Estimated reading time: 38 minutes
Christopher Doyle was born in post-war Sydney and spent most of his life wandering around. At the age of eighteen, he worked as a sailor in the Norwegian merchant fleet; then went to Thailand to work as a swindler barefoot Chinese medicine practitioner; worked as a cowboy in Kibbutz, Israel; and even dug a well in the Desert of India... He can do almost everything.
In the late 1970s, Doyle was "reincarnated" by his poet and language teacher at the University of Hong Kong, who gave him a meaningful Chinese name, "Du Kefeng", and he was reborn and renewed.
Since 1978, Doyle has been a founding member of Lanling Theatre (Taiwan's first professional modern theater troupe), where he has taken still photos, films and videos for modern dance troupes such as Yunmen Dance Collection and Jinnian Icosahedron, and created Taiwan Television's breakthrough non-fiction series "Journey of Images".
Since 1981, when Yang Dechang invited him to shoot his first feature film, "That Day, on the Beach",[1] Du Kefeng devoted most of his time and energy to chinese films. His photographic directorship includes Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild (1990) and Chungking Express (1994), Lai Shengchuan's Peach Blossom Land (1992) and Chen Kaige's Temptress Moon (1996).
Du Kefeng also produced MV videos for musicians such as Air Supply, Zhang Guorong, Li Ming, Cui Jian and Liang Chaowei. In 1993, he held his first solo photography exhibition in Taiwan, followed by several solo film exhibitions in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Rotterdam. To date, he has published two Chinese books and a Japanese book on his photographs and texts, and in December 1996, his first book in English will also be published.
How did you get introduced to cinematography?
Du Kefeng: Obviously it was a mistake, and everyone will regret it. [Laughs]
I was studying Chinese at the University of Hong Kong, but the tuition fee was too expensive, and one of the people with me at that time wanted to go to Taiwan to learn martial arts, so I went with her.
At a café in Taipei, I came across Lai Shengchuan, who looked a little decadent, when he had just graduated from college. He plays jazz piano at Idea Coffee House, which he co-founded with a group of wealthy people from Taiwan's futuristic cultural elite.
At another star café famous for Russian cuisine, I met Hou Xiaoxian, who was writing a script for Li Xing at the time. Later, I also met other people, including Lin Huaimin, the founder of the professional dance group Cloud Gate Dance Collection.
In general, I started on a basis that far exceeded my personal cultural understanding, and I have been helped to make progress by them. The result is that my Chinese getting better and better because everything is communicated in Chinese.
Then they asked me to talk about my 8mm camera—I was the only one who took the camera to southern Taiwan and made an ethnomusicological documentary about a work by one of my friends. At the time, I had no idea of the correspondence between sound and image, so the synchronous sound effects were terrible. I also don't know the difference between what the eye perceives and what the 64 ASA Kodakrom 8mm film can record. The film we brought back was useless, but it was also an eye-opener for me to learn about the differences between the human eye and the camera's perception of color, brightness, tonal range, and so on. All the ideas I wanted to create an "emotional artistic atmosphere" became a "black hole" in such insensitive material that I didn't even notice the saturation and color change of the green of the subtropical countryside recorded in the film!
I was so captivated! I bought the equipment, and I nibbled on the puzzling Chinese translations of the tricky technical books. We formed a new "experimental" troupe, which was basically based on sexual interest. My exploration of the film medium, like a child's exploration of sex, is both hesitant and exciting.
At that time, Taiwan was in the early stages of economic take-off, and it was still quite backward in Asia, but the signs of social development had emerged. People started to see me as part of a social change and offered me the opportunity to produce shows for the TV station. I started making "documentaries," albeit entirely on my own intuition, because I didn't know what a documentary was supposed to be.
I was fortunate that the other members of the team were highly respected static photographers like Zhang Zhaotang. He and Nguyen Yi-chung are considered the originators of realist documentary photography in post-war Taiwanese society, echoing the changes in Taiwanese society at that time. We continue to create based on their work. It shows very positively the importance of ordinary little people in Taiwan's social culture and social structure.
There was also a show called "Mirror Journey", which was very popular at the time. I often sit on the back of a speeding car. This is the precursor to the "Wind Moon" that I am making now, and it often appears in Wong Kar-wai's films. Because we didn't have time to stop, and we wanted to shoot as many films as possible, we tried everything we could to move. This film has become a very important milestone in Taiwan's cultural history and audiovisual history.
Yang Dechang is one of the people who watched this series. He asked me, "Why don't you come and make my first feature film?" "This was later 'A Day at the Beach'.
