the first film market, in fact, before that, Shao Yihui also invested in the Pingyao Film Festival, Shanghai Film Festival, etc., but there was no news. Later, Chen Lizhi, the founder of Matt Pictures, saw the script and hired Xu Zheng as a producer. At first, Xu Zheng did not want to play Lao Bai, but in the end he found that only he was the most suitable, and Ma Yili was the judge at the time, so he finally finalized the current cast. Looking back on this process, Shao Yihui feels that for a young director like himself, without any resources, connections, or even knowing what Matt is and who Chen Lizhi is, there is only one way for film festival venture capital.
After six years in Shanghai, Shao Yihui moved to Beijing during the preparation of "Love Myth". Today, despite being a promising young director in her population, her life has remained unchanged, as always. In the past, although she was not known by many people, she had many readers when writing novels, many tips for writing public accounts, and many friends who sold e-cigarettes. "There are always people who like me, and I don't suddenly have people like me, and I swell." In reality, it is still those people who play together, and what they do on a daily basis is still those things.
Shao Yihui's mother was a Chinese teacher, which had a lot to do with her later studying in the literature department. When she was a child, her parents loved to read at home, and she loved to read; she never went to any training class, according to her words, "there is no specialty", and her mother did not let her go, feeling meaningless, but always bought her books to read. By junior high school, she liked to watch movies, and her parents bought her a lot of discs. Later, she fell in love with the magazine "Watch movies", which she had to buy every issue and watch in class until she was confiscated by the teacher before the middle school entrance examination. Every time my mother went to school to see her, she would bring her a lot of magazines and extracurricular books, and once she happened to be seen by the teacher, and the teacher was surprised: "These books are all bought for her?" I can't confiscate it every day. ”
The tolerant growth environment allows Shao Yihui to do what she wants to do, and also shapes her character that is difficult to be defeated by reality, she does not want to write a bad script, nor does she want the text to be modified for no reason, if what is most useful on the road to growth, her answer must be to read. Raymond Carver said in the Paris Review: "After reading Strindberg's plays, Rilke's poems, listening to Bartók's music all night, you can't be unaffected by them, you can't be changed by them, you can't be another person because of them." "Shao Yihui's desire to express herself was sown when she was a child, exported when she grew up, and the books she read and the words she said made her become herself now.
▲ Director Shao Yihui Photo / Provided by the interviewee
Dialogue director Shao Yihui
Southern People Weekly: What was your original intention in making this film?
Shao Yihui: The original intention is that what I write myself can not be modified, I want to shoot my own writing, I have a lot of things I want to express. Whether it's to make the male director apologize or whatever, I just want to hide my expression in a story and let others see a funny story. At the same time, it's good if someone can see my expression, and it's good to see a story if they can't.
Southern People Weekly: Which piece was the hardest part of the shooting process?
Shao Yihui: I definitely don't understand acting, this is a difficult point. But because the actors I found were very good at acting, they made me learn a lot about acting. I don't know how to act, but I'm the one who knows my story best, and I know what I want to convey the most, and sometimes I talk to the actors about it. They are all very smart people, and people are very good, in fact, they don't need to say much, everyone can get it, they can act very well.
Southern People Weekly: Of the three female characters in the film, which is your favorite?
Shao Yihui: Actually, I like it a lot. Personally, I still like Gloria because it is very dashing. Miss Li she is still a person who thinks a lot, because her living conditions have determined that she must think so much, there are old and young. But like Gloria, she has no children, because I have no intention of getting married and having children, so I feel that I am more like her.
▲ Miss Li Stills of "Love Myth"
Southern People Weekly: Which character is the most painfully written?
Shao Yihui: The most enjoyable thing is to make the male director apologize.
Southern People Weekly: As a foreigner shooting Shanghai, how do you grasp the sense of proportion and authenticity?
