Xu Anhua talks about - The First Incense -: I was too polite when working with Wang Anyi, and I still feel that it is a pity

　　　 Just let me fall in love once.“During the 10th Pingyao International Film Festival, Xu Anhua recalled what he said when he invited Wang Anyi to adapt "The First Incense".The two sat together with Dai Jinhua, who hosted the conversation, and talked about everything from literary adaptation to creative difficulties, as well as the impact of AI and short plays.

This ”Master·Dialogue“ is called ”Her Days and Nights, taken from Ann Hui's movie - Days and Nights in Tin Shui Wai.Dai Jinhua explained at the beginning that “she” does not only refer to a director, but also to modern women; this female third-person pronoun only entered modern Chinese after the May 4th Movement.

Xu Anhua was awarded the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon East-West Exchange Contribution Honor at the film festival this time, and also served as the Fei Mu Honor Jury Chairman.She revealed that Niu Jianrong, the best actor, was unanimously selected by the judges, and everyone reached unanimous agreement from the beginning.This director, who was born in 1947, has won six Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Film. She has won six Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Director. She won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Asian Film Awards in 2011 and the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 77th Venice Film Festival in 2020.After these experiences, being a judge still provided her with the opportunity to learn.

She mentioned a saying: After the age of 40, others often no longer criticize you in person because they think you can't change.But she still wants to improve, because if you don't die, you will still have to be a human being.

The entry left several kinds of impressions on her.Some write about the relationship between modern men and women and ethics, with a sense of comedy and hidden sadness; some mix science fiction and reality, with neither world perfect and the characters having nowhere to escape; and some combine documentaries with dramas to explore the relationship between fiction and reality.Dai Jinhua's previous talk about AI images also touched her: people must rely on their own understanding of history and society to identify the authenticity of images.Xu Anhua therefore thought that although creation constantly pursues truth, a set of expressions that are logically and aesthetically consistent can still convince the audience.

Wang Anyi's introduction to Xu Anhua's movie began with "Half Life".She liked this work very much. Later, at an international symposium on Eileen Chang, she heard the director publicly criticizing himself for not filming it well.After getting acquainted, she asked specifically about the reason.Xu Anhua believes that the most important thing in the novel is that time can never go back. Her movie does not fully express that "cannot go back“".This shocked Wang Anyi: Narratives usually move forward in time, but movies have to deal with whether they can come back after the time has passed. Only if they come back can they not come back.She feels that Xu Anhua is talking about the essence of film and narrative.

The cooperation between the two began.In 2009, Xu Anhua directed the stage play - The Story of the Golden Lock - written by Wang Anyi.Wang Anyi later agreed to write "The First Incense", and she also had a feeling of affection stemming from this cooperation: the other party directed her play so well that she felt she owed a debt.

In 2018, Wang Anyi came to the Chinese University of Hong Kong. As soon as she put down her luggage, she received a call from Xu Anhua from Shanghai.Knowing that she had just arrived in Hong Kong, Xu Anhua said: It doesn't matter, I will come over tomorrow.”After meeting, the director took out a novel by Zhang Ailing and hoped to change it into a movie.Wang Anyi was hesitant at first, thinking that the people inside were all bad and couldn't find any points of interest.Xu Anhua said, let yourself fall in love once; even if the people in the story are not good, she still regards it as a love story.

Wang Anyi described the subsequent cooperation as "silky".The director is willing to listen to opinions and sometimes calls to ask about adding a scene or two.She was touched by this respect and felt that the director could decide some things by himself.However, Xu Anhua regretted his politeness back then: Wang Anyi understood both practice and theory, and some of his ideas even went further than his own. He could have mentioned several more attempts and discussed them carefully, but he did not speak fully because he was embarrassed.She still hopes the two will continue to work together.

“A movie is a project. You should never expect to complete a movie by yourself.” Wang Anyi experienced the difficulties of this kind of collective creation when she collaborated with Chen Kaige on "Feng Yue".Novelists are accustomed to staying alone in a room to construct the world, but making a movie requires constant discussion and generating characters and plots in the conversation; to actually put pen to paper, you have to put aside your good narration, design scenes and simple dialogues.Chen Kaige hoped to be original at the time, and the shooting method of hand-held cameras would even bring out the requirements of the scene: a corridor long enough to allow the camera to continue moving forward.These demands made her feel helpless.

Adapting Zhang Ailing is another kind of difficulty.Ready-made texts are not easy to modify. They are far removed from the era when the novel was written. Wang Anyi also found it difficult to write lines with the same accuracy.The novel can continue to be revised in the third and fourth editions, but once the movie is released, there is no way to do it again.This is her personal experience of the regrettable art of film.

