Stories of 100 schools
Recently, after the release of the movie "Wading Through the Angry Sea" starring Huang Bo and Zhou Xun, the response was good.
The film's opening phrase "Audiences under the age of eighteen are advised to choose carefully**" means that the film can be violent and bloody.
However, in the end, it is not those appearances that make the audience feel uncomfortable, but the violence of the abyss of human nature, which even makes people unable to breathe.
A young girl studying in another country died suddenly and mysteriously, and more than a dozen knife wounds on her body meant that this was not a simple scene"** The angry father played by Huang Bo left the ship that made him proud, avenged his daughter, and finally swung the knife at himself.
Cao Baoping's films have a fierce, complex, and desperate love and hatred that are rare in this social context.
That's the sentiment in his area that doesn't allow to be named.
Haven't you lived to play your hole cards once or twice?There will definitely be, because we are too vulnerable. ”
Cao Baoping, who came from the 60s, has the local taste of Shanxi Datong people, with a bit of blood, always covered with a layer of dust, with constant wandering tension and frustration.
He is not a prolific person, and his movements are even a little clumsy, but irreplaceable. Zhou Xun, Duan Yihong, Deng Chao, Hu Jun, Wu Gang, Wang Baoqiang and other actors have left their own irreplaceable camera stories in his movies.
Cao Baoping uses his own lens language and fierce brushstrokes to record the stories of the corners of the times, and is willing to bear the fate of wading through the sea.
Director Cao Baoping once again aimed at the original family this time, but he was dressed in the shell of a crime film, and all the members went crazy, which was even more ** than the previous "Dog Thirteen".
Cao Baoping has always liked to put people who have lost order together, so as to expose the most unbearable side of human nature.
Wading Through the Sea of Wrath", as well as past films, Cao Baoping obsessively explores the complexity of human nature.
In his opinion, we will never see the real humanity without the blur of flesh and blood.
Stills from the movie "Wading through the Angry Sea" Zhou Xun and Huang Bo.
The film tells the story of a father who goes on a revenge after his daughter is killed.
Lao Jin fished all day long for his daughter Nana to study abroad, but in exchange for the bad news of his daughter's mysterious death, the biggest suspect pointed to her boyfriend Li Miaomiao.
The angry old Jin embarked on the road of crossing the sea to seek revenge, but Li Miaomiao kept running ......away under the protection of her mother JinglanIn this mystery of human nature, it seems that no one can reach the other side of love and forgiveness, and they have to drift on the sea all day long.
The characters in the film have more or less some character flaws, so much so that they are called "all crazy" works by the audience.
Poster for the movie "Wading the Sea of Wrath".
The relationship between parents and children in China has always been complicated.
The silent father's love is nothing but the father's self-touching.
Nana's long-term lack of love and the weakness of her original family have formed a "borderline disorder personality", resulting in a series of near-** actions.
When the "borderline barrier personality" and the "** personality" come together and fall in love, it is an uncontrollable extreme tragedy.
Stills from the movie "Wading Through the Sea of Anger" Zhou is still with Zhang Youhao.
Huang Bo, the actor of the father, said bluntly: "Lao Jin's love for Nana is a kind of self-righteous love, just like many traditional original families now, parents are tired of coping with the pressure of survival, and think that they have done all their responsibilities by 'feeding' their children." ”
At the end of the film, Nana can't make a sentence with "love", and she cruelly confides in the fact that love does not exist in her life.
On the other hand, all the father's anger was directed at himself, and when he saw his daughter in the dead cupboard, painting the sun with his own blood, his heart completely collapsed.
The movie "Wading through the Sea of Wrath" is still a still from the week.
All his pride, there was no room for whitewashing, in the daughter's dream, the father's body was hung high in the sky, the air was foggy, but she did not cry.
This scene symbolizes the collapse of patriarchy and is reminiscent of Freud's psychoanalytic "patricide".
Cao Baoping is one of the few directors who can face the fact that "some parents don't love their children".
A still from the movie "Wading through the Sea of Wrath".
In order to make this movie, Huang Bo almost put his life into it, and in the scene where he was hung on a high place, he insisted on not using a stand-in and went into battle in person.
If there is a problem with WIA, the neck will be twisted immediately, which is extremely dangerous.
This film is the first collaboration between Huang Bo and Zhou Xun, and it is also the second collaboration between Cao Baoping and Zhou Xun after "Li Mi's Conjecture".
Stills from the movie "Wading through the Angry Sea" Huang Bo and Zhou Xun.
In the world of Chinese films, Cao Baoping is an extremely special existence.
