At the 5th Pingyao International Film Festival, the film "Yong'an Town Story Collection" won two important awards: Fei Mu's Honor for Best Director and Young Judge's Honor for Director.
Shortly after the opening of the film festival, as an earlier premiere of the film, the word of mouth of "Yong'an Town Story Collection" quickly spread. Movie tickets are hard currency during the festival. The original price of 80 yuan a movie ticket soared to more than 1,000 yuan in the hands of scalpers. In the Pingyao Film Palace, walking on the road, almost everyone was discussing it.
It's a movie about movies. It tells the story of a crew that happens after entering the filming location, the boundary between reality and creation is broken, starting from the intersection of the crew and the restaurant lady, leading to three witty and sad stories, in the film, they ridicule the power structure of the film industry, reflect on the creator's self-obsession and theme first, and extend the filmmaker's introspection to a broader emotional level, looking at the universal individual existence.
Interestingly, at this year's Pingyao Film Festival, movie-related films appeared intensively. "Yong'an Town Story Collection", "The Last Director of the Earth", and "Little Sonata" are more or less related to filmmaking. Around the world, creators work tirelessly to draw the source of their creation from their most familiar lives. At a time when the industry has not yet fully recovered, filmmakers hold the worry that the film has since faded out of public life, return to the set, throw emotions into the creation, and lead the audience back to the moment closest to the film.
Behind the light, flying film of "Yong'an Town Story Collection" is a creative team that met because of the love of film, and at a moment when the creation experienced major twists and turns, out of protection for creative freedom and talent, as well as trust, made a dangerous but ultimately proven right decision.
"Yong'an Town Story Collection" encountered more dramatic twists and turns than drama. At the end of 2020, when the entire crew entered the filming location of Chenzhou Zixing to prepare for the 17th day, there was a fundamental disagreement between director Wei Shujun and screenwriter Kang Chunlei on how to present the story, and they repeatedly revised the script, but could not get a result that satisfied both of them. They finally decided to overturn the previous script and rewrite a new one. The price to be paid for this will be that all the art sets prepared according to the original script will be invalidated, and the actors will be terminated, compensated, and re-cast.
Huang Xufeng, the founder and producer of factory gate pictures, the film's producer, calmly accepted this fact and agreed to revise the script to continue shooting, a decision based first on recognition of the director's creative talent. In addition, in Huang Xufeng's view, Wei Shujun is a director who knows the consequences of things very well, which is not a random decision: "He must think about it before and after thinking about it, and feel that new things are more in his state, and it is more handy to shoot." He admitted to First Financial Economics that of course there was a gambling component in this decision. As in the film, those witty, self-deprecating dialogues: "For the sake of Chinese films, be brave once." ”
An adventurous, somewhat "flying" creative process begins. Yang Zishan, Huang Miyi, Liu Yang became the new starring roles, Huang Xufeng starred as a producer in the film, Kang Chunlei starred in the screenwriter, and the film temporarily gathered seven young Chinese directors who are now active: Liang Ming, Yang Jin, Yang Pingdao, Song Chuan, Zhai Yixiang, Geng Jun, wu Zhongtian, they were gathered together in a short period of time, happened to meet their own suitable roles, and gave performances that exceeded expectations. "Fortunately, the result is very good, thank you to the god of movies." Huang Xufeng said.
In an exclusive interview with Kang Chunlei, the screenwriter and actor of "Yong'an Town Story Collection", we reviewed the beginning and end of the film's extreme creation, and also talked about industry issues outside the film, about the struggle between the capital, producers, directors and screenwriters. In this industry where good stories are scarce, why the screenwriter has become the lowest one, and finally talked about his understanding of film and creation.
Playing the screenwriter of the same name in the film is quite a heavy role, which is a big challenge for Kang Chunlei. He repeatedly mentioned that he and his characters have a big difference in personality. But the part of the screenwriter that is decadent and idealistic overlaps with Kang Chunlei himself. In the film, the director and the screenwriter debate about whether the film can affect people's lives, and the screenwriter is the one who chooses to believe, and so is Kang Chunlei.
