On April 25, the 15th Beijing International Film Festival ushered in the highly anticipated Jiang Wen Film Master Class. As soon as Jiang Wen appeared, the screen of the mobile phone in the audience immediately turned into a sea of ​​stars. Everyone's eyes focused on the center of the stage through the lens. Jiang Wen started with his usual free and easy joke. He suggested that everyone put down his phone, "Let's chat, you always hold your phone up, your brain will be empty. Don't remember with your phone, you have to remember with your brain. What you remember with your phone does not mean you remember. It is OK to use your brain plug-in, but you can't completely ask your brain to it. I am 62 years old this year, and I can still remember with my brain, and I can remember it."

　　Jiang Wenxiao said that one of his characteristics after he was 60 years old is that he talked too much. "Don't say that I'll talk for an hour and a half, I can't say it for 15 hours. I'm talking a lot now. I'll hold my arms a little, don't get upset later and say I'm 'dad-like'. But I can't pretend that I'm not a father, I'm just a father. I'm almost a grandfather at this age, and I can't pretend to be a teenager. I'm a little embarrassed."

　　At the Beijing Film Festival judges meeting a few days ago, Jiang Wen once said: "Don't comment on a movie casually, nor do you write a movie review casually." This was hotly discussed as soon as it was said. At the master class, he explained: "It's not that I don't allow me to write a movie review, but that I don't allow me to write a movie review. It's good to write a movie, and the more I write, the better, but I can't. Just two words are harmful. When I make a movie, I will definitely not be casual. First of all, I am sorry for myself and life."

　　During the entire master class, "Lao Jiang" was sincere and humorous, with golden sentences frequently, and applause and laughter came from time to time in the venue. In the midst of laughter, Jiang Wen shared with everyone the experience of the pre-, middle and late stages of creation without reservation, and also gave a lot of encouragement to the younger generations in the industry, which is full of practical information.

　　Everyone sees their own appearance when they watch movies

　　Jiang Wen, who serves as the chairman of the jury of this year's Beijing Film Festival, is a unique existence in Chinese films - with his extraordinary talent, he constantly breaks through the boundaries of creation in multiple dimensions of editing, directing and acting. He has starred in many popular works such as "Speak Well", "Song Dynasty", and "Birth Year", and has been shortlisted for the main competition unit of the top international film festivals and won important awards with director works such as "The Sun Rises As Always" and "A Step Away". His artistic style is both wild romance and in-depth thinking. Whether it is his explosive power as an actor or his creative power as a screenwriter and director, he reveals a strong personal mark - romance is seen in roughness and sharpness is hidden in jokes. Today, when the commercial tide swept the film industry, he always upholds a clear insight, adheres to the original intention of creation, and protects the pioneering nature of film as artistic expression.

　　Among the works directed by Jiang Wen, many of them are adapted from well-known novels. Interestingly, Jiang Wen's movies are very adapted to the original novels, and his movies are completely different. Since the changes are so big, why bother spending money to buy copyright and pay for adaptation fees? Jiang Wen laughed and said that his father had asked him this question, "Isn't it good to save some money?" Jiang Wen's reason for "fooling" his father at that time was: "I need a helper. A novel rushes forward, so that others will not hit me with the first stick, but in fact, they won't hit you if they don't know how to hit the novel."

　　After the joke, Jiang Wen said that in fact, everyone who watches movies and novels sees his own appearance, "Just like Lu Xun said that watching "Dream of Red Mansions", 'Who you are, you will see what you see'." The movie Jiang Wen made was the way he looked when he reads novels. He did not realize that the changes were very big at first. "It was not intentional. When it was found that the changes were too big, there was no way to come back." On the other hand, Jiang Wen admitted that without the stimulation of the novel, there would be no story in his mind, and there would be no movies, "So it is not possible without novels, it is not possible at all."