Xu Anhua has also been reading Wang Anyi.In the 1990s, not long after "Song of Everlasting Regret" was published, she lay in bed and read it all day and night.The way reality and unreality, history and personal were mixed made her feel strange and unique, and she became Wang Anyi's reader from then on.Dai Jinhua compares this writing to a river: readers sink into it and are pushed, wrapped and carried by the waves; the work continues to grow and eventually becomes the author's own world.

Why are your novels rarely adapted into movies?Wang Anyi said that in the 1980s, students at the Beijing Film Academy adapted two of her short stories into graduation works.As students became professional filmmakers, they gradually distanced themselves from her novels.She believes that her writing does not provide convenience, lacks scenes and dramatic character changes that can be directly transformed, and many things are very dull.

She prefers to tell what she sees visually in words.Films have grown with technology and have so many means of expression, but novels have always only had words and narratives.Her choice to write novels comes from her interest in the appearance of life and the step-by-step process of how things happen.“Art is about process...Only process has aesthetic value.”She was reluctant to write about what had just happened immediately because her understanding, details and information were not yet sufficient, and she would rather allow some time and distance.

When it comes to her taste in watching movies, she is very frank: writing on weekdays is already hard mental work, and she wants to relax when watching movies.Experimental films scare her a little, and she hopes to see good-looking and relaxing works.

When talking about digital and AI, Dai Jinhua summed up the changes in media with "Film died in 2011 and digital came". He also said: "Today 99“ of directors use digital to shoot movies, but the aesthetics are still film aesthetics."”Many people are still keen to adjust the picture to look like film in the later stage and use new media to carry the aesthetics of the old media.She also talked about another level of change: casting rights and final editing rights often leave the hands of the director. The aesthetic innovation that the author's film once carried out is being squeezed by the power of capital.When everyone can shoot movies with their mobile phones, creators need to rediscover the possibilities of movies.

Xu Anhua joked that she might have to change her career and help take pictures for museums. She was not depressed.When she was filming "Under the Lion Rock" in the 1970s, the life in front of her gave her strength; in the 1990s, she suddenly felt that she could no longer take pictures.Life has changed, so the way of shooting, the angle and attitude of observing things have to change, and they have to change so that they can be understood by themselves and can be explained clearly to the audience.It was not until the woman was forty that she rediscovered a common language to communicate with the audience.Now, decades later, she has encountered similar confusion, and admitted that she is computer illiterate and finds it difficult to participate in the visual feast created by new technologies.

Wang Anyi said that she can still manage to overcome the difficulties of writing, but she will also be shocked by good works.Elena Ferrante's "My Brilliant Girlfriend", especially the third volume, put the dilemma similar to her generation into personal love, which made her both envious and self-reflective, feeling that she had not written to that extent.

Some viewers asked whether a movie that is incomprehensible is not considered a good movie.Xu Anhua did not give a decisive answer.She feels that high-quality TV series have taken over some of the positions of previous popular movies, while movies are exploring new techniques, new narratives and new themes. In the face of AI and short dramas, many people are still looking for a way.Dai Jinhua responded that of course not being able to understand can be a reason not to watch it, but movies, like literature, sometimes require the audience to have the same patience as reading complex novels.

When the story seems to have been told and the attention is taken away by the short video, where should we go?The experience given by Xu Anhua is to return to life.She will not prescribe methods for young people. She only said that when she encounters a big problem, she will first find the reason in life, not in a hurry to take pictures, find subjects, or express herself, and then slowly enter art.

Dai Jinhua is proud that the three of them still sincerely love their respective jobs.She put the question back to the origin of film: this technology, which was accompanied by the industrial revolution, used film as a by-product of petroleum to record reality and create fictional myths.The industrial age and film are changing, and the way in which film is established today must still be answered together.She believes film endures because it connects people through watching and creating.A crew may go through pain, conflict, and discomfort, but they are still willing to deliver their work to the screen, relying on their perseverance in love for each other.

She also disagrees with waiting for the so-called golden age: If you make a movie, the first thing is to have something to say, and the second thing is to have something to say to others. Only when you talk about it with a sincere attitude can the movie be meaningful.%

For the younger generation, she left a question that has yet to be answered: the changes brought about by AI may have a huge impact on civilization.Will the movie become a lamppost standing in the cold night, or will it disappear in the impact?It is up to them to continue creating and searching for the answer.