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Cao Baoping is a director, screenwriter, producer, and professor of literature at the Beijing Film Academy. As a deep partner of the FIRST Film Festival in recent years, Cao Baoping has been committed to supporting young filmmakers. In a letter two years ago before the start of FIRST training camp, he wrote: "In the era of intervention, I want to work with you to do something and leave a trace in the current reality. For the next generation of filmmakers, whether it's 1% or 5%, we should try to provide substantial help when they need us. Whether it's sharing experiences of how to tell a good story or helping to overcome the anxiety of telling a good story. ”
It is this experience and anxiety that has led to Cao Baoping's new identity: a salvager. Salvaging those who are on their way to their dreams, encouraging new directors to make genre films in the film industry, and trying to break the formulaic narrative while being able to reshape stereotyped characters. He once said that every "crime genre film" he made was not a "crime genre film." The film itself is a dream, and this era is an era in which dreams and dreams rush through each other and are momentarily far away.
Cao Baoping is perhaps one of the most capable Chinese directors, and in addition to the director's awards, he has repeatedly won the best screenplay award at major film festivals. For people who want to be familiar with Chinese films, what he directs and what he writes must be brushed. Cao Baoping is not very prolific in the director, but in the past ten years, with the five films of "Glorious Anger", "Li Mi's Conjecture", "Dog Thirteen", "Burning Heart of the Sun" and "The Pursuer", a unique and strong Cao's film aesthetic has been constructed, and it has also been constantly revisited by fans when there is no new work released - to brush "Li Mi's Conjecture", listening to Zhou Xun say those few words: "We fell in love when we were in middle school, and then we have been together." We didn't do well in our studies. "We were all unremarkable, no one cared about us, and on the day the college entrance exam ended, we were all depressed." Brush "Dog Thirteen", watch Li Play and Zhang Xueying girl remember adolescence together, it turns out that we are all grown up like this, there is no pregnancy, abortion, exodus, death, but see yourself will behead a youth to show the public; brush "Burning Heart", feel Deng Chao and Duan Yihong playing on the roof of a high-rise building like the blood in the vipassana body...
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"Perhaps no one can really transform words into images, and the words in the script have their own aesthetics, and the images belong to the aesthetic concept of another system." After completing the script, it may only be half completed." In an interview many years ago, Cao Baoping once expressed this expression. "Genre directors must start from the text. A good genre film with a strong plot needs a complete and good script."
What's the difference between being a screenwriter and a director? Cao Baoping believes that the presentation of the two is very different, the completion of the script is to realize the taste of the text, and the delivery of a film requires the director to take charge of the overall situation and complete the huge and trivial work, in the process, the screenwriter will be hidden. The dual identity of the screenwriter and director makes Cao Baoping's film full of a strong dramatic atmosphere, he pays attention to the virtual reality of the scene and the intensity of the plot, rarely has the image language directly replicates the situation of the character dialogue, the text is exquisite, full of tension. I have heard a saying that in the shooting, director Cao Baoping almost did not adjust the script according to the actual situation. As a screenwriter, I feel comfortable. As a director, I ask for help. He is like finding a lion in the middle of the sea, which seems reasonable, but in fact it is very difficult.
"Someone asked me before, if I didn't have to think about other things at all, what would I want to shoot? I said that I had to wait until the moment when there was something promising and possible before I would think about it and ponder it. From academic to genre film director, Cao Baoping still presents the hardest bones in the body and the softest parts of the bones.
For where the story goes, how to find a slope of its own meaning in reality and film, as far as the eye can see, Cao Baoping's films can often generate twilight in the ordinary, hiding lightness and hiding heaviness. What is the relationship between the director's work and reality, and why is it that shooting reality does not directly shoot a life documentary, but sublimates it into drama on this basis? He also deeply understands that "the way it concerns reality is not only documented. When a director defines a work as a certain type, the meaning is not a realistic record of the work, but a form and means, such as book commentary or drama, which is more of an entertainment method. But that doesn't mean entertainment can't focus on reality." In Cao Baoping's film works, there is a serious sense of order of the sun god Apollo, and there is a dionysus-style disorder of the dionysus god Dionysus. The flow of maintaining the proportions of the two allows evil to eventually lead to a moral parade—good always suppresses evil.
A few years ago, gold medal producer Chen Guofu praised Cao Baoping's creative passion, "His script is indeed very vivid, you will believe that he is a creator with great passion." He's very romantic, and as a male creator, he has a surprising focus on female characters, which is extremely rare in China." Zhou Xun and Deng Chao, who won best actor and best actress for their participation in his films, also consider him to be passionate whimsical people. Deng Chao also said after filming "Burning Heart of the Sun", "Cao Baoping is very idealistic, his spiritual level is very cute, and he is very much like a child." He believes in human potential, he believes in the pleasure of creation, and he is a very kind person."
