"Aggression and criticism embody the subjectivity of literature and the nature of human self-reflection. This is one of the cornerstones of human progress. Of course, the first thing is self-aggression and self-criticism, to shoot at one's own shortcomings. ”
"You also tell stories of peace and stability, stories of déjà vu, or themes that don't hurt or itch, what do you write about it?"
This article was first published in Southern People Weekly
Text / Southern People Weekly reporter Deng Yu from Beijing
Cover photo / Southern People Weekly reporter Jiang Xiaoming
gunshot. The sound of quarrels. Sadness turns to cheerful harmonica melody. The crying of newborns.
In March, in a rehearsal hall in Beijing's Second Ring Road, a team composed mainly of members of the Deyun Society was rehearsing the play "Wotou Guild Hall". For the highlight of the third act of the shooting, the actors, under the guidance of director Zhang Guoguo, cut the details over and over again. Guo Degang, who plays Yuan Guozhong, looks a little tired, but every time he makes a big monologue, his voice is enough, and a little tear appears in his eyes from time to time.
For actors who are not so full of emotions, Zhang Guoguo stressed: "We must let the role take root in the heart." To understand the profound meaning of the lines. There is very little nonsense in the play, especially in this book. ”
"WowTou Guild Hall" has three acts, focusing on the end of the Liberation War, showing how a group of small citizens of Beiping, represented by yuan Guozhong, the landlord of the courtyard, struggled with harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, fraud by the evil people, and how they faced the torture of fate, emotions and people's hearts in an environment of extreme scarcity. The extremely life-like lines and distinct character personalities fully demonstrate the skills of screenwriter Liu Heng.
In 2009, Beijing Renyi's version of "Wotou Guild Hall" gathered director Lin Zhaohua and a number of famous characters, becoming a phenomenon-level word-of-mouth drama. Since then, Liu Heng has sought out Pu Cunxin, Yang Lixin and others, hoping to rearrange this play, and also thought of directing it himself, but for various reasons failed to achieve it. Until last year, Yao Yi of the (Drama Club) Dragon Horse Society proposed why not find Deyun She to perform. Liu Hengfang felt: There is a door. From the reading meeting to the joint row, he saw that Zhang Guoli was free to dispatch, and the script copywriting was meticulous, "How to deal with each detail, what is the logic, clearly marked, and think clearly." ”
▲Watch Liu Heng and Zhang Guoli during the rehearsal of the new version of "Wotou Guild Hall"
Writing, film and television and drama screenwriters, co-founding the Dragon Horse Society with Zou Jingzhi and Wan Fang, and serving as a film producer in recent years, Liu Heng said that he always has an invisible hand in his life, pushing accidental opportunities into reality.
Friends commented that Liu Heng "the pen is very hard, people are very soft." Probably because of the bad words of his youth, he had no quarrel with the world. But when it comes to literature, he has long had a kind of fierceness to open up his life.
He once described himself as a 15-year-old who read novels and was addicted. At the age of 20, I secretly wrote things and became addicted again. At the age of 23, he published his debut novel, and his addiction grew, and by his forties, he was "terminally ill".
The "anointing period" is also his writing season. In his early years, "Food on the Dog Day" (1986), "Strength" (1988) and "Fuxi Fuxi" (1988), Liu Hengdao did his familiar rural people's desire for survival, strength and sex, and the language was full of vitality; "Canghe Daydream" (1993) wrote about the repression of human nature in the chaotic world of the late Qing Dynasty; "Black Snow" (1988) and "False Evidence" (1988) seemed to turn to the contemporary city, and the eyes became scrutinized and cold, but in fact they were still depicting individuals who were lonely inside and could not connect with the outside world. Literary critic Sun Yu commented that Liu Heng is not a writer who is trendy, and he is always struggling to find the root cause of the disharmony between human life and the world around him.
