Life Without Buoys: A Conversation with Wu Tianming

Aditya Monday December 29, 2008

Contributed Jointly by: Aruna Vasudev & Max Tessier  When I was young, I saw a lot of films in my city, Xian. I was first interested in arts, literature, modern opera. At the age of 19,1 sawPoem of the Sea by Aleksandr Dovzhenko for the first time but I didn't really understand it. So I sold my new shoes to buy two tickets, and saw it twice more at the Peace Cinema. It was winter and I was barefoot (back home, my mother asked me where my shoes were!). Actually I saw it fourteen times to be able to understand it, and by the end I knew the dialogues by heart! Two years ago, I visited a studio named after Dovzhenfco. I was destiny!

River Without Buoys (1984)  At the end of my secondary studies, a crew came to recruit actors. I took the examination but I wondered if I was good enough. But it worked out in the end. I had learnt acting earlier - in fact I was even a student in an acting school. My first role was as a young peasant in Storm in Pa Sha Mountain (years later I even acted in The Joy Luck Club) but I really wanted to be a director. I read books on all aspects of directing, including the diaries of filmmakers like Dovzhenko. To get to know the countryside better I asked to be sent out to work with the peasants. In 1962 I spent four months in the rural areas, then again six months in 1964, and a year in 1972 collecting material for a script. In 1974 I was accepted in the Directing class of the Beijing Film Academy. Six months later my classmates and I went to Beijing Studio to work with Cui Wei as assistants. It was an unusual time then in China. At the Academy classes were sporadic so it was better for us to go and do an apprenticeship.

After a stint as an actor and co-directing two films with Teng Wenji (1979-1980), I started my own first film, River Without Buoys - a love story set against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution.

With Xian Studios In 1983, I was making Life when I got a call from a friend to say that the provincial government had announced that I was going to be the one of the heads of the Xian Studios. I was to be in the organisation department, charged with nominating the Cadres in the Party. Many people voted for me, but I said I wanted to be the director, not the vice-director! When I was appointed, I replaced all the old directors of workshop aged about 50 and over, with younger ones. I asked the employees to go to University to study literature, textiles, arts, etc. I also started English language classes in order to cooperate with foreign film people. I was asked who was going to do the work if everyone was away studying? I replied, “It's no problem. Now we are planting the seeds which will bear fruit later." I was just 43 years old when I became the director of the Xian Studio.

At that time, a famous critic from Beijing, Zhong Dian Fei said, after seeing Life: "It looks like a Western film made in China". I said "Xian is in the Western part of China, so that's OK. It is the capital of thirteen dynasties, and a great centre of culture in China so why not make films in this part of the country?"

I sent a lot of actors and technicians to experience life in the country, including the scriptwriter Lu Wei, who was just coming out of prison (he later wrote Farewell My Concubine). I organised this kind of activity several times a year, to understand country life better in order to make good films on the subject. Later, we produced quite a lot of good films, like Wild Mountains by Yan Xueshu, Red Sorghum, the first film by Zhang Yimou, followed by Ju Dou and Raise the Red LanternKing of the Children by Chen Kaige and The Horse Thiefby Tian Zhuangzhuang.

In 1989, there was a Chinese film exhibition in Australia, with eight Chinese films shown. Six of them were produced by Xian Studios. In France, on another occasion, of the ten films shown, six were the products of Xian Studio. To attract audiences even in China, the publicity for the films began announcing "Made by Xian Film Studio".

Zhang Yimou and Old Well (1987) I spent a lot of time looking for a good actor for the main part in Old Well. I even asked Zhang Yimou, who was a DOP but he said "No I am not an actor, I can't do it!". I insisted, and he finally relented, saying, "OK, but I will not be held responsible if the film is a failure!" The main reason I wanted to use him was because he really looked like one of those terracotta warriors in the tombs! Actually, there was a lot of pressure on him .because the main role was so important in the story. We stayed for two and a half months in the mountain area and Zhang transported three big stones of 60 to 70 kgs each from the mountains to the home of the peasants. The preparation for this film took a long time - from 1985 to the eventual shooting in 1986-87 - but it proved to be a success.

Old Well was the most important film for me at the time, and it won the Grand Prix at the Tokyo Film Festival in 1987. In 2005 when the Critics' Association of Shanghai chose the twenty top Chinese films of the century. Old Well was among them.

The years in the US In 1989 the Asian Culture Association in the USA invited Chen Kaige and myself to teach filmmaking. But at that time, the Tiananmen movement happened and while I was in New York, I said something against the Government. It created a lot of problems for me and I couldn't return to China. I had to stay on in the US, in San Francisco. Many American friends helped me, and one of them invited me to teach Chinese cinema at UC Davis. I stayed there for five months then went to Los Angeles to work as professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Southern California. I saw a lot of films there and worked on a project about illegal Chinese immigrants in the US. In 1993 I went to Macau to write a script, adapted from a story called 'Green Card', but was never able to make the film because I had no finances. 

Although I worked for some months in the US, I had very little money. So I opened a video shop to rent out Chinese films. My wife and daughter joined me in America. My daughter and I used to make dumplings and sell them to my Chinese friends. They didn't like them at all, but they bought them nonetheless to help me out!

A few directors from Taiwan and Hong Kong like Hou Hsiao Hsien and Xu Feng also helped, but the ones from the mainland were not in a position to say or do anything.

Return to China: The King of Masks (1996) With time, my problems faded out and I went to Macau, close enough to China, in 1993. In January of the following year, I went to Xhou Hai City and was not arrested as I feared. I still had my passport and our Ambassador in the US helped me to go back to China safe and sound. In 1994 I started preparing The King of Masks which I shot in 1995, as a Shaw Bros, production. In 1997, the film went to the Tokyo Film Festival, and won the Best Director award. In 1996, I won two prizes in China, for tire Best Coproduction (with HK). In all, I won 29 prizes in many festivals, including in New Delhi (1997). 

Recently I have made three films for TV, and five TV series, and my situation is getting better. In 2005, the Association of Chinese Directors awarded me the Lifetime Achievement Award.

GE.O. (2002) I did not make this film as propaganda for the Chinese Government! Actually, I discovered this Company (Haier) in Qing Tao, and I thought that we needed something similar in China. A friend of mine, Luo Xueying, and I stayed in Qing Tao for two years, visiting their workshops and working on a script for a 20-episode TV series. But we couldn't raise the money for it, so we decided to turn it into a film. The money finally came from Beijing Film Studio because the story and the company were located in Beijing. I raised the rest of the money myself so that I could write the script, and that's how it got made.

Current Projects

My latest project is a film called Fa Men Temple, the place which holds the relics of the Buddha. It is a love story set in the Tang dynasty. It is a big budget production (approximately 13 million USD) and some money will come from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan along with my own production company. I hope to make it next year (2008).{DIV}

Translated by Xia Min

This interview was conducted at the 13th Festival international du film Asiatique in Vesoul in 2007.

 


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