A past event related to Chen Kaige.

Wang Wenyi Anyi

To write a script for Chen Kaige, you must first learn to listen. He is a man with language charm. You must not be confused by his language, so that you can understand him. In his speech, three factors caused conflict and confusion, so you should pay special attention to them. First, rational abstract thinking can go further and further and eventually fall into nothingness; Second, the perceptual concrete scene appears in the form of lens; Third, the expression of Chinese unconsciously seduced him, and sometimes even made him lose his way. However, don't rush to clear the fog of his language. Besides, there's no hurry. You followed him around a detour, and finally you found that this detour turned out to be a bridge and extradited you to the other side.

What interests me about Writing Romance with Chen Kaige is not romance, but Chen Kaige's work style. I have never felt close to "romantic" skin from beginning to end. Sometimes when arguing with Chen Kaige, he would say: This is my business! I choked up and couldn't speak, but I had to admit that what he said was right. Once, he drank some wine and was in a good mood. He said, I want this movie to fill your mood. This makes me think that he is going to give me a gift at most, but he will never think it is mine. We are all extreme egos, which determines that this cooperation is very difficult, but who knows? Perhaps the chance of success is here, because this is at least a common ground. Because it belongs to someone else, it is difficult for me to arouse my enthusiasm, but since I accepted this job, I must face the reality and carry out the revolution to the end. But work is not without fun. I learned a lot from Chen Kaige.

Looking back on those months now, I am really scared. Things get messy, and things will go wrong if you are not careful. There are also many traps and dangers. I often get lost halfway, and then I have to go back to the starting point and start all over again. It all depends on perseverance. Chen Kaige's way of doing things is a bit stupid. Some people don't cry when they see a coffin. In my opinion, some plots can be predicted in advance, and whether they are effective or not, there is no need for practice to test the truth. But he can't. He had to walk once, hit the south wall, and then turn around. For example, the character Jing Yun. He is the last man ruyi must marry, because we have decided ruyi will be the bride, and we will use her determined marriage to announce the challenge to Yu Zhongliang. At first, Jing Yun was a tacky person. He once arranged such a scene. He talked about Japan with the leader of the semi-white party in the bathhouse, saying that Japan is a fragment of China, the territory is a fragment of Chinese mainland, and the writing is also a fragment of Chinese characters. You can imagine what it looks like.

Chen Kaige further said: It depends on the image of Ying Da. However, no matter how much we let ruyi disappoint men, in the end, it is hard to say what sense of victory there is in marrying such a person. It takes a lot of effort to beat around the bush. Moreover, there is no freedom in the corner, and some roads can never be taken, such as "anger". Marry Jing Yun as you wish, but don't get angry. With the continuous growth of wishful thinking and spiritual strength, the irrationality of this last fight is becoming more and more acute. At the same time, the scene of being a bride is becoming more and more clear. The appearance of wearing a new wedding dress has a particularly shocking evolutionary meaning. Without this scene, things will go away. At that time, we spent all day hopelessly among these characters, some of whom were fixed, but the relationship between the characters had to be upgraded. It wasn't until a big decision was made that Jing Yun changed his image and became a beautiful teenager that things began to go smoothly. And this image change, in turn, through the next level to enhance Ruyi, Ruyi's enthusiasm is so eternal, wildfire reborn. When Chen Kaige decided to change Jing Yun, I naturally complained, because I actually reminded the character of his shortcomings, but he persisted in the end and now he wants to change. He said that this is not a change, but a search to find the right thing. In this way, that silly Jingyun wasted our time. However, after all, he took us some distance. In these distances, Yu Zhongliang and Ruyi, as well as the Dragon Boat Festival, have all grown up. Even though he didn't leave in vain, he accomplished his mission. This is how we crossed the other shore. Just like Chen Kaige said "looking for", I think we are constantly building, then tearing down, then building, and then tearing down. Finally, there is a ruin under our feet, but that thing has really been found. This is "romance". We ruined a lot of good details, good dialogue and good atmosphere, from which Romantic Moon came.