By the time of "The Happy Life of poor mouth Zhang Damin" (1997), it entered another world of life philosophy and secular optimism. Some people are worried that Liu Heng's style is unstable, or think that he has transformed from this, he only said that the exercise of literature has no end, at least he should not tie himself an extra rope. With a sad background, he realized early on that unhappiness was inevitable, "My pessimism also stems from the incomprehension of people and people." ”
"Black Snow" is Liu Heng's first novel, depicting the inferior and warm young Man Li Huiquan after his release from prison, which is incompatible with the profit-seeking atmosphere of the early reform society, looking for friendship, love, and self, all of which are unattainable, and he has never been able to control his destiny. This novel contributed to Xie Fei's "The Year of The Life". According to reports, Jiang Wen once said that the protagonist li Huiquan he played was the most satisfactory role in his years, but Liu Heng showed that Li Huiquan did not look amazing and his life was compromised, but Jiang Wen was "too handsome". Since then, Liu Heng has had a close connection with the film and television industry that continues to this day. The movie "Ju Dou" adapted from the novel "Fuxi Fuxi" was nominated for an Oscar, "China's Past" adapted from "Canghe Daydream" was called the "relict pearl" of the national drama, and the reputation and ratings of "The Happy Life of Poor Mouth Zhang Damin" were all bursting, and even Liu Heng himself was surprised.
▲ Left: The TV series "Once Upon a Time in China" is based on Liu Heng's novel "Canghe Daydream"
Right: Tv series "Young Heavenly Son" directed by Liu Heng
Too many people have asked him why he was a screenwriter and how it differed from literary creation. He saw this as a natural turn, nothing more than a change of track in the discussion of the meaning of life. However, the voice of this role is greatly weakened. But he respects his collaborators and understands the rules of the game. When he made "Young Heavenly Son" (2003), he made his debut as a director, and he said that the actors in it were full of praise. After the whole drama was filmed to catch up with "SARS", the crew dispersed, he wore a mask and nestled in the room for a month, and the cut was so excited that his eyes lit up, "Like a lot of adjectives, verbs, and nouns piled up there to pick, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, all the way down, it's really fun." ”
But that kind of opportunity is rare.
In the interview, he was extremely frank and stressed that he no longer had the desire to write novels. Wang An remembered seeing him once and saying to him once: "What a pity. Why don't you write? During the interview, Liu Heng laughed at his old friend's cross-examination as a paragraph. But when it comes to not writing, it is a serious and convincing tone: physical and psychological aging, no longer confident in the passion of creation and the ability to expand the boundaries of genre and subject matter.
As a child in the countryside of Mentougou, Liu Heng witnessed death prematurely and was forced to open his understanding of life and death. Literature became his instrument against time and the outside world. He regards literature as "the enemy's stand-in, accomplice", and transforms himself into the cat that catches the "rat" of literature. "I just want to fool around, even if it's like a madman, like a hooligan, just be happy."
That stubborn as Qiu Ju, who vowed to go to the end with a lot of vitality, honestly surrendered his weapons to the years.
In this regard, he seems to have some Taoist "go with the flow."
▲Liu Heng when attending the conference in recent years
His face was still rosy, and he used the gym in the studio every day, and he often practiced push-ups with his bare hands. The slow tone of voice contains a sense of calmness. But inadvertently, he found that manpower was inferior to the way of nature. "I went out to meetings for most of the year, and I saw that everyone's face was sagging, wrinkles were increasing, and the skin was dull. I joked with them that I covered them with a mask and put carbon dioxide in my skin. ”
Memory loss is also an indisputable fact. Speaking at the conference after middle age, he needs to write down the keywords in advance. Since four or five years ago, the central word has not worked, and I have to tell myself what the central word means and what I want to say. The last sentence is not enough, you have to write two or three sentences to be sure.
Regarding this irresistible twilight trend, those who are young are completely unaware. On several public occasions when he communicated with young students and screenwriters, he constantly stressed the need to be kind to life resources, "The most important resource is life itself." On the Hong Kong subway, he noticed that passers-by were mostly playing mobile games, so he reminded audiences of literary dreams that paying attention to something they were willing to pay attention to (such as reading) was also a way to generate inspiration.
A college student asked him, what if he has a spiritual separation from the people around him? Do you want to talk about it when you see that others are flawed? He answered: Don't complain about the environment, don't care about your own competitive posture, don't pay attention to the shortcomings of others.
"I have not aged before I have declined, I like to be quiet, I like to be alone, I think that reading and writing is a great pleasure and good thing in life. This kind of loose literati mentality may weaken the intrinsic motivation of writing, but I have passed the good time of pouring ink on passion. I had to run a miserable business in the midst of self-enjoyment, and see the good (among my peers) as mirrors, and go step by step in the reflection of each other's glimmer until it was finished. Other than that, don't expect anything else. ”
This is the text published in "Flower City" by Liu Heng, who was in his forties in 1997. At that time, we did not expect that Liu Heng and literary works would be so determined. For such a self-conscious self-knowledge and solemnity of literature, instead of sighing, it is better to respect and still look forward to.