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Ellemen：
How do you feel about your relationship with the work, the creation and the state of life, and the work and the era?
Cao Baoping:
It may be difficult for me to be classified as a purely author-oriented director, and my films are more in the category of genre than films that care about self-expression, although this does not mean that the refraction of the self cannot be achieved in the work. However, no matter what type it is, the way it carries is different, but it is consistent with its own experience, aesthetics and values.
If you sorted the works of "Glorious Rage", "Li Mi's Conjecture", "Burning Heart of the Sun", "Dog Thirteen", and "Pursuer", how would you arrange them? How are the sort criteria constituted?
My work is relatively staged, and the goals and directions carried by each stage are different. Reflections on realism in Glorious Rage are closer, and realist expressions of emotion are added to Limi's Conjecture. "Burning Heart" is more technical. When I first wrote Burning Heart, I tried to treat it as a purer commercial film, while carrying some thematic significance. So the starting point of each of my works is different. Taking "The Pursuer" as an example, at the beginning of the shooting, I wanted to break away from relative realism and combine black humor with some kind of highly realistic metaphor, which will be quite different from my previous works, more crazy and stylized.
You mentioned the stage of your work, what stages have you gone through in your creation?
At the beginning, it was more concerned and reflective on the real society, and in the middle period, it entered multi-faceted, and in the later period, I wanted to be more distant from realism. But these stages are basically realist expressions.
More stylized.
Right. Or so it seems.
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The role of Li Mi in "Li Mi's Conjecture" is one of Zhou Xun's very classic screen images, and Deng Chao also presents a very restrained and powerful performance through "Burning Heart of the Sun". So there's a saying that your work is very good at praising actors, what do you think of that view?
Not quite. A director can't completely create an actor, and the only thing I have to do in the birth of a movie is to choose the right person, who has the potential and possibilities.
When you first became a director, was it expected for you to be a director at that time?
Probably not. I first wanted to be a writer. Later, I came into contact with movies and liked them, so I went to the Beijing Film Academy and chose to be a director. But this does not deviate from my original intention, because both are also storytelling, just a different medium.
How do you understand the male aesthetic in your work?
As a male director, how I look at male aesthetics, or how subjectively I consciously bring male aesthetics into my creations, I think it is a subconscious act. But with the rise of feminism around the world in recent years, it has also touched me a lot, reminding me and making me aware of the dilemmas women face in this society and how they get along with the world.
As far as I know, the director's work is very cumbersome now, in addition to the creation and shooting, even the post-publicity may also require the director's overall coordination. How do you understand the significance of this part of the work for the identity of the director?
Purely in the sense of directing, there is no need, which is not the scope of his work. But at some point the director's work will evolve into a complex complex, not only at home, but also worldwide. When a larger project needs to be faced, it is difficult for you to simply be a director, and you will take care of the production direction, publicity and distribution work, which is closely related to the director's starting point.
Do you usually use your mobile phone to brush short videos?
Sometimes I will brush it up, wonder what's going on, make movies, create to understand all kinds of things in society, completely block out it will be out of touch with society, but I will warn myself not to fall into it.
As a director, do you have anxiety and fear about aging now?
Anxiety and fear of aging should be a common human problem, whether directed or not. But when a person is in the stage of creative exuberance, he should not be afraid of aging.
Do you think that the same subject matter is more important for people with the same ability to have experience, or is it more important to be young and energetic?
Each has its own good. Young and energetic, there must be his strength, such a vitality to bring good is you can not imagine. But having experience is also very important, and sometimes a lot of experience can accomplish a lot of things that creativity can't accomplish, so these two are equally important.
For this era, what do you think is the meaning of literature and the meaning of film?
Literature has meaning for those who like literature, and it is like waste paper for those who do not have a relationship with literature. Of course, you can put the topic very big, for example, for people who don't like movies, movies are like waste (laughs).
Thank you for helping us think about the title (laughs).
There will still be some difference. In the more accustomed ways of expression in today's era, literature is relatively niche, while film is relatively popular. For some young people who are not in our line of work, sometimes games may be far more important than movies in their lives, so it depends on the scope of the problem, and I can only feel the beauty and value in my own circle. I was recently reading Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian, but it's more like a grand philosophical prose, and the beauty of words lies between the lines. Therefore, people can find what they like in their own circles, and it is enough to tap their meaning and value.
What are your wishes and hopes for what happens this year?
May the epidemic end as soon as possible and people be able to return to normal life.
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