Note: The following text and pictures are from the reference message, if there is infringement, please contact Xiaobian to delete.
Wei Xiao, director, screenwriter, actor, has participated in the production of films such as "The Sun Also Rises", "Let the Bullets Fly", "Wolf Plague" and so on
In 2009, as a screenwriter, assistant director and actor of the "Old Seven" of the Bandits, the 27-year-old Wei Xiao participated in the creation of "Let the Bullets Fly". This douban score of 8.8 points not only made Wei Xiao known to the public for the first time after the release of the movie, but also brought him a Golden Horse Award for Best Adapted Screenplay trophy.
Years later, also as a director and screenwriter, Wei Xiao presented a work called "Ugly" to the audience. The difference is that "Ugly" is a "stage play" of only 15 minutes in the Hunan Satellite TV variety show "City of Illusion".
And when this work presents a vivid life under the interpretation of actor Zhu Yilong, it also brings another warm praise and recognition to the dangerous laughter.
The interview took place at WeiXiao's studio outside Beijing's East Fourth Ring Road. In addition to a lively puppy named Sunday, there is a room full of story decorations: a script that covers the entire wall, paintings from his father, and the Brazilian flag hanging from the parapet on the second floor — something he brought back from Brazil after watching the World Cup. In the middle of the conversation, he also took out the whiskey that a friend had given him, and the wine label was an alternative movie poster.
All of this is no different from the poetry of Cortázar's famous quote written by Wei Xiao in his microblog personal introduction, hopefully the life itself, which is undergoing self-justification. He said that the speculative meaning of this sentence is more and more touching the older he gets. And when I said he was a poet, he strenuously denied it, counting the poets in his mind.
Wei Xiao said that he did not like the title of "director", but preferred to be called "old danger" or "laughing brother" by others on the spot. Nor did he talk much about "Let the Bullets Fly," which had brought him glory. In his opinion, it was like working on an aircraft carrier, and it was not appropriate to talk about this ship for a long time.
On the day of the interview, Wei Xiao's "Feng" in the 12th issue of "City of Illusion" with actors Wu Jinyan and Luo Yunxi has not yet been broadcast, so the dialogue between reference culture and Wei Xiao begins with "Ugly".
"'Ugly' is my complicity with the audience"
"Ugly" tells the story of a circus clown and a little girl who often watches the clown "perform" alone after the curtain of other actors.
The entire heart-blowing but dismissive sensational performance had few lines, but with a highly completed script and the brilliant interpretations of the two actors, the 15-minute skit sparked a wave of online discussion over the next few days.
The audience, who was called "Zhu Yilong's elite fan" by Wei Xiao, analyzed "Ugly" in depth, trying to find out the metaphor and meaning hidden behind each performance.
It all came a bit suddenly, but more than that, a surprise. Wei Xiao said that he just wanted to tell a loose and calm story in a restrained and calm tone, and everything he had gained unexpectedly made his trip worthwhile.
For the interpretation of netizens, Wei Xiao never responded to "right or wrong". But he @ a number of "film critics" on Weibo, and did not hide his gratitude - "they continue the vitality of "Ugly".
The stage of Wei Xiao, Zhu Yilong and "Ugly"
Q: You presented a complete and evocative story in just 15 minutes, how did the script come to be formed?
Dangerous laughter: Yilong first proposed several elements, such as the image of the clown, the choice of songs, and the innocent child. After he came up with these elements, I came up with the framework of the story, and then communicated and discussed with him.
"Ugly" has a lot of space in front of it about ugly people, and there is no more ups and downs. The ending was set at the beginning, the little girl did not recognize the face of the man after removing the clown makeup, this ending is what I want, it must be so.
I've been thinking a lot about what measure to tell the story. Most directors and screenwriters have similar perceptions of emotions, and there is no world of difference in perception of value, but the quality of the work will be different, and the feeling will be different. I crudely understand the reasons for these different reasons as the creator's "measure" problem. The same emotion, what measure you use to speak, directly determines the audience's feelings and the effect of the work presented.
