Film "Female Snitch Reappears" (1996) British Arrow Film Arrow Films Blu-ray Edition Cover
There was once a very interesting saying that Maggie Cheung's smoking posture in the film was different: director Wong Kar-wai filmed Maggie Cheung smoking, which is a kind of smoking and flattery; director Kwan Kam Peng filming Maggie Cheung smoking is a kind of temperance obsession; and director Yang Fan filming Maggie Cheung smoking is the transformation of Lori's mature woman; and Maggie Cheung's ex-husband Olivier Assayas shoots her smoking, which is to let Maggie Cheung make a real "old smoking gun".
Maggie Cheung's image in director Yang Fan's film The Story of the Rose (1985).
Maggie Cheung's image in director Kwan Kam Peng's film Nguyen Ling Yu (1991).
Images of Maggie Cheung in director Wong Kar-wai's film The Wonder Years (2000).
In fact, it is not wrong to think about this statement, Maggie Cheung's smoking in the lens of the Hong Kong director is inevitably restrained and elegant and extremely postured, but she is basically "smoke without leaving her hand" in Olivier Assayas's "Female Snitch Reappears in the Jianghu / Lost Robbery / Irma Weep Irma Vep" (1996) and "Clean Clean" (2004).
Olivier Assayas was a rising French up-and-coming french upstart in the 1990s. Chinese audiences know him best than his two collaborations with Maggie Cheung.
On the set of the film "The Snitch Reappears" (1996), Maggie Cheung was 32 years old and Olivier Assayas was 41 years old
Whether it is 1996's "The Snitch Reappears in the Jianghu" or 2004's "Cleaning", it is Olivier Assayas tailor-made works for Maggie Cheung, who won the Best Actress Award at the 57th Cannes Film Festival in 2004.
In 1994, in order to promote the film "East Evil and West Poison", Maggie Cheung accompanied director Wong Kar-wai to the 51st Venice Film Festival to walk the red carpet and met Olivier Assayas.
Maggie Cheung's image in the film Female Snitch Reappears in the Jianghu (1996).
When Olivier Assayas returned home to create a science fiction film based on her, a film company invited him to remake a French classic, forcing him to abandon both plans.
When he regretted this, he made a clever move to merge the original two ideas into one, and quickly wrote the script of "Female Snitch Reappears in the Jianghu".
Image by Jean-Pierre Lyod in the film The Snitch Reappears (1996).
The film tells the story of French director Vidal (Jean-Pierre Jean-Pierre Léaud) who wants to remake the classic silent film "Les Vampires" (1915) made by Louis Ferrad Louis Feuillade (1873-1925), but it is strange that he does not think that a French actress can play this role.
Director Vidal believes that the agile and exotic Maggie Cheung is the first choice for the heroine, first of all, he is a fanatical fan obsessed with the Hong Kong action film "Three Heroes of the East" (1993), and secondly, he wants to use Maggie Cheung to borrow the corpse of the classic silent film "Vampire" to return the soul.
Images of Michelle Pfeiffer in the film Batman Returns (1992).
Although Maggie Cheung couldn't speak a word of French, she was hired to play a modern version of the legendary French snitch Irna Ilma Ilma Vep, played by Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns (1992).
Although the producers who made the film have always objected to the director's invitation to Maggie Cheung to come to Paris to participate in the performance, they can't stand the director's good talk.
When Maggie Cheung came to Paris alone, she found that the filming process of this film was not smooth, and she could only awkwardly communicate with the crew around her whose English was not much better than her in half-salty and half-light English.
Due to the jet lag and being in a "short circuit" state on the set, she was always in a muddy state, and it was not clear what the director wanted of her.
The live French film crew was also quite emotional, and she was also explicitly pursued by female costumers.
Maggie Cheung plays the female snitch Irma Vip, wearing a tight black leather jacket every time she commits a crime. The director didn't have much of a budget, so the black tights were bought by Maggie Cheung at an toys store.
Although Maggie Cheung very much hopes to make the director satisfied, she has worked hard in vain due to the language barrier. She can't blend in with the fearful French staff and admits that she can't grasp the character she wants to play.
The bigger crisis is that the director suddenly appears mentally abnormal after watching the newly filmed scene, and the producer finally has to decide to replace the director and actress Maggie Cheung...
"Female Snitch Reappears in the Jianghu" unfolds in the form of a play-in-play, showing the various situations in front of and behind the stage during the filming process in a combination of virtual and real, exploring the confusing connection between people and art, that is, reality and fantasy.
At that time, Olivier Assayas came to Hong Kong through the introduction of Wong Kar-wai's royal photographer Du Kefeng and personally presented the script to Maggie Cheung.