This caused a stir within the Central Motion Picture Corporation at the time, as they already had twenty-three salaried photographers, not to mention employees and directors in other jobs. They were so outraged that the two newly promoted men had done such a thing that they went on strike in protest. But Yang Dechang successfully left me behind with a great compromise. At first, there was a so-called supervising cinematographer on set, but five days later he realized he had nothing to do and never came again.
I was shocked by these positive reactions afterwards. I quickly became concerned that I was too prominent in this small circle. I almost cut off contact with the outside world, and it all seemed too easy.
So I went to France, but I soon found that the environment in France is the same, you still need to be subject to people.
I spent six years with these Taiwanese, and with their care, I really felt the evolution of social and cultural history. So I said, "Good luck!" Why would I spend twenty years proving to Claude Lelouch that I can remake an American movie at Le Toukay Beach? "Also, the Way the French work is not as harmonious and intimate as we are. They tend to see movies as conflict rather than as a group of like-minded people working together as intimate businesses.
Still, you made a French film?
Yes, it was a disaster. It's called Black and White (Noir et Blanc, 1986). The term "energetic" applies well to director Claire Devers. She speaks seventy-five times faster than mine[2], and I don't know French, so it's a bit difficult to communicate (laughs).
I had never made a black-and-white film before, and I didn't know anything about photography techniques and techniques. That was one of the reasons I joined the cast, but it didn't seem like I was ready at the time.
So you're back on the other side of the world — Hong Kong?
Shu Kei asked me to come back and cast for his second feature film, Soul (1986). He kept complaining that I didn't mention his name when I received the award, "You know you're here because of me, don't forget that." "(Laughs) It's true, he invited me back.
Based on his friendship and his interest in what is happening in Taiwan, there is an incredible interaction and a sense of mutual yearning between young Hong Kong filmmakers and their Taiwanese contemporaries.
"Old Lady Enough Trouble" is obviously a good example, like the famous Taiwanese directors Hou Hsiao-hsien and Ke Yizheng are friendly involved in the performance. It was supposed to be a remake of John Cassavetes' Gloria (1980), but it also added New Wave elements. Although it is not satisfactory, it is also an interesting big dye vat.
I agree, and I don't think Shu Qi would object to your statement either. He clearly wanted to try many directions at the same time. But it's exciting for me because I can try different things.
We're trying very hard to coordinate all of this. Whatever the reason, I prefer to put everything together very well. My interest in literature, and perhaps my experience in the theater world, led me to consider things like the coherence of style and time, "Damn, maybe I should break through myself." ”
That's why I hope to work with Kwan Kam Peng in the next film to adopt different styles in the thirty-three different periods of each film. I want to make some changes with this kind of work because sometimes you need to challenge your own instincts and wishes, just to see how effective and/or applicable they are. You may never break through yourself, but you should at least know when and if you should break through yourself. Style should be a choice, not a habit.
From "Old Lady Enough Trouble", someone noticed the style of photography, so they also began to notice my presence. I don't know why. When I re-watched the film, I didn't understand why people thought cinematography was unique or interesting. But maybe because I'm an insider.
People mainly see you as a cinematographer, but you also do photographic collage art and photography. Do these jobs complement your cinematography, or do they just intersect?
It's like dancing and women: they're all part of my life. I was filled with energy that even I didn't know how to deal with. Either let yourself explode, or do another copy of paste art. That's it.
I was in my thirties when I made my first film. Is it because I started late and felt like I had to make up for the time? Or is it because I've always had that energy? I don't know where it came from either, though I suspect it comes from dissatisfaction with the Australian suburban environment, from the earthly surfaces and all the constraints of dreams that transcend that time and space. I think most Australians feel that way, which is why Australian cinema has such imagination.
That's why you meet Australians around the world.
yes. I see all of this as part of some kind of energy in my body that happens to find an ideal way in cinematography. I like to think by walking, which is more effective than sitting in front of a computer or a debate. I can stimulate creative work, I can understand things quickly and instantly, and I have a strong intuition.
I can also sweat a little, which is also releasing energy. So, it's a perfect medium for me.
Of course, after twenty-four hours of intense photography work, I came home and realized,, I didn't do anything for myself today. So I started collaging; or I went out dancing and teased young women with affection, and they usually politely refused. So I thought,, I didn't do anything for myself today. "Then I went home and started doing more collages!"
Compared to the way Chinese get along, I'm basically very Westernized. They can sit in the office all day just to feel what's going on. I can't do that, no matter how I fit into the culture, or how well I'm involved in the film, I still need some time and space for myself. That's why dancing and collage are so important to me.
Now you're connected to some of the directors in the industry who are known for their pickiness, and most of them have worked with you more than once.
I am the only one who has worked with Tan Jiaming more than once! [Laughs]
Most of these directors are in East Asia. What experiences, feelings, or intuitions have led you to work with these discerning directors on a sustained basis across multiple films?
