This is an interview that took place in 2019,
After the premiere of "Lyceum Theatre",
We interviewed director Lou Ye in Venice.
Two years later,
"Lyceum Theatre" was finally released in mainland theaters
I recommend that you take the opportunity to see it recently
Gyro: First of all, I want to ask director Lou Ye, because I have watched "Lyceum Theatre" twice, watched it again in the morning, and watched it again at the red carpet premiere in the evening, and then I think this time may be a little different from what everyone expected, it may be back to a more genre-oriented theme like "Purple Butterfly" at that time, and then related to the historical background. I would like to ask why I suddenly came back to such a subject.?
Lou Ye: Actually, you think "Purple Butterfly" is already in 2002, and it has not been back to that time for more than ten years. There are various reasons for it, such as cooperation with Rainbow Shadow.
Poster of "Purple Butterfly"
In fact, I had been preparing materials from Shanghai in the 1920s and 30s, and then I was interested in play-within-a-play, for many reasons, and then I encountered the censorship problem of "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind", and then I started to do it.
Gyro: The whole process of "Blue Heart" is still relatively smooth, right? Refers to the section on the censorship.
Lou Ye: It's still relatively smooth, there are not too many opinions.
Gyro: After watching it twice, I feel that the whole film feels like it was tailor-made for Gong Li, and I would like to ask you, in the initial script and in the early development stage, what was your idea of the heroine at that time?
Poster of "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind"
Lou Ye: This story is about female celebrities. So you can't look for ordinary actors or new actors in the lineup, because it's a very big nightmare to have a star who is not a star play a star, so in fact, the lineup work has always been looking for stars.
Then if you say star, Gong Li is still the best. She has a very great inner strength for me, which is what Yu Yan needs, because Yu Yan is not a simple actor.
The director is still happy to be able to work with the actors he likes, including several other actors, such as Pascal and Oda, which is quite pleasant.
Lyceum Theatre character poster Pascal Greggory as Hubert
Gyro: Then why did you choose Zhao Youting to play the role of Tan Na?
Lou Ye: In fact, the two roles of Yu Yan and Tan Na are actually difficult from the perspective of lineup work, one is an actor star, the other is a director, these two roles are prone to problems, and they are a more difficult job.
Zhao Youting was always acting because he had another plan in front of him, met and talked, and then at that time he was also preparing the lineup of "Lyceum Theatre", so he always played. That plan was later shelved, and then I felt that Zhao Youting was the director's feeling in my heart.
Stills from "Lyceum Theatre"
Gyro: Because many fans and friends say that Zhao Youting looks particularly like you when you were young, I guess whether it is because of this reason.
Lou Ye: Hahaha no, he is the feeling that I think a director should have, maybe everyone is different.
Gyro: In "The Night of the Spring Breeze", the original text of Yu Dafu's novel of the same name is mentioned many times, and this time the "Lyceum Theater" also has some modern literature about the Republic of China period. Did these works of literature have a particularly great influence on your creations?
Lou Ye: That period was actually the beginning of modernism, and it was also a starting point for Western culture to come in, and it still had a great impact, resulting in, for example, changes in the entire social background and cultural reference system.
Stills from "Spring Breeze Drunken Night"
So it has actually affected today, and I personally think so. But there were a lot of things in between, including the Cultural Revolution or something, that disrupted and interrupted what might have developed relatively smoothly to this day and remained.
In fact, you will see that the movies at that time were already in a very good condition, "A River of Spring Water Flows East", "The Crow and the Sparrow", "Cross Street", which I think are also very good movies to watch now, including literature, including novels. I don't think "Death in Shanghai" is not Hongying's best novel, but it is the most interesting novel.
Rainbow Shadow Novel "The Death of Shanghai"
In fact, in the novel, including the "Tan Na" and "Yu Yan" that are now left, these names can see a dialogue between Hongying and the literary history of the time. So that's why I'm interested in this novel, and in fact my job is to continue this conversation, including the dialogue with the Saturday faction, the dialogue with the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Faction.
I don't think it's a very simple conversation either. Because it's basically a negative situation, it's always been criticized, it's been criticized by the left, but if you look at it objectively, you actually have its thoughts in the work.
Of course, the historical background at that time was, how could you (Yu Wei) do this? How can you ignore the rise and fall of an entire nation. But if there's a dialogue, this film isn't a Saturday, that's for sure, but some of her ways are for me, including borrowings from Some of her works on Neo-Sensations, which are actually of interest to me.
Gyro: This is the first time that the entire film is used for black and white photography, which used to be handheld + natural light, will it use some manual lighting and set up a viewing studio this time, is there a different experience from before?
Lou Ye: Fortunately, because the scenes are not particularly numerous, we tried to shoot live scenes as much as possible, and then tried to exclude the green screen.
Because "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind" is almost zero green screen, the part outside the window in "Lyceum Theater" can't be done at all. But still try to stay away from the performance area, that is, afraid of interference. It's hard for me to accept actors acting in the green screen.
In terms of light, it's actually the way natural light works, but there's a problem here, which is that it has a design that moves the live-action space to the stage, which causes some technical difficulties.
That is to say, the natural light must be completely restored, and then it can be immediately converted into the light of the stage. So this has some technical difficulties, including the interception of space, which also causes a lot of trouble to the art department.
