1905 movie network feature We sat in the interview room waiting for Li Shaohong, her last interview of the day. After the interview with the previous media, she temporarily left to take some pictures in the hallway of the hotel.
During this short period of time, the staff looked at the interview outline and exclaimed with emotion:"Why are the questions of each family similar, all of them are asking, why didn’t you make a movie for more than ten years, why did you choose Bai Baihe, and why did you choose this novel?"
"Okay, then let’s not ask these questions, let’s talk about something else." We said.
But what should we talk about without asking these questions?
After all, the name Li Shaohong is so close and so far away to the film media. She is always seen in various activities of the Directors Association; every few years, she will start a new TV series; or behind some star names, she actually has her.
After 12 years, he directed a movie again
But she is farther from the media than her classmates Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang. It seems that the three words "do not explain" have become a word etched in the hearts of the most famous graduates of the film school.
We also want to know why the most famous female director of the fifth generation, when she remade her film 12 years later, focused on casinos and gambling.
1
Yes, Li Shaohong has not made a movie for 12 years. Compared with her movie works, those TV dramas that have won stars are more recognized in the hearts of audiences.
Her TV series are far from this era – with "Orange is Red" a story of the Republic of China; "Daming Palace Ci" is about Wu Zetian; "Dream of Red Mansions" is based on classical novels.
But the movie is different. From her debut, she has turned her attention to the contemporary. Later, this set of eyes focused on women.
She was not satisfied with Murder of the Silver Snake.
Back then, the film academy taught French author films, and they spurned Hollywood very much. As a result, after arriving at the Beijing Film Factory, Li Shaohong caught up with the commercial film trend in 1987, and his debut novel was completely different from that of his classmates.
"The factory asked me to make such a film, and I even cried my nose. I felt like I was so miserable. Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige were all filmed. How could my life be so bad, and I even sold such a commercial film. A broken snake! I felt really frustrated at the time."
Class leader Tian Zhuangzhuang advised her: "You can shoot, at least you can get a chance to prove that you can do it, and you can shoot what you want when you get approval."
Li Shaohong’s debut novel "Murder of the Silver Snake"
The last "Broken Snake", in an era when a movie sold less than 100 copies, sold more than 200 copies at once, becoming the highest-grossing movie of the year.
Li Shaohong also got the opportunity to make the movie he wanted to make.
Adapted from the novel "A Pre-publicized Murder" by Marquez. It tells the story of the mountain village girl Shouzhen. I thought that from this movie Li Shaohong as the director, the creative consciousness had sprouted.
"Scarlet Morning"
But she herself felt that it was the beginning of her consciousness.
This is because Li Shaohong thinks that the identity of a female director is not new. As a soldier at the age of 14, Li Shaohong said that he forgot all the things of girls. "Beauty, color, I don’t pay attention to these." This is especially true when filming, and everywhere you go is a black vest. A pair of pants is worn out, and Li Shaohong’s habit is to keep it for filming.
Back then, there were more than 20 female directors at the Beijing Film Factory. Li Shaohong went abroad to participate in the film festival, and one of the most annoying questions was how many female directors there were in China. In her opinion, the professional men and women are the same, and it is not because they are women that they can work less and get high marks.
But then she found that what was missing was a conscious awareness, a failure to realize that gender issues were a problem. Compared with male directors, women’s way of looking at society, storytelling methods, and experience of human nature may be completely different.
Looking back at the films before "Pink", Li Shaohong felt that she relied on the impulse of art. "Just like a person’s first love, it is completely the effect of impulse hormones." But when she made "Pink", she realized how important female consciousness is to her creation. Instead of rejecting it, it is better to consciously use it as an advantage to express it consciously.
When Li Shaohong made "Red Pink", he began to have a female consciousness about creation
This idea arose after the crew arrived in Suzhou. Less than 10 days before filming began, Li Shaohong suddenly felt that the script that had been changed seven or eight times was not the same as when she first read the novel. She decided to write the script again. Before the entire film crew arrived in Suzhou, they were locked in the room alone and changed it again without eating or sleeping.
She remembered what touched her when she first read the novel: The story of "Pink" is not about the transformation of prostitutes after 1949, but the different choices of two women in that era in the great changes of the times. Their occupations are the same, but their fates are completely changed by their personalities.
Screenshot of the movie "Pink"
Li Shaohong changed the script back to its original intention. She suddenly felt enlightened: "I suddenly realized that the most important thing I should keep is what I saw in the first place. It is the most important thing that I should write these two characters with that feminine feeling. So I think it is thanks to the enlightenment before."
Her next few films: almost all of them are looking at contemporary women. Using these films as road signs, it seems inevitable that Li Shaohong will stop at this stop.