Shao Yihui: First of all, I didn't want to shoot a very authentic Shanghai, but I just said that Shanghai is more suitable for such a story to happen, and what I took is what I usually feel. It shows that everyone's feelings are the same as mine, and the understanding of Shanghai is the same, and I believe that everyone who has lived there will also have this feeling, which has nothing to do with foreigners and mainlanders. I really haven't considered how close it should be to Shanghai. Because thinking so much is easy to get away with, right?
Southern People Weekly: Some people say that this is a pure commercial film, do you agree with this statement?
Shao Yihui: I didn't think about business or literature at all, I think it doesn't matter, you think it's business, literature and art, you can. I just wanted to write a fun story and a bunch of fun people, it was that simple. I myself don't like to watch very literary films, many of the very slow kind of master films, I really can't watch it, so my characters talk very fast, sentence after sentence does not fall.
Southern People Weekly: You have always had a very dense output on the theme of love, why do you have such a strong expression on this topic?
Shao Yihui: To be honest, I didn't think about it in the past, I thought about it some time ago. Girls like me in small cities, when I was a child, I loved to watch movies and Watch American dramas, and when I was younger, I watched a lot of literary works, all of which were in love, and I felt that falling in love was a very good thing since I was a child, and girls should fall in love. If I look at more historical politics, I will definitely think that girls should engage in history and politics. Of course, it's not the fault of these things, it's that I didn't go for something more comprehensive to read, and I'm starting to reflect now. When I was a child, I felt that women had to dress themselves up and fall in love, which was the biggest mission in my life, and I was guided and shaped in this way when I was a child, so it led me to love and write these things when I grew up. I am particularly sad that if I live again, I will have to look more at history, politics, and military.
Southern People Weekly: When it comes to the reading materials of your childhood, do you have a look at which one can you map to?
Shao Yihui: I love to watch some female writers such as Sanmao and Zhang Ailing, Zhang Ailing can't understand it, just look at her love part, and Anne Baby, who also watched at that time, yishu also watched a lot.
Southern People Weekly: So what is your consistent view of love?
Shao Yihui: Just make yourself happy and make each other happy, the two of you are in love for fun, not for anything else. If you make yourself feel unhappy, or make the other person feel uncomfortable, then you should stop and think about whether there is something wrong.
Southern People Weekly: Have you ever done anything particularly crazy for love?
Shao Yihui: I should have done a lot in the past, including many novels I wrote in the past, and I also have the shadow of my own love. But there seems to be nothing particularly crazy, because I think love can't make people crazy, we shouldn't be crazy for the sake of love, it's not worth going crazy, I think good love is two calm adults doing adult things. Generally crazy is that you are moving yourself, you can't move the other person, or you are kidnapping the other party. So I don't like that kind of crazy thing the most, and I don't like the other person doing crazy things for me, the pressure is too much.
In fact, I also shot in this movie, let's not do crazy things, I don't recommend doing it, mature people will mature love, crazy end is generally not good. You are crazy not because people don't like you so much, you want to increase your efforts, people don't like you, what is the use of you being crazy again? But if people like you, you don't need to go crazy at all.
Southern People Weekly: So what kind of love concept do you think is tacky in your eyes?
Shao Yihui: The kind of material love with a person, considering his conditions such as whether there is a house, a car, or social status, is tacky, I think it is not interesting. I think the most interesting thing is whether the person himself is interesting, whether he is humorous, whether he can talk to you, have common hobbies with you, have common tastes and aesthetics, so that it is interesting for two people to talk. He's worth hundreds of millions, but he's a straw bag, and it's terrible. Whether there is money or not, I understand women very well, because women are very weak, often married without giving a penny to others, saying that people's housewives have not contributed, this kind of behavior is a lot. So I never blame others, each of us is different, you can't give advice to others with your own limited experience. But I encourage everyone, first of all, girls must be self-reliant, must be able to be financially independent, so that they will not think too much about this when they find a partner.
Southern People Weekly: Do you think the concept of love is divided into regions?