　　Jiang Wen said that a host once asked him why the plot of eating, drinking and having fun in the novel "Xia Yin" disappeared in his movie "Evil Do Not Suppress the Righteousness"? Jiang Wen said: "I am not very interested in eating, drinking and having fun, so I try not to shoot food scenes in my movies. Eating is not that important in my movies. In addition, what I see in "Xia Yin" is what I think is old Beijing, which is what I am interested in."

　　Director Jiang Wen's works are always interpreted by movie fans, analyzing which lines and plots he has, which metaphors are there. Jiang Wen said that he could not think of these when he created them. "There is no metaphor. I have been studying performances in the Central Academy of Drama for four years and have done a lot of research on this. To play a person, you need to accurately understand the characters through materials and imagination. The more precise you are, you will become more and more familiar with the characters. The more familiar you are, the more accurate you will be. In performance, this is the process from simple to complex, and then from complex to simple. It is the same as seeing mountains are not mountains, but seeing mountains are also mountains. Just like martial arts, you can't think about what to shoot when practicing, you have to turn your practice into subconsciousness. Therefore, creation is to express your subconsciousness. At that time, you think about metaphors again, and then it's over. But when you don't create or read, you think whatever you should think. That's the training stage."

　　Without attitude, there is no humor, without humor, there is no drama

　　Rarely, Jiang Wen is defined as a comedy director, but his films are rated as "high-end humor". When talking about how this film style was formed, Jiang Wen recalled that when he was in the Central Academy of Drama, his teacher Zhang Renli repeatedly emphasized to them: Without humor, there is nothing. Jiang Wen said: "If you don't have humor, you're going to act like something, and it's not a play. It's boring to make a report and say a notification. Humor is actually how you view something. Your attitude towards things. Without attitude, there is no humor. Without humor, there is no drama. Where can the movies come from without drama? According to Western saying, if there is no humor, even personality flaws."

　　Then, Jiang Wen added that the audience laughed at a certain scene, and the scene was not necessarily a comedy. "People actually live in a very awkward state. You have to die anyway, but you still have to live a life of life. No matter how good you live, you have to die. This is life, and life itself is a bit absurd. The life form of human beings itself is very interesting, and we don't have to create comedy at all."

　　Are there any improvisational creations and improvisational lines? Jiang Wen said that the film contains the attitude of the creator. "I don't have any temporary lines in all my movies. The stage of writing the script is very important, which is to temper this movie. Of course, I can also add words temporarily, but the effect is not good. I am a drama actor, and I know how important it is to perform on the spot, and how difficult it is to perform on the spot. Many people are willing to act in comedy now, and even to exercise their sense of humor, but I think this is something that cannot be practiced and cannot be practiced. Now everyone says 'melo', this is brought out from the jokes in crosstalk, right? Not everyone is Ma Sanli and Hou Baolin. Even if you give them their lines, it is meaningless to say it. In front of the crosstalk masters, we can only be audiences. If you reshoot Chaplin's movies, it is not as good as Chaplin's, so we have to believe that some people are the only ones, and some things are the only ones, not designed."

　　I never read scripts on the spot because I already have a movie after writing the script.

　　Jiang Wen's attitude towards the script is very rigorous. He believes that the necessity of creation is to understand the character itself. The creator must understand the character's era background and what the character encounters and wants. He used the AI ​​model as a metaphor to share the script writing model: "Writing a script is like the current AI model. For example, in this place, you have a model in your mind. Among them, a person in the sixth row is writing him. If you have no idea about the whole thing, or even no other model designed by the characters who don't appear in your mind, you don't know how to write it. I'm not tired when writing the script, but I'm more tired when I'm working on this model. What kind of environment does this story take place, what should be around the environment, even the weather environment, humanistic environment, historical environment, etc. If you know these, you will not be tired, and you will feel very happy if you pick out these characters to write them."

　　Jiang Wen believes that writing scripts requires understanding the characters, "This is not a problem that can be solved through technology. You really have to have time to understand this matter, otherwise the things you write are not worth reading. What will the characters say, why is it such a relationship between characters, and the process of preparing the script in the early stage is something that people who study movies should pay special attention to."

