The second part of the "Perusal of Yang Dechang" series: "Hope".
"Hope" is the second work directed by Yang Dechang, released in 1982, and is a segment of "The Story of Time".
The producer behind the film was Taiwan's China Film Company, which at that time mainly made "healthy realism" films and was known for its stubborn conservative ideas.
However, young audiences are eager to see new things, and China Film's old-school films are becoming less and less popular, when Ming Ji, the general manager of China Film, discovered this problem and decided to carry out "innovation", allowing his two subordinates Wu Nianzhen and Ono to gather new filmmakers to shoot the four-part film "The Story of Time".
"The Story of Time" is regarded as the pioneering work of Taiwan's new film.
Yang Dechang, Wu Nianzhen, Ono, Ke Yizheng and Hou Xiaoxian have become the main force and standard-bearers of the new wave of Taiwanese cinema.
Yang Dechang's "Hope" is the most prominent paragraph in "The Story of Time", telling the story of the adolescent girl Xiaofen's love sinus, and the heroine Xiaofen can be said to be the archetypal character of all the heroines in Yang Dechang's films.
In all of Yang Dechang's films, the heroine is almost unchanged, always quiet, straight and short hair, and a school uniform with youthful colors, these aesthetic characteristics have been continued in "Yiyi" and "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street".
Nanjing! nanking! Lu Chuan, the director of "", once said that all youth films are copied from Yang Dechang, and youth films finally Yang Dechang.
In "Hope", the young girl Xiaofen fell in love with the male college student who rented her own home, and she once saw the male college student moving bricks naked.
At that moment, Xiao Fen was thrilled.
Xiao Fen once wanted to use the excuse of doing homework to get close to the male college student, but found that she was taken by her sister first, and at that moment, Xiao Fen's dream was shattered.
At the same time, Xiao Fen and his own boys of the same age learn to ride a bicycle together, the same age boys are shorter than Xiao Fen, Yang Dechang's observation of the difference between men and women in adolescence is very keen, just like Xiao Si and Xiao Ming in "Muling Street".
When Xiao Fen's love has begun, boys of the same age are still learning to ride a bicycle, thinking in their hearts, learning to ride a bicycle, learning to jump rope, grow tall, and learning to play basketball.
The boy was still naïve and had not thought of any male-female affection.
In the film casting, Yang Dechang almost fell out with the production company because he had used Shi Annie in "Duckweed" and insisted on using Shi Annie as the heroine.
This "Hope" was very avant-garde at that time, such as the plot of the girl's first menarche, the plot of the girl taking off her clothes in front of the mirror to examine her body, the plot of the girl peeking into the body of the male college student, which caused a lot of criticism at the time, Yang Dechang insisted on filming it, preferring not to shoot and never compromise.
Afterwards, Yang Dechang was not satisfied with the shooting of this scene and did not shoot the effect he wanted.
"It was summer, it was very hot, the temperature was very high, the people were sticky, most of the hearts were a little inexplicably dry, and the humidity in the air was high. The adolescent girl suddenly sees the body of the other sex, that strange, fresh, perhaps afraid, all entangled with the sticky, wet, and stuffy heat of the summer, and that is such a memory. ”
For the slow motion shots used, Yang Dechang also said that he was not confident because of insufficient experience.
"Close-up shots, slow motions, in fact, the author does not have confidence: I am not sure that you must see what is inside, I will either get closer, or I will slow down to show you." Later, I naturally thought about this matter, when I had confidence, I would not touch it at all, I would not think about it, in fact, it was a matter of confidence. ”
In all of Yang Dechang's subsequent films, slow motion is not seen, and there are few close-ups.
"The Story of Time and Yin" is the pioneering work of the new wave of Taiwanese cinema, which is of extraordinary significance and worth recalling, and "Hope" is also the first work of Yang Dechang's film aesthetic style.