As I said before, I have to face the reality, which is Chen Kaige's business. What should I do? The first is to understand what he wants, and the second is to at least rationally sympathize with what he wants. What does he want?

He is a greedy man. He wants too many things. I don't know if he put such a heavy burden on the film, but I have a hunch that he will be "Xiao He's success, Xiao He's failure".

He is a man with a strong memory, and it is not easy to forget what he has experienced. Just like a person traveling with a big backpack, the backpack is getting heavier and heavier, but he doesn't want to leave anything behind. Everything is precious to him, because it is related to the road he has traveled. He also wants to review his collections, which constantly find new things in his eyes and update his feelings and understanding. He is also an active person. His hands are as diligent as his brain, so like a farmer who is willing to bear hardships, he harvests a lot of crops every season. When he tells you what he thinks, language comes with thinking and passion, and you are almost untenable and swept away by it. When he clears his mind, you can even feel his pain and fatigue. It seems that everything is close to the lungs, and I can't let go of this and that. Everything seems to be related, but what is the outline? Everything is like a conflict between the left and the right. What is the sect that has never changed from the original religion? His thoughts are inevitably complicated, and his feelings are somewhat complicated, because he is in a middle age eager to grab and sink, far away from pure adolescence and old age when the dust settles. Sometimes I even think it's unfortunate that people with too many thoughts and feelings like Chen Kaige are addicted to movies.

This movie is so realistic. It is the closest to reality among all arts. It is even a ghost, and it must be sent to you in human form to convince you. Although so many modern film theories have paved the way for it, it still cannot fundamentally change its realistic characteristics. In a word, it is a person. Can human common sense bear Chen Kaige's idea? As long as you watch Singing while Walking, you can feel the painful contradiction of productive forces in the revolution trying to break through the relations of production. You can clearly see that the normal state of the world can only bind him from abstraction to abstraction. It is almost impossible to find a ready-made story to contain his thoughts.

Later, we often discussed Farewell My Concubine, and we reached a consensus that Farewell My Concubine has a good relationship with people. There are naturally many layers of relationship between Chen Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou. These relationships are trapezoidal, and they can reach very high places one by one. The front of this relationship is human face, but the back can be sublimated to the realm of immortals. In other words, it is the unity of concrete and abstract. This kind of good thing is rare. Most of people's relationships and functions are ordinary, and some are good, almost used by predecessors. Therefore, it seems that we can only work hard the day after tomorrow.

Yue Feng is adapted from Ye's novel Flower Shadow, directed by Chen Kaige and written by Wang Anyi.

On this issue, we have found a way to use language * * *, because I have doubted how much can be done with that clever relationship between people. I think this is based on the principle of leverage and originality. The so-called lifting weights is an artistic way, and it is about petty gain. I'm more in favor of addition principle, that is to say, brick by brick, it's just slave labor, without any opportunism, it's all dead strength. Imagine that slaves built pyramids, dug the Grand Canal and built the Great Wall. Real art is actually not interesting at all. It's not a matter of digging your brain, nor is it a matter of calculation. It uses the heart and brain, which is really hard work. Just pushing the core of a story forward, like pushing the wheel of history, and like pushing a snowball, it gets bigger and bigger, and finally, it becomes a huge and solid thing. This job is really hard and painstaking. This is bitter, but I can't say it. You are particularly like a moth in a cocoon and pupa, operating in the dark. When you finally see the light, you leave behind the fruits of your life. This operation is almost instinctive and has some blindness, and you don't know why. But because two people work together and need to coordinate their hands and feet, the situation of this work is also clear. This is the greatest pleasure of working with Chen Kaige on Romance. This kind of cooperation makes this lonely work easy to talk about, and helps each other, comforts each other and encourages each other. This hard work becomes easy to bear.