　　Jiang Wen said that his movies are written by himself, and he thought about what to shoot when he wrote them. "For example, "Let the Bullets Fly", Master Tang died, and Zhang Mazi finally came back. Many people said that he didn't need to come back, and he left after robbing the money. The length of the film was still shorter. But for me, this is not the movie I want to make. For the end of Zhang Mazi's return, we wrote many versions during the script creation period, and in the end it was a joke that gave inspiration. We thought about it for half a year just for this plot design."

　　Compared to some scripts with exquisite graphics and texts, Jiang Wen said that his script is for making movies. "It's not for venture capital or for publishing. I turned the essence of everyone's discussion into a script. The most important function of this script is to help me realize this story. I never read the script on the scene, because after I finished writing the script, the movie was already there and the lines were remembered. I could see it clearly in my mind. At the shooting site, I shot the movies I saw in my mind. It may be really bad to get this script into a venture capital or a publishing house, it is not standard."

　　Don't scold an actor as a director, don't become a director who plays a director

　　Jiang Wen’s advice to the director is—“Don’t become the director who plays the director.” He believes that the director’s main task on site is to serve everyone well, create a good working atmosphere for various departments, and complete the shooting successfully. "I have found Ge You and Chow Yun-fat. I want to turn Ge You into Chow Yun-fat and Chow Yun-fat. Why should I do it? Ge You will be filmed as Ge You, and Chow Yun-fat will be filmed as Chow Yun-fat. Don't force Ge You to become Chow Yun-fat. This is too difficult for others. It is OK to let Ge You and Chow Yun-fat play their respective heights. There are also some directors who insist on being injured or really beaten. This is not good. You can't force actors to do painful things. If fakes are filmed in a realistic way, it is the director's real ability, rather than breaking the bones and tendons. Everyone should make movies happily, and don't let others suffer and suffer."

　　When asked how Jiang Wen would bring emotional value to the actors, he laughed and said that his approach was simple, "It's just 'praise', making the actors so happy that they are lost. Only when he is lost can he make all kinds of things you want. Don't always criticize him, as he will not act well. The director's behavior of exercising power is particularly bad, so he should take care of the actors."

　　It may be related to being an actor. Jiang Wen said that it is not easy for an actor to be on the set. "He wants to expose his emotions. Good actors are not pretending. For example, now that his mother has passed away, he has to really find something that makes him suffer. He may really think of the painful appearance of his family's death. He is usually unwilling to face it. For this drama, he must expose it. For example, filming the evil side of human nature, actors must also be forced to be exposed. At this time, actors need to be protected and should love actors." Jiang Wen often uses non-professional actors in his movies. In his opinion, actors have no distinction between professional and non-professional ones. "As long as he wears that dress, in that situation, they are all actors."

　　When it comes to the topic of post-production editing, Jiang Wen agrees with the importance of editing. Movies are the art of editing. Sometimes the same material is in the hands of different editors, and the effects presented are very different. But he said that his work will not make major content adjustments during editing, because all content that needs to be presented has been finalized during the script creation stage.

　　In order to explain this difference in creative concepts, Jiang Wen took the "Star Wars Legend: Rogue One" and the film history classic "Gone with the Wind" as examples - these two works reflect the "post-re-shooting and correction" creative model commonly found in the Hollywood industrial system. Jiang Wen pointed out that under this collective creation mechanism, there is indeed a possibility of reshaping the story through large-scale reshoots and modifications in the later stage, but he emphasized that the creative methods must match the attributes of the work. Works like "The Godfather" with strong author attributes cannot achieve artistic expression through later stage means.

　　What these movies are missing is important.

　　In Jiang Wen's view, the most important thing for young people to make movies is that they must have a attitude towards life. "If you really want to make a movie, ask yourself first, what you have to express. If you don't have to express, it's not good. The technology of the movie is a tool and a microphone, but what you want to say is very important. If you don't have your own attitude and what you want to say, you will suffer a lot and it will be very uncomfortable to do your work. You ask yourself first, what you want to express. Until today, you have to come to these movies. I think this is very important."