I am fully aware of my limitations, which is equivalent to sparing myself
Dialogue with Liu Heng
scapegoat
Southern People Weekly: In the last edition of "Wotou Kaikan", you expressed the hope that the audience would understand what the work was trying to express, but some viewers did not seem to receive it.
Liu Heng: The audience sometimes watches the hilarity. For example, at the end of the play, when a person (the protagonist Yuan Guozhong) is about to die, a child is born, which is a symbol. As a result, many people were very unhappy last time. Think of this as conceptualization, deliberately trying to have a bright ending. But when the logic of the drama came to that, it had to cry. Does anyone else think you just want to write a tribute play? They still simplify it.
"Wotou Guild Hall" is not just about the fate of the bottom in the period of social unrest. When I write about it, I keep thinking about all the dynastic changes in Chinese history, and there will always be some flaws, which cause particularly large dissatisfaction and sometimes violence. What does the overthrow of an old society and the birth of a new one cover? In fact, it is a serious imbalance in the initial distribution of resources, and the competition for resources has created a new inequality between the rich and the poor, just like a pendulum, which is stable for a period of time and then destroyed and restarted.
▲ In the spring of 2022, the performance team of Deyun Society's "Wotou Guild Hall" was rehearsing, and Guo Degang played the male protagonist Yuan Guozhong
Southern People Weekly: Yuan Guozhong is one of the most devoted and full characters you write.
Liu Heng: Yuan Guozhong is my stand-in. But some of the words of Gu Yuezong (Editor's Note: Another important character in wotou Kaikan) are also what I want to say. For example, he said, "Guan Gong holds a knife in one hand and a yuan treasure in the other, and you have to wait for the emperor to reward you." The emperor did not reward you not to go up and take it, you go up and take it and he will give you a knife. "In fact, he is talking about the relationship between kings and subjects, a person who holds power in a system and system, and his life and death are taken. Gu Yuezong also said, "Did you see Xiao Dazi's bicycle?" The front rudder is caged, and the rear rudder is not sure which grandmother's house to go to..." The audience does not know what "cage" means, it is the bicycle circle twisted, twisted and twisted, and the correction of the car repair is called "taking the cage", which is also the matter of the ruler. But the audience doesn't know what you're talking about.
Like Zhou Yupu (Editor's Note: The character in Wotou GuildHall), he said that his wife was reading the Bible and "bar clicked" to shed tears, he asked his wife what she was crying, and the wife said, "Moses led people out of Egypt." When he said this, he laughed at the bottom of the whistle, as if it was something that eight rods could not hit. But the reality shown in the play is that an old society is coming to an end, and someone is leading everyone to the new society, leading their own kind to a better realm. The audience may not know what you're asking the character to say, and he thinks you're joking. So you can't force all the audience to sync with you, it's completely impossible.
Southern People Weekly: Zou Jingzhi said that the role of Xiao Miaozi (Note: Yuan Jiangmiao, the son of Yuan Guozhong, a revolutionary youth who has been ill for a long time and silently prints leaflets, has a grudge against his father for many years) is not very comfortable.
Liu Heng: After he first watched it, he told me that he felt that Xiao Miaozi was too harsh on his father and could not make the audience hate it. Shizuyuki is my friend, and his bluntness reminds me at once! I never thought about it from that perspective. He felt that no matter whether Xiao Miaozi you doubted whether your father's money (using the funds left by the revolutionary party to buy the courtyard) was clean or not, but your father's love for you was always received. Later, I carefully analyzed it, and this writing was a portrayal of the father-son relationship in my own family: I was the only son of my father, but I had nothing to say to my father. He had a good heart but a big temper, and every time he said something harsh, I turned my head and left. This subconscious has affected the shaping of Xiao Miaozi, which can also be regarded as a kind of retribution.
Southern People Weekly: The audience may have some preconceived judgments about the team of the new version of Deyun Society. What do you think of their strengths and weaknesses?
Liu Heng: The actors in Renyi's version are very good. If you rearrange to find other actors, the audience will think that it is a huge obstacle. If you can't go beyond the previous version, you will have problems in the professional evaluation of the actor. Therefore, actors who are generally evenly matched will not easily "wade through this muddy water", but actors without names and strengths cannot support the ability to perform demand.
