Chen Yingxiong's acting experience

I was born in Vietnam and studied drama and movies in France. 1994, he released his first film, The Taste of Green Papaya, which made Chen Yingxiong famous, and won the Golden Camera Award at Cannes Film Festival and Caesar's Best Foreign Language Film Award, thus making Chen Yingxiong a leading figure in Vietnamese new films. Later, he won the Venice Golden Lion Award with "Tricycle Driver" and ushered in the peak of his career. But in recent years, the level of creation has gradually declined.

Chen Yingxiong, born in Vietnam, 1962, with thick eyebrows and smooth outline, is rare in Vietnam. Born in Vietnam,/kloc-immigrated to France at the age of 0/4 and settled in Paris. Originally studying philosophy in France, it is said that I accidentally saw a film made by a Vietnamese director and moved him, then decided to switch to film. Therefore, Chen Yingxiong entered the famous Louis Lumiere College, which specializes in training cinematographers, and studied photography technology, because he felt that directors could not learn it, and the ability of scene scheduling should be learned from watching movies.

1988, Chen Yingxiong filmed the short film Nanxiong's Wife. 199 1 The short film "Wang Fushi" attracted the attention of the film industry and won the jury prize of 1992 Lille International Film Festival. 1993, his feature film debut "The Taste of Green Papaya" premiered at Cannes Film Festival, France, and won the "Golden Camera" award for the best foreign language film at Caesar Film Festival; 1993 Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was shot in a studio in France, and all the funds came from France. A young girl's oriental love fairy tale is related to Chen Yingxiong's childhood memory. Looking back on his past life, he reveals the introverted and long-lasting oriental style.

Chen Yingxiong's French background means that his attitude towards Vietnam War is both enthusiastic and detached. This kind of poetry born of contradiction is vividly shown in The Taste of Green Papaya. Chen Yingxiong, who is in the west, examines oriental culture with oriental complex. 1995 Tricycle Driver is another blockbuster and won the Golden Lion Award at Venice Film Festival. Starting from the plight of urban youth, this paper describes some life images of Vietnam at present. Chen Yingxiong returned to Vietnam for the first time after many years in France. The amazing changes in Vietnamese cities have greatly influenced him. He tried to interpret the face of the city with a camera and touch the helplessness of life in the face of rapid changes in the times. Movies are mostly composed of street scenes, which show a cultural writing about violence, sex and madness. From time to time, shocking colors, frantic hand-held photography and indifferent voyeurism all have the shadow of European art films. In 2000, his film "The Taste of Summer" competed for the Oscar for best foreign language film. Up to now, Chen Yingxiong's works are few, but in these three films, he has formed his own unique film style. In 2007, the long-lost Chen Yingxiong gathered the efforts of filmmakers from many countries, and invited popular male stars such as josh hartnett, Kimura Takuya and Shawn Yue to shoot the new work Walking with the Rain. Gabriel, a film theorist, once divided the formation of third world films into three stages in his film critical theory towards the third world. The first stage is imitation, unconditionally imitating Hollywood, and the second stage is reminiscence, and local movies appear. The content of the film presents colonial history and memory, and the form and style begin to break away from Hollywood. However, it is easy to indulge in nostalgic sad atmosphere and self-deprecating creative psychology, which makes the third world fall into the predicament of being out of touch with the international real society and isolated from the world. The third stage is the battle stage, and the film becomes a tool of liberation, showing the struggle faced by the people of the third world. This film will reflect on the past. Let's review Chen Yingxiong's creative path, and we can clearly find the growth path of Chen Yingxiong's film creation.

At first, Chen Yingxiong received a comprehensive film art education in France. French director Bridson, American director john ford, German director Maunau, Japanese directors Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi and Kurosawa all had great influence on him. Perhaps, this learning period can be classified as imitation stage.