It's friendship, no doubt!
<h2 toutiao-origin="h4" >▍ About Wong Kar Wai</h2>
We also have some scripts created from "Ah Fei Zheng Biography". Since then, we've become less and less aware of what the fuck we're doing. [Laughs]
Wong Kar-wai gave me thirty pages of the script for "The True Biography of Ah Fei". In "East Evil west poison", when the big star or some big name comes to the scene, I occasionally see some handwritten scenes of him. Then Wong Kar-wai slowly became abstract, and when he was shooting Chongqing Forest, he said to me, "Well, you know that's probably the way it is." In his latest film, Fallen Angels, he says, "I don't even want to tell you what it's about." "As for the next movie, he said he wouldn't even tell me when, about, or even where to shoot. [Laughs]
So, to a large extent, it's based on trust. I don't know where this intimacy comes from, though in Wong Kar-wai's view, it comes from our shared interest in literature, especially Latin American literature, and pop or alternative music.
We never say, "Have you seen a movie like this?" "And when we really talk about the movies we're working on, we use quasi-technical language to describe them." I want to have a white light", this is the way he describes the color scheme and visual starting point of "Ah Fei Zheng Biography".
We also discussed how we could bring the film closer to what it felt like to be in the sixties, and it looked like a look back at the nineties. The things we discussed were like, "Let's stay away from those dark brown hues." But how do we express nostalgia? How do we express nostalgia with color and atmosphere? ”
One of the things I learned from Wong Kar-wai is how important a sense of space is. Because of my own interest and knowledge of theater, I feel the same way about it: the classical coherence of space-time. Now, the search for locations is one of the most active and important parts of the whole "creation" process. It basically determines how the film will look when it's shot.
For me, "The Legend of Ah Fei" is the most critical film, a real breakthrough.
Given Wong Kar-wai's fewer and fewer scripts, how did you work with him meaningfully? Was it all done on set?
It's all a process that can start from different stages. For example, now that we've been working together for a long time, we have more intimacy and trust, and that starts when I ask, "Where do I put this?"
Wong Kar-wai communicates with different participants in different ways and at different levels: with the actors, with (art director) Zhang Shuping and me. He realized that the less I knew, the better I would perform (laughs). The more intuitively I am, the more involved I am on the spot, the better I will be. If I do the design first and then rethink it, I usually screw up. That's inevitable. I wish I were Harvey Keitel of cinematography! [Laughs]
Considering the abundance of big stars in the Hong Kong film industry, you're bound to find yourself working with the same person in different projects. Is there a tacit understanding with an actor that goes beyond the tacit understanding between you and the director?
It's all about the process, too. We started then we took it seriously, and as they used to say in the sixties, the first day is the first day of the rest of your life.
When we started shooting Fallen Angel, I started with a 9.8mm lens, and I thought it was distorted enough, but Wong Kar-wai said, "Let's be a little smaller." "In the end we used a 6.5mm lens. There's a scene where Li Jiaxin turns around and looks back, and her nose looks like Pinocchio, stretching out to the full frame (laughs). I said, "What should we do?" Wong Kar-wai said, "We can't show her this shot, can we?" Once we've settled on this approach, we don't look back. We guarantee visual stylistic consistency.
We could have said, "Because the set was so small, we could only shoot like this." Or we paraphrase it, "We want the camera to get closer and closer to people." We want to force a sense of closeness in them. We want to force a confrontation between the camera and the characters. We wanted to create a new way, or a different way, or a slightly less unusual way, of interacting between the characters perceived on camera and on the screen. ”
Once you enter this realm, everything will be broken. Given the trust we've built up between us, we can give up half of our footage (which we usually do) to do just that. I don't care.
Many actors hesitate in the process. They're not used to this way of working, they're just used to giving a certain amount of energy and time to a definite project, but now they're doing five projects at the same time.
When we were filming "The Legend of Ah Fei", Maggie Cheung hated me. She wasn't used to the scene, and she wasn't quite sure what it would be like after the shoot, or why there were so many technical problems. I was using a wide-aperture lens at the time, and I often had some problems, but I was fascinated by the style I chose and kept at it. I got the director's support because he knew the amazing visuals we ended up with were enough to prove what we were doing. But for Maggie Cheung, she was in the transition period from miss Hong Kong to a real actress, and she was almost stunned. She felt that it was a waste of her time and energy. But she didn't see it that way now.
There's no doubt that everything is about rapport between people, no matter who you work with, whether it's the night watchman (non-professional actor) who played Takeshi Kaneshiro's father in Fallen Angels, or the superstar in the industry. You need to work on creating that sense of trust. After going through the last five or six years of filmmaking, I've come to realize that it's not about technology, it's about communication; it's about creating that atmosphere.
