http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/sports/olympics/08guru.html?pagewanted=3&sq=zhang%%20yimou&st...#
Gritty Renegade Now Directs China’s Close-Up
BEIJING — For much of the past quarter century, the Chinese director
Zhang Yimou made films that showcased his country’s struggle against
poverty, war and political misrule to the outside world — films that
Chinese, for the most part, never saw.
Time and again, Mr. Zhang’s terse, gritty epics were banned by
government censors for portraying China’s ugly side. When he won an
award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994, the authorities stopped him
from attending. Up for an Oscar one year, officials lobbied to have
his film withdrawn from the competition.
But when the Olympics kick off Friday at China’s new National Stadium,
with President Hu Jintao of China, President Bush and other world
leaders in attendance and perhaps one billion people watching live on
television, Mr. Zhang will preside over the opening ceremonies.
Nearly two years in the making, his spectacle is intended to present
China’s new face to the world with stagecraft and pyrotechnics that
organizers boast have no equal in the history of the Games. Whether or
not it succeeds, it will underscore one reality of a rising China:
many leading artists now work with, or at least not against, the
ruling Communist Party.
Rising nationalism and pride in China’s emergence as an economic
power, and robust state support for artists who steer clear of
political defiance, have transformed China’s cultural landscape since
the early part of this decade. Today, directors, writers and painters
who seek to expose the darker side of authoritarian rule not only
enrage the censors, but also often find themselves shut out of the
lucrative market for Chinese art, books and film. Many of those who
find less political outlets for their talent, on the other hand, can
get rich.
“People really are selling their talent in a way that can make them
money,” said Ai Weiwei, an internationally recognized artist based in
Beijing. “They really know that if they work with the government,
they’ll benefit.”
The opening ceremonies will represent a particularly momentous
conversion for Mr. Zhang, whose experience during the horrors of Mao’s
Cultural Revolution appeared to inform several of his internationally
acclaimed — and domestically banned — films, including “Ju Dou” and
“To Live.”
Mr. Zhang said in a recent interview that he never had political aims.
His supporters say it is the Communist Party that has become more
sophisticated, seeking to harness the country’s top talent and embrace
a broader notion of national culture.
But critics accuse Mr. Zhang of making a pact with a political
leadership that has a long record of restricting artistic freedom,
playing the role of favored court artist — a kind of Chinese Leni
Riefenstahl, creating beautiful backdrops for iron-fisted rulers.
“He went from being this renegade making films that were banned and an
eyesore for the Chinese government to kind of being the pet of the
government, in some people’s eyes,” said Michael Berry, who teaches
contemporary Chinese culture at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. “It’s almost a complete turnaround from his early days.”
Other artists, including a few who fled into exile after the crackdown
on Tiananmen Square in 1989, now seem to be searching for ways to
partner with Beijing as well.
The Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun and the celebrated pianist
Lang Lang perform for the country’s leaders at Beijing’s new National
Theater and serve as cultural ambassadors overseas. Xu Bing, a painter
and calligrapher whose work in the 1980s was viewed as subversive, is
now a vice president at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. He
recently created a huge installation piece for the new Chinese Embassy
in Washington.
Few artists, though, have embraced the government the way Mr. Zhang
has. He has served as an artistic adviser to Beijing, promoted the
nation’s image abroad and produced a short film to help China win the
right to host the 2008 Olympics. He is now a member of the Chinese
People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top
political advisory body.
Beijing’s Turnaround
Beijing, in turn, has promoted Mr. Zhang, giving his recent films
favorable opening dates that bolster box office returns. The country’s
film authorities allowed one of his recent movies to open at the Great
Hall of the People. Cultural authorities even lobbied Hollywood
executives to get his big-budget martial arts film, “Hero,” an Oscar.
Some Chinese critics panned “Hero” as an implicit homage to
authoritarian rule. While it did not win an Oscar, it became one of
the highest grossing foreign films in the American market.
Time and again, Mr. Zhang’s terse, gritty epics were banned by
government censors for portraying China’s ugly side. When he won an
award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994, the authorities stopped him
from attending. Up for an Oscar one year, officials lobbied to have
his film withdrawn from the competition.
But when the Olympics kick off Friday at China’s new National Stadium,
with President Hu Jintao of China, President Bush and other world
leaders in attendance and perhaps one billion people watching live on
television, Mr. Zhang will preside over the opening ceremonies.