The second stage begins with The Taste of Green Papaya, which is the first feature film in Chen Yingxiong to enter the world film industry. In the aesthetic field, the film poetically tells the story of the growth of the girl Mei. Mei is very young, wearing cloth and trousers, and hesitates to enter a deep house compound. Xiaomei is here to be a maid. In the corner of the courtyard, the sun poured down like running water. Papaya is green and green. After picking, there is milky white pulp, which slowly drips into the arms of green leaves in the form of too thick to melt. She combed her hair into a bundle and walked under the tree in the dim morning light. Seeing a little ant under the tree, she tilted her head and looked at it, but she was fascinated. More often, she is working, making a fire, washing vegetables, washing clothes and cleaning the floor ... all the hard work is only in a few hairs stuck on her face. With the endless chirping of frogs and cicadas, the days passed leisurely. Finally, one day, a person discovered her tender youth and quiet beauty. Just like papaya, which looks very simple, after being cut, it is actually a gourd ladle full of crystal clear seeds, shining like pearls.

This film involves memories of Chen Yingxiong's childhood, part of which is a review of his past life. Soft and clear pictures, crystal clear and sometimes humorous music, too delicate, buried the suffering, calmed the passion, everything is too beautiful, and has nothing to do with reality. The story took place in Vietnam during the French rule in the 1950s. At that time, Vietnam was still struggling to get rid of French colonial rule, but there was no such background in the film, except for the occasional roar of planes and the occasional gossip of martial law at night. In the film, time is compressed and stagnated in a closed space, only an alley and two quiet deep houses are intercepted, a world of fantasy and memory. Obviously, this film, which was shot in a French studio, is not actually about Vietnam in reality, but a poetic reality purified by art, which originated from Chen Yingxiong's deep memory of this subtropical home of Vietnam, and endowed him with a cautious and rich oriental aesthetic feeling with keen artistic perception and true feelings of local culture. While deeply attracting western eyes, it created a warm spiritual home left in his heart, the purest and truest. Of course, it is obvious that this film, which has satisfied other people's gaze desire and won recognition and recognition from other countries, is undoubtedly a film branded with colonial culture. However, letting the world look to Vietnam is, after all, the basic prerequisite for Vietnam to participate in world discourse.

Perhaps surprisingly, the style of Chen Yingxiong's second film "Tricycle Driver" suddenly changed, and it seems to be on the opposite side, sharp and sharp, contrary to the oriental style of "The Taste of Green Papaya". Taking the experience of an ordinary rickshaw driver as a clue, Chen Yingxiong showed the social picture of Vietnam in a truly shocking way. This time, Chen Yingxiong walked out of the studio and took the camera to Vietnam. After all, Vietnam in postwar reality is no longer the delicate and traditional Vietnam conceived by Chen Yingxiong in the taste of green papaya. More importantly, Chen Yingxiong's courage of introspection and the resulting strength show a kind of cultural consciousness and resistance.

Facing the more real existence, Chen Yingxiong focused on the living conditions of the bottom in Vietnam in "Tricycle Driver". It was not until the numb tricycle driver and his car came face to face in the stinking street that the other side of poverty in Vietnam really began to show. The only thing similar to "The Taste of Green Papaya" is that the tropical life scenes are also refined and elegant, so green and moving, and the soothing rhythm is so quiet and serene. However, restlessness has long been brewing vaguely, because the next juxtaposition is actually full of bloody violence and sin. Even, the continuation of this poetry has increasingly set off the indifference of reality. Under the beautiful tropical plants, the same green money is transferred from one person's hand to another again and again, and those dirty and wrinkled papers affect people's fate. A chaotic street scene, a poor country, nothing more. Such a touching contrast.

Chen Yingxiong's third film is The Taste of Summer, which is similar in style to The Smell of Green Papaya, more elegant and fresh. It is said that the story in "Tricycle Driver" originated from the conversation between two Vietnamese old ladies. They went through two Vietnam wars, but when they poured out their past pains, they showed amazing calmness and serenity. It was this calm that touched Chen Yingxiong and made him express all kinds of ups and downs in his life in a relaxed and calm way. This method was continued in the next "Taste of Summer".