2
At the premiere of "Ma Pavilion is a City," Li Shaohong said that Yan Geling’s novels are so popular that every time there is a story he wants to shoot, he finds that it has been snatched away by male directors. Opportunities for cooperation have never been found.
Li Shaohong had been waiting for this opportunity for many years. While filming "A Dream of Red Mansions", Yan Geling and Yang Lan came to visit the class with two bags of books. Li Shaohong was very touched and said to Yan Geling, "I thought one of them was new."
The great writer said that they were all published in the past.
Li Shaohong said: "Then I have basically read all these books of yours, and some people have photographed them. So I especially want to have a subject that no one has photographed. Do you think there is one that is the most suitable for our cooperation?"
At this time, Yan Geling told Li Shaohong that she had another novel she was writing. Half a year later, Li Shaohong became the first reader of the novel called "Mom Pavilion is a City".
"When I read the novel, I felt as if I had been waiting for such a story for so many years. Although casino life is far away from me and I am blind to gambling, I think the core of the story is about’gambling ‘. Gambling doesn’t just happen on the gambling table, life is a gamble. You can bet on the future, destiny, or emotions."
When he saw the novel, Mr. Li said, he felt as if he had been waiting for a story like this for 10 years. "I really want to make more movies. Movies are still the passion of my life. Movies need to have a good story, a good subject matter. It’s not easy to wait."
But we are really curious, Li Shaohong, who is used to filming female emotions, will shoot a gambling story in a casino when she enters her 60s?
If gambling is used as a metaphor, then every film of the director can be equated with this metaphor in his creative career. Li Shaohong said that every time he makes a movie, he puts his whole heart into it and fights it.
"Because you have to go back to zero every time, you have to start every time, and then every time you have to encounter something challenging, you have to face it, because you are a person who has to change from imagination to reality, so you will have to pay a lot of price to build your kingdom, your imagined world. So I think it has a certain characteristic of taking a gamble with yourself."
"Murder of the Silver Snake" bet on creative autonomy; "Pink" bet on the Berlin Silver Bear; "Ci Daming Palace" and "Orange Red" bet on higher national awareness.
Why are you tempted when you are in middle age and give it a try again?
Probably when Li Shaohong is put back into the director’s coordinate system for review, he will still be standing in the fifth generation team full of scrutiny of the times. What surfaced in "Ma Ge is a City" was an emotional story; undercurrents surged, about 40 years ago, the changes of a country and economic system.
3
The script had been written for two years. As the original author, Yan Geling participated in the adaptation of the script and kept her best character feelings in the adaptation.
Original author Yan Geling (middle)
The screenwriter of "Women’s Forty", Chen Wenqiang, helped Li Shaohong grasp the cultural atmosphere of Hong Kong and Macao, rather than making "Ma Ge is a City" a mainland-style Hong Kong and Macao film.
Li Shaohong invited reeds again.
The first time they talked, they were rejected. Reed said, "How can I write about this woman?" When they met again, Reed decided to participate when he heard the whole story. He felt that "Mom Pavilion is a City" was the coolest one in all of Yan Geling’s novels.
Reed helped Li Shaohong broaden the context of the film era. He focused his energy on Wu Gang’s role of Kevin Duan, explaining why there are so many such people in this city, and what kind of experience can make Kevin Duan become such a person. Give the film a very solid foundation for the changes of the old era.
The movie is from 1999 to 2014. The characters follow the course of the times to start a business and work hard. Li Shaohong projects a certain era in the three men who surround the heroine Mei Xiaoou. Lu Jintong is a person who got rich early, but can’t control his destiny; Duan Kevin is the process of the last glory and decline of a generation of entrepreneurs; Shi Qilan is a person who follows the ups and downs of the times.
Mei Xiaoou was one of the reasons she wanted to make the film. After reading the novel, the girl’s face was blurred in Li Shaohong’s mind, but she began to imagine what this girl with characteristics should look like.
Li Shaohong thought of Bai Baihe, a very dramatic face that can make people with stories. Li Shaohong said that Bai Baihe has a lot of personality and a sense of independent existence. These are the conditions she thinks a good actor must have: "I will think she is an actor to work with. And I think she will create a different character."
From receiving the script to setting the role, Li Shaohong observed Bai Baihe for one year. During that year, she first watched all of Bai Baihe’s films, and then went to visit Bai Baihe’s classes. During this year, Bai Baihe appeared in two or three plays, and Li Shaohong went to visit classes in each play. Not to chat, nor to talk about character relationships, but to let her know Bai Baihe and let Bai Baihe know her. "Understanding each other is as important as knowing the character she is going to play."
A movie with a length of 2 hours and as many as 147 scenes will collapse if the heroine in each scene is not selected properly.