That's what happened when Wind Moon was filmed. Gong Li and I had a very bad experience with one of the worst films of her career, Mary from Beijing (1992). There are many reasons for this, of course, but I feel partly responsible because I didn't make her look better on the screen. Therefore, in "Wind Moon", I feel responsible for making up for the shortcomings of the last time. She can feel it too. Of course, we also have better media and better conditions this time. She also had a more interesting role and a director with slightly different tastes.
When most people revisit our films, even though they're superstars, there's never that dedicated workplace crap, like a Chinese-American actor asking some time ago in a movie that was a joint Italian-Chinese supermassor, "Give me his workspace when Peter O'Toole is away." Instead, it's all about all of us sitting on the sidewalk eating our box lunches together.
Except for you, right?
Yes, I use a bento box for drinks. [Laughs]
I love this intimacy here. We have enough big brothers behind us and don't need to look at other people's faces. No one is going to tell me, "Don't touch my cable, or I'll sue you." "That feeling is so good. No one insisted that I stand behind the (display) monitor. If I just stood behind a monitor instead of holding a video camera, I'd go crazy. There is no such limitation.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h4" >▍ About the director</h2>
I feel that the closest and most tacit directors are Kwan Kam Peng, Chen Kaige, and naturally Wong Kar-wai. In addition to Zhang Shuping, I have worked with Wong Kar-wai on the most movies.
Guan Jinpeng has an incredible sensitivity to beauty, which I am very yearning for. I'm also not as good at exploiting the feminine side of my personality as Jinpeng.
On the other hand, Chen Kaige has an unusually methodical and insightful view of what he wants to do, and I am partly like this, but not like he does. (Laughs) I don't need anything like Wong Kar-wai either.
I see all the people I work with, especially the directors and Zhang Shuping, as different aspects of my personality. I was so schizophrenic. [Laughs]
I might as well explain some of the other characteristics of Christopher Doyle, the familiar "Duco Wind". That's always been important because I had a little disagreement with this guy Chinese called Du Kefeng, and you know he's definitely not Christopher Doyle. He's much more interesting in many situations, though he, like Christopher Doyle, is full of gibberish. I could have a little disdain for him, a little bit of a sense of distance. I could help him and go home and turn a blind eye to everything he did. A little schizophrenia that exists in this way is fine.
I'm the best flower queen, and I want to make people happy, make them pay with peace of mind, and give them the best service they've ever enjoyed, without any strings attached. This is the need to reaffirm, this is the need for love, this is the need for people to show affection to me, "Yes, take us and show us what you are doing." "I need to give and I need to be encouraged for providing outstanding (film) minds!
I don't have a strong desire to be a choreographer because I know what I'm doing now is probably what I'm best at. The only thing that could happen is get better and better because I have these people who continue to spur me on to make me better. I'm very happy about that!
Your shot of Red Rose, White Rose (1994) for Guan Jinpeng in Shanghai was your first studio film, followed by Peach Blossom Land (1992). Working in a completely controllable environment, there must be a certain difference between working on location and Wong Kar-wai's perennial location shooting, right?
yes. (Laughs) Next question. [Laughs]
I did stage lighting, and although I didn't do a very good job at the time, I did feel something about it. If you go well, you expect every finished work to be different, although I don't think you should expect every movie to be different. As the saying goes, everyone has only one story in their hearts, but the way it is told is different. I think it's the same for a cinematographer, and that's how your potential changes.
I am very interested in the dynamics of space. Don't talk to me about content. I certainly understand the structure of a story, but I'm more interested in the atmosphere and dynamics. That's why I don't direct a movie. I should leave that to those who want to tell the story logically. I'm not very logical.
Have you ever heard complaints from editors that your footage is too hard to edit?
In editing "East Evil and West Poison", Tan Jiaming said, "Why have you been moving? I said, "There are hundreds of thousands of feet of material there, maybe you haven't looked closely enough." [Laughs]
In the last few movies, the function of editing has changed a lot. Of course, I, like other photographers, was completely out of the way. For some people, the best shots being discarded is quite a painful thing. But in a sense, the best shots are always there. If I perceive (or agree with) an image at a given time, it is part of my visual experience. So I'm not worried about it being thrown on the floor of the editing room. If it's abandoned this time, you can do better next time. Of course, it won't be the same image; it will be an evolution of the previous image.
For me, it's all just an accumulation of experience. So I never worry about that, especially since Wong Kar-wai will only use a very small part of the footage I shoot. It would be ridiculous to worry about this.