Deyunsha's control over the relationship between the stage and the audience is first-rate. But in my observation, the biggest difference may be that cross-talk actors play themselves on stage. After all the famous cross-talk actors have created a strong and vivid self-image, the audience cannot tolerate the slightest change in him, and he must play a smart, sharp-toothed, funny, and approachable role. So he will do his best to create this image, constantly mobilizing the audience's emotions, and the frequency of baggage is very high. And the drama actor must erase his true colors, so that people can't recognize the original human being. Once they have mastered this switch, I believe that they will enter a very wonderful state with their own skills.
▲Renyi version of "Wotou Guild Hall"
Boyhood
Southern People Weekly: Whether it is the Wotou Guild Hall or the small courtyard where Zhang Damin's family is located, you have written about the vitality of the life at the bottom. These environments are close to your own life?
Liu Heng: Today, I was still walking with my lover through the corner on the edge of Beijing North Railway Station. At that time, it was a corner of the city of Beijing. Man dug a hole under the city wall, the hole was less than a man's height, and when a man went into a cat, it was like drilling a cave, and the outsiders drilled through it to the city, and the city people drilled out from there. If you want to go to the main entrance, you have to go around to the side. Before 1965, by the city wall, there were a large number of houses built by people themselves, which were illegal buildings.
Southern People Weekly: What cover?
Liu Heng: Just use the city wall bricks to cover, you can't think of it. Many of the city wall bricks have been torn down, and in some places the loess soil inside the city wall has been exposed, and they have taken away all the bricks underneath and built their own small houses.
When I was a child, I lived in Xizhimen, much closer to the city. I've eaten willow leaves, I've eaten poplar hair, I've eaten the roots of wild vegetables, I've eaten water weeds in the moat. He bent the hook with a wire and tied it to the rope, "snapped" and threw it into the river, took the hook and hooked the aquatic grass, mixed it with some cornmeal, and put it in the cake bell. I still remember the fishy smell of water weeds in my mouth, the bitterness of the willow buds after they are finished, can you think?
Southern People Weekly: You told me about the death of farmers when you were a teenager, what was the reason?
Liu Heng: After the "Cultural Revolution" school was suspended, I was sent to Mentougou Mountain Village and stayed for three years. There are also factional struggles in the countryside, which hurt each other.
At that time, a friend of mine shaved my head, and his grandmother lived in a small box on the side. The friend's sister brought food to Grandma, "snapped" the bowl and broke on the ground, and the child came out with a red face, saying that Grandma had hanged herself. The kid who shaved my head threw a pusher and rushed in, and I followed.
The old lady was very old and usually had difficulty walking, and her coffin was placed on the edge of the bed. She stepped on the kang and stuffed the belt on the roof, hanging herself on the top, according to common sense she could not climb up at all, climbing up she could not stand straight, but she hanged herself.
I watched people die, and when I was done, the whole family informed my relatives to start cooking, and began to tear up white cloths and make filial piety hats and filial piety belts. Then everyone carried the coffin, and her eldest son took a casserole pot to decorate the ash of the furnace, and when he went out, he "rushed" and fell to the ground, and everyone began to cry.
They carried the coffins to the cemetery, passing through the cornfield. The cornfield had just grown more than a person tall, and the coffin overwhelmed the corn like a wave, and after pressing it, the corn waist straightened up again, and the impression was particularly deep. After the past, she dug on the edge of her husband's grave, and when she was halfway through the digging, the boy's pickaxe was deflected, and his husband's coffin was leaked, and a big black hole came out.
Southern People Weekly: Why did your grandfather's death shock you so much?
Liu Heng: Mainly his state. He was more cultured in the village, and he was often consulted by people, including later writing big-character posters, and whoever others wanted to accuse, said in the house, and he wrote for others there. Usually, they condemn each other, and I am particularly impressed by the things that happened during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the things of my ancestors, how he pit me, and so on.
Grandfather was in poor health and had lung disease. Later, I kept gasping for breath, and I had to stack the square pillows of the countryside, two or three pillows, put my face on the pillow, and sit cross-legged on the mat to sleep. You can hear his phlegm in his throat.
I often watched him look at the mountain in a daze and say something rather sad. He was not too satisfied with his life, because his only son was a soldier who died in a car accident on the way from Xinjiang to Tibet.
When I was a child, I was exposed to such details. At that time, I didn't understand it, for example, when the old lady left, people were lying on the door panel, but everyone was eating happily on the side. My literary works have a lot to do with the memories of my youth. So I can feel from Mo Yan's novel how deep the imprint of his childhood is. He grew up in the village, more purely, and I just lived there for a few years.