Shao Yihui: In fact, it is completely different, but I think why it is established in Shanghai is that it belongs to everyone's impression of Shanghai, in fact, this is also a stereotype. In fact, Shanghai will be more tolerant, you will not be able to resist the pressure around you in small cities, you can not live as you want, if you live in Taiyuan, you will feel that you have neuropathy. It is also related to the economic conditions and cultural atmosphere and the degree of civilization of a city. Why young people want to go to the big city, not because they can be more free, others will not interfere with you, you will not want to interfere with others, this is the benefit of the big city.
Southern People Weekly: Directors who shoot love have their own romance, what kind of thing do you think is romantic?
Shao Yihui: I think two people communicating is the most romantic, so my film will have a lot of dialogue, I think two people can really communicate, you say a word to me, deep inner communication, not on the surface of eating, good morning and good night this kind of words - I have never said goodnight to anyone in love, I don't want to hear that kind of nonsense, I hope to have a meaningful, quality dialogue - this is the most romantic. Even if it is rhetoric, it is two people who are talking, and if both can sweetly deceive each other, that is enough. Don't I feel like I have to rely on someone else to do something to take care of you? And not disabled, I never advocate "care".
Southern People Weekly: How has Wang Xiaobo influenced you?
Shao Yihui: Because I didn't have a very good opinion on male writers before, the women they portrayed were particularly stupid. But Wang Xiaobo is the only one who I think is a male writer who writes female characters that are not so single, plump, attractive, very intelligent, he is also a particularly wise, very ironic person, I like his irony and wisdom.
Southern People Weekly: In your life creed, is there a thought that "I have always wanted to do things related to movies"?
Shao Yihui: My life creed has always had something I need to express, and I have a lot to say. In the past, I wrote novels, tweeted, and wrote public accounts because of this. That's why I think there must be something to say when making a movie, and I don't want to say it if it's something that everyone else has said.
This thing is best in the form of a movie, rather than saying that sending a microblog can solve it. Because I love music myself, I can combine the songs I like with my stories. Now everyone likes my songs, I am also very happy, I think this is the biggest pleasure of making movies, put their own expressions into it, put their favorite songs into it, put their favorite actors, their favorite stores into it, isn't this the meaning of making movies?
Southern People Weekly: You said you were anxious in the past, will you still be now?
Shao Yihui: In fact, anxiety has only been anxious in the last two years, because I am older. I'm 30 now and I'm more anxious when I'm 28. It is also the Internet that instilled in me what women are downhill at the age of 25, and what about the 28-year-old, which causes me to be passively anxious. I think it is true that there is no money and no object, nothing, just anxiety. Now more anxious, but not the same. I'm thinking about how I can make better things and write better works right now. Because it is true that everyone will have a little expectation of me now, then I will be afraid that I will not be able to write well next.
Southern People Weekly: What is your day like?
Shao Yihui: Get up at noon to eat a meal, write something in the afternoon, and if you can't write something, brush Weibo and look at the posts. Have a meal in the afternoon, watch a movie in the evening, and watch some drama. I have been writing novels before, and some novels have not been written, and I dare not write them at night, for fear of not being able to sleep. I have not slept well, so I watch more American dramas at night, read books before going to bed, and sleep at three or four o'clock. In addition, I occasionally go to play drums, in the past I danced more tango, danced for several years, from college to 2018, and then stopped dancing.
Southern People Weekly: Why don't you jump?
Shao Yihui: Because there are only a few people, there is very little fresh blood, and after jumping, I don't want to jump.
Southern People Weekly: What was the movie that had the biggest impact on you?
Shao Yihui: I don't remember, many of them had a great impact. For example, when I was in junior high school, I once watched "The Dream of the Covered Bridge" on the movie channel, and I cried a lot. I don't know if that had a big impact on me, I just remember that picture very deeply, and it had a big impact on me at that time, and I thought it was too good.