Poster of Birds of the Suburbs.
Written and directed by young director Qiu Sheng, and starring actors Li Chun and Huang Lu, the movie "Birds in the Suburbs" is being released. In this light-style literary and artistic film, Li Chun combines the characteristics of the role and dedicates his acting skills with a calm philosophical temperament. As the son of the famous director Ang Lee, asked if he would show his work to his father, Li Chun smiled and said: "He has been the chairman of the Golden Horse Awards for all these years, almost every year he can get all the films, whether I have thought about showing him or not, he will watch." He will also give me a feedback after reading it, share his ideas, some of which may not want to listen, but his opinion will still give (laughs). "Then would you be nervous to hear his feedback?" "You won't be nervous, in fact, if you look at your own performance, you probably know its good or bad, where the advantages and disadvantages are, and you have a number in mind."
Talking to the director about the "cosmic balance" philosophy is speculative
Before Li Chun decided to participate in "Birds in the Suburbs", he did not know the director Qiu Sheng, and he felt very surprised after reading the script, and he was also curious about the director's personal experience. In his view, the film has a unique storytelling style and drama atmosphere, and the director's background is not the same, Tsinghua Xueba, science and engineering thinking, but words and deeds seem to be like a poet. His thinking mode is different from the directors Li Chun has met in the past, and his shots will contain symbolism and poetry. When they actually met, Qiu Sheng asked Li Chun "what do you think the script is mainly about", Li Chun told him "cosmic balance", which means that it is lost here and will be obtained elsewhere, this explanation Qiu Sheng thinks is very accurate, and the two see each other as they are. "We were both very Sven, and when we spoke, we were very speculative, because we talked too philosophically, and sometimes the agent next to us rolled her eyes (laughs)."
Li Chun played a surveying and mapping worker in "Birds in the Suburbs".
Birds in the Suburbs tells the story of a team of engineers who travel somewhere on the outskirts of Hangzhou to investigate the cause of the ground subsidence. Xia Hao, a member of the team who wanders around carrying measuring equipment every day, finds a diary in an unoccupied classroom that records the teenager's secret growth and the rupture of a group. As the investigation progressed, Xia Hao found that the diary predicted everything. This film breaks the traditional linear narrative method, using cross-editing techniques to connect two parallel time and space, the two groups of characters belonging to different time and space echo each other and have their own characteristics, the protagonist Xia Hao is played by Li Chun and the small actor Gong Zihan, from the perspective of the two Xia Hao to detail the rupture process of the two groups.
The role of Xia Hao is very special for Li Chun, although he is an ordinary worker doing geological surveys, he reveals a philosophical temperament that is difficult to understand. Li Chun believes that this is a person who makes people want to be close, the work is reliable, and the popularity is not bad, but after getting along for a long time, you will find that he has a lot of profound things, or people who are familiar with him will find that he is more difficult to get close to, this kind of "seems to understand non-understanding" gives Li Chun an extremely curious desire to portray, and in the process of shooting, he also maintains an alienated mentality that does not fully understand this role: "This role is written by Qiu Sheng, he will have a little philosopher spirit, and he will have different ideas about many problems. You may immediately think of his personality when you look at him, but it doesn't seem to be very well understood after you understand him. The work of a land surveyor is also in line with Qiu Sheng's love of geography, plus Xia Hao seems to be a bit out of place with Hangzhou, and I am not a native of Hangzhou, and this strangeness of the environment may also become the reason why the director wants to find me to act in this movie. ”
Stills from Birds of the Suburbs.