At a recent seminar about my collaborative work with Wong Kar-wai, the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers (HKSC) suggested that I draft a contract requiring Wong Kar-wai to use my footage in a specific proportion in the distribution copies of the films we worked with! I felt very sad, and lonely, because I realized how different our perceptions of cinematographers' commitment, collaboration, and even the creative process itself were.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h4" >▍ About Chen Kaige</h2>
How did you get acquainted with the first mainland director Chen Kaige?
I once filmed Red Rose White Rose on the mainland, and then the gossip spread, "What is this crazy man doing here?" ”
Xu Feng, the producer of "Wind Moon", and Sunday Sun, the executive producer, came to see me on the set. They said to me, "You don't play your cards at all, and Chen Kaige is generally more reserved, putting the two of you together, I don't know what will happen?" "It's a yin and yang statement.
Chen Kaige has a certain workflow, and it was difficult for me to adapt at the beginning. The working environment here is much more organized than ours in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He was always careful. The time and effort it takes to pursue an idea is very different, just like the hierarchical design of a structure. Luckily, we broke that through the time we were making this film, and I'm happy with that.
Like "The Legend of Ah Fei", I know that it is the key to my personal success or failure. If I can get through it, I can open a new chapter in my film career. I hope the same goes for Chen Kaige.
I feel like we've successfully accomplished what we want to do, which is to go beyond the fifth generation, beyond tradition. We used to joke, "We skipped generations." The sixth generation is too rebellious, the seventh generation is still too young, let's call ourselves the eighth generation and see where we can go after that. "We want to reinvigorate ourselves and enter a more advanced, unprecedented field of filmmaking that can directly express our individuality."
Chen Kaige's previous films were shot by Zhang Yimou or Gu Changwei, and as photographers, they are similar in many aspects, including personalities. Obviously, you have brought great changes to Chen Kaige. In my interactions with Veuve Clicquot, I could feel that Wind Moon would be a breakthrough for him, and one of the reasons for that was to work with you, because you brought in some of the things that he might have lacked in his early films.
You know, I bring a bottle of whiskey every day. [Laughs]
Because you have a lot of moving shots and are close to the character, Veuve Veuve Said that he can feel the kind of love that the camera has for the character when he watches the sample. It will also be easier for him and the audience to like the character. Perhaps in most of Chen Kaige's early films, what is missing is this sense of closeness to the characters, a real warm participation. Obviously, he's shot masterpieces, especially Kid King, but it's hard to say that there's this emotional affinity with the characters. The film still retains the feeling of intellectual structure, a kind of argument, a grand metaphor, but they don't have much to do with everyday human sophistication, and this is exactly what "Wind And Moon" needs to show. It was strange that it happened to him so late.
He was the same age as me, and we were both kids in the sixties.
He is a child of the 1960s in China, and he should be very different from you and me who were also children in the 1960s.
So why is the result so similar?
Chen Kaige said that for the first time, he began to understand that he could understand many things about people by looking at their sexual behavior.
[Laughs]
This is also missing from his previous works, even Farewell My Concubine (1993), which ostensibly is about the protagonist's sex. He said that after finishing "Wind Moon", he felt that his heart was broader.
That's good. That's why he said he loved me that day. [Laughs]
When you were filming "Wind Moon", did you realize the change in Chen Kaige?
They told me that if I brought whiskey to the set, Chen Kaige's father would come down and beat me. But that didn't happen. Because Chen's father died in the middle of the filming. (No more laughing)
Now answer your question. Yes, I think Chen Kaige has changed a lot. True love arose between us. It sounds like a cliché, but to be involved in making a movie is to be part of the family. You will get to know them more intimately than their own family. The film took six or seven months to shoot, and you either hated the other person or became very intimate.
Chen Kaige and I spent a lot of energy on pre-production and finding locations. We spent four months on an actress and nothing came of it. So, we looked for a replacement in the known Chinese circle, and thus found Gong Li, for various reasons, Gong Li is our most obvious choice, and ultimately the only choice.
At first, we were all a little scared about it. We are afraid that she will carry Gong Li's baggage. When we shot her first shot, I was lying on the ground, holding the camera as close to the ground as possible. There's nothing special about this shot: she walks up to the camera and then walks out again. After she finished filming, I looked up at Chen Kaige, who was standing next to me, and he looked down at me, and we both broke out laughing. Both Chen Kaige and I were pleasantly surprised to realize that we hadn't made a mistake. It's so perfect, that's the woman we're looking for. It's so wonderful.
Since then, a whole new process has begun. We did all the preparatory work, we envisioned the film in a particular style, and we've been working on this illusion and perception for a long time. But now that Gong Li is here, we have to work overtime every night to re-discuss how to shoot. Wonderful interactions began between the camera and the actress, between the actress and her lines, between the director and his expectations of the actor, and his perception of the actor. That's how it developed. We often say, "This team is like a wedding cake." We started at a certain level and continued to work, 'Oh, we need a little more,' and you add another finishing touch. And then we said, 'Oh, that's not enough...' and we went on to stack up, layer after layer.
