In 1983, Xie Jin, Tao Yuling and Liu Xinwu (from left to right) visited a friend's house in France
In the film industry, there is a saying of "a piece of travel", which refers to the fate of some people who only participate in the film, such as Liu Yuru, the female hygienist in "Shangganling", who sang "My Motherland" (of course, the voice is Guo Lanying's) that is still popular in the film, leaving a distinct impression on the audience, but she has not appeared on the screen since then. I have also "swam in one piece", swimming comfortably and enjoying myself.
It was 1983, when I was a professional writer in the Beijing Municipal Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and suddenly one day someone from the Film Bureau came to the Literary Association and said that they wanted to borrow me to participate in the Chinese film delegation and go to France to participate in the Nantes Three Continents Film Festival. Wen lian felt strange, Liu Xinwu, a writer of novels, how to participate in the film festival? At that time, people in the literary and art circles had rare opportunities to go abroad, and in 1979 and 1981, I had already visited Romania and Japan twice in 1979 and 1981.
Poster for the movie Ruyi (1982).
When I heard the news, even I was surprised. In 1982, the Beijing Film Studio made a color feature film based on my novella "Ruyi", directed by Huang Jianzhong, starring Li Rentang and Zheng Zhenyao, I was just an original author, although I later participated in the screenwriting, but the earliest writer was Ms. Dai Zong'an. I myself feel that I should send Huang Jianzhong, or the lead actor. At that time, the director of the film bureau was Shi Fangyu, who was a poet, and his long poem "The Strongest Voice of Peace" in the 1950s was very influential. The film bureau to the literary association of the people explained that the three continents of Nantes film festivals, the theme of the holding is very good, that is, the European Film Festivals in Cannes, Venice, Berlin and other countries did not pay much attention to the films of developing countries outside Europe and the United States, so they wanted to provide a special platform for films in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to show their style; this theme, we should support; the initiators are the two brothers of nantes, and later supported by the municipal government, the first session was held in 1979, and the fifth session was held in 1983. The two brothers, the chairman and vice chairman of the film festival, came to Beijing to select films, took a fancy to "Ruyi", and decided to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the film festival and screen it at the opening ceremony of that session. Later, I understood that although it was a special honor to win the award at the film festival, it was also an honor to arrange for screening at the opening ceremony; moreover, the two brothers decided that the Nantes Film Festival would take China as the main guest country, and one of the most important arrangements was the Retrospective Exhibition of Xie Jin's Films, and they proposed to the Chinese side to borrow many of Xie Jin's masterpieces, screen them every day during the film festival, and also hold an academic seminar on Xie Jin's film art. Then, xie Jin, as the head of the Chinese film delegation, it is logical that the delegation already has a director, and there will be no other directors. As for the actor, an actress should be sent, but Zheng Zhenyao just participated in the Philippine Manila Film Festival and won an award, so let Tao Yuling, who played her in "Ruyi" and played QiuYun, go. Three people in a group, who else to send? It was the two nantes brothers who proposed to invite the original liu xinwu of this film, they said that after watching the film, they felt that the foundation provided by the original film was very good, and they also wanted to make the film festival unique, not only to invite the director, to invite the actors, this session to invite a writer to go, and Liu is also a screenwriter. Shi Fangyu agreed. The Chinese film delegation consisted of Xie Jin, the leader of the delegation, Tao Yuling and Liu Xinwu, and a French interpreter, and a group of four people. After listening to such an explanation, the Beijing Municipal Federation of Literature and Literature agreed to let me go to France.
Fly to Paris, stay overnight, and then take a train to Nantes on the Brittany Peninsula in northwestern France, which was a typical affluent city dominated by the middle class in Western Europe, and the whole city gave a sweet feeling of fancy cream fruit cake. The organiser arranged for us to stay in a small but sophisticated hotel. At first, I didn't pay attention, but then the translator told me that the name of the hotel was colony. I was very reluctant. But a French lady who accompanied us to the event, who was Chinese and fluent in Mandarin, complained to her: "How can we live in the colonies?" She explained with a smile: "It's just a kind of humor." The overwhelming majority of our French citizens are disgusted with the colonial system, and all of them support the independence of the former French colonies, Algeria, and so on. For example, we have one of the most expensive perfumes here, what is it called? poison! Yes, it's just a brand, but it's a kind of humor. I said to her, "I can't get into your humor!" "I grew up in New China and was disgusted by the word colony, and the French lady understood. But the service of the hotel is very in place. Every night when I go back to the hotel and go to the counter to pick up the room key, the lady at the counter is always smiling, and when she passes a large copper key, she also points to a videotape envelope standing on the counter, which means "tonight this movie will be played on the TV, welcome to enjoy", but we have watched the movie for a day, where to watch that?