In 1985, 23-year-old Cao Baoping was admitted to the drama major of the Literature Department of Beijing Film Academy.
Once, after watching a foreign movie, he was deeply attracted by the plot, but the teacher was very displeased: "As a professional filmmaker, how can you be attracted by the story, you have to look at his light, scheduling, etc." ”
Cao Baoping couldn't fool himself, he was indeed moved by the storyline.
Cao Baoping when he was young.
When he was studying at Beiying, it was the time when the fifth generation of Chinese directors was shining.
In 1984, 32-year-old Chen Kaige made his own movie "Yellow Earth", which was also his mentorship with Zhang Yimou.
The 34-year-old Zhang Yimou served as the cinematographer of the film, and the two hit it off and were ready to do it shirtless.
Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou when they were young.
The success of "Yellow Earth" revolutionized the narrative language of Chinese films at that time, which is undoubtedly a milestone, and it has brought new possibilities to Chinese films.
The heroine Xue Bai later recalled that Chen Kaige had a heroic temperament, he was a very student-like and literary person, and he was particularly excited when he was talking, and he often recited poems with full emotion.
In 1987, Zhang Yimou filmed a "Red Sorghum", won a "Golden Bear" at the Berlin International Film Festival, and won numerous awards in China, and was in the limelight for a while.
Zhang Yimou and the crew at the Berlin Film Festival.
Tian Zhuangzhuang made a very niche movie "Hunting Ground Zaza", which is a bold attempt by him, which is particularly documentary. He reduces the number of conversations and allows the viewer to feel the mood and atmosphere of the image itself.
A few years later, Tian Zhuangzhuang made the movie "Horse Thief", which still continued the previous humanist style. He searched for divinity in a low-class Tibetan, completely abandoning narrative and dialogue, and going straight to religion and life and death.
Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang (photographed by Xiao Quan).
Later, Tian Zhuangzhuang's "Blue Kite" directly pushed himself into the abyss of no return.
Everyone has never seen Tian Zhuangzhuang so sad, he hollowed out the movies he made, and in the end he failed to get the audience.
Empty shot from the movie "Blue Kite".
Cao Baoping, who is still a student, admires the fifth generation of directors very much, and he conceives his own film future in his own heart.
He caught up with the afterglow of the late eighties, a time of buzz and prosperity.
But Cao Baoping, who graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 1989, did not embark on the road of pure artistic expression.
He is classmates with Lou Ye, Wang Xiaoshuai and others, and these people constitute a group portrait of the sixth generation of Chinese directors.
Cao Baoping is different from them in that he did not let himself go through the turbulent and gloomy period of underground films, and certainly did not fall into the other extreme - commercial films, which he could not watch.
Cao Baoping. At that time, the stage of Chinese films was still the "fifth generation" of directors, and the studios were no longer in a recession, leaving few opportunities for young directors.
After graduating from Nortel, Cao Baoping wrote a script on the theme of the Anti-Japanese War called "Red Cotton Jacket, Red Cotton Pants", and there was no news after it was submitted for review, so he went to shoot film and television works.
In 1991, Cao Baoping created a single drama for "Looking Back Again" produced by the Film and Television Department of Beijing Film Studio, "The first thing I shot was written by myself, and I was very scored."
Later, Cao Baoping made his works unique in Chinese films, extreme, violent, and reckless.
Cao Baoping. In 2004, 42-year-old Cao Baoping made the movie "Glorious Rage", and he served as a screenwriter, director, and producer.
This is a movie with a bad roots, telling the story of Ye Guangrong, the seemingly cowardly village party secretary of Heijing Village, who uses his wisdom to overturn the bullies in the village and eliminate harm for the villagers.
The film's dialogue is all in the Yunnan dialect, and with the exception of the male protagonist Wu Gang, most of the main characters are played by Yunnan natives, who speak authentic Yunnan slang in the film.
Poster for the movie "Glorious Fury".
In order to play the role of Ye Guangrong, Wu Gang pushed down everything before the start of filming, and came to Heijing Village, Yunnan, the filming location, a week in advance, to live with the locals.
In the film, the village tyrant brothers who oppressed the people and did all kinds of evil were given the surname "Xiong" by Cao Baoping.
Behind the clumsy appearance, the bear hides a huge ferocity that makes people feel intimidating, and this characteristic forms an intertextual and strong symbolic meaning with the four brothers of the bear family.
Stills from the movie "Glorious Fury" Wu Gang.
This is Cao Baoping's second film, which was exhibited in the competition unit of the 2006 Berlin Film Festival and the Montreal International Film Festival.
