Li Jianjun's theatrical work "The World Between the Sunsets"
◎ Secretary of the round head
At the end of 2021, the theater work "Between the World and the Sunset", directed by director Li Jianjun, was performed at the Beijing Intermediate Theater, which was previously premiered at the 2021 Wuzhen Theater Festival and received praise.
Between the Worlds is based on the film of the same name directed by German director Reiner Werner Fassbinder, while the film is adapted from the American science fiction novel Fantasy-3. After the film was broadcast on the West German Radio and Television In 1973, it was only a few times shown in theaters, and it was not until 2010 that it was revived and restored by the Fassbinder Foundation. Because of this, "Between the World" has long been forgotten and ignored, and its historical status and value have not been fully revalued and recognized.
Separation
Interestingly, Fassbinder himself has a deep relationship with the theater, and a large part of his filmmaking team was formed during the theater creation, such as his royal heroine Hannah Hhugoula, who was his classmate during his studies in theater, and the two had an extraordinary tacit understanding during both the theater and the film period; his film composer Pierre Raben was also a director who worked with during the theater work, and the art director and lover Kurt Raab also came out of the theater. Fassbinder's relationship with his crew can be described as "loving and killing" – partly because of his tyrannical control, on the other hand, the infinite recognition of his talents, and it is precisely under his intense creation that the team gradually develops an unrivalled tacit understanding that can achieve "the special effect of a whole in a sleepwalking way" (Fassbinder's World). From "action theater" to "anti-theater", Fassbinder accumulated a wealth of experience in screenwriting and directing, until he later established the "Anti-theater Film Company" and shot works with more experimental styles in the early days.
Li Jianjun's version of "Between the World and the Sunset" is closely related to Fassbinder's original film, and even does not need to be "adapted" to discuss it, which is more appropriate to call it a translation. For example, from a structural point of view, the film is divided into two parts, the upper and lower episodes, and the drama of the same name directed by Li Jianjun is also divided into two parts, which is also very directly related to the film.
The first is defamiliarization. Fassbinder's filmography can be roughly divided into three phases, and his creation in the first stage was heavily influenced by Godard, especially his science fiction work Alpha City (1965), in which everyone lives in a computer-controlled world. Godard was heavily influenced by Brecht, and the distancing effects they favored were also applied to Fassbinder's films. For example, in the movie "The World is Between the Sunsets", Fassbinder gathers German stars of different eras to star together, and the audience sees these stars miraculously appear together across the times, and naturally questions the authenticity of the world built by the film.
In Li Jianjun's play, the actors do not enter the role directly at the beginning, but stand in a row at the front of the stage, telling the background of the story and the introduction of the character. Here, Li Jianjun emphasizes a certain "sense of play" and always keeps the actors at a distance from the characters, thus making the audience aware of the fictionality of the story. Similarly, the theatrical version of "Between the Worlds" has always emphasized the concept of "scene": the narration not only plays a guiding role, but also specifically indicates the day/night drama and indoor/outdoor in the form of a script between each scene, on the one hand, indicating that the work is derived from the film script and directly establishes a close relationship with Fassbinder's original film, and at the same time reminds the audience that the entire theatrical work is just a story that has been written, and it is necessary to maintain a rational posture of judging it at all times.
mirror image
The second is the interpretation and use of the concept of "mirror image" in film and drama. If we look closely at Fassbinder's films, mirrors/mirrors are heavily used, and this is inextricably linked to his reference to Douglas Sirk. "Between the Worlds" is in the second stage of Fassbinder's film creation, that is, the period of popular melodrama. In 1970, Fassbinder was full of praise after watching Seck's retrospective, which directly prompted him to reflect and criticize Brecht's approach, and began to realize that Brecht was too "stiff and boring" (although perhaps a misunderstanding). It was after this that Fassbinder blended Seck's melodrama with Brecht's defamiliarization and began to create works that were both popular and critical, neither indulging the audience nor enjoying them.