Stills from the movie Spring in the Water Town (1955).
In Nantes, I had the privilege of watching many Asian, Latin American, and African films, and I also made up lessons in the Xie Jin Film Retrospective, and watched what I had not cared about before, such as "Spring in the Water Town" in 1955 and "The Legend of Tianyun Mountain" in 1981. I also went to Xie Jin's film art seminar to observe, and the foreigners who spoke said that the translators in the group could basically inform Xie Jin and us of the meaning at the same time, and my overall impression was that they mainly analyzed Xie Jin's artistic talent and artistic personality as a film artist. I remember a Frenchman in his speech, praising Xie Jin's use of the long lens at the beginning of "Stage Sisters", saying that it was really wonderful, first showing the natural environment in which the story took place, green water and green mountains, terraced farmhouses, and then showing the social landscape of that historical period——— the farmland was full of people, the laymen wearing bamboo hoops were rushing to the market, the open-air stage in the market was singing, and then from translation to a long-range view formed by using a lift, it has been moved to a close-up view: a gambler in a gambling stall, The drama class leader and monk Ah Xin gambled xingnong, and there was a sudden commotion behind her, there was a woman running through the crowd, and there were men and women with ropes in their hands chasing her... Speakers said Xie Jin's use of long shots was comparable to the long shots of the last few minutes of French director Truffaut's 1959 "Four Hundred Blows."
Stills from the film The Stage Sisters (1964).
In the Nantes Hotel, Xie Jin and I each lived in a room, did not chat much, and then the organizers organized everyone to take a cruise ship tour, on the boat, I had a more in-depth conversation with Xie Jin. I told him that I had watched the movies without any professional vision, watched "Stage Sisters", and did not pay attention to any long shots. Xie Jin said that in fact, before the reform and opening up, he had only seen Italian neorealist films such as "The Man Who Stole the Bicycle" and "Eleven O'Clock in Rome", and there was still some exploration and experimentation with the montage of the film. I just say that the meaning of montage I roughly understand, that is, the art of film, that is, the art of editing, and some shots are cleverly connected together, which forms a special narrative or lyrical effect, such as three shots: a close-up of a person who is sad, a close-up of the same person smiling happily, an empty shot of a big tree; one kind of editing is first sad and then the big tree and then smiling, and the other is first smiling and then the big tree is sad, and the meaning is completely opposite. Xie Jin said that when filming "Spring in water town", he just paid attention to montages. When he made "Stage Sisters", he had not yet had the opportunity to see French New Wave films, and he did not even know that there was a Truffaut in France who made "Four Hundred Blows" in 1959 and became a masterpiece of New Wave films, nor did he know that a film theorist named Bazin proposed a new concept of challenging montage and advocating long shots, called the record school. However, in the long-shot shooting at the beginning of "Stage Sisters", he is indeed conscious, and he wants to make a bold attempt, not relying on post-editing, but in one shot to complete the comprehensive account of the environment, era, and the main drama class of the story. He said it was his first trip abroad, and of course the first time he had set foot in France, the birthplace of New Wave cinema, and he hadn't seen "Four Hundred Blows" yet, and he didn't know how the long shot that finally made Bazansheng issue a theory was filmed. He said, the shooting of long shots, you have an idea, you also need to have technical support, he shoots the opening long shot, the technical department is very hard, to have a long slide, but also need a lift. At that time, it was film shooting, imported color film was very expensive and wasteful, so the camera position needed to be very accurate, and the push and pull and shake had to be natural... He asked the translator: What does the name "Four Hundred Blows" mean? The translation comes from a French proverb: a naughty and naughty child must be beaten four hundred times to eliminate disaster, get rid of demons, and become a healthy and obedient child. The protagonist of Truffaut's film is a "problem boy".