Nearly two years in the making, his spectacle is intended to present
China’s new face to the world with stagecraft and pyrotechnics that
organizers boast have no equal in the history of the Games. Whether or
not it succeeds, it will underscore one reality of a rising China:
many leading artists now work with, or at least not against, the
ruling Communist Party.
Rising nationalism and pride in China’s emergence as an economic
power, and robust state support for artists who steer clear of
political defiance, have transformed China’s cultural landscape since
the early part of this decade. Today, directors, writers and painters
who seek to expose the darker side of authoritarian rule not only
enrage the censors, but also often find themselves shut out of the
lucrative market for Chinese art, books and film. Many of those who
find less political outlets for their talent, on the other hand, can
get rich.
“People really are selling their talent in a way that can make them
money,” said Ai Weiwei, an internationally recognized artist based in
Beijing. “They really know that if they work with the government,
they’ll benefit.”
The opening ceremonies will represent a particularly momentous
conversion for Mr. Zhang, whose experience during the horrors of Mao’s
Cultural Revolution appeared to inform several of his internationally
acclaimed — and domestically banned — films, including “Ju Dou” and
“To Live.”
Mr. Zhang said in a recent interview that he never had political aims.
His supporters say it is the Communist Party that has become more
sophisticated, seeking to harness the country’s top talent and embrace
a broader notion of national culture.
But critics accuse Mr. Zhang of making a pact with a political
leadership that has a long record of restricting artistic freedom,
playing the role of favored court artist — a kind of Chinese Leni
Riefenstahl, creating beautiful backdrops for iron-fisted rulers.
“He went from being this renegade making films that were banned and an
eyesore for the Chinese government to kind of being the pet of the
government, in some people’s eyes,” said Michael Berry, who teaches
contemporary Chinese culture at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. “It’s almost a complete turnaround from his early days.”
Other artists, including a few who fled into exile after the crackdown
on Tiananmen Square in 1989, now seem to be searching for ways to
partner with Beijing as well.
The Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun and the celebrated pianist
Lang Lang perform for the country’s leaders at Beijing’s new National
Theater and serve as cultural ambassadors overseas. Xu Bing, a painter
and calligrapher whose work in the 1980s was viewed as subversive, is
now a vice president at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. He
recently created a huge installation piece for the new Chinese Embassy
in Washington.
Few artists, though, have embraced the government the way Mr. Zhang
has. He has served as an artistic adviser to Beijing, promoted the
nation’s image abroad and produced a short film to help China win the
right to host the 2008 Olympics. He is now a member of the Chinese
People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top
political advisory body.
Beijing’s Turnaround
Beijing, in turn, has promoted Mr. Zhang, giving his recent films
favorable opening dates that bolster box office returns. The country’s
film authorities allowed one of his recent movies to open at the Great
Hall of the People. Cultural authorities even lobbied Hollywood
executives to get his big-budget martial arts film, “Hero,” an Oscar.
Some Chinese critics panned “Hero” as an implicit homage to
authoritarian rule. While it did not win an Oscar, it became one of
the highest grossing foreign films in the American market.
Its success gave rise to the rapid commercialization — and
depoliticization — of Chinese art. China’s cultural landscape is now
filled with big-budget historical dramas, multimillion dollar art
auctions, government-backed opera and dance extravaganzas, and bold
new state-financed entertainment venues that suggest a melding of art,
culture, power and national pride.
Like Mr. Zhang, the director Feng Xiaogang said he tired of battling
censors long ago and switched to making more entertaining films that
could deliver box-office riches. Chen Kaige, another prominent
director with a history of provocative and rebellious films, has also
been embraced by Beijing, which a few years ago allowed him use of one
of the country’s most important government buildings for the premiere
of his big-budget film “The Promise.”
“Now, the government wants directors to promote the country’s economic
development,” said Wu Tianming, a well-known producer and director.
“And the directors need money and fame and they can earn even more
money with government support.”
For months, Mr. Zhang and his crew have been closeted in a secure
Olympics compound, preparing the opening and closing ceremonies of the
Olympics. The three-and-a-half-hour show is still shrouded in secrecy,
though some highlights have been leaked. Mr. Zhang will use more than
15,000 performers and fireworks by the renowned artist Cai Guoqiang.
