5th Generation Director: Zhang Yimou

INTRODUCTION

Zhang_Yimou.Photo_by_Alejandro_Bárcenas.Click[1]for original source.

Zhang Yimou was one of the iconic film makers that graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in the Fifth Generation. Some of his most iconic films include movies, such as Hero, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; One and Eight, etc. He is an example of someone who came from humble circumstances and had risen above such circumstances to become one of the most important Chinese film makers in Chinese film history.

ZHANG YIMOU: BACKGROUND

Zhang Yimou was born in 1951 in Xi'an, China. He and his family lived through the Cultural Revolution. Young Zhang had faced a hard life throughout that period, because he had a "bad" family background. His father and his two older brothers were Nationalist officers at the Huangpu Military Academy. Zhang described in an interview his experience growing up under such circumstances in the book Speaking in Images conducted by Michael Berry:During the Cultural Revolution my father was labeled the worst kind of counterrevolutionary,a double counterrevolutionary, which meant he was both a historical counterrevolutionary (lishi fangeming) and an acting counterrevolutionary (xianxing fangeming).”

Chairman_Mao_and_Lin_Biao.Photo_by_Morlaworw.Click[2]for original source.

His family was considered a principle target of oppression. People would regularly ransack his family's house and being sent to the countryside for reeducation. Zhang describes this time as "an era without hope...a world of desperation." Zhang also described how it was like for others during the Cultural Revolution. He stated that for those from prominent families, such as other filmmakers like, Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang’s situation was different from those whose background was similar to Zhang Yimou’s. The Cultural Revolution was difficult for people like them as well, however, they “never lost hope because they always expected things to turn back around in a few years and everything to go back to the way it was.” He described how it was different for people with a bad background like him, because they “were filled with desperation and knew there was no possibility of going back-there was nothing to go back to…Most enemies of the people during that time fell into the category of the “five bad elements”…people like me were called “the worst element”…this label was permanent-there was no hope for us to one day turn things around.”

FILMING

Before Zhang Yimou became interested in making motion pictures, he began with an interest in photography after he had bought his first camera in 1976. His first photograph taken with that camera was of a peasant working the land beside the Wei River. He still jokes about how his first picture was of a peasant and twenty years later he’s still filming about peasants.The Cultural Revolution was a very trying time in Zhang’s young life. He didn’t have good opportunities for getting a good job, so like many other men during the Cultural Revolution, he worked in a factory to help his family with finances. In the interview with Michael Berry, he describes having a lot of down time while he was working at the factory. He became interested in photography and sports as a "spiritual release" as a way to spend his spare time, as well as using these hobbies as a coping mechanism during the Cultural Revolution:

I was working in a factory and there was a lot of downtime when we had nothing to do. I was around twenty years old and, because all the schools were closed, I tried to use my interest in recreation and sports as means of spiritual release. During that

Ahfaz_farmers.Photo_by_Rameez_Rahman.Click[3]for original source.

era there were a lot of kids who used their talents in the arts or sports to improve their lives and change their fates. That was also the case with me. Knowledge was useless in trying to improve your fate-only people with talents seemed to be able to get ahead.