At the age of not being confused, Cao Baoping began to have the right to express himself.
Four years later, he handed in his work "Li Mi's Conjecture".
On the surface, it is a crime film, but in fact, it is about the love of the hero and heroine.
The story is quite realistic, bringing together the ordinary, sad, confused and cruel emotions in one place.
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Zhou Xun.
Li Mi, a taxi driver, has been desperate to find her missing boyfriend for four years, and passengers in her car are asked the same question: "Have you ever seen this man?"”
Her boyfriend Fang Wen has been missing for four years, but he always writes to her to inform her of the latest situation, but he never has a mailing address. Fang Wen disappeared from her life, but existed in a special way.
Struggling between hope and disappointment, Li Mi was tormented.
I saw Kunming on TV yesterday, and I suddenly cried, are you still waiting for me Li Mi. ”
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Deng Chao and Zhou Xun.
In one of the scenes, Zhou Xun ran out of the alley, hit the moving car directly, and then rolled to the ground.
This shot is extremely dangerous, but Zhou Xun didn't think about safety, and only thought that he was Li Mi. Li Mi is not afraid, she is not afraid.
Zhou Xun used his personal temperament and superb performance to tell young men and women that everyone has unspeakable pain and loss, and hopeless waiting will kill time and youth.
From beginning to end of the whole movie, Zhou Xun is very tired, or it can be said that Li Mi is very tired.
She wore a voluminous shirt, her hair was always messily pulled up, her lips were dry and tightly closed, her face was so plain that she couldn't be more plain, with freckles and wrinkles, and she smoked fiercely.
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Zhou Xun.
The hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly, as if they were holding their own past.
Love is a person's waiting, what Li Mi wants to do most is to find out Fang Wen, and then yell at him: "Why don't you die!."”
People who have not stood still and waited for many years cannot appreciate the feeling that their legs cannot be bent normally after standing for a long time.
Zhou Xun's performance always seems to be just the right amount of force, making people believe that her "disguise" in the movie has reached a near-perfect situation.
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Zhou Xun.
Li Mi, played by Zhou Xun, has been looking for her boyfriend Fang Wen for four years, and in the previous movie "Suzhou River", as a beautiful woman, she was found by the motor for several years.
If one day I were gone, would you look for me like a motor?”
Yes. "Will you keep looking for it?Will it always be found dead?”
Yes. "You lie. ”
Eight years later, Zhou Xun became the motor in "Suzhou River", looking for a lover.
Finding and being searched, Zhou Xun has experienced it.
Clip of the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Zhou Xun.
After finally finding Fang Wen, Zhou Xun chased after him and questioned him, and began to recite the letter that he had read many times, crying heartbreakingly, but he still spoke clearly and had deep line skills.
708 days, I'll tell you one thing, Li Mi, it's almost come true, I went to the airport this morning to buy a ticket, at that time I missed like a snake crawling on the grass, I suddenly wanted to go back, I bought a ticket, went through security, got to the boarding gate, and finally I came out, half of the ticket money was refunded, I want to go back, you know. ”
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Deng Chao and Zhou Xun.
Zhou Xun's voice was hoarse, tears fell down in large drops, and there was undoubted strength in his thin and petite body, but his face was always innocent.
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Zhou Xun.
At the end of the film, Fang Wen committed suicide by jumping off the bridge, everything was settled, and Li Mi lived a normal life.
Zhou Xun's monologue is heartbreaking, and the complex emotions of crying and laughing are real. She talked about her past with Fang Wen, which was so ordinary that it couldn't be more ordinary, but it made people worry and even empathize.
We didn't do well in Xi, and we didn't get into college. We're all inconspicuous, and no one cares about us. ”
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Zhou Xun.
In Cao Baoping's view, Zhou Xun's explosiveness in his bones is very strong, and sometimes it is quite muddy.
In order to make this movie, Zhou Xun also learned to drive. After filming this drama, when she returned to Beijing, she directly hit the car into her mother's garage.
Although Zhou Xun's role is far greater than Deng Chao's, this movie also made him grow up quickly.
When he joined the group for the first time, everyone accompanied Deng Chao for a scene, but until the filming was over, he was still wondering if that scene was not perfect enough. In Zhou Xun's opinion, he is a rather tangled person.
This year, Zhou Xun was 34 years old and Deng Chao was 29 years old.
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Deng Chao and Zhou Xun.
This is not the last time the two will work together with Cao Baoping.
