Just Let It Fly One Day More (I)

Hi Art, January, February Combined Issue, 2011

You see me, or not, I am there, neither sad or happy; You miss me, or not, love is there, neither come nor go

——The 6th Dalai Lama, Sangs-Ryyas Rgyamtsho

The box office of Chinese film in 2010 is very prosperous; three days before the ending of 2010, many people in the film industry came out to declare that: the box office would definitely surpass ten billions; and with large amount of good film works in 2011, Chinese box office would reach twelve billion then.

In the end of 2010, three New Year’s greeting films, Zhao The Orphan, Let The Bullets Fly and If You Are The One 2,  were almost released at the same time in succession. Civilians weighted down by the inflation lastly found a chance to unbosom themselves, to shuffle off this mortal coil temporily and relax their body and mind. Zhao The Orphan by Chen Kaige’s projection came out the first and within less than two months, its box office surpassed two hundred million. Then in quick succession, Let The Bullets Fly by Jiang Wen, who prepared years in hope of make wonders on box office, was relased and made a gross of more than four hundred milion within 11 days. Several days later, Feng Xiaogang, who is regarded as the best director in shooting New Year’s film and who understands audiences the best, launched his If You Are The One 2,which was created in cooperation with Wang Shuo again. Facing the tremendous pressure of Let The Bullets Fly’s box office succession, Feng Xiaogang, who was then making promotion in Guang Zhou for his If You Are The One 2 onlysimply said that, Bullets has been flying for one week, just let it fly one day more and our If 2 would come. Facing tremendous pressure, it is almost impossible for an  artistic creator to keep a calm state of mind and smile. It would be pretty good if he could refrain from tears.

The differences between film shooting and painting is, the latter one, as a personal activity, could be finished independently by the artist himself from the very beginning to the end. For an painting artist, to finish one picture, then handover to another one, who might be curator, gallery director, or collector, or even people related with auction, then the process of creation is finished after only two or three peoples participation. If dozens of artists really create one picture toghether in half a year eating and living toghether, then nothing couldn’t be worse than this picture. Yet things are different for a film. Even for the simplest film, a dozen of people would be necessariely needed for its Pro-after stages. I never heard of any film was directed, shot, post-produced, dubbed, composed and printed, so film is the products of collective wisdom and physical strength, with the director looks only a little bit more important and great than others. There would be about 70 peoples in a small film crew, while for a blockbuster, one or two hundred peoples are needed only for shooting. In the summer of 2010, I shot a MV for a heavy metal rock band with friends’ recommendation. Wu Jing, the photographer, told me that in a big film crew, especially in a crew of those costume film which cannot be finished within half a year, the shooting schedual would be pasted in the kitchen of the dozens of villigers’ home nearby before the photographer get it. Villigers would start cooking whenever shooting begins, so even if the director is crazy enough to start shooting after midnight, hundreds of peoples of the film crew could enjoy warm dinners.

Comparing with painting, a film needs dozens or even hundreds of people when shooting and thousands of audiences would come to watch it when it is released. The process of creation and marketing of a film is much more objective and transparent. Although piracy, box office stealing and appropriation exist, yet it is still more authentic.

Film is to record things pass by instantly with approaches like sound, light, electricity and machine on the basis of persistence of vision, namely the principle that things pass by instantly would persist on the retina of human for 0.1 to 0.4 seconds, and then project the recorded onto the screen. Just as Wang Jiawei has said, film is to break up the mirror of life and then make it whole again.