Compared with the first half of their habitual work, the second half of our shooting after Gong Li joined was so pleasant and unforgettable. The energy of this film definitely comes from her involvement and collaboration.
Did you use the footage from the first half?
yes. Unlike in Mainland China and Hong Kong, they are calculated in terms of lenses. They say how many shots to shoot per scene, or how many shots to shoot a character, or how many shots to shoot for the whole movie.
The first actress used forty-seven shots, and in some cases we could actually cut out some of the ones that had before. However, there are still some situations that require some positive and negative editing, which becomes a problem. You need a certain technical background to stay ahead of the curve.
Of course, I'd rather reshoot all the scenes so we can have better continuity, especially considering that we mostly work with long tracking shots. The camera is moving all the time. It's a participatory camera that takes on a very important role in the film.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h4" >▍ about the operation</h2>
You said that the only way to know how to do cinematography is to do it yourself.
I don't quite understand TV screens. [Laughs]
But in Wind Moon, you also use the Steadicam operator from time to time.
Li Baoquan may be the world's greatest Steadicam operator. I wish he had an agent, because once Wind Moon was released, he would be overwhelmed with a lot of work information.
It was nice to see him involved. His technical knowledge is enough to take on the work of framing frames. And he is technically good enough that he can freely develop into a cinematographer in the future. It's great to be able to work with him and watch his results.
Usually, you'll tell you how the shot started and ended. You just want the operator to get some reasonable information from it. That's why I prefer to operate on my own. You need to have the ability to react to every frame, otherwise it's not your work. It's hard to express that feeling in words. But with this guy, we just have to make things clear and rehearse a little bit and he'll do what I think. We are playing different energies in handheld cameras and Steadicam cameras.
It was a great learning process for us. For example, there is a very important scene in the movie where Gong Li plays a character who sees the man she loves, which is a small Chinese face who makes a living by blackmailing women. She was in the house opposite him. We tried many times, and later we realized we needed the energy and speed of a handheld camera that could move. The subtle differences in the handheld camera you use are difficult for Steadicam cameras to achieve. It was a really good experience for us, and now we know when to use a handheld and when to use a Steadicam, and the effects of each have different effects.
We have been engaged in so-called subjective and objective interactions. Sometimes the camera is very informative, but it's basically part of the action. It's a very subjective thing, but sometimes because of what you shoot, you have to go from subjective to objective.
I love reveling in this exploration, and we did a lot of it in Red Roses and White Roses. After that movie and Crush on Peach Blossom Origin, we developed it to a more sophisticated and complex level.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h4" >▍ about the laboratory</h2>
As a very busy photographer, how do you keep up with technological innovations?
People know I'm playing with this, and if they have something new, they'll usually tell me. But these are all secondary to creativity.
I work mainly in three laboratories in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tokyo. I see graders and timers (they happen to be both women, which, by the way, helps) as creative collaborators. In my mind, they are not just lab technicians, they are part of our vision.
We shot "East Evil West Poison" in China, and the film was going to be released a few days after we finished shooting on the last day. Obviously, labs have very important responsibilities for what they do, and I have to trust them because we only have to communicate over the phone.
In the beginning, the lab would often say, "Oh my God, this guy is going to make us do crazy things again." "They used to hate me, but over the years, because they've both learned a lot from working together, the lab is now willing to support cinematographers."
Take Fallen Angel, for example, one of my most satisfying visual experiences. It was closest to how I felt visually about that particular subject at the time. This is entirely due to the interaction with me in the lab at the time, especially with my grader Lu Lihwa.
Now they often make suggestions as well. They'll say, "Why don't we try this?" "The starting point is not what you can do, but what you want to do. I'm watching more music videos and some new experiments in the video space than movies. You think, "If they can do it, why can't we?" ”
At present, we are also receiving restrictions on the budget of Chinese film production. We still need to think about how we will allocate our budget in terms of remuneration and production process. When you make a movie in the United States, it's just the smallest part of your budget, and you can shoot as much footage as you want. But here we need to think about these things very carefully.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h4" >▍ about the future</h2>
Despite receiving invitations from all over the world, you're actually shooting Chinese films. Is it that you yourself prefer to stay in this place?
Because I grew up here. I left Australia at a very young age. The long years of wandering took me out of my actual focus on the "real world," so my "molding time" came ten years later than the average person, when I was in my twenties, in movies, in Taiwan.
But have you ever seen yourself spread your wings and fly higher and farther?
