美版蓝光花絮——李安，王家卫在Museum of Moving Image的访谈

SCHWARTZ: The pool hall fight?
WONG: Yes. You know, Patrick is a very, like, detailed director. He’s well-prepared; he’s very meticulous about his shot. So he would stop—two days before shooting, he said, “Well, I need to plan all my shots.” He knows exactly what he will do on set. So when I become a director I think, “Well, he’s my model; I think I can do something like this.”
But I realize I’m not, because I’m still—the night before shooting, I am still working on the script, because I kept changing it. I said, “Well, I’ll wake up in the morning and I have two hours; I can do all this shot list.” And then I wake up like, half-an-hour before the shoot. (Laughter) So I go to—it’s total panic.
Because I learned some tricks before, as a writer, because as a writer, you have to be on set all the time, you know, on call. It’s because you are the psychiatrist of the director. (Laughter) So you learn some tricks. I said, “Well, this shot is going to be very complicated. I want to see the action, so we are going to make a long track.” It’s almost as long as here. So we just follow these two guys jumping around on these tables or set up the shots. So they will have… Because it is going to be a big set-up, so it will take at least three hours, so I can have time. (Laughter)
I still remember—the DP of As Tears Go By, actually, was Andrew Lau [Wai-Keung] who later on became a very successful director, who made fil***ike Infernal Affairs (2002). And I still remember Andrew, at that point, was very, very young and very energetic. Basically, we are very primitive to shoot this shot because normally, if you were following the action with a dolly, people would have a lot of, like, cushions at the end, because the camera would just—phoom!—hit the wall, like this.
But we don’t have this kind of thing, because I didn’t tell them the night before. (Laughter) So actually, we lined a few of the stunt men over there... (Laughter) So the cameras go like this and then—phroom! They would run into the stuntmen and start over again.
But in those days, it was really fun, because we were all very, very young and we felt like, “Wow, we are doing something very amazing.” In those days, all these filmmakers were very close. Tomorrow it would become like a legend, everybody talking about, “Wow, they did a great shot, a very cool shot, yesterday.” Those were the days in Hong Kong that making films is—we were very close, and there were new communities, you know.
SCHWARTZ: Now, you said that you didn’t have talent in graphic design. But in the second we saw from that film, it’s very strikingly graphic. I mean, it’s a chase scene, but you have— the way the bus comes in, the kind of filling the frame with color, the fade to white at the end… There’s a lot going on.
WONG: I said I don’t have talent in drawing but I can take pictures.
SCHWARTZ: But there’s a very strong idea there about playing around and doing something stylistically adventurous.
WONG: Well, I think since I was five, I’d watched more than a thousand pictures, so more or less, they had some influence on me.

SCHWARTZ: [Cinematographer] Chris Doyle, yes.
WONG: …all these elevators, so we could go to the mid-level of Hong Kong. So I think this is something very new, and so we create another part, the day in Hong Kong side.
So that film actually is a Hong Kong that is my impression of the city, which is close to me. For In the Mood for Love (2000), it’s about my memory of my childhood. This is a Hong Kong which has been lost. So it is about an era. Sometimes a film is not about the characters themselves, it’s about the whole period, you know.
SCHWARTZ: Just to jump to My Blueberry Nights, then, because here is the first film that is set in New York. So what was your approach to how you would visualize New York?
WONG: First of all, because my wife’s family lives in New York, so I’ve been here for a lot of time. So I must say, New York is the city that I am familiar most with in the United States. Also, it reminds me of Hong Kong, because even though it’s much, much bigger, I feel that visually, it’s also vertical. Also it’s a space where people from different parts of the world living together.
The idea of My Blueberry Nights actually came from a short film I made a few years ago in Hong Kong, which is a story that happens in a diner between two [people]. So I think, “Well, it would be interesting to expand the story, to adapt the story in this city, because I want to see what the language, or the subtext, or the space would change in the ideas, and see where it will bring me to.
So we start in New York, and we shot in SoHo, a small café. At a certain point you just mix up... It’s like, “Well, this is a café in New York, but at the same time, it can be a café anywhere.” Then we just have the second chapter, seeing Norah Jones trying to run away from New York and start her journey. We can see the landscape change from vertical into horizontal. It also reflects what she feels at that time.
SCHWARTZ: The whole question about style is always discussed with your films. One thing that was striking to me when I watched these clips was that there was a sort of emotional through-line, an emotional intensity, that’s almost more important than the visual style. You’re kind of famous for things like a particular type of slow motion that you use, or a particular type of camera work. And you’ve talked about how that has come about pragmatic reasons on the set. So could you just elaborate on that?
WONG: Well, I think a lot of people think, “Well, the film is beautiful, your visuals are beautiful, you must pay a lot of attention to these things.” But in fact, it’s not true. I have to say, after Days of Being Wild, because the film was not doing very well at the box office, so it was very difficult to find someone to produce our film. So we start our own company and we produce our own productions.
So most of the time we are working with a very tight budget. Like Chungking Express: basically, we made this film just like a student film. We don’t have time to set up, like big set-up. We just shoot—at that point, we call ourselves CNN. We just do it like CNN: just bring the camera (Laughter) and shoot it—without permits, without any licenses. And we even got caught, because we shot in the subway without any license. We had a warning from the airport because we just bring it to the airport and shot it. So every day is like planning a robbery. (Laughter)
In fact, some of our style actually came from there. It’s a lot of handheld, and we shoot with step printing. In fact, step printing is not something that’s very difficult to understand. When you are shooting with existing light and you don’t have a lot of light sources, you have to shoot it with a fast speed negative, and then you have to turn the shutter speeds from twenty-four frames. Normally it’s twenty-four frames per second; we just slow it down to twelve frames. That means it allows the exposure longer, and so we can deal with these situations. But later on, we use it organically, and it becomes our style.