Both film and oil painting came to Chine in the recent one hudred years. It is said that in 1896, the 22nd year of Guang Xu Emperor’s reign of Qing Dynasty, film was brought to Shanghai by French people only in the second year of its invention and was shown publicly in Xu Yuan Garden of Shanghai. In 1905, film came into its own in China officially. Then the Feng Tai photo studio of Beijing shot the film Dingjun Mountain and made an official public show of it at the Grand View Pavillion theatre. Yet community leaders of all social circles including that of workers, farmers, soldiers and business man who watched this public show expressed a common idea that it was an evildoer. (to be continued)

Zhu Wei

Thursday, 30 December, 2010

让它再飞一天（上）

《HI艺术》2011年1、2月合刊

你见/或者不见我/我就在那里/不悲不喜/你念/或者不念我/情就在那里/不来不去

——六世达赖喇嘛仓央嘉措

中国电影二O一O年票房异常火爆，还差三天二O一O年结束，已有不少业内人士纷纷站出来表示：票房突破百亿已成定局，二O一一年国产强片云集，中国电影票房将达到一百二十亿。

二O一O年底，《赵氏孤儿》、《让子弹飞》、《非诚勿扰2》三部贺岁大片前后脚，几乎同时上映。被通胀压得喘不过气来的老百姓，终于有机会找一个宣泄的渠道，短暂地脱离一下尘世，让紧绷的身心放松一下。陈凯歌的《赵氏孤儿》率先登场，半月不到，票房过两亿。紧接着姜文酝酿多年准备票房翻身的《让子弹飞》上映，十一天票房过四亿。几天后，最会拍贺岁片、号称最理解观众的导演冯小刚推出了自己再度与王朔合作的《非诚勿扰2》。面对《让子弹飞》票房成功带来的巨大压力，在广州为《非2》作宣传的冯小刚只说了一句：《子弹》已经飞了一周了，让它再飞一天，我们《非2》就来了。面对票房的巨大压力，艺术创作者能够保持心态从容，面带微笑，那是不可能的事儿。保证不哭，就已经不错了。

电影创作和绘画创作不同的是，绘画创作是由艺术家从头到尾一个人就能完成的，是独立的，个体的行为。画家画完一张画，再交给另外一个人，这个人或者是策展人，或者是画廊老板，或者是藏家，或者是拍卖行附近的，这个创作过程就算完成了，最多经过两到三个人的手。几十个艺术家在一起连吃带喝半年多，共同创作了一幅作品，如果真是那样，这幅画得多糟糕。电影则不同。再简单的电影，前后期拍摄下来，最少也得十几个人。还没听说过哪部电影是一个人连导带演，带拍，再后期，配音，配光，合成，冲印出来的，所以它是集体共同智慧和体力的结晶，导演在里边稍显牛逼而已。电影小的剧组也得六七十人，大的片子，前期拍摄就一两百人。二O一O年夏天，经朋友推荐，我给一重金属摇滚乐队拍摄了一MV。摄影师邬竞就告诉我，在大的剧组，特别是一弄半年都下不来的古装片，每天拍摄的通告单，摄影师还没拿到，就已经贴在附近村里十几户村民家的锅台上了。戏什么时候开拍，村民什么时候就捅火做饭，就是导演犯病，后半夜召集大队人马开始拍戏，几百号人也能吃上热乎的饭菜。

电影相对于绘画，拍的时候就几十人上百人，看的时候就成千上万人，创作营销过程客观透明很多。尽管有盗版、偷票房、挪票房等等行为，但真实性还是要强一些。

通过视觉滞留原理，也就是瞬间通过的物体会在人的视网膜暂留0.1到0.4秒这一现象，用声、光、电、机械等诸多方法，把它记录下来，再通过机器，把记录下来的东西投射到银幕上，这就是电影。也就是王家卫所说的，电影是将生活的镜子打碎，再破镜重圆。

电影和油画来到中国也都是最近一百来年的事，据说光绪二十二年，也就是一八九六年，在电影诞生的第二年就被法国人带到了上海，在上海徐园放过。一九O五年，中国电影正式诞生，当时的北京丰泰照相馆拍出了电影《定军山》，并在大观楼戏院正式公映。看过公映的士农工商社会各界贤达一致认为，这是弄出了一妖蛾子。（待续）

朱伟

2010年12月30日星期四