Beijing Film Academy 2018

Journal of Beijing Film Academy, Hiu Man Chan, Alvin Li

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781789381597
• eBook ISBN: 9781789381610
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Film & Video
• Index: Social Sciences

The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook showcases the best academic debates, discussions and research from the previous year, as previously published in the highly prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume brings together specially selected articles, appearing for the first time in English, in order to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies.

The book is the latest in the Intellect China Library series to produce work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies, visual arts, performing arts, media and cultural studies, the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.

1

Turing Limitations into Style:
An Interview with Qiao Liang, Director of Crested Ibis

Wang Yao

(王垚, Wang Yao):	First of all, congratulations on your Crested Ibis (塬上/ Yuan Shang, 2017) for winning the Golden St George Prize at the 39^th Moscow International Film Festival(2018). This is the highest achievement of any Chinese submission to the film festival in its history.
(乔梁, Qiao Liang):	Thank you.

Wang:	Looking at your filmography, you seem to have worked on more TV series and TV films than silver screen titles, with Crested Ibis being your third film. How do you select your film projects?
Qiao:	In my work, I never really think about those categories; the only criteria that guides my selection is whether I like the project or not. If I do [like it], I will start working on it, no matter whether it’s a made-for-television movie or a feature film. I also sense a widespread prejudice against television movies today. Many audiences believe that a film only deserves that classification if it hits the silver screen, and if it’s distributed through any other channel it’s not a film. By that logic, even Kieślowski’s Dekalog (1989–90) wouldn’t count as a film series. This method of categorization is really problematic. So, in this regard, I treat all my projects equally; I do not exert any more effort on films made for theatrical release. I also don’t think that films are, by default, more sophisticated than television shows. There are as many lousy films as really well-made television shows out there. I’m just shooting what I like, on subject matters that I choose to talk about. I do not make my choices based on these categories.
Wang:	The scale of investment and the distribution channel also affect certain aspects of a film. Some scholars (Yu Chen, 2011) conducted research to compare the audio-visual language of web series and web films with traditional television shows and films made for theatrical release, and they discovered differences in the number of close-up shots, the framing techniques and the rhythm of the editing, among other aspects. They consider the distribution channel to be the main cause of these differences. Have you thought about this?
Qiao:	Of course. What I just said relates to my modus operandi: if I’m interested in a project or if I feel like I have something to say about it, I won’t have a bias towards any form in particular. However, when it comes to production methods and techniques, certainly there are differences between big screen and small screen productions. This is something that took a while for me to realize. When I was studying at the Beijing Film Academy, I was trained exclusively in film, so in terms of pre-production, I have always worked in a more filmic tradition. When I first started working on television movies, my instructors at the television movie channels often told me that the pace of my works was too slow. Later, when My Own Private Deutschland (我自己的德意志/Wo zi ji de de yi zhi, 2006) travelled to Tokyo for a film festival, one of the guest from CCTV6 went to the screening and realized that ‘the pace is actually not too slow’. This led me to consider the differences between big screen and small screen productions, especially in terms of editing and framing. Furthermore, depending on whether it’s a commercial film for a mass audience or an auteur film, the techniques are also different.
Wang:	The reason I ask these questions is because I noticed many long shots in Crested Ibis. The camera remains approximately at human eye level, with a limited range of movement, almost throughout the entire film. Did you choose this style of cinematography because the film was intended for film festival distribution?