The emotional experience you have is not the first love, but the emotion between mature men and women, which requires experience to achieve. In Li Shaohong’s opinion, Bai Baihe is a particularly suitable candidate.
In addition, Li Shaohong felt that Bai Baihe "has reached a time when he can cross a hurdle in his acting skills, and such an opportunity is rare."
4
Few directors would consider the choice of actors from this perspective, but Li Shaohong would. One of the reasons should be that she and her partner Li Xiaowan can be said to be the first generation of actors.
Li Shaohong treated actors with family-like care and attention. He dug out Zhou Xun and told her about Vivien Li. He felt that Zhou Xun was like her and would definitely follow her path. But he was worried that after Zhou Xun entered the character, he would not be able to get out.
Zhou Xun starred in "Daming Palace Ci" directed by Li Shaohong
Shooting "Daming Palace Ci", Li Shaohong helped Zhou Xun liberate his nature; in "Orange Red", he consciously turned her from a girl to a girl, from Huadan to Tsing Yi.
Hoping that Zhou Xun could express her soul’s feelings, Li Shaohong filmed "Baby in Love". As a result, Zhou Xun was unable to extricate himself, which affected her mood for a year. Li Shaohong helped her take it and changed the environment for a while.
Zhou Xun once again starred in Li Shaohong’s "Baby in Love"
Chen Kun, who signed with Li Shaohong, also hopes to cross a threshold.
In Li Shaohong’s opinion, stepping over might help him open up a larger field of performance. And this threshold is the type of idol that Chen Kun has deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Li Shaohong shot and let Chen Kun play the villain, the idea is to let the audience feel the potential of his various performances.
Chen Kun makes a bold breakthrough in "The Door"
When filming "The Door," Chen Kun said that Li Shaohong was correcting some of his habitual performances. For some dissatisfaction, Li Shaohong would directly say: "Fake, Chen Kun, don’t come." In addition to asking for real feelings at the beginning, but also to move up. After filming "The Door," Chen Kun put it down. Li Shaohong said that after Chen Kun opened the door, he became more comfortable and began to be able to control various characters.
From directing, to founding companies, and signing artists, Li Shaohong has personally experienced every development intersection of film since the reform and opening up.
In 1987, she became an outlier among the fifth generation of directors, with her debut film, Murder of the Silver Snake, which sold 200 copies.
After filming the film, she suddenly found that it was no longer the studio that sold copies, but she had become the one who carried the film one province at a time. The final box office reached 20 million, and the distribution model set more than 20 years ago has not changed greatly.
The movie "Pink."
In the same year, with the reform of the film industry mechanism, Li Shaohong and Li Xiaowan established Rongxinda Film and Television. When Zhou Xun was signed, the agency contract was the first for an actor in the country. Unsure how to sign and write the contract, Li Shaohong and Li Xiaowan puzzled for a month or two.
Looking back at every step he took, Li Shaohong sighed: "Anyway, I thought I was very unlucky at first, as if there was a hurdle when something came to me. In fact, history is like this, and now that I think about it, I actually feel very lucky."
Beginning in 2011, Li Shaohong became the president of the China Film Directors Association and was re-elected for another term in 2015. In her hands, the recognition selection of the China Film Directors Association has become annual, with a preliminary jury and a final jury. Sixth-generation directors and her old classmates and seniors have served as chairpeople of the two jury committees each year.
Li Shaohong serves as the president of the China Film Directors Association
The position of president of the China Film Directors Association has given Li Shaohong a more official role as a director and company manager. She said that she is not a social type, she is not good at words, and everything she wants to say is in her movies. But at a director’s association event later, Chen Kaige told her that I didn’t find you in school with such strong organizational skills.
Li Shaohong replied to her old classmate: "Director, I think of every event as a movie, and it seems that I am bold."
In 2015, the Directors Association started the "Green Onion Project" again, hoping to support young directors. This year, director Li Shaohong has not made a movie for 8 years. The Green Onion Project has released many films by young directors this year. When seeing these newcomers, I wonder if Li Shaohong will be worried about the decline of his creativity?
Li Shaohong helps with the "Green Onion Project"
Li Shaohong did not answer the question directly. She said that for a long time, she went to stand for others and cheer for others. She did not stand on the stage, but in the audience.
"You know what?" she asked us. "It’s an opportunity for you, as an observer, to see other people’s films, and you’ll benefit a lot. If you don’t train young directors, you won’t know what they’re thinking, what their state is like. So I’m actually grateful for these experiences. It didn’t actually pull us apart, it brought us closer."
She used riding a bicycle as a metaphor. She had been riding a bicycle since she was a child, and she might not have ridden it for 10 or 20 years. However, once the bicycle was in her hands, she might still ride it once she got up.
"Movies are still an instinct of mine," Li Shaohong said.