I've seen the rest of the world look like, but thank you so much! We are happy with where we are now and what we have. Should I go back to Claude Lelouch or work for Roger Corman? I don't think I will, I don't see the point.
It has nothing to do with money. If we wanted to make money, we would have been in real estate a long time ago.
At the same time, as a semi-technical person, you have to expand your horizons. That's the question you just asked: the industry itself is always changing, how do you improve your technical capabilities? Obviously, you have to keep pace with some experiences, experiences under different working conditions, improve your abilities, and bring them back to your team or share them with them in other ways. That's obviously what I need to do.
So, I'm interested in doing things outside of my current field, increasing my experience, being exposed to knowledge of non-Chinese things.
But, in the end, it comes down to people. I don't care how good the script is, if there's conflict over other things, like a producer standing behind me all day and saying, "You can't shoot twenty-nine shots today, you can only shoot twenty-six shots"; or not instant trust, not instant interaction, not instant caring experience, then I don't care. For me, I don't find Hollywood more attractive to me than Hong Kong's Happy Valley or the Mid-Levels, and now I'm happy with both.
One of the comforting things about the past decade has been the demystification of Chinese cinema. The rest of the world is finally beginning to understand that Chinese cinema is not only Zhang Yimou's films, nor is it necessarily about the oppression of feudal China.
Not everyone understands. Many people still think that "Shake, Shake, Shake to Grandma's Bridge" is a masterpiece of mastery. [Laughs]
This is true, but in general, there is a growing consensus that this place (the human problem, the sexual problem, the political problem) as part of the world is fundamentally the same as the problems faced by other countries. It is completely meaningless to treat Chinese cinema as an object of some kind of alienation.
Yes, exactly. We can't explain Chinese to the rest of the world, but you can do it by feeling people.
Most of the scripts I receive are meant to be explained. For example, I received a five-episode miniseries script to explain the whole phenomenon of this wonderful, eclectic, very diverse group of people known as the "Chinese Australians". I don't think there's anything to explain. You can't explain it anyway. Moreover, the objects you are trying to explain have no understanding of reality at all.
The only way you can enhance, expand, or deepen your experience is through contact. That's what we're already doing. We don't need the West to come up to us and say, "Thank you very much, now we're going to take over from here and do the rest, because you people really don't understand." "We understand people. Zhang Yimou's films, Veuve Clicquot films and all other films receive the attention they deserve because they are speaking to people who will listen to them, because they are talking to people.
One of the things that will resonate with everyone is the sense of imminent crisis. Hong Kong audiences are abandoning Chinese-language films, as Taiwanese audiences did a year ago, while mainland audiences are doing the same. In the Chinese film industry, no matter what field it is, as long as you contact people who are worried about the future prospects. They all agreed that, judging by the audience's performance, the threat from Hollywood suddenly became bigger and very real. It's not quite clear what the future holds. After someone went to Hong Kong, he found that several more filmmakers followed Wu Yusen's footsteps and immigrated to the United States, and so on, and so on, and he finally gave up, the company also went out of business, and the investment in movies was at an all-time low. There is definitely a crisis. In this case, the people you personally associate with are the most likely to survive, because they were not attached to the mainstream film industry in the first place. Wong Kar-wai is his own film industry base, he did come out of the film industry, but he has already surpassed this. You can also say that About Jinpeng. Chen Kaige has definitely withstood the upheavals and turmoil of China's film industry from a state-owned enterprise to a private enterprise, and he is better than anyone, including Zhang Yimou. Maybe it's not your own concern, but how do you see the future of Chinese cinema? If the film industry in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, like most other countries, were more or less in decline, leaving only a few film artists to produce films independently, and all of them on a small scale, sometimes on a very small scale, do you think it would be able to maintain the vitality and rapid development of the past decade?
I don't know anything about the film industry as a whole. I rarely talk to filmmakers. I never interact with filmmakers, and I don't even speak to Wong Kar-wai on social occasions. But I believe that the people I interact with will have the energy to keep going anyway, and to a certain extent, I should be the same myself. We will continue to pursue it as always.
If the mainstream film industry collapsed, would it have any impact on you?
This may increase some of our chances.
This may have happened in Taiwan. Taiwan's mainstream film industry collapsed completely last year, but at least six of the dozen or so recently produced films have been outstanding.
Indeed it is. As they say Chinese, "Who, what government," that is, "The people get the government they deserve." This is a double danger similar to that of "chacun sa merde". The Chinese government is like this because Chinese is such a person. If we mess up China's film industry, it's our own fault. But I think we have the drive, the unity, the stupidity, the stubbornness, and we can make sure we keep going.
