The Surging News reporter Xu Haifeng intern Feng Rui
【Editor's Note】
Eighteen years ago, the documentary "Tiexi District" turned out to be, not only because the film lasted for nine hours, but also because it was not widely screened in public, resulting in rumors and became the film (DVD) that audiences privately circulated and communicated at that time.
"Tiexi District" is divided into three parts, in order of "Factory", "Yanfan Street" and "Railway". This super-long documentary is a serious test for the audience. This seems to be unique in the history of Chinese documentaries. Domestically, it was either snubbed or misunderstood after its production, and few seem to know that it won first place at the world's three major documentary film festivals – Marseille and Nantes in France and Yamagata in Japan.
Shenyang Tiexi District, China's largest heavy industrial base, was established during the Japanese and pseudo-Japanese periods, and after 1949, it was reshaped according to the planned economic management system and the Soviet model, becoming a huge community of state-owned enterprises. Around the new millennium, the big factories were dismantled one after another, and the old world fell apart.
This year, director Wang Bing will once again introduce the photos taken at the same time as the "Tiexi District" documentary that year to the public – 52 photographic works from the 14th Documenta kassel exhibition in 2017 were unveiled at the Shanghai Art Fair in Shanghai on November 3, 2021. Taking this as an opportunity, about the behind-the-scenes story of the creation of "Tiexi District", the creative understanding of video and still picture photography, and his own confusion about life, etc., Wang Bing was interviewed by the surging news reporter for more than 3 hours on October 22, 2021, and we will publish it in four independent chapters to share with readers.
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Director Wang Bing talks about the cognition and confusion in the creative process Video editing Intern Guo Zhiyiting (03:47)
The Paper: The Filming of Tiexi District took place in the 1990s, but what is the difference in creation today?
Wang Bing: From the time I first started taking photos to today, my heart has always been confused, and there is no moment when I will get carried away. What others think about this movie is a very heavy thing for me, not so pleasant. It's not that I'm having an unpleasant life, it's that I'm very confused in the spiritual world.
How do you establish a spirituality, or an inner world, in the movie? Tarkovsky's films are very similar to Antonioni's films, except that Tarkovsky's films are heavier and his mind is more depressed. But Antonioni is more romantic, more imaginative, and he also has his emotional confusion, but their confusion is different, and the way the two people express themselves is completely different. For me, I'm just as confused, and I've been in an emotional confusion, not that it's like it's like having enough to eat and drink, and then there's a lot of money that will be happy, it's not like that.
"Tiexi District" 07-52 Demolition of Yanfan Street, Tiexi District, Shenyang 2000 Wang Bing Photography
"Tiexi District" 10-52 Lao Shi and his wife at the Yanfan Street Commissary in Tiexi District, Shenyang 2000 Wang Bing Photography
Just now you asked me for so many years, from "Iron West" to today, I have also experienced a lot of changes about movies. Like I made "Fang Xiuying", she was filmed by me in Southern Huzhou, and its narrative language and "Tiexi District" have completely changed. Because at the time of "Iron West", there was a very youthful thing in it - the psychology of youth and romance. Of course, the confusion is how we can feel the true emotions of human beings through movies. By now, this confusion has disappeared, another confusion has emerged, what is the meaning of life? Why are we alive, and what is our meaning as a human being, as a subject? Just like I photographed an old lady like Fang Xiuying, she is my friend's mother, suffering from senile disease, to the point where she can't eat. We watched her whole body self-destruct, her loved ones clinging to the sidelines, watching her soon to leave us and eventually die.
Each of us will face this moment, not only her, no one can escape such a moment. Back to the film, in fact, we are also faced with the peace of art, the peace of the individual, the peace of life itself, facing a lot of problems, so we will always be in a state of confusion, and then to build the possibility of this kind of film.
Screenshot of "Fang Xiuying"
The Paper: What is the meaning of being alive?
Wang Bing: What is the meaning of human beings? It is meaningless, her (Fang Xiuying's) life may be meaningless, so who will have meaning? I don't know, will I make sense? We watched one by one like this one just disappear, so if you ask me what the theme of this movie is, I don't know and I don't want to say it, but I'm touched inside. The last moments of her life fascinated me, the debilitating, the despair. I don't know what kind of fear she has in her heart, or even whether she has fear, I don't know, but at the same time she is facing that kind of embarrassment, that kind of helplessness, that kind of indifference, there is no way to explain.
This expression is rare in movies of the past. Our past films were meant to express a certain meaning, to express a certain character, to express joy and sorrow, but not at this moment. There's no such thing in this movie, the only thing that exists is how a person leaves this world. Whenever my camera was aimed at her, I always had a kind of nameless sadness, fear, or a kind of wandering.
The so-called movie is not real, I have never thought about this question, I do not think what is true, what is not true, we used to talk about the authenticity of art, I don't seem to think about it, I just think that art is more important than its emotions - we perceive human emotions, perceive the emotions of the work itself, rather than saying that we have any truth to talk about. I'm not saying there is no truth in this world, there may be truth, but for this moment, I think art is more important than the inner feelings of human beings toward each other. We live in this world, and our hearts communicate through art, which is a kind of communication of emotions.
Zen Buddhism is actually talking about such a subjective problem, I think Zen Buddhism may be the problem of our subjectivity, I think art for me more important should be this thing. "Iron West" was more externalized at that time, and the technology was more gorgeous, such as the way of shooting, the way the camera was scheduled, and the way the camera was scheduled changed greatly. At that time, it was influenced by Russian films, how to schedule the design, how to establish this sense of space, in fact, it was not something that could be done by casually thinking about it, it had the influence of previous films in it.
In the later stages, my films were basically simplified, and the shooting method became very simple, without the kind of things that looked very beautiful, very beautiful, it was very simple and heads-up, and it looked very close. Like "The Nameless", it is an old man who lives alone in a wasteland world, and there are no people living around him. In an abandoned village, he had no house to live in, and he lived in two caves, two caves like animals.
We humans are a social animal, and when you are left by this sociality and exist independently, no longer using language, and no longer using more substances, then in this state, how do you continue to live? Some people may say that this person's life is very miserable, but in fact it is not, but sometimes we think about it, is our material too much? What if I give up this substance, and I, as an individual, exist in that state and live alone? This brings with it an imagination, a kind of thinking.
For example, at that time, I did not have the conditions to enter another kind of collective film creation that was very subjective, not that I did not have this creative ability, but that I originally looked at film in this way, which formed my film world. In the end, I became an individual film, which is also something that can't be done, not born to be like this, but by chance. I believe that if another opportunity was offered at that time, I might have made a film like that (a collective film).
Screenshot of The Nameless
On October 22, 2021, Wang Bing was interviewed by The Paper in Shanghai. The Paper's reporter Xu Haifeng photographed
Editor-in-Charge: Gao Jianping
Proofreader: Shi Gong