Qiao:	No, that wasn’t really the reason.The film was shot in north-west China, and the natural landscape and culture of the region left subtle imprints on me. This is evident in the fact that the film opens with a sequence showcasing the Wuding River, a tributary of the Yellow River. When I first saw the river during my visit, the water was as still as mud and I could barely see it moving. In the north-west, life is also very slow-paced. When I was filming there, I found myself slowing down too, which explains the slow camera movement. Meanwhile, I took a lot of extreme long shots because I wanted to tell this complex story from an objective, and dispassionate perspective. Since everyone has a lot to say about pollution, and every subject in the film has their own opinion on this issue, I did not want the audience to sense my own attitude towards it, nor did I want to show which side I lean towards as a director. [I wanted] to present the narrative as objectively as possible, and the kinds of still, eye-level shots I used are suitable for objective narration. I consciously avoided using more extreme camera angles and framing, and I tried my best to reduce the camera movement to the point of it being almost unnoticeable. I made many attempts to develop this effect. To sum it up, my goal was to achieve a synthesis between style and narrative, which is not to say that style should be determined by content, or vice versa. To make an analogy, we should use a teacup to drink tea, not a coffee mug; only when content and form are fully integrated can we begin to speak of culture.
Wang:	Did you conceive of the cinematography during your site visits? Or did you already have some ideas in mind when working on the script?
Qiao:	It was after the site visits that the ideas gradually became clear to me. I forgot to mention another factor, which is location. For instance, for the scenes in the house cave (yaodong) there were very few angles to choose from. There was only one entrance, and all the other sides were walls. It was also extremely narrow. Since I decided to shoot the scene on site, the layout of the house cave pretty much determined the framing.
Wang:	Which, I guess, also influenced your turn towards long shots in other scenes in the film, for stylistic consistency.
Qiao:	That’s right. There’s another factor too, which relates to the fact that I work on television shows more often than films. For television shows, there are usually more limitations on production time, available locations and budget. To be able to do a good job in light of these limitations requires a great deal of imagination and creativity from the director. My experience in both television shows and made-for-television movies has helped me to develop my creative approach, which is to turn all the negative factors of a constrained environment into positive factors. I once worked on a television movie titled Naked River (贞贞/Zhen zhen, 2002), which is about the Comfort Women (sexual slavery in the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII). The original script included a battle scene between a gang of bandits and a small team of Japanese troops. Considering our limited budget and production skills, it was impossible to shoot a convincing battle. So, I came up with an idea to film the scene from the point of view of a kid. The kid was supposed to be the watchman that day but he had neglected his duty, and by the time he noticed that the Japanese troops were invading, it was too late. He is shot on his way to warning the bandits. and when he finally gets up all he can see is a sea of smoke rising from the Japanese army’s blockhouse in the distance. Surrounded by gunfire coming from all directions, he can only witness the battle from afar, and the only thing he can see in the foreground is the army boots of the Japanese troops. In this way, I was able to present the scene in an indirect way by adding gunfire post-production to signify the battle. I took a shortcut and avoided directly depicting the battle scene, which would have turned out horribly. I had come across many such technically challenging situations in my earlier work. And it was the same case for Crested Ibis, which is a moderate film with a budget of less than 4 million CNY (about 58 million USD). In order to shoot a high-quality work under such limited conditions, it is imperative to find ways of turning limitations into style.
Wang:	Did you also decide to shoot the film in black and white during the site visits?