The story still takes place in contemporary Vietnam, which is different from the naked poverty of contemporary Vietnam in The Tricycle Driver. Based on the ups and downs of the three sisters' lives, Smell of Summer directly shows people's mental confusion after material prosperity and the Vietnam problem in the transition from tradition to modernity. The film begins with the mother's anniversary sacrifice and ends with the father's anniversary sacrifice. Around the theme of "loyalty", it is unremarkable and unassuming to travel through various events experienced by a typical Vietnamese family in a summer. Intentionally or unintentionally, Chen Yingxiong aimed the camera at the secret side of the family, and deviant ethical traditions and moral decay: bigamy, affair and incest, plus temptation, misunderstanding and doubt, described loyalty, trust, betrayal and doubt in detail, thus revealing the situation and taste of life in destruction and reconstruction. In the hot and humid air, nothing but trivial fragments of life are presented, but there is great tension hidden behind this windless and waveless surface. Intimacy, calmness and joy hide all kinds of disturbing threats, and seemingly harmonious and happy families also hide many skeletons in their closet. All desires and entanglements are slowly presented in that long time and space, and turned into exquisite and quiet pictures in the summer sunshine projected through the cracks in the leaves. Of course, this is actually Vietnam, which belongs to the contemporary Vietnam that Chen Yingxiong understands and worries about in the process of modernization. Chen Yingxiong's film practice, especially how to deal with globalization and localization, modernity and conflict, has become the focus of Chen Yingxiong's attention. 1994, he released his first feature film, The Fragrance of Green Papaya, which tells the growth experience of an ordinary Vietnamese girl. Although it is only a Cinderella-style and Prince Charming-style western fairy tale motif, Chen Yingxiong endowed it with rich oriental colors with keen artistic perception and true feelings for local culture, and woven it into a soft and slender oriental fairy tale. Whether it is a delicate grasp of the girl's mentality, the transmission of traditional oriental civilization and life concept, or even the beautiful and exquisite picture, there is a sense of surprise. This film made Chen Yingxiong famous, and won the Golden Camera Award at Cannes Film Festival and Caesar's Best Foreign Language Film Award.

Quite surprisingly, his second films, The Tricycle Driver and The Scent of Green Papaya, are uncharacteristically gentle and quiet, focusing on the bottom society in Vietnam and exposing the dark and depressing side of life. The cruel violence and blood that filled the screen directly and sharply impacted the retina of the audience, from which emerged a kind of desolation and despair that went deep into the bone marrow. Chen Yingxiong approached the experience of riff-raff in the most sincere way, and made no secret of the rough texture and crazy original sin of life. However, there is still a kind of poetry that continues the previous work and sets off the indifference of reality more and more. This film won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, but it was banned in Vietnam for criticizing social reality. Even when it returned to China to make this film, it went through a lot of lobbying and work to get official permission.

The flavor of summer is close to the fragrance of green papaya, graceful and touching, fresh and elegant. However, warm scenes and violent scenes often coexist in films, according to Chen Yingxiong himself, because "the effect of this treatment can highlight violence more, making it look different from violent scenes in other films, thus touching people's nerves". The story told in the film comes from a conversation between two Vietnamese old women and him. They went through two Vietnam wars, but when they poured out their past pains, they showed amazing calmness and serenity. It was this calm that touched Chen Yingxiong and made him express all kinds of ups and downs in his life in a relaxed and calm way.

The star of this film, Chen Liuyanhe, is also the director's wife. She starred in all Chen Yingxiong's feature films. We can clearly perceive the influence of western culture, especially film art, in his films. The evaluation of his film "Tricycle Driver" by foreign periodicals is like Robert Bresson directing martin scorsese's plays, and the brand of mineral water props in the film is also Evian. However, exploring the bottom of all films will help us to further understand his film form and inner meaning.

