Unless it is the film promotion period, Diao Yinan rarely appears in the media, and rarely appears in the field of view of the public and fans. As the young mentor of the master class, Diao Yinan was invited to participate in the Pingyao International Film Festival to communicate with young creators and fans. The festival also featured his latest work, "The Party at South Station," released last year. This work, which was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, still continues Diao Yinan's favorite film noir genre and makes further attempts at stylization; on the other hand, the film integrates elements such as detective, suspense, and action in the narrative, and uses stars like Hu Ge, who have a box office appeal. The film finally won more than 200 million yuan at the domestic box office, and has been released to more than 30 countries and regions around the world, which is already a good result for art films.
When it comes to the Pingyao Film Exhibition, Diao Yinan described it as the filmmaker's "hearth night talk". He believes that in such a small northern city, because of the international film festival, tradition and modernity have a connection, and also bring different textures to this place. He said: "When I entered the Film Palace in the morning, it was like crossing over, and I felt like I was taking my first film to the Rotterdam Film Festival. It is also inside a big building, there are a lot of young people queuing up to buy tickets to watch movies, the atmosphere is very good. The important thing about film exhibitions is to provide people with spiritual nourishment, "on this platform you can see more movies, see different ideas and cultures around the world." How people judge what is sadness and what is happiness, sadness and happiness standards are not the same, there are multiple living conditions in the world, we can not understand. Diao Yinan said.
2020 Pingyao Film Exhibition Diao Yinan Master Class
In the master class of the Pingyao Film Festival, through the questions of the host Jia Zhangke, Diao Yinan reviewed his growth as a director and shared a lot of creative experience. Although people do not mention Diao Yinan's name for the first time when they mention the "sixth generation", he is basically a contemporary of the sixth generation of directors. After graduating from the Central Academy of Drama in the early 1990s, Diao Yinan initially entered the film and television industry as a screenwriter. In the early days, he cooperated with directors such as Zhang Yang, Zhang Yibai, cai Shangjun, etc., and participated in the screenwriting of film and television dramas such as "Bathing", "Love Spicy and Hot", and "CarryIng Love to the End". Because he wanted to express and challenge himself more fully, Diao Yinan became a director since 2003, shooting his first feature film "Uniform", and won the "Dragon tiger award" for best film at the 22nd Vancouver Film Festival. "Uniform" is accompanied by Jia Zhangke as an artistic consultant and uses part of Jia's creative team; in terms of production, the film also continues the model of the sixth generation, produced independently and recovers costs through international film festivals and overseas distribution. After that, Diao Yinan filmed "Night Train" in the same independent production.
From "Night Train" to "Daytime Fireworks", Diao Yinan underwent a creative transformation: not only from independent creation to market-oriented production, but also used and borrowed the genre elements of film noir in the narrative and style of the film, and began to use actors with certain popularity. Behind the transformation of the production model and style type is the new path that individual creators have tried and explored after repeated thinking and introspection under the background of the retreat of overseas capital and the rise of the Chinese film market. For Diao Yinan, what is more important is how to face capital and market, and make the works close to popular culture, without losing the authorship and criticality in them. He confessed that the process was not easy, and he experienced confusion in the middle, when some theoretical books inspired him to build confidence and confirm that he was still on the trajectory of serious expression.
The transformation of "Daytime Fireworks" can be described as quite successful, not only won the "gold and silver bear" at the Berlin Film Festival, but also received more than 100 million box office in China, creating the best box office performance of art films in domestic theaters at that time. For Diao Yinan, the more important role of these achievements is to make him confirm that he is on the right path. The film's script changed three times, and the seven-year creative process also allowed Diao Yinan to find the genre of film noir.
The concept of film noir, first proposed by French critics, is a name for a number of new works in American cinema in the 1940s and 1950s that incorporated elements of murder, detective, crime and so on. Since then, the concept of genre, which was born out of cross-cultural acceptance, has become popular all over the world and has become an international type. Diao Yinan chose film noir because it was concerned with real life on the one hand, and at the same time, it was close to and accepting style, which was related to expressionism. "When you doubt allism, style becomes a certain weapon and means of yours, a certain gesture of yours. From these perspectives, popularity and style are embraced by film noir. I felt like I could make a film that was both popular and commercial, but also an author-like expression. Diao Yinan further explained: "Film noir itself is a serious concern for the life of the world. It's writing about men and women, about betrayal, about rich and poor. More importantly, it is also a dream in the author's own heart, a type of wandering on the edge of reality and dreams. From a creative point of view, it is more enjoyable. ”
"Daytime Fireworks" and "The Party at South Station" can be said to be a new genre that has appeared in the Chinese film market in recent years: the use of star actors, the use of partial genre narrative, the story is full of suspense and tension, but some of the occasional details, seemingly useless, constitute the most authorial expression: such as the horse that appears in the neighborhood committee corridor in "Daytime Fireworks", or the night zoo in "The Party at South Station". If genre is always constructed between the interaction of industrial production, sales and consumption, the success of these two works has also led young creators to see another possibility beyond the duality of commercial and art films. In fact, in some of this year's venture capital forums for young directors, a large proportion of genre film projects have also appeared. Many young directors have chosen to start their own creative path with genre narratives, hoping to find a certain balance between capital, market and personal expression.
Stills from the movie Moses on the Plains
Compared with his own generation of directors, Diao Yinan believes that most of the new generation of creators have undergone a lot of film training, and the first works are often very mature, and even feel that they do not feel like debut films. He also believes that when they shoot the second work, they may be relatively open and look for some kind of imprint on themselves. In addition, "Moses on the Plain", produced by Diao Yinan and directed by Zhang Ji, is in post-production. Talking about this cooperation, Diao Yinan said that as a producer, he hopes to protect the director's self-esteem while also clearly and timely pointing out some problems; but in the final analysis, the director is the center of a film, and the film is the director's art, so he will also give young directors full freedom, so that they can fully and deeply experience the process of creating a film.
As for the new work, Diao Yinan said that it is still in the pipeline, but it is certain that it will still be the genre of film noir. Although there are only four directorial works at present, Diao Yinan is still one of the most creative directors of the same age, and continues to explore and self-breakthrough. We also have reason to look forward to his next work.