Supporting actor Wang Baoqiang also contributed his wonderful performance in this movie, in order to highlight the characteristics of the drug dealer he played, he shaved all his hair, and strived to be close to the character from the outside to the heart.
In order to practice Xi Yunnan dialect, as soon as the sun sets, Wang Baoqiang goes to the vegetable market alone to listen to the locals speak and chat.
Stills from the movie "Li Mi's Conjecture" Wang Baoqiang and Zhou Xun.
It is worth mentioning that the renaming of the film has undergone many discussions, and the different insistence of the main creative team has divided the production team into "encounter" and "conjecture".
The "conjecture school" represented by producer Wang Zhonglei and actor Deng Chao is the upholder of "fighting to the end with love". The opposite is Cao Baoping, and "What Happened to Li Mi" is his original name.
Li Mi, from encounter to conjecture, it can be seen how difficult she has walked.
Li Mi's Conjecture presents the aesthetics of Chinese cinema in the 90s, with a hand-held camera, blurred to a somewhat rough picture, and a sense of presence in the early days of the sixth generation of directors, with Cao Baoping as the master.
The theme song of the movie "Outside the Window" was written and composed by Dou Wei and sung by Zhou Xun.
With your bright smile, I ran as hard as I could.
Fly by in the distance, and you can't get to the village."
Zhou Xun and Dou Wei.
The film won many awards, Zhou Xun won multiple Best Actress awards, and Cao Baoping was also nominated for Best Director.
Zhou Xun said: "Director Cao Baoping has a very straightforward personality, although he has high requirements for actors, he is often very happy during filming. ”
From the beginning of this movie, Cao Baoping gradually found his "motif".
Cao Baoping and Zhou Xun.
This is the best era of commercial films, and it is also the worst era of serious films.
In this social context, Cao Baoping made an important work "Scorching Sun", which tells the story of three men with different identities raising an orphan girl together and involving an old case in the passing years.
Everything seems to be calm, but in fact, the undercurrent is turbulent, a fugitive kills because of **, and in the days that followed, he kept doing good things to redeem himself, and finally there was no way to escape.
Poster for the movie "Scorching Sun".
This is the second collaboration between Deng Chao and Cao Baoping.
Deng Chao challenged the multiple identities of criminal, redeemer, and father at once. He lived alone during filming, didn't even communicate with anyone in the crew, and couldn't sleep well at night.
In the final execution scene, despite the director's objections, he directly asked for a real injection of glucose into his body, just to experience the dying struggle of a fugitive who had been saddled with secrets for many years before death in extreme fear.
When I was injected, I didn't find a professional doctor, and I was pierced several times, but Deng Chao still didn't give up. It wasn't until he woke up again after fainting that the assistant director cried and shouted: "Brother Chao, I thought you were dead." ”
Clip of the movie "Scorching Sun" Deng Chao.
After Deng Chao finished filming this scene, he was still deeply trapped in the role and couldn't get out, and he looked very gloomy.
Partner Duan Yihong said that when filming, he felt that Deng Chao was indistinguishable from each other, and there was a scene where Deng Chao walked towards him in handcuffs, and he couldn't tell whether it was Xin Xiaofeng or Deng Chao.
Duan Yihong also contributed the best performance, in order to play the police in the film, he did not go home during the Spring Festival, and went to the Jialian Police Station in Xiamen City to experience the police life for half a month.
He followed the local police on various tasks, and once, a criminal mistook Duan Yihong for a plainclothes policeman and came to plead with him, and he felt that he could start filming.
He was very stubborn, because of a line and a schedule, Duan Yihong and the director called for two or three hours, and the dispute was strong.
Stills from the movie "Scorching Sun" Duan Yihong.
Duan Yihong and Deng Chao both wore police uniforms into the hotel, making people mistakenly think that something had happened in the hotel, and they also went to the stall to buy two or three yuan of fake three guns**, and completely entered the role from life.
The policeman played by Duan Yihong has been struggling inside, and has managed to think, beg and act like a living person, and achieve the emotional synchronization between the actor and the character.
He was too deep into the film, and cried and said to Cao Baoping at the filming site: "I have been filming until today, and I can't hear my heartbeat for the first time, I don't know what I'm doing." ”
Cao Baoping was impressed by Duan Yihong's extreme: "Lao Duan has the possibility of becoming a great actor. ”
Stills from the movie "Scorching Sun" Duan Yihong and Deng Chao.
This year, Duan Yihong won the Best Actor Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival in one fell swoop, and he has been waiting for 24 years for this moment.