In this way, we have established a similar thing, that is, we admit that the relationship between the characters in Romance is not very clever, and it can be written very skillfully, just like Hollywood movies in the usual sense, such as Schindler's List. According to my explanation, Schindler, a Nazi who saved the Jews, had a skillful relationship with the Jews. Like a lever, what weight can you lift? At best, this is a good thing. However, the relationship between a complete Jewish nation and an anti-Semitic moorman clique can unfold the drama of darkness and light of mankind. This is a head-on conflict. Gong is gong, drum is drum, not stab in the back. The effect is naturally good, but the manners are not good. It's a series of chickens barking and dogs barking and thieves barking.

The human drama in Yue Feng is developing positively, taking a bright road instead of a dark one. The name "romance" is the beginning. Now it's time to talk about how I sympathized with Chen Kaige's "Romantic Moon". I can't work without this. Chen Kaige made it very clear that he was finally going to write Love. I summed it up mechanically: first, the love he wants is intense love, and it is to achieve the realm of selflessness. Only young people can love selflessly, because they have enough fuel for life, even enough to burn their lives, so this story must happen among a group of young people. Moreover, although the love he wants is extremely strong, it is by no means reckless. So there must be a rational side, which is why he wants this woman to undertake the task of love. He thinks that women have more reasons to love than men, and love is even a weapon for loving women to challenge the world. Thirdly, the state of this love should be full of flowers, which is a dangerous grand occasion on the edge, so he chose the 1920s as the background of this love. Chen Kaige had a soft spot for this period in the 1920s. It seems that this is a good day for China to rest. Some things have just come to fruition, and some things have just begun. * * * Harmony gave birth to this ancient nation, shining with some youthful light, with some meaning of death on the spot, but in isolation, this light is still brilliant. In that dazzling light, some events fly away like dust. How natural and strange it is to talk about a romantic period at this time. Finally, it is to find a stage for this romantic period, and that is Jiangnan. Jiangnan in Chen Kaige is a lonely Jiangnan, not a small bridge with flowing water and a dense forest with flowers, but a river weir, where sails are raised, sculls are thrown on the water and valleys are plowed. He said that the water in the south of the Yangtze River is a heavy viscous substance. In fact, his "Jiangnan" is just named Jiangnan, and it doesn't matter whether the content is Jiangnan or not. We are not folklore scholars and have no intention of writing articles on Jiangnan issues. We just want to know what kind of environment the story takes place in. Then it is decided that water is an important factor, and things are like spreading on the water, with a passing surface. This is also the inevitable result of extreme love, because this kind of love is really like an arrow on the string. However, this is still the abstract meaning of the story environment. Specifically, Jiangnan is a good representative of the golden age of1920s. There are indeed winds and moons. On the one hand, it is a good farmer, and on the other hand, it is singing and dancing all night. The city of Shanghai, like the sea rising and the bright moon in the sky, gives Jiangnan a fascinating and dreamy light, which is another abstract meaning of the story environment. Well, what Chen Kaige wants is generally understood. So, what do I want? If I can have a little power over what I want.

Stills of the movie Romantic Moon

I think Chen Kaige has convinced me. The question is, what can arouse my emotions in this matter? Even if there is no direct relationship, it is just a mistake. When Chen Kaige explains all this, he often talks about some past events, which makes me very moved. He talked to me about these painful past events, which I don't understand as trust and frankness, but I deeply think it is an exposure of what I want to create. Just like in Farewell My Concubine, Chen Dieyi sang "I am a daughter" and kept singing "I am a man". Later, my brother Duan Xiaolou used a tobacco bag to dig out his mouth full of blood. He finally sang "I am a daughter", which was very serious. I can't believe he gave up his gender. From then on, how should he behave! Chen Kaige said that he regarded Chen Dieyi's punishment as a ceremony of virginity. Since then, Chen Dieyi has surrendered. Speaking of it, the road of art cannot be taken, and it is unfortunate to go far. You cast your flesh and blood into a thing, how can you protect its fate of being consumed? But you can't do it without doing it, because when you first embarked on this road, you were driven by what you said in your heart. You keep talking and talking until you find yourself talking too much and too deep, but you can't stop. Art is good here and bad here. The good thing is that it externalizes your personal feelings and becomes an aesthetic existence. The worst thing is that you gave it your feelings. What else do you have? Because you have a hunch about this ending, you become very tortured and picky, and don't know what is the best expression.

