The Chinese female director's American cowboy movie

Zelma 2022-04-05 09:01:08

Every year at the end of the year, my husband and I will review the best movies of the year reviewed by different media. The 2018 Oscar-nominated movies didn't come as a surprise, and a few, like "Green Book," "Roma," and "Vice," didn't make it to the end. More impressive, like Li Cangdong's "Burning" adapted from Haruki Murakami's short story, very Murakami. A few exquisite dialogues, a few charming scenes, a lonely temperature, a suspenseful tone, and the last pale ending was a waste. When I was young, I liked Murakami. I always felt that there was a kind of wet helplessness in the complicated void, and it was helpless and wonderful to carry the spirit of the age of young people.

Now that people are over 30, I don't know how Murakami has written a book about the helpless story of an unknown man over 30 since the age of 30. This is not to criticize Murakami, but to say that people need different artistic collocations at different stages of life.

Li Cangdong's "Burning" is beautiful, but the last pale ending was a waste

I talk about this because I am now afraid of literary films, not afraid of its beauty and aesthetics, but I am afraid that it will be nothing. I think that's why I didn't watch "Knight" until half a year later. Every time my husband mentioned the "cowboy film made by a Chinese female director," which was nominated for many best films, I would always be stunned by this contradictory sentence, as if my brain couldn't digest it, and I finally chose to give up.

American Western movies are to me, like American country music, a cultural system that is difficult to access and understand. My understanding of it stops at Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," Quentin Tarantino, and most recently, "Westworld," and it's hard to escape the massive symbols and stereotypes. What does it mean for a Chinese woman to write and direct a story about an American cowboy that won an award in Cannes? What I am afraid of is the beauty and emptiness like "Burning". It wasn't until one day that a long shot of South Dakota floated on the TV screen, and my husband said he wanted to watch this film, so I put down the book in my hand and was silently conquered by the camera.

The photographer of "Knight" is Joshua James Richards, who is at the same school as Zhao Ting

After watching it, I found out that Zhao Ting's "Knight" is actually a very real film. The story is simple, straight, and complete. Young riders who are seriously injured in the race face the end of their careers and a crisis of self-identity. Just because the story is neat doesn't mean it doesn't have subtle, charming, lonely, suspenseful, pale parts. Its reality is not only because the film is adapted from a true story, but also not only because the film is played by prototype characters, but also because the directors are based on real, solid, and practical choices one by one. The attitude of facing reality emerges from beauty and sadness, making the originally bleak subject - the injured protagonist, the alcoholic father, the sister of Asperger's syndrome, the injured and paralyzed friend, etc. - full of self-seeking and persevering spirit . And it is precisely because the director's narrative method does not rely on the drama of Hollywood, nor does it succumb to the nothingness of literary films, but uses a frank and atmospheric narrative method to make the final story more naked than the documentary.

As Zhao Ting said in an interview, a work needs to balance realism and poetry . Just like a teacher at the New York Film and Television Academy commented on Zhao Ting: "Chloe has a warm heart, but a pair of cold eyes." (Vogue) This story perfectly finds the most touching documentary, art film and drama. intersection.

After watching the film, I was deeply moved and full of curiosity about the director behind the camera. What kind of person can shoot a story far from his own background in such a calm and confident way? After searching Zhao Ting, I saw a face emerge from the vast western landscape. The face is clean, real, but also strong and fearless. I don't know why, just like Zhao Ting was moved by the story owner's announcement of Reddy, her gaze touched me too, and I immediately felt that this film was a story before and after the camera.

Beijing-born Chinese director Zhao Ting

Who is Zhao Ting? The domestic media seems to stay on the label of Song Dandan's stepdaughter, or mention the news that the Marvel movie is directed by a Chinese director for the first time, "The Eternals". After reading some foreign media reports, I found that her upbringing can just explain the self-identity thinking in the film.

She seems to be looking for herself all the time. Rebellious since childhood, he didn't like to read in school, he liked to draw comics, write fan fiction, and watch movies. She had questions about her family, background and living environment. Leaving China to study in the UK and the US in high school was the first step in exposing myself and society. And after graduation, she did not go to a stable job. Working in New York bars, organizing parties, real estate, she did it all. Irregular work allowed her to come into contact with people from different backgrounds in the society, learned to love communicating with all kinds of people, to understand each person's history and experience, and encouraged her to go to a film school to analyze what she saw in the way of film. s story. However, after graduating from Tisch College in New York, she chose to leave. She, who has always lived in a big city, said: "I want to strip away all the identities I've established and go to a place where no one knows who I am, so I can know who I am. When you are obsessed with life in China or New York It’s hard to be sure if you’re living the life you want or the life you’ve just met by chance.” (Vogue)

Zhao Ting went to an Indian reservation in South Dakota in the western United States. While in China, she fell in love with the plains of Inner Mongolia as a child. After the age of 30, the faster the pace of life in New York, the more she likes South Dakota. Standing on that piece of land, she could feel the end of time, and from time to time, she could find animal bones that were left over for centuries. (Vanity Fair) She met a lot of people there, made her debut film about the American Indian Lakota, and went back and forth until the locals called her "that Lakota girl with a Chinese name." (Filmmaker )

Perhaps it was this deep penetration that allowed her to produce a sense of stillness and eternity akin to early Terrence Malick westerns. What made me put down the book to divert my attention was the nature that swallowed everything. It is both a palette and a character. The owner announced that Reddy once mentioned, "Because she opened her heart to our world, we are willing to open her heart to her world." (Vogue) A brave film that needs to be honest with myself and others.