Also, I don't really want to write about father-daughter relationships that are related by blood. Father-daughter affection is a "hard bridge", and how to write will take advantage. And if the relationship between two people is a blank piece of paper, then the formation of the relationship will be more pure. And if I can write about the process and emotions of this delicate relationship formation, and make the audience feel interesting, it is more tempting for me.
Q: How do you see the audience's interpretation and dissection of "Ugly" so enthusiastically?
a: After the performance, our physical creation is completed, but the psychological time of creation is extended by these audiences. This is the process of being advanced, having a sense of well-being, having vanity satisfied.
There are some codes hidden in this work, even the codes that I have not solved, and I just asked a question to the surroundings, and everyone is willing to answer it, indicating that this problem has a certain value.
Borges once said that a literary work is a conspiracy between the author and the reader. For Ugly, it's also my complicity with the audience.
q: Not only the analysis of the entire plot, many netizens also made a detailed analysis of the details such as music, costumes and props in the play. Does this analysis fit in with your original intentions?
A: There must be a fit, but I don't have the authority to give the so-called answer. Yilong has many high-quality elite fans, and their analysis of the works is remarkable. Many people ask me in private messages, are they right. It's not that I'm unwilling or don't have time to answer, but I can't answer. Because as soon as I answer, the audience's interpretation and imagination will come to an abrupt halt. And this action of stopping the interpretation will seem particularly rude and disrespectful.
q: Aren't you afraid that the audience won't understand?
a: I have a pact with Yilong. In fact, at the beginning, the program team was a little worried about whether the audience could receive the emotions we wanted to express, so they wanted Me and Yilong to explain more in the interview passage of the documentary. But Yilong said to me, "Brother Laughing, can we not explain?" "I said I wasn't going to explain too much. So he kept stretching without explanation, and he said let everyone go and see.
I appreciate him doing that. Although he is not the creator behind the scenes, he is a very deep person. As an actor, the most feared thing is to be misread, but he is not afraid of being misread in this assignment. It's not as simple as "cool", it's a kind of confidence and laxity.
By agreement with him, I didn't want to say too much. All I can say is that I didn't deliberately create a labyrinth to get the audience around. But I didn't build a rough house and sent it. In this house, Ichiryu's performance, the presentation of the script, and the concerted efforts of each staff member have built a relatively complete space. The viewer is free to choose and look for interpretations they wish to see in this space.
"I appreciate Zhu Yilong's role model"
In the process of telling the creation of "Ugly", Wei Xiao mentioned Zhu Yilong many times and did not hesitate to give him great praise.
Indeed, it is a blessing to meet Zhu Yilong - his not so straightforward work can be interpreted by an actor with stage expression and appeal, and will not be buried.
And Zhu Yilong, who encountered a dangerous laugh, is obviously lucky - through a wonderful interpretation of a script with a considerable degree of completion and a slightly absurd character, he proves to the outside world that he has accumulated the essence of the explosion ten years later.
"Ugly" is the first cooperation between Wei Xiao and Zhu Yilong, and Wei Xiao said that he hopes to cooperate with Zhu Yilong in a movie in the future
Q: How does it feel to work with Zhu Yilong?
A: When I knew I was going to work with him, I felt that if I could provide him with a story billet that would allow him to have a rich performance space and the possibility of entering the role, he would have reacted.
As it turned out, his reaction was beyond my imagination. He will not describe all emotions in words and words as I did, but he will know exactly how to behave in a certain emotion, and he can turn what I am not sure about in words into a deterministic physical interpretation. This is one of the most crucial points that a relatively less thin director and a less thin actor can fit, and he can turn my metaphysical into a "metaphysical" interpretation that the audience can understand.
And his official performance gave me more surprises. In the rehearsal, many details he did not give, but after putting on makeup and going to the stage, all his details came out, and many actions and details were spontaneous.
"Ugly" is lucky. If there is no actor like Zhu Yilong who has both appeal and acting skills to perform, even the best script may show the effect of not appearing, and may even be ignored.