　　Jiang Wen said that he communicated with students from Beijing Film Academy. Some students said they didn’t know what to do after graduation. “I think they should do what they should do, and do more of what you want to do. Of course, there is pressure, but it’s best to complain less and act more, because you can really achieve a lot of achievements, and you may not know it yourself.”

　　Jiang Wen gave an example to say that his new film "Heroes Come Out" tells the story of a genius boy becoming a pianist. "He didn't know he was a genius either. His father told him yes, but he did. There were actually many talented people like this, but it was a pity that I missed it. I didn't know the score myself. This time, I tried to learn piano in order to make a movie, but I found that I could play Beethoven's songs very soon. So I want to tell young people that as long as you try it, there will definitely be surprises. You are better than you think. You may have been delayed by your phone. You can really do a lot of things if you play less on your phone."

　　What movies are about is not about technology, but about content

　　Faced with the rapid technological progress today and more and more young people are accessing film technology in a more convenient and fast way, Jiang Wen always believes that cutting-edge equipment and products do not mean that more sophisticated works can be produced. The most important thing for a film is to return to the content level: "All problems that can be solved by technology are easier to operate now than before. But the top part of the content in the end depends on people, no one can do it. The movie is not about technology, but about the content expressed."

　　Jiang Wen said that he was not "technical control", and what he was fascinated by was the content of expression. "Now everyone can write a short essay or even publish a novel online. Is it easier to be a writer? I think it's harder. It's harder to write it out loud than before. Now the editing and film equipment are indeed better than before. Sometimes I watch a movie on a plane and find that the film technology is really good in all aspects, which is difficult to reach in the 1990s movies, but this movie is still not a good movie. Why? The script is too bad. Use such good technology to talk about such simple things, or such boring things." Jiang Wen said that his goal in making movies is that the audience cannot be tired of watching it. "You can suffer from the shooting process yourself, but when the movie is played, the audience should be pleasing to the eye."

　　Jiang Wen was tolerant of the audience's interpretation of his work: "If the interpretation can stir up a thousand waves in one stone, that's a good thing. The more waves it arouses, the more interesting it becomes." He even took "Mona Lisa" as an example to vividly explain the relationship between "good-looking" and "understanding": "Mona Lisa has been smiling there for so many years. How can you understand what she laughs about? If you say no, I must understand. You pry Mona Lisa's mouth open and use AI technology to let Mona Lisa say what you are happy about. Look at the answer that Sister Meng said is better than if she doesn't say it, or is it better to say it. When Sister Meng doesn't say it, I think it's good, a bit mysterious. Of course, Sister Meng speaks, it's not bad, it depends on personal preference."

　　Although Jiang Wen said he didn't like filming a meal scene, there was a very classic line in "Evil Don't Suppress Justice", "For this little vinegar, we have to make dumplings." As soon as he said this line, Jiang Wen immediately thought of dumplings, the director of the "Nezha" series. Jiang Wen praised: "He did something amazing. But I think this is the beginning, and this is not the highest point. There are so many dumplings hidden here, so how can there be one dumpling? You have to put dumplings up one by one. If you want to make a movie, you must try more. I especially like young people who have become monks halfway through. There will definitely be more 'dumpling directors' in the future of Chinese movies."

　　Jiang Wen believes that movies need fresh blood injection, and even senior filmmakers should always be innovative. "Everyone wants to watch some freshness when watching movies, but it is boring to be old. I think the most terrifying thing about movies is that they are very similar. They pretend to be very expert and very professional, but they are actually very similar, and it is not good to look like them."

　　The entire movie master class lasted for nearly two hours. Jiang Wen brought the audience a charming experience sharing with his consistent sincerity, frankness, humor and sharp style. He not only talks about creation, but also inadvertently conveys a spirit: making movies is not about imitating formulas, but about daring to set out, thinking seriously, and never being casual. Today in Chinese films is just the beginning. Young creators are going to take their own path, and their stories have just begun.

　　Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Jia

　　Photo provided by Beijing Film Festival Organizing Committee

[Editor in charge: Tang Wei]