"I really believe that movies can affect people's lives. Its time span may be very long, not today to shoot a film, everyone's life has changed, it is not a guide to people's lives. Rather, over a long period of time, it may be able to make people's hearts a little softer, to make this world of stone a little more dissolved, or to make a person willing to understand another person when he sees another person in a certain moment of life. Kang Chunlei said.
Kang Chunlei, screenwriter and star of "Yong'an Town Story Collection": I believe that movies can change people's lives
The overturned script
CBN: You and Wei Shujun should have originally reached a cooperation based on consensus, why did the script be overturned later.
Kang Chunlei: The script of "Yong'an Town Story Collection" is a story I have been writing since 2014. In November 2019, when our executive producer introduced me to Lao Wei, he liked it very much. I remember saying that the script was very literary and very different from his previous style, so he was eager to try it. We went to survey the scenery. For more than half a year after I came back, we worked together to revise the script.
At the beginning of November 2020, I went with him to Chenzhou Zixing, the filming site, to prepare, and as the preparation progressed, some problems arose. Lao Wei is a live director, and when he goes to that town, he will consider many realistic factors, such as the population density of the town, just like the line in the movie, "Probe the camera into life and record what people live." But the original story is actually more formalistic, more withdrawn, and builds a small town out of thin air, with realistic logic inside, not outside.
I tried my best to cooperate with him in revising, but the more the two of us tried harder, the more we felt that this thing was not right, and it became something that was not mine or him. Turned into a freak. One day Lao Wei told me that he couldn't make bad movies, he didn't want to make bad movies, which meant that if there was no way to do this script, he wouldn't shoot it.
But in the process of preparation, I found a story. There is indeed a restaurant in the backyard of the hotel where we are staying, there is indeed a hostess, she dresses very differently from the environment every day, it is difficult to imagine how she works here, she is usually very lazy, seeing us is always very positive, she gave me the idea of the first story. I just clung to the last illusion that we would play a little bit of a flying game and overturn the original story. I told the story to Old Wei, who was almost asleep at the time, and then suddenly jumped up and said this is OK. But obviously too short. He said it didn't matter, I also had a story, and that was the story of the second female star.
What about the third story? I said to write about what the two of us usually argue about, with an exaggerated character image and put it in, relatively a little more intense than our own relationship. We wrote the third story together, and the structure came out, and that night we wrote a synopsis of about five or six hundred words, and then he went to the producer with a simple synopsis, and when he came back, he told me that the producer factory gate Pictures agreed.
It's really a big support, because like in the movie, the producer says, "I'm all in, you're actually going to change the cards." "At that time, the actor's contract was also signed, and they were all in preparation according to the original script. So that's a big challenge.
CBN: It may be more difficult for the general production company to make this decision when it encounters this situation.
Kang Chunlei: Almost unlikely.
CBN: Do you feel uncomfortable when the script you have written for six years is overturned, and there is even no possibility of shooting?
Kang Chunlei: To be realistic, it is the feeling that an opportunity has been missed, and I don't know how many years of silence will be there, which is the discomfort of this feeling. In the circumstances at the time, coming up with a script that was mutually satisfactory would have helped me even more. I have also been involved in other projects and will be more insistent on my own ideas, but after working with Lao Wei, I trust him a lot. I know the story will turn out to be a different story, but it won't be a bad thing. He could be another kind of good, and I accepted it.
CBN: What kind of mood and atmosphere did the entire creative team have when they learned that you were going to change the script?
Kang Chunlei: We wrote a version of the script, and then revised it to the production director, all the main creators came to the meeting, they didn't know anything, sent the script to them, they thought it was very strange, how to replace it all, this is to make a new film? Then we immediately read it around, and after reading it, everyone was very excited. Of course, there will be some departments such as art, and the casting team is more difficult, and it is difficult to find actors and set up scenes in such a short period of time. There is anxiety, but everyone is still very excited. The subsequent creation was also very smooth.
The screenwriter's situation and right to speak
CBN: In real life, do you have similarities with the screenwriters in the film?