Southern People Weekly: Live in the hutong, and then return to the city.
Liu Heng: When we moved in from Xizhimen, very few people built houses in the courtyard, and then as the children grew up, they had to build them, because there was really no place to live.
When we first moved in, there was a big yard between us and the neighbors. Their family has built a small kitchen, our side of the yard is relatively large, he also offered to help us build a kitchen. And often what is done at home, I take it to you to eat, you take it to me to eat. Some people have installed telephone landlines at home, basically used by neighbors around them, and even go to people's homes to use the bathroom, which is not a serious thing.
But then it became more and more impossible, and people's ideas changed. I wrote that Zhang Damin and his neighbors quarreled over the wall, that is my own family's business. There are many such bumps and bumps in the courtyard. Once the difference is out, in order to compete for some kind of interest, it begins to be unyielding. But I still think that it is normal for neighbors to be more clearly divided among each other.
▲ "The Happy Life of Poor Mouth Zhang Damin" (2000)
Fatalism
Southern People Weekly: Over the years, have you tried some literary creations and felt that it was not ideal, or did you basically stop writing?
Liu Heng: Basically not written. After a person ages, he is fully aging, and creativity will decline. I'm not as conceited about my abilities as I was in my youth, and I think I'm experienced enough, but I'm not sure I'm rational enough. This is not the main thing, the main thing is the ability to dominate the language. Some writers use a set of languages to death, always the same tone; some writers will constantly change the way of language, the style of writing will also change, usually more downhill. This is the loss of sense of language, and it is like squeezing toothpaste. And once you write a novel, you also tell those stories that are flat and stable, stories of déjà vu, or themes that do not hurt or itch, what do you write it for? Meaningless.
Southern People Weekly: Does good literature have to be offensive or critical?
Liu Heng: Yes! Aggression and criticism embody the subjectivity of literature and the nature of human self-reflection. This is one of the cornerstones of human progress and a necessary means for the pursuit of spiritual sublimation. Of course, the first thing is self-aggression and self-criticism, to shoot at one's own shortcomings! It depends on whether I still have the power. The old man's muscles will be lost, and there is nothing he can do.
When you are young, you may use literature as a dagger, and when you are old, you can use it as a crutch. When the intensity of the initiative decreases, the attraction of the thing itself to you also decreases.
Southern People Weekly: How do you understand what you mean by "worldview in the mediocre"?
Liu Heng: The sharp edge will converge and will highly doubt whether their views are correct. At this time, the opinions that differ from those of you, whether from the left and right, above and below, are much more tolerant than before. This kind of moderation may have different evaluations in the eyes of others, but I think it is fairer to others, and it is also for me, and everything is bearable.
Southern People Weekly: Will there also be no suffocation of "I want to talk, I can't say it"?
Liu Heng: Again, I have a full understanding of my limitations, and I have a moderate attitude, which is equivalent to sparing myself.
Southern People Weekly: Your novels "Black Snow" and "False Evidence" are still read and praised by readers on the Internet today. What do you think of your own creations at that time?
Liu Heng: When I wrote "Black Snow", there was a young man in the courtyard where he lived at that time who was released from prison, and was originally a gymnast of the Children's Palace, who "went in" because of stealing. Finally released, schizophrenic. That state of inferiority, a state of struggle at the bottom, had something to do with my own emotions at that time. Looking at it now, there was still a simplification of the understanding and shaping of the characters at that time. Including "False Evidence", it is also like this, although it is written very smoothly, it can also represent some of my views on life in society at that time, but it is still the vision of young people, if I write it now, I will not write so passionately. A lot of the language in that novel came out on its own, and it didn't take much effort.
Southern People Weekly: You and director Xie Fei said that in fact, Li Huiquan's fate also has factors in his personality. Xie Fei thinks that you still have a heavy sense of fatalism in you.
Liu Heng: When the name "Black Snow" was given at that time, it was actually considered like this. You see this snow, if it falls on a flat, beautiful thing, until it melts away, it is white. But if you fall on the road and are trampled on, you will become black mud, and you will fall to such a despicable point. It still has something unknowable in it, something of destiny.
▲ "Honmei Year" (1990)
a sense of loneliness
Southern People Weekly: A few years ago, you were worried about the involvement of capital in the film and television industry, resulting in the phenomenon of "film life being emptied". In recent years, the industry ecology has undergone some changes, are you still worried?