Returning to Paris from Nantes, there were only two flights a week from Paris to Beijing, and we waited for flights to Beijing, which could stay for three days. At the Paris Hotel, Xie Jin and I lived in a suite and shared a bathroom. I wish I had the opportunity to visit Paris. However, when xie jin traveled with him, he said that he was quiet and not moving, and only twice was invited to the homes of French friends and overseas Chinese with us, but in the face of sincere praise or polite praise, he smiled silently. In the hotel room, I joked with him, saying that the Shanxi abbreviation in your name should be changed to quiet Jingcai, and he actually smiled and bowed his head. He always seemed to be drinking. There are wines brought from Home, and there are also wines sent by overseas Chinese in Paris. There was always the smell of wine in our suite. In order to allow him to enjoy the silence alone, I always did not take the initiative to go to his room. That year, Xie Jin had entered the flower armor, and he really did his ear shun. In Beijing, I listened to some people in the film industry of about the same age talking about Xie Jin, and while respecting him, it was inevitable that there would be annoying remarks, saying that Xie Jin was the leading figure of the "Haipai film" that they did not take seriously, forming a "Xie Jin model", saying that Huang Shuqin's "Long Live Youth" based on Wang Meng's novel of the same name followed in his footsteps, which is regrettable. Xie Jin knew these arguments, but he was not angry. The Nantes Film Festival held a special retrospective for him, which gave him a very high evaluation of his artistic achievements, and he did not like it. It's really a spoiled insult.
Tao Yuling played the second sister in "The Story of Liu Fort"
In Paris, I visit Tao Yuling every day. Tao Yuling's second sister in "The Story of LiuBao" in 1957 and Chun Ni in "Sentinel under Neon Lights" in 1964 are embedded in the movie-watching memories of generations, and I am very happy to know her and become a travel companion. We don't speak French, I can only speak simple English, the French are not cold to English, but that year the French rarely saw Chinese tourists, I asked for directions in broken English, they could politely respond in the same crappy English, and the two sides actually communicated successfully. In this way, I visited the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame cathedral, the Louvre together with Tao Yuling, the Louvre is very large, the collection is extremely rich, I focused on asking where Milo's Venus is, where da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is, according to people's instructions, and Tao Yuling saw it together. Later, I asked how to go to the Rodin Museum and went to see the real Rodin sculpture together. I also went to the House of Honor for Disabled Soldiers, which contains Napoleon's tomb. Tao Yuling is a clever person, I said Xie Jin can be called Xie Jing, she can be called Tao Ling.
In Nantes, the two of us were invited to the hotel where the Mexican film delegation was staying, and they held a reception in the hotel lobby. There is a female star in Mexico, and Tao Yuling and I both feel very much like the star of a Mexican translation film "The Forsaken" that we saw in the fifties, and the big star From Mexican red to Hollywood, Taulsa Delio, presumably a rising star who inherited his mantle.
Mexican actress Taursai Delio (1905-1983)
The female star saw the Chinese who had taken the stage at the opening ceremony come, came to greet, extremely enthusiastic, we did not understand the language, how is this good? Tao Yuling generously communicates with her eyes and gestures, is there a code between actors and actors that goes beyond spoken language? The two of them seemed to know each other in the same place, and suddenly became girlfriends, the actress beckoned us to eat Mexican pancake rolls, personally handed me a napkin and handed one to me, Tao Yuling handed me a cup of tequila in time, Oh, it seems that a pair of sisters are entertaining me such a foreigner!
The day before I returned to Beijing, I returned to the hotel, Xie Jin took the initiative to come to my room, did not ask me and Tao Yuling what places to visit, but held the wine glass, excitedly said to me: "Brother Xinwu, I have an idea, say to you, what do you think?" Busy asked him what his idea was, he said: "I want Tong Chao of Beijing Renyi to play a military commander, how about it?" "I was taken aback and startled. Tong Chao? I have been an audience member of the Beijing People's Art Theater since I was a child, and I have almost seen all the plays they have performed, and I have not remembered the other roles played by Tong Chao, but I firmly remember the Pang eunuch he played in "The Tea House". But Pang Eunuch, what is that image, three points like a person, seven points is a ghost, yin and yang are strange, decayed, the commander of the People's Liberation Army, looking for him to play? It turned out that Xie Jin was in the hotel room, where was just drinking, his legs were not moving, his brain was always moving, I know, his next play is to put Li Cunbao's novel "Garland Under the Mountain" on the screen, and know that he specially commissioned a writer with a deep relationship with the film, Li Wei, to write the screen, and I know that he has always attached importance to the selection of actors, and he wants to use Tong Chao to play the military commander? I blurted out, "Ah! You want to highlight The Raiders, right? He smiled satisfactorily: "Brother Xinwu, you guessed right, I can see that Tong Chao has a potential trait, that is, he is old and majestic, who said that he can only play pang eunuchs?" I'm going to show the other side of him to the audience! Later, the movie was made and released, and Tong Chao did not have many scenes, but he was a military commander.
Tong Chao played Captain Lei in "Wreath Under the Mountain"
I'm ashamed that, except for "Ruyi", I haven't made any of my works into movies so far. But with this piece of travel, this life is enough!
March 22, 2021 Wen Yu Zhai
Author: Liu Xinwu
Editor: Xie Juan