Seck once said, "The mirror is an imitation of life, but the interesting thing is that the mirror does not reflect yourself, it shows you the exact opposite image of you." "The World's Twilight" reference to the Seck-style mirror can be described as ubiquitous, but also developed its own unique use and expression - not only the examination of inner thoughts, but also the reflection of the real and virtual, and of course, the mirror objectively can also make the poorly funded Fassbinder achieve the most confusing effect at the lowest cost. In Li Jianjun's play, Fassbinder's fanatical use of mirrors is largely decomposed and transformed into a camera + green screen: each actor appears in front of the green screen wearing a mask, and after the camera and computer are synthesized in real time, the actor and the background are projected together on the big screen above the stage, forming a virtual effect in motion. This technique also accurately reveals the connotation of the original work: the lower world where the people in the play are located is nothing more than a "projection" of the upper world, and the roughness deliberately constructed through clothing and other means suggests that the "projection" is only a poor imitation of the upper world.
control
Fassbinder's "Between the Worlds" is a multi-level adaptation of the original science fiction novel "Fantasy-3", which makes the film more closely connected with his time: in his fear of the upper world controlling the lower world, there is Fassbinder's criticism of the inevitability of fascism in German history, and also reflects his consistent thinking on political manipulation and class issues. Fassbinder's high concern for "control" is also highly recognizable authorship, because in life and work, Fassbinder himself is a control freak, he can not escape himself, can only sincerely express his fear and disgust with himself in his works. From the perspective of external conditions, the emergence of "Between the World and the Sunset" is also closely related to the global political and social situation in the early 1970s. As the forefront of the Cold War, the West German government urgently needed to reaffirm the values of freedom and democracy through the mass media, and the West German Radio and Television Station extended an olive branch to the artists of the time, hoping that they could create works on related themes. Since the managers of the television station at that time were intellectuals and artists, the creators also had greater creative freedom and more creative funds, in fact, among the four masters of the "New German Film", Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog and Fassbinder all shot a lot of works for the tv station during this period.
variant
At this point, we also have to ask the question, in the second decade of the 21st century, why do we have to restore such a work, and what is its relationship with the present? In fact, there are many variations of "Between the Worlds", which are constantly dealing with issues more directly related to reality, such as the "Matrix" series (especially the fourth series "Matrix Restart", which has just been released in Chinese theaters), the film "Out of Control Player" released last year, etc., so in addition to using more avant-garde technical means to express the views of the 1970s, what expansion and deepening does the theatrical version of "The World Between the Sunsets" have at the text level? In the past 50 years, have only technology and media developed?
In addition, the reason why Fassbinder filmed the film into two parts, on the one hand, is because the original content is a lot, a full-time film is difficult to carry, on the other hand, it is also approved by the West German television station, after all, the two parts are easier to create suspense, but also better to gather word of mouth and attract audiences. The theatrical version of "Between the Worlds" directly chooses to completely follow the film in structure, which inevitably limits the rhythm of the drama. In addition, the 200-minute duration is bound to put forward higher requirements for the visual appearance of the film, and the shooting team used a lot of fresh and sensible techniques for this purpose, such as the director of photography using a large number of shallow focal lenses to compress the depth of field, thus creating a kind of spatial flattening. There are also small tricks, such as placing a gas lamp under the camera to heat the air and create an illusory effect. In contrast, the theatrical version inevitably lacks some changes, especially in the second half, the director's use of methods is the same as the first half, or even slightly reduced, coupled with the unchanged green screen + real-time synthesis of the whole process, which gives people a little sense of aesthetic fatigue.
At the end of the film, the protagonist Stiller is killed by the police, and he also comes to another space in the moment of collapse, which is covered with blue velvet full of artificial feelings, And Stiller excitedly thinks that he has come to the upper world, until he says two words "I am (Ich bin)...", only to suddenly realize that he is still unable to determine who he is and where he is, and the artificial sense created by the film in the setting and art suggests to us the existence of a higher world. Here, Li Jianjun's theatrical version is undoubtedly in line with the spirit of Fassbinder's original work, which gives a more serious ending than the Hollywood adaptation of "Hacker in other dimensions" and the original novel "Fantasy-3": it completely refuses to give a definite, reunion ending, but gives multiple endings through words, allowing the audience to choose for themselves. However, Fassbinder is more knowledgeable about ambiguity and "thinking carefully", after all, as early as the 1970s, he realized that the direct preaching did not seem to work as well as expected; there were some choices, and there were no choices at all. Photography / Tasu