I have a dream of filming the Chinese sexual revolution
At any time, the Chinese have always loved movies in history. I remember even today that the first film to be ripped me a few tears in my childhood was the 1884 Chinese film , the sea battle at the end where the hero dies by darken his boat on the Japanese.
And the early 1980s , the first French film I've seen, as millions of Chinese at the time, was Le Vieux Fusil , another story film. The twenty-first century, when the triumph trade and globalization , the Chinese continue to rush in theaters , watching historical films.
PHENOMENAL SUCCESS IN CHINESE BOX OFFICE
Recently, I saw , in a short time , I do not know how many movies in history , such as Di Renjie , Tsui Hark , Three Kingdoms, John Woo , Back to 1942 , Feng Xiaogang , etc. . All crowned with a phenomenal success the Chinese box office, and each recipe reaching several hundred million yuan.
Hello historical films , hello rebirth of Chinese cinema . This situation is all the more surprising today that the rooms as can be seen in France no longer exist on this vast continent. They disappeared , or rather undergone a radical transformation : there is more than cinematographic cities, huge multiplexes, which are part of large shopping centers.
Spectators go there after shopping in supermarkets and stores, which are located in the same building, or before consuming a beverage in a Starbucks, or eating a hamburger in one of the many fast foods that plague the same floor as the screening rooms . Cinema became pure distraction. One wonders what the spectators come to enjoy , what they seek distraction in movies history .
And , surprising as it may seem, the current Chinese public consists only of young people between 18 and 35 years. The other day I invited a friend to see a French film ( which the ticket was too expensive, if not more, in France ) , in Chengdu , the city where I spend most of my time , since three years . My friend for almost 70 years and I only ten years younger.
When we entered the room, we were almost embarrassed to find ourselves in the midst of this crowd if child : we look strange , not to say a little perverse .
Then , during the projection , watching these young Chinese who spoke them , boxes of popcorn and Coke cans in hand, answering the phones or loud, I kept asking myself what attracted them in movies history : their enthusiasm for the stars of Hong Kong ? Their love of kung fu ? Their patriotic feelings ? The attractive young Chinese for this category of films remains a mystery to me whole .
NOT APPROVED BY CENSORSHIP
But who could resist the appeal of such an audience? Anyway , not me, who, in the past, tried my hand several times this kind of exercise . Among my five previous films, all produced by France, three can be considered historical films, including two with the backdrop of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (China, my pain, and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress ) , the organizers Festival Pessac were kind of project .
Incidentally , although these two films that will be seen in Pessac have never been shown in a Chinese room , in the absence of a favorable opinion of censorship , they still achieved a feat on the market pirated DVDs , since they probably surpassed every one million copies sold , enough to dream, secretly , they contain a part, as tiny as it is, of historical truth to me . Ah ! Chinese piracy by unauthorized censorship films, I love you. You are a true form of cultural democracy , if not true justice .
History with a capital H , that is to say, the fate of a country, a people, or a family, an individual , has always fascinated me . For me, the best Chinese book to have existed - what a miracle ! - Is always the masterpiece of Sima Qian, Shiji aptly titled , "History" (v. 145 BC J.-C.-v. 86 BC . . .)
Moreover, among the first movies I saw when I arrived in France , it is one that has me so upset that I decided to change direction and abandon my studies of history art director to become : it's Death in Venice , I saw the French Cinematheque, a history movie, definitely .
PROPAGANDA TOOL
Until then, I had seen that film - especially historical films - was either a propaganda tool in the communist country, a commercial tool in the capitalist countries , and I knew he could be a work artistic, as well as those of Leonardo da Vinci, Goya and Manet ... that sit on top of the art and the greatest mysteries of the human being.
That day , out of the Cinémathèque , I was convinced - and I still am today - no artistic expression was a better medium than film, to talk about the story.
My wildest dream is to present a day, a film adaptation of the Chinese novel Brothers , writer Yu Hua, one of the best of his generation, which tells the story of the sexual liberation of the Chinese past forty years. Yu Hua told me in rights and for three years I have worked in an adaptation . I've already written five versions .
Every six months, I present a new censorship that takes into account his previous remarks. For now, the fifth version , all the scenes are so modified that it keeps the novel character names , is very close to getting the agreement of the Film Bureau of the city of Beijing to be submitted reading the censorship bureau of national cinema .
Maybe he will still three or four versions to get an agreement. This is how , in China , another historical film , an adaptation of La Plaine white deer eventually see the day there a few months ago .
In the meantime, I will content myself with making a politically correct film about the Second World War. A real historical film. I miss the camera too . Which is difficult in the cinema is to choose to do a commercial film that appeals to the greatest number of spectators, or make a movie that , in my case , be accepted by the censors . I hope to learn from other directors in the world, including my countrymen. That's what I expect from Pessac Festival .
How lucky for some artists , for whom history merges with fiction. For me , one of the peaks of contemporary literature is Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino . A marvel in which a Marco Polo tells cities seen or imagined by him. And if one day someone would create a cinematographic work of this size , which would in Pessac ? Am I dreaming?
Dai Sijie ( filmmaker and novelist )
Dai Sijie chairs the jury fiction
24th International Festival of History Pessac (Gironde) film. Held from November 18 to 25 , it is dedicated to "India and China , the giants of Asia" and a hundred films will be screened , including twenty- five in preview.
Dai Sijie filmmaker and novelist , author of " Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress " (Gallimard, 2000).
He chairs the fiction jury of the 24th International Festival of History Pessac (Gironde) film held from November 18 to 25 .
This festival is dedicated to "India and China, the giants of Asia " a hundred films will be screened , including twenty- five in preview.
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