SCHWARTZ: One thing that runs throughout your films is this idea of the fleeting nature of time, and it seems to be tied in with the process of how you work—always the sense that you can only live in the present, but you can never really capture it.
WONG: No, no. Actually I’m not… I think what I’m trying to say is about timing. I think this is very Oriental thinking. There’s a Chinese poem about how the blossom is the same but the face is different. It’s always about timing. It’s like things happen in the right time; or the wrong time, but the right [people]. But I think this is a very universal theme for dramas. Right? It is also a theme for tragedies or comedies. Depends how you put it.
SCHWARTZ: So sort of that life can go in many different directions, but the place you happen to be at, and the time, will determine who you wind up with?
WONG: Right. Right, yes.
SCHWARTZ: Okay. Glad I got that. (Laughs) Could you talk about working with musicians? The performance by Norah Jones is really wonderful in this movie, the new movie. But you’ve worked with musicians a number of times, as early Jacky Cheung, who plays Fly in As Tears Go By, and Faye Wong, and Leon Lai. Could you talk about what that is like? Is there anything about working with singers…?
WONG: What really strikes me is I realized that in the United States, people have a very specific idea about, “Okay, this is a singer, and she’s an actress.” But in Hong Kong, or in our world—maybe in my world—it’s like I work with all these great actors, and [it] so happens they all have music backgrounds. Like Leslie [Cheung] is a great singer, and Tony [Leung] is also a singer, and Faye Wong is a singer.
I don’t see them as singers; I just see them as, like, exceptional personalities. They are very talented, they have very interesting faces, and they have a certain way of expressing themselves. Of course, as musicians, they start with this background. They have a very good sense of rhythm. I think for an actor, rhythm is very important, because film is about rhythm.
SCHWARTZ: Your films have such a sense of rhythm, even though the narratives can be complicated. One thing I love about your narratives is that you don’t have a feeling like everything has to be tied together and explained. In Chungking Express, there is a gangster drama in the beginning, and then another section that’s a cop story. Usually when we see different stories in a film, they all kind of tie together, but you don’t work that way.
WONG: I have my logic. (Laughter) Like for Chungking Express, my idea is it’s a day and night. The structure is very identical, and then I just put it as days and night intertwined like this.

SCHWARTZ: (Laughs) Right, right. But was there a difference in terms of the working method of this film than your other films?
WONG: Actually, I don’t feel that—surprisingly. At first, I thought it would be very different because they have unions; they have certain rules on working hours. But at the end, I didn’t feel a big difference. The only difference, really, is about the lunch break. I remember, my producer kept telling me that, “You have to break for lunch on time, because otherwise we will have penalties, we will have problems.”
SCHWARTZ: Right over here. (Repeats audience question) The question is about the selection of music, specifically for In the Mood for Love, but it’s critical in all of your films.
WONG: My mom is responsible for that. (Laughter) She passed away before that film. My mom had very good taste about music. Nat King Cole was her favorite. And when we were very young, we always go to restaurants to have a quick lunch, because this was her habit. In those days, in those restaurants, especially those serving Western food, they had music. There’s a [large] Filipino population in Hong Kong, and Spanish music is actually very popular. In a way, I wanted to recapture that period. So I used several very popular Spanish songs in the film. Somehow I discovered there’s a Spanish version sung by Nat King Cole, so I used that in the film, as a memory of my mom.
SCHWARTZ: Hm. Okay, back there? (Repeats audience question)The question is about your sensibility changing?
WONG: I think to be a filmmaker, first of all, you have to be open. And also you have to take risks. You might lose something. But you never know until you try it, right?
SCHWARTZ: Okay, down here.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Is it your background as a screenwriter that gives you confidence as a director even when you’re working without a script?
WONG: Yes, somehow it helps because I know. First of all, I think for most directors the dream is to wake up in the morning and have a perfect script there. But it never happened to me. (Laughter) I think not every screenwriter [would] like to work with a director who can write scripts himself. So mostly, I have to deal with it. And you know he will always return calls; you will have problems, he will just run away. To be the writer of Wong Kar-wai is not very encouraging, because even though you work very hard, people say, “Well, he works without a script, so you won’t have any credit.”
But the thing is, I believe that to be a director, it’s very important you have at least the skill or the craft to be able to write the script. At certain points, it gives you freedom, too. You won’t be restricted, because you know how to make certain changes. I don’t think films can be made just one by one, according to the script. Otherwise, we’d just make a novel; why shoot a movie?