Screenshot of "Lyceum Theatre", from the Douban movie page
Gyro: You did the editing yourself, right? I remember the last time it was 2006.
Lou Ye: You've noticed all this.
Gyro: So what drives it?
Lou Ye: In fact, I am involved in editing every film, and this one will participate a little more. In fact, this film is almost a minimalist thing, that is, a few spaces, and then there is no color, no music, no other way of editing, it is a parallel editing film. Because you can't use a lot of languages, it's actually a bit of a hassle, but it also brings some good feelings to the film.
Gyro: For example, in the back of the gunfight scene, the lights are flickering on and off, how was this design considered in the first place?
Lou Ye: It is related to the situation in the backstage of the Grand Theater, which is caused by the lack of power, and then yes, at the beginning, it is hoped that in the dark, there is hope that some darkness will interfere with their whole movements.
Gyro: Regarding the character of Yu Yan, I noticed that she rarely had moments of true affection.
Lou Ye: In fact, Yu Yan's own situation is not particularly emotional, of course, there are, for example, you will see that when she talks to her ex-husband Ni Zeren, she is still a woman who remains in the past memory.
I hope her situation is not very simple as a female spy or a star is finished, which I think is not important. In the role of Yu Yan, I told Gong Li that you don't have to play a star, and you can't play a spy. Because the spy itself is a hidden identity, it should be like all actors.
So on this basis to find the richness of this role, so I think gong Li did a very good job in the end. At the same time, her strength should be inside, not outward, so Gong Li, including the action scene of the gunfight, has also made a lot of preparations and efforts.
Poster of The Sacred Carriage
Gyro: I may have been a little inaccurate when I was watching it, but I thought of Carax's The Hallowed Carriage.
Lou Ye: To be precise, "Lyceum Theatre" is more about a role-playing film, and this role-play and the play-within-a-play are connected, or the play of the whole society, a fictional reality, and a real reality mirroring each other. So it's not about Sino-Japanese relations, it's about the transformation and play of people's roles in a specific environment.
Just like the character of Oda, he is an engineer, he is an intelligence officer, a cryptographer, and then he is a good husband at the same time, and the whole chaotic background makes these different roles of a person contradictory.
Gyro: There is no almost no soundtrack in this film from beginning to end, what is the reason for this?
Lou Ye: I just hope that I don't interfere with the whole thing, just look through the camera to see what is happening, what this person is doing, who is talking to, who she is seeing, and then what she is going to do, what she is thinking. The film itself is anti-rendering, anti-symbolic, anti-cheongsam, anti-Roma, hahaha.
Gyro: Yes, I have seen the Us media mention that there is no qipao in the film, but it is particularly fashionable and modern.
Lou Ye: When the whole styling is designed, I hope to say that it is a kind of clothing that you can wear today and go to Shanghai and walk on the street, and at most one or two people will look back.
Poster of Rome
Gyro: Why is it designed that way?
Lou Ye: Because the 40s or 30s were modified so badly, the more modernist it started and received a lot of attention, the more deceptive it became. The cheongsam, the very beautiful hairstyle pattern, and then the light that flickers on and off, it's all a lie.
And in the story of "Lyceum Theatre", it involves deception, involving fiction, so there is no way to avoid this problem.
You can build a Shanghai light and atmosphere in another film, because the films are different, such as "Purple Butterfly". But it's hard to build a Shanghai like that in Lyceum Theatre, because the film involves fictional establishment.
So this is also the film is more difficult for the staff, that is, you are not allowed to appear, including the scene style, the costume sound and picture light, etc., that is, you do not exist, including me, it is best not to exist.
You just look at the story as it unfolds, and then it shows which is fictional and which is real. If you do a lot of other work in the middle, including color, it interferes a lot.
Gyro: What do you mean by "anti-Roma"?
Lou Ye: Hahahahaha, because "Rome" is also a black and white film, the photographer and lighting engineer said to look at the black and white film first to see how it is, and then I told them that we are going to oppose "Rome", so don't watch "Rome".
Stills from "Roma"
Gyro: From what point of view is it "anti-Roman"?
Lou Ye: It's a half-joke, you don't have to tell the director of "Roma".
Gyro: How am I going to tell him ahahahahaha
Lou Ye: It's because "Roma" is very beautiful and exquisite, but my personal feeling is not particularly good. Of course, it is understandable from the direction of his creation, but for me, it is difficult for me to accept that a film about the proletariat uses a completely bourgeois image. Of course, this is just a very personal feeling.
A less clear screenshot of that year's interview
Gyro: This year you have two films released in China, this should be the first time, for everyone to feel very incredible, but also very surprised. Will it be more stressful for the director?
Lou Ye: It's not a good thing for the director anyway.
Gyro: Isn't that a good thing!?
Lou Ye: Yes, it means that there is a little fight, especially in the international sales office. It is an international sale of films, and others can't figure out which one you sell. So it's not a good thing, but this is also no way, mainly because of the censorship problem. But if "Clouds Made of Rain in the Wind" doesn't go up in April, it may not be on.
Gyro: Thank you Director Lou Ye for taking the time to interview us.
Lou Ye: Did you go to Berlin too?
Gyro: Yeah, I asked you at the press conference hahaha.