We're not going to Hollywood alone. We may go to the West to shoot, but we will do it together. We may be thrown out of the country, maybe one day we will be exiles, but we will make movies with the same motivation and the same interest. I think it will always be the same.
That's the difference between business and what we hope we can achieve one day, and as to whether it's art or not, I don't really know.
Most of the directors you work with are veteran directors. Many people may not have heard of Jan Lamb, who has always been a DJ and has just started making movies last year. He has a thirty-minute short, Out of the Blue, and he invites you to shoot it.
Yes, that was my pleasure.
There should be some points of comparison, because one of his idols is Wong Kar Wai.
Wong Kar-wai's films are mentioned four times in the thirty-minute film. It's like an Indian movie without the scene of singing and dancing! [Laughs]
Is this the other side of your nurturing new talent, seeking and trusting collaborations?
Yes, I'm still a guy from the sixties, I'm still an idealist. I don't want to be an old man in the movie industry that everyone despises.
I was honored to be invited by Lam and Eric Kot to make their films. They introduced me into the world of teenagers, a world of game halls, computer drives, and anime. I also know the world, but without Lin and Ge leading the way, I probably would never have gone in. Now that I know these places, I will go there often. I haunted the image of a dirty old man. I pursue it on another level. [Laughs]
They're not afraid to work with me, which is very exciting. They didn't treat me like a guy who relied on the old and sold the old, and they dealt with them with a "let me tell you what to do" attitude all day long.
Recently we went to make another movie. They bring new energy to music videos and give me the opportunity to experiment with some different visual styles that no one would have wanted to try before without a background like theirs. Because I think they trusted me and cooperated with Zhang Shuping again, we had a good basis for cooperation before. It was a very good experience and there is no doubt that we will work together as much as possible.
Because the industry is in free fall, I thought, like the rest of the world, there would be a lot of knocks on the door trying to get in. But I don't feel that hilarious popularity, and only a few directors, writers, and actors are still holding on. In terms of lighting, art direction or photography, it is still the original group of people. Nothing has changed much lately. It's a bit disappointing because I feel like you need new energy from young, future-oriented people to push you and say, "We can do better than you." This is how The sixth generation in China compares to the fifth generation. You need such stimulation. The only reason we need to move forward is to defeat the eighth generation, as we did with Chen Kaige.
In all the news outlets, people keep repeating that we are entering the "Pacific Century." From where you are, what's going on?
I'm a surfer and I love surfing. [Laughs]
Which projects have artboards ready for you?
Wong Kar-wai's new film, Chan Kai-ge's new film, and Wong Kar-wai's other new film.
Another time there was a possibility of working with Wayne Wang. He wanted to come back to Hong Kong and try something, and he thought about me at the time. But there could be a conflict over schedules, and he was a little worried that I would run around on set and tell American actors to squat on the sidewalk with the rest of us and eat a box lunch. [Laughs]
This situation should be the reason I feel the need to share it with the big companies in Hollywood. It's going to be very interesting because it's how we adapt ourselves to local conditions.
If you have the chance, there are also movies about Jinpeng. There are also new films by Lin Haifeng and Ge Minhui. I think we'll find a way.
We also have some Korean friends. We're trying to reintegrate into the community a little more. We're also talking about collaborations that have never been done before to cross more boundaries.
For me, the biggest boundaries we crossed before were Chinese mainland. That's what the whole of Asia thinks.
Maybe that's the real answer to your question about the Pacific Century. For example, I'm still taking pictures of Japanese people. They're finally realizing what Europe has long understood, which is that if we need to be more competitive, as people say, it's clear that there needs to be more interaction between the members of the Pacific Community, and very obviously, in this case, Japan, the Asian Tigers and China.
I want to be a part of it all. I have a real affinity with these people, with this region. We have been communicating with this group of people, hoping to work side by side with them, hoping to participate in their social change, and participate in the growth and evolution of Chinese society. They brought us here, and we have a sense of responsibility to them. I still have to keep eating sticky rice!
| notes:
[1] Yang Dechang was one of the four co-directors of In Our Time (1992) (the other three being Ke Yizheng, Tao Dechen and Zhang Yi); "A Day on the Beach" is his first solo feature film.
[2] Editor's note: Christopher Doyle was easily the fastest-talking interviewer in Cinema Papers' twenty-four-year history. When he saw the transcript (and the previous sentence) it was, he emphasized, "I just didn't say it so quickly to keep Tony (author Tony Rayns) from coming back to my computer and continuing the card game he'd been playing for a week." ”
| originally published in cinema Papers Magazine, August 1996, No. 111, P28-33, P62-63
< h1 toutiao-origin="h3" > correlated</h1>
He is a famous British film critic, film festival curator and screenwriter, and an expert in East Asian films.
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