Qiao:	Before Crested Ibis, I would immediately think of Chen Kaige (陈凯歌)’s Yellow Earth (黄土地/Huang tu di, 1984) whenever someone mentioned the Loess Plateau. It’s an extremely stylized work and an impeccable portrait of the Loess Plateau. During my site visits, I thought, ‘Clearly there is no way for me to avoid the conventions set by Yellow Earth, but neither do I want to simply reiterate what’s been done, so I must find my own style in cinematography.’ Then I realized it would be quite fitting to shoot the film in black and white, because the removal of all colour expressions would set the film in a cooler tone. Later, I discovered that the black-and-white effect also gave many scenes a smoggy look, which suited the theme of environmental pollution. After I made the decision to use black and white, I made many adjustments to the actors’ costumes and props, and in terms of cinematography, the style of American photographer Ansel Easton Adams was definitely a point of reference. Accordingly, I also made many lighting adjustments during post-production.
Wang:	Each of your older works, from Flying (飞/Fei, 2006) to Ex-Wife (前妻/ Qian qi, 2009) to Keelung (基隆/Ji long, 2014), is quite different from Crested Ibis in terms of subject matter and style. You don’t seem to have a distinct, overarching style as an auteur. In those earlier works, did the subject matter and environment affect your directorial decisions?
Qiao:	Taking Keelung as an example, at the beginning, I wanted to write a story about a fisherman from the mainland who was not allowed to set foot on Taiwanese soil when he reached the shore. But then, I became more interested in what he would do if he did [set foot on Taiwanese soil], and so I sent him ashore. For those who have been on a ship before, the feeling as though the land is moving when you go ashore after a long journey will be familiar. So, I took a rather extreme approach: when I was shooting on the ship, I used a Steadicam to keep the camera still, whereas when I was shooting on land, I let the camera move, creating this shaky visual effect that was intended as an external manifestation of the fisherman’s inner feelings after he set foot on land. As to your question about auteur style, I don’t think a filmmaker should consciously develop a style, because the search itself would engulf him/her and transform his/her style into something conventional. If what you’re shooting is always something you really want to convey, the audience will eventually recognize the overarching style of your work. I didn’t realize this until I was interviewed by Contemporary Cinema (Xiang Li, 2008). The interviewer told me that he had realized that the central theme of my work is loneliness. Later, I thought about it and he was right. From a comfort woman who returns to the village where she used to live, only to find herself excluded (Naked River); to a fisherman who finally goes ashore and encounters a Taiwanese society that is utterly unfamiliar to him (Keelung); to a Chinese kid who goes to Germany to study (My Own Private Deutschland); to a musician who has been sent to the countryside (Blooming Sun [太阳开花/Tai yang kai hua, 2012]); to a farmer who is being ostracized for his dream of building a plane (Flying)… They’re all about loneliness.
Wang:	And so is Crested Ibis. A lonely reporter.
Qiao:	(Laughs) You’re right. [My films are] always about a person entering a relatively unfamiliar environment. Many of my television shows also deal with this theme.
Wang:	You were also involved in screenwriting for Crested Ibis, right? How does the final script compare with the original novel?
Qiao:	There were a lot of changes. I would say I only took some material from the original. But I wanted to say something about the problems of pollution and environmental protection. In the beginning, I wanted to make a film that told a story similar to that of Erin Brockovich (2000). But as I dug deeper, I realized that I wasn’t really interested in a story about a reporter’s investigation. The problem of pollution has its own contradictions, which I wrote about in my ‘Director’s Notes’ reproduced below: existence and development form a mutually contradictory duo. In order to develop, one has to make changes to what exists; every country in the world has been through such a process, and China is at this stage now. For instance, Tibet may still boast natural wonders, but the living conditions of Tibetans are quite poor, and in order to improve these conditions, the region must give way to commercial development, which will very likely affect its natural environment, and even the spirit of its people. This is a problem that has long remained unsolved. But Crested Ibis does not offer a solution; instead, it presents perspectives from all sides. The film also conveys some of my personal opinions about the environment; for instance, when the female protagonist trying to cease the quarrel between her old classmates, she says, ‘The air is already like this, there is no need to be unhappy for the disease,’ (Timecode: 96’17”-25”) that is me s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Translation
• Preface
• 1 Turing Limitations into Style: An Interview with Qiao Liang, Director of Crested Ibis
• 2 The ‘Regional Flavours’ of Hong Kong Cinema in the Post-Integration Era
• 3Changes in Contemporary Chinese Film Aesthetics
• 4 A Cultural Study of Stardom in 1920s China
• 5 Ways of Seeing and Physical Governance:On the Reconstruction of Reception Aesthetics by Virtual Reality Technology
• 6 Moxi:A Study of Narrative Structures in Early Chinese Cinema
• 7 Cinematic Innovation: Networked Living in Sci-Fi Film Narratives
• 8 A Panel Discussion on Several Key Problems Facing the Development of Art Theory as an Academic Discipline in China
• 9 The Modified and the Excluded:On the Logic of Bodily Transformation in Contemporary Urban Film
• 10 Styling the Supernatural: Creative Character Design in Chinese Supernatural Film
• Notes on Contributors
• Advisory and Editorial Board
• Notes on Intellect China Library Series