Not long ago, I saw Jiang Wen's Sunny Days, and I was very moved. I envy Jiang Wen for expressing himself in this way. It is a vivid Jiang Wen, unscrupulous. You almost forgot it was a movie, but you thought it was a young Jiang Wen. This is a young man's debut, everyone can only happen once, we have all experienced it. We are far from nature, so we can't rely on it. Our emotions become complex, and our goal is to find a simple shape for complex emotions. But we still have to go through the stage from complex to complex. I don't believe there is any stage that can be surpassed. If it is surpassed, it must be a loss at the same time.

Anyway, since Chen Kaige decided that "romance" was his only way, I had to try to get close to it. I think that when I gradually understand that there are some purely personal connections between Chen Kaige and romance, the resonance that must be established is actually based. In other words, I can't help him build castles in the air, but I can help him cultivate a tree to grow. Although the root of the tree is in his soil, there is always some connection between soil and soil. In romance, what finally touched me was the topic of "love". As I said before, what can make these clear in the Middle Ages when sediment was floating? It is not enough to recall the past. In our eyes, the past always means some funny things, not that we have had a good time when Jiang Wen made his debut in youth. We have to rely on reason, which is actually a big problem. Everything is vague-at this time in the twenties, Jiangnan is a place where the relationship between characters is ambiguous and the emotions are ignorant-we should paint this vague picture with orderly and meticulous brushwork. In the process of creation, Chen Kaige sometimes said excitedly, "Do you find that we are drawing with a brush? Over and over again, the picture is getting more and more vivid! " ! This is often the most confusing time for me. But that's the truth.

At first, I hated the word "love". I think "love" is too sweet. Chen Kaige said, what about lust? I agree that "lust" is more primitive, closer to life and more able to open up space. So we start with "lust". Everything begins with lust, life and death, and the lotus in the pond smells dangerous. All are reckless lives, writing a chapter of hate and love for indescribable desires and impulses. And wishful thinking is the first of these reckless lives. So, what should ruyi look like? All I know is that she must not be Carmen. Chen Kaige only knew that he was a different kind and fell into the world by accident. We dare not touch her because we have too much hope for her. So is Yu Zhongliang. He is so important that I don't know what he is doing here. We all love our characters too much and give them a high mission. As a result, their images are blurred. We don't know why we should name it after the attention they bring, because the word "love" has been rejected by us.

We say it's lust, and here's the problem. If there is lust between Ruyi and Yu Zhongliang, what is the difference between Ruyi and Wu Rui? (sic), Yu Zhongliang and Tian Xiangli were interested in women, embroidery and Jingyun-at that time, there was still a skill between embroidery and Jingyun. Even if it's all lust, is there a difference between high and low? If there is a difference between high and low, what should I call it?

We found ourselves such a difficult problem: treat emotion rationally, divide its territory, define its nature, and then give it a name.

Gong Li and Leslie Cheung starred in Romantic Moon, but this film obviously failed to reproduce the success of Farewell My Concubine.

Things have to start all over again. I have to pick up the name "love" again. We succumb to the fact that what is between Ruyi and Yu Zhongliang is really love. So, again, what is the difference between love and lust? The final conclusion is that when lust focuses on one object, it is love. In other words, lust is overflowing water, and love enters the river bed. This is the fruit of love from lust. I can accept this kind of love, which is a more advanced state of life than lust. Its sweetness is also the sweetness at a price, including the pain of life.