The most rare thing is to forget the sense of the scene
Li Chun said that some aspects of Xia Hao's personality are very similar to him, "He is easy to drill the tip of the horn, such as he will care about some small details, and when he can't think about it, he always thinks, this is the same as him, I heard that people with very hard hair are generally very stubborn, thinking is not elastic, my hair is very hard, and sharp, probably very stubborn." "Although this movie has nothing to do with large-scale productions and special effects, most of the shots stay on inner drama and emotional expression, and for Li Chun, the most difficult thing is to forget the sense of the scene." In fact, people who come from a class and have formal acting training actually need to forget what they have been trained to do when shooting such roles. Like some of the training I received when I was studying at a university in the United States, it would allow us to see the script and understand what the character needs and how to serve the role. But this kind of movie is that everyone doesn't know what you are thinking, which is why the children in the movie are very good at playing, because they listen to the director laugh and laugh, say that they are angry, they don't have so much in mind, but they are very good at shooting. Li Chun said that adult actors need to forget the sense of proficiency they have learned, it is best to not realize where the camera is when shooting on the spot, let go of the performance, let the director control himself: "Often you become an actor, you don't know how the director and the team are, you just need to play stably, and you can act well." But in this kind of story, it is more difficult for the actors to empty, especially "Birds in the Suburbs" is filmed in a very special way, and they want to see the actors interact with the space. I usually think about the camera to perform, this time to get used to it and try to forget. ”
The starting point of Qiu Sheng's script for "Birds in the Suburbs" was a fruitless search event in his youth: in order to find a fat man who had not been in school for a long time, a group of children went to the fat man's house together, from the most familiar neighborhood through the ruins of the street, over the high wall of the railway track, friends scattered one by one, and finally there was no way out. Through the examination of childhood events and the naked depiction of the cold relationships of the adult world, the question of "whether growth inevitably leads to loneliness" is boldly raised.
Talking about loneliness, Li Chun, who has been fighting alone with his own efforts for many years, has a deep self-awareness of this feeling, even if his father is the famous director Ang Lee, he has not taken advantage of the struggle process. He said that he would choose to be lonely or independent in his life before the age of 29, and now that he is 30 years old, sometimes it takes a lot of willpower to choose the feeling of loneliness: "I found that I did not have this willpower, and I would think that loneliness was too hard. In the past two years, I will choose to cherish the people around me, be happy when you are happy, work needs you to work hard, in fact, when you are an actor or when a person's road is quite long, there is no need to make yourself too serious, you should be happy. ”
【Interview】
There are currently no ideas for working with Ang Lee
Beijing News: Are you satisfied with your performance in "Birds in the Suburbs"? Are there any regrets?
Li Chun: The performance in "Birds in the Suburbs", I was not particularly satisfied, and I felt that I should go a little deeper, which may be a matter of haste time, or it may be that the camera awareness in the performance is too strong. If I have the opportunity to shoot again, I may make Xia Hao's character "out" a little more. In fact, the more you act until now, the more you feel that there is no objective standard for performance, only when you shoot that day, you have no investment, open it up, you also know whether you are fully committed to serving this role, in fact, I still hate to see how I look on the screen.
Beijing News: That is to say, the plays you have acted in general will not be watched?
Li Chun: Haha, I will still watch, if I like and act well, if I don't act well, watching myself on the big screen is an extremely painful process, there will be a lot of self-criticism and blame, and then I will recall the situation on the day of the acting every day, which is more tangled and painful.
Beijing News: In the past two years, you have not participated in many works, and it is said that you want to star in action movies?
Li Chun: In fact, these times are a lot of time in the training of various martial arts, the number of plays will be relatively small, this is not to transform, half because they are quite interested, in the future may still have the opportunity to take on this kind of film, may be used.
Beijing News: Are there any film and television starring plans recently?
Li Chun: In fact, "Birds in the Suburbs" was made three years ago, and about five movies were made that year, so now I am waiting for many scenes to be released slowly, and the most recent one is "Wisdom Teeth" directed by Director Zheng Baorui, and it has also been shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival, which I am very happy and looking forward to. The rest of the planning was just going with the flow for me, and I wasn't an ambitious actor.
Lee Chun starred in the film "Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle" directed by his father Ang Lee.
Beijing News: Have you recently had the idea of working with your father, Ang Lee?
Li Chun: At present, there are no projects, and he also has a lot of projects in preparation, because of the epidemic, especially in the United States, many projects will face suspension.
Beijing News reporter Zhou Huixiaowan
Edited by Huang Jialing Proofreader Li Lijun