Liu Heng: I think the environment is still stronger than people, and the change in the environment is definitely a change in the whole, which is difficult to rely on the strength of people to reverse it. As a plant that survives in this environment, you can only choose to grit your teeth and struggle to grow, and when you have a drought, you will root deeper, right? If you are waterlogged, you will find a way to make the leaves larger, the photosynthesis stronger, and consume it. And the wisest people, or the luckiest people, can always find their best position. Like some films with personality and creativity, it will always pop up. But there are also films that may be buried, maybe because they have not found good actors, or which link has a problem, falling off the team, I think this is normal.
Southern People Weekly: When talking about life experience just now, you said that our lives have been on an upward curve in the past few decades, but what about the spirit?
Liu Heng: Just to say that the house, at least in the past two or three decades, seems to have become a new measure, an index of your ability and happiness, and even a measure of your child's future, right? But obviously, real estate sucks your money away, the internet sucks your time away, and the trader wants to make huge profits, right? There's no way. But I think at the same time he also asked You to give you something, and there are a lot of people who have gained wealth through real estate. Although the Internet occupies your time, it also gives you a lot of happiness, even if it is instant happiness, it is also happiness.
So I think there may be frustration, because being pushed and pulled by a powerful thing, and the ability to dominate itself is getting weaker and weaker. Society's competitiveness towards people adds an index of elimination. But there is still something to be done and not to do. If you can't use your wisdom to get resources and knowledge from the Internet, but just give people the time to do other more meaningful things, then you are eliminated.
Southern People Weekly: Three years ago, when you gave a cultural lecture at the City University of Hong Kong, you mentioned that a college student in his early twenties told you that he had never experienced loneliness when he was so old, and you said that he was attracted to you, where was his attraction to you?
Liu Heng: I think the child without loneliness is simply too lucky, but either his psychological quality is different from others, or there is a problem with his expression, and he thinks that the loneliness may be very special, and the loneliness index is different. You say all his wishes can be fulfilled? Will all ideas be understood by others? I don't think that's possible.
Southern People Weekly: Appropriate loneliness is not a bad thing either.
Liu Heng: Look at who, loneliness will become a source of motivation for some people, and the more lonely they are, the more they can arouse their fighting spirit. (Sigh) But no loneliness is still good. Loneliness is still a kind of hurt. What can hold back the loneliness is only that he compensates for this hurt, but the hurt is definitely a hurt.
Southern People Weekly: So for you, did loneliness make you happen, or did it also cause some kind of harm?
Liu Heng: I can't say that loneliness has made me, I can only say that it has accompanied me. The main thing that has achieved me is utilitarianism and shame, and I want to make my life more decent and realistic. Loneliness hurt me to a limited extent, and the biggest harm to myself was stupidity and self-righteousness. I reckon others are pretty much the same. Only people with depression are people who are victimized by loneliness. They lose the accurate calculation of life and even life. We are very good compared to them!
▲ 2019 Wuzhen Drama Festival, Liu Heng in the Daydream Reading Conference Photo / Provided by the interviewee
Southern People Weekly: Death is an almost constant theme in your work, how has the attitude toward death changed from when you witnessed the departure of relatives and friends around you over the years and when you were young?
Liu Heng: The most obvious thing for me is that when my mother left the year before, I felt that I was about to reach this juncture. Because I am almost 70 years old now, that is, no matter how long I live, no longer have good health, no more diseases to harass you, and I am not far from the time of the final closure, and there is no point in too much sadness. The only thing left is to seize the time to do what you want to do, and be better for the people around you.
Southern People Weekly: You mentioned that some people move from nothingness to religion. But perhaps religion cannot eliminate the sense of nothingness.
Liu Heng: I think nothingness is slightly better than fear. Feelings about death, if accompanied by fear, can be troublesome.
I believe that although the matter of death can cause fear in some people, most people can slowly look at this matter very appropriately through reason, through the tempering of experience, and will not expand it to the point of crushing themselves. But there are still people who will always stare at it. Are you still finished staring at it? It's not over.
(References: Liu Heng's "Random Bomb Collection", The Paper's "Liu Heng of the Playwright's Interview", China Reading Daily", "How Did I Go from Pure Literary Writer to Top Screenwriter?") "2019 Zhejiang International Youth Film Week Liu Heng speech)