Maggie Cheung filmed an interview with the media on location in the film The Snitch Reappears (1996).
It is said that Maggie Cheung was in a state of near-wandering soul in Hong Kong at the time, and was not satisfied with all the scripts sent to her, because all of them were repeating the previous roles.
At this point Olivier Assayas's words seemed seductive: "You come to Paris for six weeks, working with a group of people who do not know each other at all, but are very professional. ”
Obviously, this reason moved Maggie Cheung's heart.
"I was convinced." "Because it was in Paris, an unfamiliar environment," she said. I was excited, and no one knew me. I didn't know at the time that I was starting the second phase of my film career. ”
I don't know if Olivier Assayas has seen Nguyen Ling Yu (1991), but both films have a similar play-within-a-play structure, with Maggie Cheung playing the same role in both black-and-white silent films and modern color (remake) films, both of which deliberately erase the boundaries between reality and fiction.
Maggie Cheung herself has a lot of charm in the silent film, which is not so much the first time Guan Jinpeng has excavated it, but rather that her ex-husband director Olivier Assayas has brought this unique temperament to the fullest.
The film reflects the side of European filmmakers in a dramatic way, with a bias towards prose and loose dramatic effects.
But Maggie Cheung cleverly combines her personal image with the characters in the film, and also shows the unsteady feeling of people in a foreign land. The film uses improvisation to tease the contemporary French film industry.
In Olivier Assayas's The Snitch Reappears, the camera movement looks random and messy, shaky and almost out of focus, which is actually the result of precise scene scheduling.
The characters are in motion, the center is changing, there is no panoramic lens to explain the scene, only the constantly moving character relationship and spatial relationship.
The commentary written by American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum for "The Female Snitch Reappears" clearly tells the audience: "The subject is not the film but the body of the actor, and its material is not the image but Maggie Cheung herself." ”
Director Olivier Assayas (second from left) speaks to the actors on the set of the filmIng of The Snitch Reappears (1996).
Another critic argues that the film itself is a "film about the film", a "meta-film métafilm", but the trajectory of the camera is not at all as neat as in Hollywood movies, nor is it the unbridled confusion of the Danish Dougmar 95 movement, and Olivier Assayas' camera movement is its own magic.
Cinematic style can be "scattered", but not without "body", which is rare in the French film tradition, in seemingly random, improvised and uncertain movements and scenes, everything is the result of careful design of scene scheduling.
Stills from the movie "The Female Snitch Reappears in the Jianghu" (1996), Maggie Cheung
The film completely blurs the line between reality and fantasy, and allows the concept of the protagonist's identity to be stolen, so that the audience is always in a state of division and recognition in the film, and the director examines the mess and nameless destruction within the French crew in the filmmaking with a joking attitude.
Olivier Assayas once said that the script "The Snitch Reappears" took only ten days to write, and it took only 5 weeks to shoot and edit the film.
Images of Maggie Cheung and Nicholas Giraudi in the film The Snitch Reappears (1996).
Looking at it now, it's such a spontaneous, fresh, and breezy messy collage-like film that you'll feel as if the film was improvised by unexpected joy and made into an unforgettable film.
And Olivier Assayas's style of shooting – natural, fluid, refined, intrusive – is commendable.
Most Asian audiences have always considered "The Snitch Reappears" to be an improvised film, the plot of the film is not strong, and the ending is very sloppy.
Maggie Cheung and Olivier Assayas took photos in promotional interviews for the film The Snitch Reappears (1996).
In fact, "Female Snitch Reappears" is not an improvised work shot by Olivier Assayas in order to court Maggie Cheung, the film is very rigorous from intention, conception to audiovisual language, and the film has established a unique audiovisual system in this peeping story.
"In fact, when filming "Female Snitch Reappears", there was nothing between us. It's just that after the film was made, we participated in many film festivals together, and we had the opportunity to contact and understand. Maggie Cheung later recalled, "At the beginning, I didn't have any special sparks, but I just felt that he was a serious and responsible director with delicate feelings." Later, because the film participated in many film festivals, it gradually developed. ”
When "The Snitch Reappears" was released in the United States, Maggie Cheung and Olivier Assayas agreed to go to New York and San Francisco to participate in film festivals together, and both wanted to have more opportunities to get together.
In the eyes of Olivier Assayas, Maggie Cheung has the Hong Kong traits he likes.
"She is very modern, intelligent, quick to respond, and reflects the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures in her." Olivier Assayas smiled and praised, "She has a lot of star style and charm. ”
The film "Female Snitch Reappears" (1996) British DVD version of the cover
After filming "The Female Snitch Reappears in the Jianghu", she reduced production more obviously, in addition to "Song Dynasty" (1997) and "China Box" (1997), she also filmed a film in France ,"The Story of Love in a Foreign Land" Augustin, roi du Kung-fu (1999).