Chen Kaige's love for Ruyi can be said to be heart-to-heart. It is actually a great sadness for a middle-aged man to write a teenage love story. This is also a teenager's past, but this past is not that past. I remember his words clearly. He said, I still have fuel! At this age, fuel is also a tempering fuel. At this age, love is actually a very lightweight thing, seemingly light, but heavy inside. Time flies, either here or there, leaving a flaw. To say that mending is robbing Peter to pay Paul is never perfect. If you want to be energetic, you need to double your calories and energy. When you are a teenager, you can be unreasonable and ask questions before and after. Now, if I don't understand, I can't pass. Everything that "romance" does, in a word, makes sense for unreasonable things.

Chen Kaige's youthful enthusiasm is accumulated by reason. You may not understand, but he must understand. What kind of fuel is this? Chen Kaige sometimes describes the intensity of love, saying: You can take out your gun and shoot you. It doesn't make sense, but he still can't fool himself. After that, he must sit down and think about the reason. Think about it, how difficult this road to love is. Really need slave labor, one step at a time. This is chaotic love composed of reason. When you look at this nothingness, you can see fine brushstrokes. It's not nonsense. This is the power of movies. Its realism demands truth from you, and it is not the truth in heaven, but the truth on earth. You're not confused at all. You must explain everything.

Finally, Ruyi came out of the fortress of love that she personally created and then personally destroyed. In the vast field, who can go to the front line of love with her? This is a challenge to our imagination. We are busy sharpening spears, but the shields can't keep up. Chen Kaige said: I really found myself an opponent. It's hard not to get excited in the face of such an opponent. Therefore, I can understand that it is difficult for Chen Kaige to find his own Mr Right after all-round role transformation.

In the process of work, I shifted my excitement to the topic of "love" at a rather late stage. As I said before, I accepted the concept of "lust". Later, I also put forward the idea of "growth", and Chen Kaige agreed with me. When I was a child, the scenes of wishful thinking, loyalty and Dragon Boat Festival attracted me, especially when it was finally destroyed. It was really shocking to recall the scenes that had not yet started. We walked along the route of their growth, and finally came to the result of love, which was both natural and unexpected. "Growing up" has also become a bridge, extraditing to the other side of love. After all, Chen Kaige's words have come true, and whoever belongs to them will belong to them. It's no use arguing. Whether "lust" or "growth" is actually a matter of methods and purposes, Chen Kaige knows best and no one can change it. When he was in a hurry, he said, this is one of my children. I have been pregnant for several months. You must let me have him! Now, the child is born, which is the "romantic moon".

I can't estimate whether "romance" is qualified for Chen Kaige's thought, but don't be bent down by this thought when Farewell My Concubine arrives at the back. I can't estimate whether The Romantic Moon can accommodate the scenes that often flash before his eyes. These scenes are so touching that it is difficult to assert their relationship with abstract artistic conception. In a word, I don't know if "romance" can succeed. When I say success, I don't mean winning the prize at the film festival, but for Chen Kaige himself, it is what he described as "having a baby". Specifically, it is to put his most abstract ideas into practice. This is what we who are engaged in realistic art dream of and can be called the ideal class. Although it is hard to expect perfection, it is always a step closer. However, it is easier said than done. At this time, both rationality and sensibility are maturing, and at the most difficult juncture, both of them are striving to develop and go their separate ways. The harmonious world is divided, and it is not half to half, but divided and broken. How can we reorganize the world? Can we reorganize the world? It all depends on how strong our vitality and enthusiasm are. They can support rationality and sensibility to the extreme, believing that the extreme is another harmonious world. I feel a kind of courage to break the old world from Chen Kaige, who threw himself into the organization regardless of sacrifice. He accepted the position of feminism, homosexuality, loneliness and being on the edge of the world, which was his choice. He threw himself out of the center of the world and faced the wilderness, as if he had lost her partner, and then built a new world from scratch. Nothing is more gratifying than conscious choice when we are hopelessly far away from the natural state. This is the light of hope for recreating nature, or, in layman's terms, returning to nature.

Selected from Wang Anyi's Falling Days, Xinxing Publishing House.

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