Acrobats will dance through the air as in Mr. Zhang’s martial arts
films. Lang Lang will headline a program that will include dance
performances and the Peking Opera.
To help create China’s cultural moment, Mr. Zhang initially tapped
Steven Spielberg to work as artistic adviser on the opening
ceremonies.
But under pressure to sever ties because of China’s role in Sudan, Mr.
Spielberg resigned in February, saying that his conscience troubled
him and that China should do more to stop genocide in the Darfur
region of Sudan.
The resignation was an embarrassment for China and Mr. Zhang, and it
served to demonstrate the kind of pressures that artists in the West
can come under when they work for the government. In China, though,
Mr. Zhang sidestepped the matter with what has become his standard
line, “I have no interest in politics.”
A Troubled History
Politics, in the past, was not easy to dodge.
Mr. Zhang’s father, an accountant, had served as an officer in the
Nationalist army fighting the Communists during the country’s
protracted civil war. His uncle fled with the Nationalists to Taiwan.
Mr. Zhang grew up in northern Shaanxi Province in the 1950s on the
wrong side of history.
The family’s problems intensified when the Cultural Revolution got
under way in 1966, touching off a decade-long period of political
madness. Mr. Zhang’s home was ransacked and his father was labeled a
“double counter-revolutionary.”
At 18, he was sent to labor in the countryside, tilling fields with
peasants. Mr. Zhang recalled a youth filled with despair in a 2005
interview with Mr. Berry of the University of California, Santa
Barbara.
“Most enemies of the people during that time fell into the category of
the ‘five bad elements,’ ” he said. “Well, people like me were called
‘the worst element.’ So those 10 years, from 1966 until 1976, I lived
under the shadow of tragedy and hopelessness.”
In 1971, though, he was assigned to work as a machine technician at
the No. 8 Cotton Mill in Xianyang, in Shaanxi Province. It was there
that he fell in love with art and photography.
“He showed no interest in politics,” said Lei Peiyun, who worked with
Mr. Zhang in the factory’s propaganda department. “But he once told me
that people are shackled by politics.”
With Mao’s death in 1976, Mr. Zhang gained admission to China’s only
film school, the Beijing Film Academy. Initially he made his mark as a
cinematographer, working on “Yellow Earth,” the 1984 film of a
classmate, Chen Kaige.
But he soon began making his own films. In visually striking features
like “Red Sorghum,” “Ju Dou” and “Raise the Red Lantern,” he explored
the country’s feudalist past, the plight of women and the conflicted
lives of the Chinese people.
“At that time the whole culture was destroyed,” said Mr. Wu, the
producer and director who helped finance several of Mr. Zhang’s early
films. “They tasted the ugliness but less of the beauty.”
Although his early films won critical acclaim in the West, they were
often banned in China as dark and even poisonous.
Some officials even accused him of pandering to Western tastes by
stereotyping the Chinese character, an accusation he strongly denied.
Others viewed his films as veiled critiques of the leadership, buried
in the subtext of films set in pre-revolutionary China.
Wang Bin, his longtime literary adviser, said this happened in 1989
during preparation for shooting “Ju Dou,” the tale of a woman forced
into an arranged marriage with an impotent old textile mill owner.
That summer, after the military fired on pro-democracy activists
occupying Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Mr. Zhang and some co-workers
ventured outside and witnessed the aftermath of the killings.
“We saw burned vehicles, bloody students,” Mr. Wang recalled. “I don’t
want to say much now. But we spent the whole night sleepless. Because
of that event, I trusted Zhang Yimou. I felt he cared for his
nation.”
Distraught by what they saw, Mr. Wang said Mr. Zhang and the staff
altered the screenplay, and the film’s final scene.
“At the end of the film, Ju Dou has a huge fire, and that represents
our emotion,” he said. “That is June 4.”
He was bolder when he made the film “To Live,” which traces one
family’s tragic journey over the course of four decades, ending with
the Cultural Revolution, a subject that to this day remains taboo.
Colleagues said Mr. Zhang’s team submitted a fake script to the
censors for pre-approval, promising to make a film about China’s
bright future, and then secretly began filming “To Live.”
When the film was released to critical acclaim overseas, government
censors were infuriated. Mr. Zhang was banned for five years from
making films in China with foreign funds.
It was the last time he seriously challenged government censors.
