As a well-known director at home and abroad, Jia Zhangke's films mostly start from the hearts of small characters to discover that the wheel of the times is getting faster and faster, and the fates of those small people are intertwined, recording the trajectory of the times and exploring the humanity behind the characters. In 2008, when his film "Destiny" was performed in Toronto, Chinese students questioned him on the spot: "Why don't you shoot so many good people in China, will you die without the coal mine?" Jia Zhangke, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cannes International Film Festival at the age of 45, has grown up and experienced, which makes him obsessed with exploring the sadness and fate of small people.
Jia Zhangke is a native of Fenyang, Shanxi, and his life before the age of 23 was spent in Shanxi, which taught him all things and influenced the way he looked at the world. Shanxi, as his hometown, once wanted to know what the outside world was like, what was ten kilometers away, what was fifty kilometers away, once a young man loved to chase dreams, and only wanted to fly forward. The first time he heard the sound of the train, in his own words "magical", the roar of the train came with the roar of the northwest wind, and his father told him that it was the sound of the train. And classmates riding a car to see the railway, a few hours of driving to see the train that is going to go to the far side, after reading it, I have to go back to the county, on the way back, an inexplicable loss, the train is going to go to the far side, but I am still wandering in place. So in the later films, he really liked to shoot vehicles, because it was a fantasy of the outside world. His father was a poet with no talent, sentimental, and often took Jia Zhangke to the edge of Fenyang Primary School to see the ancient city wall, and from the city wall, there was only one road from Fenyang to Shaanxi, lying alone on the ground, full of desolation. Father's sentimentality may have spread to Jia Zhangke to a greater or lesser extent. Without delicate feelings, it is impossible to express things with the lens. He turns his feelings, through filming and editing, into a reality.
His film dream began to sprout when he came into contact with the film "Yellow Land", when he watched it for five minutes, he burst into tears. There are very few lines in the film, only the yellow land that looks at the eyes, and the people in black clothes on the yellow land. Growing up in the Loess Plateau, he deeply experienced the charm of the language of the lens, "That's my life". It was also from that time that his ambition decided to "do movies in this life". It was also at that time that he began to prepare for the college entrance examination, ready to be admitted to the Beijing Film Academy, because there was a height restriction in the directing department, so he had to apply for the literature department, and three years later, he entered the Beijing Film Academy. He has the delicacy of being good at discovering the tragedies and joys of small people, and also has the ambition and backbone to achieve something. In the "Reader" program, he once told the story of his wet mother, his wet mother is a small person who supports three sons and two daughters by setting up a tea stall to sell tea, but behind this little person, there is an extremely strong heart and enough courage to cope with life, and the courage reflected by these little people is more admirable and amazing. Jia Zhangke was deeply influenced by the temperament of the wet nurse, and he felt that the wet nurse could support the family by setting up a tea stall, and he could certainly support himself. He doesn't think there's anything that can beat himself, "in my world, there's no word failure." Such an aura and self-confidence may be the basis for him to be able to rise to the top later.
In 1995, he made the first short film in his life, "Little Mountain Homecoming", full of Jia Zhangke's fantasies about the film after that, no restrictions on the creation, to use his thinking mode, to shoot short films with his feelings, even if some places do not conform to the conventional operation of the film, and even some places are out of control, but this short film reflects the freedom without restrictions. After that, the structure of this short film was transplanted into "Little Five" and became Jia Zhangke's representative work. In 2009, he said in an interview, "I believe that every director expresses his impulses with all his youth in his first and second films. "Jia Zhangke uses his unique perspective on the world to excavate the most overlooked and covered characters and times.
Over the years, Jia Zhangke has made a lot of films with realistic themes, using the lens to describe the sadness and joy of small people, and using movies to convey the intertwining of fates rolled by the tide of the times. He is relatively lucky, the first short film has been widely acclaimed, and then the "Little Five" also made him famous, young and famous, he can go to shoot the film he wants, he has the energy to write his own book, he went on the way to observe life, realize human nature, filled with his favorite things, enriched with more monotony, the circle of friends is filled with work news, and past friends are also ignored. Even if you long to see the colorful world when you are young, you can't escape the nostalgia for your hometown. In Jia Zhangke's films, you can see the shadow of his hometown everywhere, after he conceived the film "Children of Mountains and Rivers", he saw himself in this film, that is, his own life, so many years of his feelings and impressions of his hometown, the blood flowing in his bones has been integrated with the loess, Shanxi, Fenyang.
Having experienced the indifference of big cities, the warmth of small cities can move people more. In the past, when I was young, I despised things, and later I would find out that I was wrong. Just like when he was young, he was tired of the hustle and bustle, thinking that friends getting married and having children full moon were very wasteful and meaningless things, but now he enjoys it. When he was studying in Beijing, his friends used to take a night train to Beijing to see him, and then took a night train to go to beijing, and he was silent for a long time, showing his gratitude for this love. In front of his friends, he is not the director Jia Zhangke, just their friend Jia Zhangke, that's all. All of his hometown is the reason for Jia Zhangke to return to his hometown, and he also returned to his hometown at the age of 45, perhaps seeing too many human tragedies and joys, perhaps recognizing that reality is reality, even if it is expressed, it is still reality. In the "Thirteen Invitations" program hosted by Xu Zhiyuan, he said that he is now addicted to science fiction, and even wrote science fiction novels himself, such a thought may be the helplessness after recognizing reality, and he has to use science fiction to fight reality in another way.