Wu Yigong, the fourth generation director of China, the former vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the former chairman of the China Filmmakers Association, died at 7:32 a.m. in Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai on September 14, 2019 at the age of 80.
Born in Chongqing on December 1, 1938, Wu Yigong graduated from the Directing Department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1960 and returned to Shanghai to work in the same year. He successively served as the director of Shanghai Film Studio, the secretary of the Party Committee and director of the Shanghai Film Bureau, and participated in the establishment of the Shanghai International Film Festival. In 1957, Wu Yigong directed his first film, The Great Carpenter. In 1963, he served as an assistant director of the feature film "Brother and Sister Treasure Hunting". In 1977, he began to serve as an assistant director and director of Shanghai Film Studio. In 1980, he directed the feature film "Bashan Night Rain", which won the Best Feature Film Award at the 1st Golden Rooster Awards of Chinese Cinema. In 1983, he won the Best Director Award at the 3rd Golden Rooster Awards of Chinese Cinema for his feature film "The Old Story of Seongnam". In 1985, he directed the feature film "University in Exile". In 1990, he directed the feature film "The Moon Returns with People". In 1993, the feature film "Que Li Ren Ren Jia" directed by him was released, for which he won the Best Director Award of the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television Excellent Film Award; in 1995, "Shake, Shake, Shake to Grandma Bridge" was released as a producer; in 1999, he served as the artistic director of the mythological animation film "Pauline Lantern". In 2003, Wu Yigong served as the president of the China Filmmakers Association, and in 2012, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award for Chinese Film at the 15th Shanghai International Film Festival.
The films directed by Wu Yigong have achieved an open cultural attitude, adopted a freehand principle, and have a classical poetic mood and the reference and application of traditional Chinese landscape painting and opera art, which as a whole shows the national spiritual heritage and national style, that is, the sense of responsibility of Chinese intellectuals who "take the world as their own responsibility", the philosophy of "the way of the mean" and the attachment and pursuit of the spirit of traditional culture. At the same time, absorbing and borrowing foreign art, the rational use of documentary aesthetics, the limited adoption of video aesthetics and the efforts of many genre films have made the film establish a sense of modernity and have a certain degree of avant-garde tendency.
At the opening ceremony of the 15th Shanghai International Film Festival on June 16, 2012, accompanied by the singing of "Outside the Long Pavilion, The Ancient Road, and the Green Sky of Herbs", Wu Yigong took the stage to receive the "Lifetime Achievement Award" for Chinese films, at that time, he said: "Film is a dream, it is all-encompassing, gorgeous and wonderful." Its greatest advantage is that it never rejects anyone, men and women, young and old, as long as they want to, they can get close to it, like it, and enjoy its happiness. It will also tell you without hesitation that the world used to be like this, that life may not have to be like that, and that's the movie in my mind. In May this year, Wu Yigong on the sickbed wrote with all his strength: "Long live shanghai movies!" ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Shi Chenlu