SCHWARTZ: (Repeats audience question) Specifically, why did you choose to do a film, My Blueberry Nights, at this time and film in the United States? And then was there any difference in the directing process?
WONG: It happened, like, three years ago, when I have a chance to have a meeting with Norah in New York. We both were intrigued [with the prospect of making] a film together. And obviously, I cannot ask Norah to speak in Chinese or in Cantonese. (Laughter) At that point, she was also working on her album. So I thought the most logical way was to make a film in English and in this country.
At first, it is something—it seemed very wild for me because it is not my language. But I also thought, “Well, but it could be a very interesting experience. It gives me a chance to do something which is very different from my previous films, try to express myself in a different context, in a different language. Also it is a very good opportunity for me to work with a bunch of talented artists in this country. Why not?” So I decided to make this film here.
SCHWARTZ: Hm. (Repeats audience question) Well, the question was how are you able to keep your style so fresh?
WONG: This is one of the reasons I want to make My Blueberry Nights at this point, because normally people, after five years of working on certain things, they would need a vacation—so I just make a film, which is very different. To me, My Blueberry Nights is a refreshment, to refresh myself from the experience of 2046.
SCHWARTZ: (Repeats audience question) I think there’s a myth that you don’t have a script at all. You don’t have a script at all, but—
WONG: No, no. I think sometimes people think about things very drastically. It’s like, “Well, when you are working without a script that means there’s no paper, there are no words, and you just walk on the set and just tell them, ‘You do this and you do that.’” (Laughter)
No. What I mean about working without a script is you don’t have something called a script which is definite, “You have to do it like this.” We still have pages and we still have scenes. We still have a script, and send it to the cast before shooting. Especially for My Blueberry Nights, because it is in English, so I needed to work with Larry Block. Larry is a very active marathon runner, I had to make sure he finished the script before we start shooting, because were on the road for seven weeks, and otherwise I’d have to deal with it myself.
But even though we had a script, during the seven weeks we made a lot of changes, and we made a lot of adjustments. First of all, it was a very intense shoot, and there were so many things we had to solve. Also, when I see my cast in front of the cameras, when they deliver these lines, sometimes I think… Lines are important, but what’s more important is between lines. How to deliver a line, how to control the pause is very, very important—and especially in this film, because English is not my language. I can understand the words, but I am not so sure about the subtext and the way to deliver it. So I have to ask my cast to be involved in this process, because I am sure they understand the behavior more than me.

And so we make adjustments. I still remember when—there’s a scene in Memphis. It’s a long scene with Rachel Weisz and Norah Jones talking about the story between Rachel and her husband. And she has to leave next morning. It’s very late; we shot like, fifteen hours, but that’s a very important scene. It’s basically her monologue but somehow, we feel the lines are not strong enough. At that point, the emotions and everything… So we just sit down together and we just co-write the line again. She writes a certain part and I write a certain part and we put it together. I think this is a very organic way to make a film. I’m not sure this is a normal practice in the United States or a normal practice in the Hollywood system. But to me, this is the most satisfying process, because that character becomes so real and so close.
(Responds to audience question) The first things I noticed when I came to America is I realized, Americans like sweets. (Laughter) Even the Coca-Cola here is sweeter than the one in Hong Kong. But it is not the intention.
I think we have seen films about Chinese made by foreigners. Sometimes it looks quite weird to us. I just don’t want to repeat these kinds of mistakes, so I just want to make sure that it is authentic. That’s why I needed to work with Larry Block, and also to involve my crew and my cast during this process.
But in a way, it’s not… The way we end the film is not basically decided by me. I must say, we shot the first three chapters in the summer. And then we shot the last chapters in the winter, for one week in New York. So after the first three chapters, we stopped. At that point, the ending was still open. Either there will be a reunion or there will be a disappointment. But I don’t want to get into details, I was told. (Laughter)
So I cut the film during the process, during the break. And at the end, it’s the characters of Jeremy and Elizabeth who convinced me that the ending that we have now is the most sensible and logical. This is how it works, because sometimes you have to be honest and you have to follow the characters.
I read a novel last year in China, a Chinese novel, very interesting. It’s about a writer who’s always visited by the characters he creates. They complain, “It’s not well-written. We want our life this way. (Laughter) We don’t want to be this miserable.” And so he has to change it.
I think it works a certain way, because when you are involved in projects and you create all these characters, at a certain point these characters will lead you, because they become something very solid. You cannot do it just by, like, “I want it this way, I want it this way.” At a certain point, this is the direction, so you have to go that way.
SCHWARTZ: Don’t worry, there’s plenty of heartbreak too, in My Blueberry Nights, so… Okay, well, I know you’re going back to work on the mix of Ashes of Time tomorrow. So I really want to thank you for being here tonight, and good luck with the movie.
WONG: Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause)
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发得我自己都晕了，要不要整理个翻译捏。。。。还是先去这个博物馆瞅瞅～