To this day, I have been debuting for twenty-four years. I don't want to act for an award because I can't predict the outcome. This result is not my original intention to do things, as an actor, my gain is far greater than this result. I am willing, slave to the play. ”
The favor of fate came after he was not confused, and everything was worth it.
Duan Yihong. With this role, Deng Chao won the 31st Chinese Film Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor and was nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor;Guo Tao also won the Best Actor at the Shanghai International Film Festival.
This year, Duan Yihong was 42 years old, Deng Chao was 36 years old, and Guo Tao was 48 years old.
From left to right: Guo Tao, Deng Chao, Duan Yihong.
Cao Baoping's movies have won many high-quality actors, and they are also known as "actor makers" by insiders.
Deng Chao said: "Cao Baoping is very idealistic, his spiritual level is very cute, and he is very much like a child. He believed in human potential, he believed in the thrill of creating, and he was a very kind person. ”
In Chinese films, you can touch so many forbidden areas, and under the story of clear logic, it is wrapped in the core of literature and art, which stems from Cao Baoping's careful observation of different groups of people in life, and of course, courage.
From left to right: Guo Tao, Deng Chao, Cao Baoping, Duan Yihong.
Tsui Hark once said that the characters in Cao Baoping's movies have a sense of violence in their bones.
This kind of violence is not only the overt violence of fighting and chasing, but also a kind of violence that slowly erodes people's minds in daily life, as is the case in the movie "Dog Thirteen".
Poster of the movie "Dog 13".
The movie tells the story of the tragic growth of a girl shrouded by her father's authority, and many viewers regard the "dog 13" on the movie poster as "dog b", which is the deep meaning of director Cao Baoping.
The leading actor Zhang Xueying always has insomnia when she is acting in this play.
At the time of filming, she was 14 years old, 1 year older than the Li Wan she played, and she couldn't know the meaning of many things, but Cao Baoping was optimistic about Zhang Xueying's spirituality.
Stills from the movie "Dog Thirteen" Zhang Xueying.
When you reach the age of 13, you think you are already very important to the world, but in fact, the world is just ready to forgive you for your childishness.
There is no ...... of pregnancy, abortion, cancer, car accidents, etc. in the filmIn the ordinary life, the thorns are more violent, and unconsciously, we saw our youth being beheaded in Li Play's body, and there was no blood.
When Cao Baoping talked about his original intention of creation, he said:
No one noticed when we suddenly grew up, but that day was brutal and I want you to look back at it. ”
Stills from the movie "Dog Thirteen" Zhang Xueying.
From childhood to adulthood, the 13-year-old girl Li Play has experienced the divorce of her parents, and she is in adolescence.
Violence in the name of love is even more cruel.
Stills from the movie "Dog Thirteen" Zhang Xueying.
Li played with the name of her dog "Einstein", she experienced the rejection of the dog, the acceptance of the dog, the loss of the dog, the betrayal of the dog, the no longer want the dog, and finally calmly ate the piece of dog meat and said thank you, which is the most violent scene.
Sadly, there are many more such things in the future.
Stills from the movie "Dog Thirteen" Zhang Xueying.
Cao Baoping said: "Every generation comes from the age of 13, and the more you go, the more you drink. ”
"Dog Thirteen" was filmed very daily, ordinary to gray, in reality and memory, Li Play completed his own growth proposition, and was gradually oppressed by the patriarchal system.
This is the only way for her to go to the world, irresistible, accompanied by great pain.
When the animal is no longer ferocious, when the thirteen-year-old girl becomes silent and begins to obey, behind the sensible is full of fear and helplessness.
Stills from the movie "Dog Thirteen" Zhang Xueying.
Cao Baoping, among Chinese directors, is an extremely special existence.
He did not see himself as an artist, let alone a commercial film director, Cao Baoping was always in the middle ground.
He did not engage in niche literature and art like Lou Ye, nor did he devote himself to shooting realistic stories of Shanxi counties like Jia Zhangke, his films are narrative, not atmospheric.
Cao Baoping, after being surrounded and suppressed again and again, let the characters under his lens be like trapped beasts, forced into a desperate situation, torn apart by fate, the pain is fierce, and he does not hesitate to turn into ashes.
If the director has rivers and lakes, he must be one of the top masters.
Cao Baoping and Tang Wei.
Later, Cao Baoping's body was entangled with the admiration, sighs, and even unspeakable pity that generations of people added to him.
Because, he's been waiting.
The heart is full of messes, and Cao Baoping can only clean up by himself.
He is very glad that he still has limitations, because there is no end to the story and human nature, Cao Baoping is still on the way, and he has to complete his narrative in necessity and chance.