Kang Chunlei: There are similarities. I talked to some of my screenwriter friends, and when they watched the film, they felt that they had encountered similar things in real life. The situation of the screenwriter is actually the same tragic, that is, there is not much right to speak. In real life, I also face these things that the screenwriters of the film face. But the character is more shaped, it does not have so much to do with us, but I understand it, you can better enter it. Old Wei's personality is also relatively deviated, and he is not so strong and domineering. Mainly considering that the audience should be able to accept, this group of character relationships should be interesting and the image is clear. In fact, the relationship between the director and the screenwriter is like a very old screen partner, that is, brainless and unhappy.
CbN: It can be seen in the film that in the power structure of the industry such as capital, producers, directors, screenwriters, film critics, etc., screenwriters are at a lower level. But in the eyes of many viewers, Chinese films have always had shortcomings in terms of plot, in this case, the screenwriter is still not valued, in your opinion, what kind of problem is wrong.
Kang Chunlei: I am not a screenwriter who completely supports the central system of drama. In cooperation with the author's film and literary film directors, the screenwriter should consider the director's personal style more, and ultimately the director must present and translate, and your script may not be particularly effective no matter how good it is. But in some melodramas and more narrative films, is it possible that the status and discourse power of the screenwriter can be correspondingly improved? I believe there will be more short episodes in the future. American dramas are all screenwriter-centric systems, as long as the industrial level arrives, the screenwriter has the right to change directors. The core is the narrative film, and its core should be the screenwriter.
Some time ago, director Xie Fei posted an article on the issue of film being literary. Of course, as an art film, it should be far away from drama and literature, because the film should develop its own narrative language, but I think the literary nature that Director Xie said is not a literary novel, but that the film creator should have literary literacy, and what he is talking about is a quality, which is your observation and understanding of human nature and society. When this thing is gradually missing, the position of screenwriter will of course decline accordingly, and it will become less and less important.
CBN: Why do these qualities, such as the observation of human nature and society, become less important.
Kang Chunlei: When we start not to think of people as "people", when we put more and more emphasis on a certain group, this group may be saying, a male group or a female group or a certain doctrine, and we are putting more and more emphasis on some macro concepts, in which there is no person, there is no personality, this concept is a symbol. You don't know how these people live, and we're more and more immersed in this so-called information cocoon, and as long as we find my camp, we can have a strong sense of security.
We are increasingly reluctant to understand how people who are different from you live, causing the world to become more and more solidified, to feel cursed, to feel that everything has turned to stone. People seem to be reluctant to hear different voices, or things that do not agree with his views, creating a very large gap, and we do not understand each other more and more.
CBN: You can only see symbols or concepts, which may be quite fatal for creation.
Kang Chunlei: After using people as symbols, you don't really care about him. We see people who have been simplified. What he presents in the play is what the rich look like, what the poor look like, what the different classes of people look like, what men look like, what women look like, what children look like, they all become very fixed and not vivid.
CBN: There is a line repeatedly in the film, "This is the moment we are closest to the movie." For you, the whole creative process, when is the "closest moment to the film".
Kang Chunlei: When it premiered that day, I felt that it was the closest moment to the movie, and it was handed over to the audience. At that moment, what I thought about was not that it was finished, but that it was still developing. In real life, Mi Yi does not have to be trapped in a place like Xiao Gu, but can continue to complete the dream of being an actor; the actress Chen Chen, played by Yang Zishan, has no way to return to her hometown and be with her original lover, but in reality, she lives happily with her lover; in the movie, the screenwriter, director, and producer are very distressed every day, as if they can never write this script, but in reality we have completed it and brought it to the audience, and the audience has used their life experience to enrich and reconstruct the story story. I would feel that that moment was important.
CBN: Is it possible to cooperate with other directors in the original script? Is there a new project plan.
Kang Chunlei: I think it depends on fate. Of course, I hope to have a chance, and I also have to consider whether to write it into a novel. Later, there is a project cooperation with Wei Shujun, and we are preparing the script.