Chen Yingxiong once said: "The truly ideal and perfect movie in my mind is a movie that produces meaning and emotion through the structural process of images. The audience was moved by the language of the film, not by the content of the story. " In Chen Yingxiong's iconic camera language, carefully arranged light is used to create a shadow-rich picture, which is a lyrical way to express green leaves, water and sunshine, food, close-up of human body and surrounding environment, and has a strong tropical flavor. The camera slowly and quietly passes by the characters, gently soothing life, and the film has a quiet luster, which relieves the tension and conflict formed by narrative. In particular, his lens application, especially keen on highlighting details, gives people a deep impression. For example, the camera once quietly watched the milky juice of green papaya dripping slowly, and gently cut open the seeds of green papaya. The industrious golden ants under the tree, the chicken skin used for sacrifice showed bright yellow, the unknown cooking with delicious colors, and the ivory carved betel nut palm flower ... amazing and pleasant. Perhaps, does this also reflect the numbness and indifference that I have long been used to? It is because in the visual experience of real life, a pair of eyes are born to see things, not to examine or appreciate them. From a very young age, we have learned and are used to making necessary omissions and only caring about their actual utilitarian value. This is our way of life, thus losing all the liveliness, purity and richness in the life world. However, Chen Yingxiong's films awaken the soul, and let us see all kinds of lovely novelty in the world before us, instead of sleeping under the habit. In fact, this is the return of life in the aesthetic sense, and it is a smiling oriental enlightenment.

Chen Yingxiong used his films to record the Vietnam War in his heart, lived in the film with texture and color, and captured the memory and poetry left in his life, as well as the passionate gaze behind the image. Out of persistent hope for the future, he kept a moderate distance from Vietnam, and his detached attitude contained reminiscence, helplessness, sadness and longing. However, everything is always shrouded in a broader sympathy. In Chen Yingxiong's series of films, a calm and unique oriental philosophy runs through his unique film view. Prelude: seven years of planning

In 1990s, Chen Yingxiong represented Viet Nam in major film festivals around the world. 1993 The first feature film "The Taste of Green Papaya" won the Cannes Film Festival Golden Award, while "The Tricycle Driver" 1995, which owns all Tony Leung Chiu Wai's music albums, won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and "The Taste of Summer" in 2000 competed for the best foreign language film award this year. At that time, Chen Yingxiong made a splash, but after that, he was silent for seven years.

During his seven years in seclusion, many people questioned that Chen Yingxiong had exhausted his talents in Jiang Lang, but they didn't know that he had hatched many explosive plans. Before the filming of Walking with the Rain was finished, the production company announced that Chen Yingxiong would direct the film version of Norwegian Forest. Haruki Murakami's short story has been adapted into a movie four times before, but it is the first time that the novel has been adapted into a movie.

Adaptation: full of sensory stimulation and poetry

I don't need to say more about the great appeal of Murakami's Norwegian Forest in Asia. In the 24 years since the novel went on the market, well-intentioned people have been trying to get the right to adapt the film, but Murakami himself is not optimistic, shutting out all lobbyists: "That's impossible, no one can do it, because that's what I outlined in my mind." After reading the French version of the novel in Paris, Chen Yingxiong immediately had the idea of adaptation. For this novel, he commented: "It is full of powerful and delicate, exciting and elegant chaos, full of sensory stimulation and poetry, and contains many themes for film photography."

In 2004, with the help of the production company, Chen Yingxiong began to contact Murakami. At first, Murakami resolutely refused, on the grounds that the novel was of special significance to him personally, and he didn't think anyone could successfully adapt it. After seeing Chen Yingxiong's film, Murakami appreciated it very much and thought he could at least meet this "Frenchman". In the end, Chen Yingxiong somehow managed to do something that many Japanese directors failed to do, and persuaded Murakami to hand over the adaptation right of Norwegian Forest.