CHEN, KAIGE INTERVIEW
MAYAN CAFE
HOST: LANDMARK CITY MANAGER DAVID KIMBALL
INTERVIEWED BY JOANNE YAMAGUCHI
Some images can be clicked on for video clips
Actress Gong Li
-- Along with fellow film students
at Beijing Film Institute after the Cultural Revolution, Chen, Kaige began
a new wave in Chinese cinema. The new wave emphasis, not unlike the French
New Wave of several decades earlier lies with the visual and aural aspects
of film. The films supercede the socialist realist techniques. Perfect examples
are Chen, Kaige's 1994 FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE and the 1999 production THE EMPEROR
AND THE ASSASSIN. A child of the Cultural Revolution, Chen, Kaige is profoundly
concerned with the materialist direction of contemporary Chinese culture.
He finds it to be execessivly materialistic.
Director Chen Kaige
Chen, Kaige shot the THE EMPEROR AND
THE ASSASSIN in 28 weeks, the entire crew working 7 days/week. The rigorous
schedule was possible because there were no unions in China where the film
was shot. All were happy to be working the full schedule. A small committee
of key figures on both sides of the camera (including the international star
Gong Li who plays the emperor's mistress, and the assassin's compatriot in
the film) worked even longer hours than the others. The small group met each
evening to review the days shooting and to discuss the next day's shots and
scene.
social change-- Deeply influenced
by David Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, Chen, Kaige possesses extraordinary depth
and breadth of knowledge as well as of experience. His interest in the time
of Lawrence, and the19th century, forms artistic partnerships with his own
experiences of the changes in China. He says that he wants to see how social
changes bring changes to people's lives. He was moved by Coppola's APOCALYPSE
NOW. Both LAWRENCE and APOCALYPSE, a century and continent apart, show how
a large scale change in social conditions can shape individuals who live those
conditions.
half detective-- Chen, Kaige explains
that THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN, is based on a contemporary novel. He describes
the 3-hour epic as half detective - half love story. Chen, Kaige confesses
a special liking for the detective genre, and that possibly his next project
will be a detective story shot in L.A. The detecting work in THE EMPEROR AND
THE ASSASSIN involves the reversal of roles such as emperors and assassins.
The assassin is a masterful hero. The emperor has multitudes of innocent people
assassinated. An ironical relation between good and evil which grounds good
detective stories, shares the screen in Chen, Kaige's film with the intimate
relation between loving and despising
--soul of masterpiece-- Intrigued
by masterpieces such as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (EMPERORS AND ASSASSINS is grand
in a similar vein), Chen, Kaige believes that the soul of the masterpiece
lies with individuals who stand forth to move the massive weight of cultural
atrophy toward new beginnings. He thinks of such individuals as children of
god. "They seem to come from another planet."
--american beauty-- Chen, Kaige is
amused by the irony of the title AMERICAN BEAUTY for a film about the devolving
transcendent life of a company man (played by Kevin Spacy), once he turns
turncoat to the familiar, safe corporate culture. This is true 'American Beauty',
or perhaps the beauty of rebellion against stagnant social conditions, no
matter where the country may be.
--the other interviewer-- TITUS in
the background; another interviewer in the foreground. See the purse strap?
Hear the cell phone?
--symbiotic good-- Chen, Kaige does
not think in terms of black and white. The truth is more along the lines of
a Nietzschean Beyond Good and Evil. The emperor and the assassin need each
other. The social situation provides an historical backdrop for an epic human
struggle.
--chinese ladies-- In the end, Chen,
Kaige's deep philosophical wisdom gives way at the Mayan Cafe to two Chinese
lady interviewers fighting over him. Yours truly and Chen look on.
--now, where-- The other interviewer
returns from cellular connectivity just in time to get Chen, Kaige's fax number
. . . and to loan a pen to yours truly