While many young people tried to use such talents to make something of their lives, as a young man, Zhang used his creativity in photography for his own personal interest because he enjoyed is as a kind of release. At that time, many young people went to college in search of good employment opportunities. Zhang was never interested in film when he entered the Beijing Film Academy. During the Cultural Revolution, people try to get accepted into universities as a means to escape bad circumstances. Studying at a university opened opportunities that were otherwise unlikely to be offered. Before he applied to the Beijing Film Academy, he enrolled in a physical education college because he was good at basketball. He also thought of going to an art school because he used to paint. He didn’t go to either type of school because he didn’t think of himself as competitive enough to be successful in either of those career fields. There was also a school in his hometown called Xibei Agricultural Institute, but he decided not to go there because the quality of curriculum instruction wasn’t very good, so he wouldn’t have any opportunities for getting a good job that would help him escape from his already despairing circumstances. His only reason for applying to the Beijing Film Academy was to get a degree that would turn his life around. He desperately wanted to turn his life around by obtaining a degree and getting a good job. In those days, after college students graduate from a university, the government assigns graduate students what job they would get and where they would work. He describes his experience at the Beijing Film Academy as a very uncomfortable and nerve wracking experience for him. He entered the university under special circumstances, which caused him to feel very uneasy. He stated that he had “entered the film academy under very special circumstances that got around the rules, so I always felt uneasy, as if I had an illegal status…I was never proud to be a student; I was always extremely reserved, careful of causing problems.” He always felt stifled during his years of study. It wasn’t until after he graduated and was assigned his first job with the Guangxi Film Studio when he felt that he could finally fully express his creativity. Some of his most famous films that he made as a result of such a release of pent up creativity included successful films, such as One and Eight and The Big Parade. Growing up labeled as “the worst element” caused him to feel that he could never be anything important, but as he was creating these films he pushed himself to the limit to create something that was the exact opposite of how he conducted himself in person.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Following graduation he was assigned a job at the Guangxi Film Studio. Being free of the stress at the university, he began to express his opinions more freely in films, such as One and Eight and The Big Parade. One of his trademarks is his use of bold new angles and jarring horizon lines. This provided a bold visual model that stood apart from the more realist and intellectual approaches to film making. His experience at the Beijing Film Academy was one of the main influences that inspired him to create such visual works throughout his early years as a cinematographer. Because he always felt constrained to remain reserved and follow orders from his classmates and teachers, he experienced a freedom to push himself to the limit in his movies following graduation. One other characteristic that influenced Zhang Yimou when he decides on what movies he wants to make and how he creates the cinematography is his eye for material that has a kind of strong visual model. Before he made Red Sorghum, he describes being drawn into the visual elements of the novel written by Mo Yan, Red Sorghum. Mo Yan’s novel depicted a sorghum that was a deep red color, as well as characters that were written with a “bold raw energy” that had drawn Zhang Yimou to making a film adaptation of the book. Another factor that contributed to his success as a cinematographer was the atmosphere in China at the time Zhang Yimou came out with his early movies One and Eight, Yellow Earth, and The Big Parade. Throughout the period of the Fifth Generation, the atmosphere in China was very conservative, and there were few artists who experimented with film. There were other Fifth Generation filmmakers who were better known for their talents in filmmaking; primarily the filmmakers in this category were Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang. When Zhang Yimou entered the spotlight with his films, he soon became well known for being an unknown filmmaker who pushed preconceived barriers in films as a cinematographer in his early works. He brought onto the table an element that was new to the Chinese audience, which was what helped him rise to fame. That element was his bold ne angles and jarring horizon lines that he is well known for in his films.

FILM TRADEMARKS: USE OF COLOR

One of the key trademarks in Zhang Yimou’s films is his use of bold colors. Zhang describes his reasoning for using a lot of colors in his movies primarily for his own personal preferences. He never usually uses color for some sort of intellectual design. He relates the influence of his use of color to his upbringing in northwest China and his exposure to traditional Chinese folklore.

In the movie Hero, one of the key elements that made it famous worldwide was its bold use of color. Zhang Yimou used the color black for the Emperor's palace, color of armor, horses because black was the national color of Qin. When he was filming House of Flying Daggers, he chose colors from illustrated books of Dunhuang Buddhist cave paintings. Zhang filmed a few of the shots in Dunhuang while he was still in production of Hero. He loved the cave paintings he saw when he was filming those shots in Dunhuang. When he was having a discussion with his art director, Huo Tingxiao, he asked to look at some illustration books of the Dunhuang Buddhist cave paintings. When he saw the paintings that represented the typical colors scheme of a Dunhuang grotto painting, he decided that those would be the colors that he wanted to use in House of Flying Daggers.

Dunhuang_Mara_Budda_Cave_Painting.Photo_by_Anonymous. Click[4] for original source.

In Hero, color wasn't used for symbolic meaning. Zhang use of color was for aesthetic purposes. The main colors he used throughout the movie were red, blue, white, and green. Zhang tried not to use red, because it was too associated with Asia. Blue was used for the lake scene. White was used for the desert scene. Green was used for flashbacks because Zhang ran out of colors he wanted to use.

COMPUTER GRAPHICS

Zhang Yimou was also well known for his use of computer graphics (CG). He is well known for his efforts in using as minimal CG as possible. An example of this is when he was filming House of Flying Daggers, he shot actual daggers and arrows through the forest, then had the CG people combine the footage. What influenced him the most in his use of computer graphics in his films was Tony Ching. Zhang didn’t know very much about creating CG effects, so he relied on Tony Ching’s expertise. He taught Zhang the fundamental techniques, and introduced him to several top special-effects studios. Ching always tried to use as minimal computer generated effects for scenes as possible. His statement, “The most important thing is to always have faith in what you shoot” had a profound lasting effect on the way that Zhang used computer graphics in his movies. He said, “You can’t rely too much on computers; it is always best to shoot as much as you can because, in the end, you can really see the different results.”

CITED SOURCES

Zhang, Yimou. Interview by Michael Berry. "Speaking in Images." Columbia University. Press.2005. 109-140. Print.

CLASSROOM PRESENTATIONS

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