Terrence Malick's 'Days of Heaven' is hailed as a must-have for all cinematographers

If the criticism of Terrence Malick for many years is to focus too much on the big topics of life, nature, truth, and belief and ignore the shaping of the characters, "The Knight" has done a great job in handling the characters. Zhao Ting once mentioned that when shooting, she hopes to put the camera inside the characters to awaken more resonance. (Filmmaker Mag)

Rather than supporting characters with stories, the film’s narrative unfolds from Brady’s point of view, continuing through the development of his relationships with different people after his injury. From father, sister, friends, strangers, and even his horse, everyone carries his own desires and prejudices against him.

Friends and strangers of the younger generation wanted him to persevere, but there was no way to have a deeper conversation with him. His father asked him to give up, but there was no way to give him more comfort. The most touching is probably the younger sister and Ma, two characters who have no specific understanding of the consequences of his injury, but still treat each other with the most calm side. After the horse was injured, Brady said that I am the horse, but because I am a person I can still live, reflecting the cruelty of life, and in the most subtle way, pointing out that everyone needs to complete themselves in their own way. s life.

"The Knight" portrays Brady's delicate characters in the heart, reflecting the in-depth dialogue and cooperation between Zhao Ting and the actors. This film is her and Brady exchange out. She said: "A director has to be a good listener and Brady doesn't go to a psychiatrist. He didn't even go back for a physical after his injury. I was probably the only stranger who came into his life, maybe he felt like I The conversation was comfortable. I asked him a lot of questions about the script, and we had to go deep." (Vanity Fair)

Zhao Ting met Brady through the filming of her debut work "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing". In the interview, she mentioned that she always remembered that "his face was great," and there was an intuition that made her feel the story of this man. (Vogue) Brady insisted on getting back on the horse after a serious injury in the race a few months later, and she suddenly realized, "This is it." A disaster turned into a life-changing opportunity.

Without a doubt, Brady is the biggest reason for the movie's success. His turnover between yin and softness, strength and fragility, reality and dream has subverted the traditional image of American cowboys and even men, and completed a very real characterization.

He sometimes has a James Franco-like handsome face, but a more refined and melancholy face than Franco's. Many quiet, fragmented scenes in the film, such as Brady's daily life with wounds, the conversation with his sister, singing around the campfire with his friends, and the silence on the prairie, rely on an unspeakable charm about him. Towards the end, I always thought that the fascination came from Brady's personal growth, but when he was crying in the car after visiting his wounded friend, I didn't realize the director's vision and found the A gifted actor .

Even the apparently unprofessional performances of the other characters around him, including Dad and friends, seem to accentuate the protagonist's talent. The only person who can compare to Brady may be his sister with Asperger's syndrome. Her uneven, innocent words and actions show a strange purity in the face of all the cruelties of life. While the lives of these vulnerable groups have not received attention, they still live silently and with dignity.

The most powerful point of the film should be that Zhao Ting captured the most real America through the eyes of a foreigner. Before filming "The Knight", Zhao Ting admitted that she had not watched more than three cowboy films, and the image of Marlboro, well-known in the United States, did not take root in her growing up in Beijing. Brady in the camera is full of the bravery, dashing, silent, and perseverance of a man in the American West, but also contains compassion, sensitivity, and timidity. Even "Brokeback Mountain", which broke the label that year, can't escape the silhouette of two movie stars playing Marlboro.

Then there's the unconventional ending. American education advocates the pursuit of dreams from an early age. The director was also moved by the unyielding Brady in reality and decided to make his story. However, the spiritual core of the film is the sentence "Sometimes dreams don't always come true." If Brady's self-worth has always dominated his cowboy identity, who is he after losing his dream? Who are we when anyone loses a part of themselves?

When Brady decided to leave the rodeo, it was not cowardice, but growth and responsibility. Self-awareness is not something that can be determined by external circumstances or others, but from the heart. Even if he can no longer compete, he finally understands who he is. A Chinese girl, left Beijing, left New York, gave up her routine, in order to reveal her truest self layer by layer. In different corners of the world, everyone is playing out the same story.

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Sources:

Filmmaker https://filmmakermagazine.com/people/chloe-zhao/ Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/04/ chloe - zhao -director -of-the-rider-interview Vogue h ttps: //www.vogue.com/article/chloe-zhao-the-rider-vogue-april-2018 All photos copyright belong to the film "Knight", "Burning", "Day in Heaven" or Zhao Ting herself

© Copyright of this article belongs to the author, reprinted from Yunnan Road WeChat public account, please contact the author for reprinting in any form.

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Extended Reading
  • Modesto 2022-04-09 09:01:08

    Troubled knight. There is nothing more distressing than having to give up a dream, and it is even more sad to take your life to hold on when God declares that you have to give up. I like this desolate and vigorous, horse-riding grassland, independent from the world, full of poetry.

  • Major 2022-04-08 09:01:13

    Zhao Ting observed the troubled American Western culture with curious eyes in [The Knight], and thus made the film into a genuine elegy. This may be the beginning of a new era of westerns: economic problems have eroded into the idyllic Great West, and the glory of the past can only be recovered in YouTube videos and dreams. The part of the film that describes the relationship between people and horses is excellent, but the emotional passages that are too straightforward and too old-fashioned hinder the accumulation of poetry.

The Rider quotes

  • Brady Blackburn: If any animal around here got hurt like I did, they'd have to be put down

  • Brady Blackburn: You know, Lilly, I believe God gives each of us a purpose.

    Lilly Blackburn: Very true.

    Brady Blackburn: To the horse, it's to run across the prairie. For a cowboy, it's to ride.