Wayne Wang: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Yes. The picture ego? Well there is always the cinematography ego, but all of it serves to tell that story, in an interesting visual way. So for example, in this case, that one shot with the wall separating them, was the shot that I saw in my head early on, so I told the cinematographer, I want that wall, and that separation. And that kind of framing, of the two worlds almost. So those kinds of things, all serve telling the story, because it’s about the father and the daughter, and they’re connected in the same frame, and yet they’re not connected. So I really think the cinematography cannot take over by becoming too pretty, or too beautiful. Often times, I think Japanese films have this problem. They’re always too beautiful. I think that the cinematography has to serve, the story and what’s going on. I mean architecturally, I’m a big Bauhaus person. I feel that form and function go together. And you have to make them serve each other.

Well, I’m a little obsessive and anal, and hence the (laugh). So, it’s shot by a Swiss DP so that tells you a lot. The Swiss DP is like clockwork. Which bothers me a little bit sometimes, but I also like the fact that I was with that. Because I said, I’m going to bump you sometimes when you’re on the camera, just so to rough it up a little bit (laugh).

Yes. Because once you’re on it, it feels like you shouldn’t break that (laugh). I did, by the way, I did another film that is connected to this, also a short story by the same book by Yiyun Li. It’s called “A Princess of Nebraska”. And that film was shot completely handheld. Completely all in close up. Jump cuts, everything. It’s a completely experimental film. But in France, it was very interesting. They released the two films together. In a multiplex, on different screens. It says, and I think the way they promoted it was, two films, two women, two generations, something like that, which I find fascinating. Because the two films are connected but they are also so different. Because Yilan is from the generation where she went through the cultural revolution, but “A Princess of Nebraska”, the young girl, is let’s say, 19. She came after the cultural revolution. She came after Tiananmen Square. She doesn’t even know any of that stuff. Because they have no memory of that. So they are a completely new generation.

Well, Paul is such a specific writer. I almost treated it as a staged play. Where we respected every word of it. And I remember, William Hurt and Harvey Keitel came on, they had both done theater. And in theater, you don’t change the dialogue. You don’t change the words. It’s god. It’s the bible. So we worked that way. Until there was a problem. And then, you can kind of ask Paul to try to solve it. So, we did that. But then, film has a very different life. You sometimes do have to adapt. You sometimes do have to breathe new life into it, so we tried to do that when it was possible. I remember where there was a moment when we were making Smoke, there was, I don’t know if you remember that scene, there were two drug dealers that came to beat up William Hurt. And the second drug dealer, had a lot of bad language. And he was actually speaking as a ghetto black, where every other word was “fuck” and “you asshole” or whatever. And he couldn’t change it. Because that’s how they speak. But Paul took all those things out, and wrote it, in a way that was not very natural for him. And I saw him teaching this actor how to say what he wrote, but he could not get it. Paul’s face was getting redder and redder and redder. But anyway, that’s an interesting example. I finally went over and just said Paul, just go easy. Let him talk the rhythm that he has. It’s like rapping. You can’t just start changing and saying, no bad language or whatever, you got to just have to let him go and do what they do.

(he laughs) Well, actually, I met Paul again. I hadn’t seen him for many years. At Locarno, where it won all these prizes, Paul was on the jury. So we kind of talked and we kind of made up, because we had a big falling out. So maybe if the right thing comes along…

Yes, he does. Yes, he definitely has his own. He has directed a few films that are kind of interesting. So he does have his own film language so…

Well, the poetry comes from probably the visual and context of things. I always tell actors, don’t do anything. I remember Walter Matthau where he was in some film, which he was great emotionally, and I remember an interviewer asking him, how did you do it, why were you so good in that scene? And he said, I was trying to figure out how to do laundry that day, in my head. I think there’s a value to that. You know, if you know the character, and if you feel that moment, in a very truthful way, it will come across. The worst thing is to try to force anything and be artificial about it. So a lot of it with Mr. shee and fei yuu, was basically saying, don’t do anything. You understand this character and this moment. We can talk about moment. Just be in that moment. So, that’s how I work a lot. Some actors hate me. Because I take away everything (laugh).

If they don’t like it, I’ll just keep on shooting until they’re tired. Then, they won’t do anything anymore. It’s true. There’s this scene where Yilan, she was with her Russian lover, she was emoting so much. I couldn’t get her to come down. And it was like, 12 o’clock at night that time, and I just kept shooting. By 3 o’clock at night, it was just so cold, it was so late. She was just being the character. So I think that’s also a trick, I don’t remember who uses it, but you just keep shooting until they’re tired. Then, they won’t do it anymore. (laughs)

It’s a little dreamy, yes. I don’t know. Sometimes, I think things are kind of weird and magical, and I cannot explain it. We went to this lake because it’s nice and beautiful. It was so calm during the whole time we shot there. Then, all of a sudden, we had this weird wind started kicking up. We knew we only had one take. And somehow, we just said, let’s do it one more time, that’s all we had, and something happened. They looked at each other, without me telling them. And they just kind of had this little smile. And there’s something of… The wind was already kicking up, and there’s something that just happened from that. I ended up using that last take. And then we tried to say, I said, oh, this is interesting, let’s try some more. But the wind would not let us do it. It was just so windy, it just looked.., her hair was flying everywhere, and it was gone.