Q: You seem to appreciate him.
a: The reason why "Ugly" is loved by so many audiences is mainly because Zhu Yilong acted well (laughs). YiLong is a real, humble, and very good person. At the same time, he has a strong appeal based on his work performance, professionalism and creativity.
In the era of idol dominance and fanaticism, In this little assignment, Ichiryu has achieved one thing we have never achieved before - a quality actor or idol that allows the audience to read the internal things of creation more patiently.
If every idol with such influence can guide his (her) fans in this direction, this will be excellent for our current literary and artistic creation environment. The phenomenon caused by "Ugly" is a good reaction, and it is also the direction that our literary and artistic environment and market should go.
After this collaboration, I would like to praise Ichiryu for grasping the exemplary image that an idol with appeal should have, and I appreciate his role model. As an idol, the audience should be allowed to have a love and reading of an excellent literary and artistic work beyond appearance and hormones. Both himself and his team want to do something fresher, more valuable, and more meaningful.
"I want to be measured more than style"
In fact, with the exception of "Let the Bullets Fly" and "Ugly", There are not many works presented to the public, so the exploration of his creative style is particularly difficult. Some say he is good at telling fairy tales with absurd narrative techniques. He did not deny it, nor did he admit it. For him, style is irrelevant, "proportions" are what he wants.
Wei Xiao's most recent work is "Sew" on the closing night of "City of Illusion"
During the eight or nine years that did not appear in public, the dangerous laughter was living, observing, thinking, and creating at the same time. "Literary and artistic creation is related to society, and life is related to the world."
In Wei Xiao's view, life and work are methodological problems. He does not envy the crazy artists who have lost their minds, but more envisions a work and lifestyle that makes him peaceful and relatively satisfied.
q: How do you evaluate the style of your work?
a: The labels are all pasted by others, I haven't thought much about this problem, I just want to create something that is emotionally warm but not showy, nor flattering.
Rather than the so-called style, I would prefer to have my own narrative rhythm and sense of proportion. Proportion is not about pinching, promises, and prudence, but about not saying what I say. The narrator is like a guide, sometimes pointing to the road, sometimes holding people, sometimes standing in place and watching the tourists play by themselves, this process of one in and one retreat, one stop and one meal is extremely tempting.
Q: When faced with the contradiction between artistic expression and market demand, how do you bridge the gap?
A: The so-called "chasm" often becomes a set of arguments for some third-rate directors who don't think much about things to protect themselves. Film itself is popular art, and if you don't want to go into the masses, you might as well go home and write poetry and put it in a drawer. You can't take the industrial "flattering" and more discerning work attributes, and you have to flaunt the so-called personal expression in this attribute, especially when this "personal expression" is not accepted by the public and the market (most of the time these expressions are not meaningful), and you call yourself "high and low".
The market is calculated in terms of economic benefits, but in the final analysis, it is still the people's hearts. The depth of understanding of the human heart is the key to determining whether it can gain public recognition.
I've always felt that the great thing about cinema is that it steals people's mundane time and space. Human life is not only the length brought about by physiological experience, but in a sense, the length brought by spiritual experience. And movies are a means of prolonging people's spiritual lives. For me, since I have the opportunity to prolong the spiritual life of others, I can't freeze these 90 minutes in shallow laughter or tears. I don't want to do it, but I don't have a bottom in my heart about what I can do, or I'm curious.
Dangerous Laughter: I wish I could make a movie that the audience likes and is willing to prolong the life of this story
Q: What are your expectations for your future work?
a: I've turned down a lot of film deals over the years, and the reason I've rejected some of the too rudimentary films is that I can't stand when I was about to die in my seventies and eighties, and my grandson said to me, "Grandpa, what kind of thing are you making this film!" ”
I'm not selling fame and reputation, but I always have to give myself and future generations an account, which has nothing to do with the box office and awards. I want my descendants to envy my relationship with the world and society, or to appreciate my eyes on the world.
I wish I could make a film that the audience loves and is willing to extend the life of this story. Shooting something, the audience is willing to adopt, and grow with it, is a satisfaction for me, and for the audience, it should be the same.