"The Snitch Reappears" shows the other side of her superb acting skills, and off-screen, she has achieved her marriage to french director Olivier Assayas.
On February 5, 1999, when attending the opening ceremony of Wong Kar-wai's "Fancy Years" (2000), Maggie Cheung voluntarily announced that she was married, which surprised the Hong Kong media.
Maggie Cheung and Olivier Assayas
On that day, Maggie Cheung said that she and Olivier Assayas had registered their marriage in Paris on December 26, 1998, and Olivier Assayas gave her an heirloom ring as a betrothal, and the two had decided to settle in Paris.
On May 9, 2002, Maggie Cheung issued a written statement through the Zedong Film Company in Hong Kong, announcing that she and Olivier Assayas had divorced.
In a written statement, she said: "I admit that the years I spent with Olivier (Assayas) have been an important experience in my life and have brought me many good memories. I have great respect for Olivier's dedication to art, and I have learned a lot of new knowledge from him. Unfortunately, both of us were very focused on our work, and after careful communication, we felt that we were no longer suitable for each other to live together. Although we are separated, we will still cherish each other's friendship. As for the rest, I'm sorry to say more. This is a matter between me and Oliveier, and it has nothing to do with any third party, and I ask you not to make unnecessary speculations and associations. In the days to come, I will focus on my work and further myself. ”
On the red carpet at the 57th Cannes Film Festival, 2004, the creator of the film Clean (2004), from left: Nick Nott Nick Nolte, Maggie Cheung, Olivier Assayas
Although the media of both the East and the West were full of curiosity about his divorce at that time, and from France came Olivier Assayas's "New Love is not a woman, but a man!"
Even more gossipy about him being a sexual sadist, he points out that his Devil's Lover Demon Lover Demonlover (2002) was rife with sexual violence, which means that Olivier Assayas is most likely sexually abusive, as depicted in the film.
The delicate Maggie Cheung couldn't stand this fetish, which eventually led to a breakup.
Images of Maggie Cheung in the film Clean (2004).
When the do-gooders were imagining endlessly, thinking that the two must be dead and old, the news that they had collaborated again on the film Clean (2004) was announced.
"Cleaning" can be seen as a sublimation of Olivier Assayas' full affection for Maggie Cheung, and it can also be seen as Maggie Cheung lighting up Olivier Assayas's creation with her performance.
As a director, Olivier Assayas deeply understands that Maggie Cheung's face has become the best tool in his films to show the wandering state of modern people.
This mutual fulfillment can also be seen that Maggie Cheung is "irrespective of previous suspicions", and after the divorce, she still has the impulse to create a good script, which is different from Wong Kar-wai's "endless torture" on the set - this is the reason why she has a little "shadow" on film shooting.
What no one could have imagined was that "Cleaning" had become Maggie Cheung's last work.
If the love between Olivier Assayas and Maggie Cheung represents his uncontrollable passion for Hong Kong cinema, and the "encounter" again is in the calculation of "accident", then the generation of emotions will never be "spread" in a person.
When Maggie Cheung's "wrapped" heart is gradually opened, it is precisely when both sides need to re-examine themselves.
Since saying goodbye to Maggie Cheung and being friends, the love between Olivier Assayas and his later girlfriend, Mia Hansen-Løve, who was 26 years younger than him, returned to the 19th-century love affair in France.
In 2004, at the launch of the film "Clean" (2004), Maggie Cheung and Olivier Assayas
Unfortunately, Olivier Assayas and Mia Hansen-Lowe ended up breaking up.
What's even more regrettable is that Maggie Cheung could have created a "history" that no one can surpass, and if she could have made some quality films to get the Venice film queen, she was the first person in Asia to have the three major film festivals of Berlin, Cannes and Venice.
But maybe this "history" will always be just a "hypothesis"?
The film Snitch Reappears (1996) American Standard Collection The Criterion Collection Blu-ray Edition Cover
Despair invisible in hope Cruel hurt is not necessarily the result of war
The little characters in "The Kiss of Iniquity", the way to change their fate is always a song of justice
A masterpiece that has been overlooked: the tragedy of the last five minutes ruins the future of a beautiful teenager
A film that reflects human loneliness and fear, shocking and reflecting on the correctness of science
A living legend! Mei Lanfang's dry daughter, who only started film at the age of 30, is still active on the stage at the age of 94
In order to shoot it well, the director personally went to the street to sell ramen noodles