Her works focus on ordinary people. The old director, the good director, used more than 20 film and television dramas to show the beauty of the ordinary.
At the award ceremony of the 35th China Film Golden Rooster Awards, the 82-year-old famous director Wang Haowei, Wang Yumei and Huang Shuqin won the honorary title of “China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Lifetime Achievement Film Artist”. After receiving the award certificate, she said excitedly: “I often think that we are so lucky to be born in China and grow up in a great era. I will use my own labor to repay the great motherland and the great society that raised me. People. I believe that Chinese movies will get better and better!” Back in Beijing, Wang Haowei accepted an exclusive interview with our reporter.
Wang Haowei (left) andLi ChenSound (right) at the shooting site
“Look at this family” stills
“Look at This Family”
Discover Chen Peisi’s acting talent
The first solo feature film directed by Wang Haowei was the film “Look at This Family”, which was released in 1979. At that time, she saw a script “Mom, Dad and Us” written by electrician Lin Li, and felt that it was full of life and sense of humor. So the two spent half a year interviewing several people in Beijing, Shanghai, Changzhou and other places. Ten units, revised 6 drafts, and finally completed the script. At that time, the Ministry of Culture encouraged the cultivation of new talents and set up a youth film crew, but some people were not optimistic regarding her as a director, for fear of losing money. Fortunately, Wang Yang, the director of Beijing Film Studio at the time, was very supportive and the project was approved.
“This is really a veritable ‘Youth Group’.” Looking back on the past, Wang Haowei was filled with emotion. The crew are all young people, and they don’t have a fixed camera. When there is a machine in the factory that is idle, it will be their turn to use it.
Chen Qiang was the first actor Wang Haowei decided on. At that time, he was worried that he might not find an actor to play “Jia Qi”. “This role needs to have a strong comedic effect, but following searching for a long time, there is no suitable one.” One day, Chen Qiang tentatively said to Wang Haowei, “Pace is interested in the role of Jiaqi.” But it impressed her deeply, so Wang Haowei decided, “Then let him try it.”
“After trying out the show, I found that Pace really has a talent for comedy acting.” Wang Haowei fell to the ground with a stone.
“Look at This Family” cost only 190,000 yuan, and soon became popular all over the country following its release. Chen Peisi became famous.
Received the honor of “Lifetime Achievement Film Artist”
Stills of “Sunset Street”
“Sunset Street”
Make authentic Beijing movies
Wang Haowei likes Beijing very much. She has made 4 films related to Beijing, namely “Look at This Family”, “Xizhao Street”, “Earn It Ten Million” and “Divorce”. “I dare not say that I understand Beijing-style culture, but I am indeed familiar with life here.”
The script of “Sunset Street” was written by the writer Su Shuyang, which she read on “Movie Creation”. The strong public life and vivid characters in the script immediately inspired her creative enthusiasm. However, it is not easy to make “Xizhao Street” well. “This is a group play with more than 20 main characters, but there is no clear story line and no conflicts that can attract the audience.” Wang Haowei remembered I have seen the Italian realism film “Rome Eleven” and the black-and-white feature film “Ice Sea Shipwreck” regarding the Titanic before. “If the group scene is filmed, it can become a classic.” , Moving and expressive details, “We must dig out the inner beauty from the ordinary life, and we must take the truth as the connotation, so that authentic Beijingers will be convinced following seeing it.”
The film gathers Zhang Guomin, Song Xiaoying, Chen Peisi and other actors. “Xizhao Street” is a fictional street made up by Su Shuyang. During the preparation, the director, photographer and art team were divided into three groups, riding bicycles to select the scene in Beijing. The final shooting locations include Dajing Factory, the dormitory in the south of Fu Jen Catholic University, and Jingshan Park. The beach on the east side, etc., “only one scene in the house is the scene”.
After “Sunset Street” was released in September 1983, it caused a sensation all over the country. The film was shortlisted for the 13th Moscow International Film Festival, and was also selected for the first Tokyo International Film Festival and the Northern Circle International Film Festival in Japan.
“Village Road Take Me Home”
Show the beauty of ordinary people with movie elements
Wang Haowei has collaborated with the writer Tie Ning in two films, “The Village Road Takes Me Home” (1987) and “Oh, Xiangxue” (1989).
At that time, some people thought that the heroine Qiao Yeye (played by Li Ling) in “The Village Road Takes Me Home” had a weak personality, and such a character image was not worth being written. “The audience didn’t know what to say following watching it.”
Wang Haowei was unmoved, she believed that ordinary people also have something to admire, just like Qiao Yeye, she is kind and has no intention of harming others. The changes in the relationship between men also reflect the changes of the times. “The most ordinary people can also become the protagonists on the screen!” Wang Haowei’s words were resounding.
Wang Haowei worked hard, and she mobilized film elements such as acting, music, and camera use to achieve the desired effect. For example, in the scene of “Hiding from the Rain” in the film, the sound of the rain is loud, but the natural sound disappears and is replaced by a melancholy accordion to create a melancholy atmosphere.
“Oh, Xiangxue” is a film full of prose and poetic style, and it is also the most difficult film of all Wang Haowei’s films. In order to put this work on the screen, it took Wang Haowei 5 years to report and apply to the factory, and the film was finally produced by the children’s film studio. In order to find a suitable location, she spent 40 days visiting dozens of mountain villages around Beijing, and finally chose to shoot near Shidu in Fangshan.
Mountains, trains and mountain girls constitute the main elements of this film; the strong contrast between farming civilization and industrial civilization reflects the girls’ yearning for the outside world in the film. But what Wang Haowei wants to show most is the scenes of the villagers working. Whether it is moving stones, planting vegetables or pressing oil, “all of them convey a kind of tenacious vitality of the people who have lived here for generations. A burst of wit, creativity and poetry.”
Wang Haowei liked Xu Beihong’s paintings very much. Later, following she read “Xu Beihong’s Life” written by Liao Jingwen, she wanted to put Xu Beihong’s story on the screen. In order to make this film, she changed the draft ten times. In 2013, the TV series “Xu Beihong” was finally broadcast, and she felt it was worth it. “Xu Beihong has been pursuing justice all his life, caring regarding the fate of the motherland and the people. Painters such as Baoshi and Jiang Zhaohe have trained artists such as Wu Zuoren, Hua Tianyou and Hou Yimin. His life is a constant struggle, and such a life is worth writing regarding.”
personal biography
When I was a child, I watched my aunt Zhang Ruifang perform in the studio
Wang Haowei, born in 1940, his ancestral home is Weifang, Shandong. His parents have long been engaged in the underground work of our party and participated in the editorial work of Chongqing’s “Xinhua Daily”. Because of work needs, Wang Haowei traveled with his parents in Chongqing, Xi’an, Changchun and other places when he was young. The famous actor Zhang Ruifang is her aunt, and Wang Haowei watched Zhang Ruifang’s performance in the studio when she was a child. Wang Haowei’s family moved to Peiping in 1947. At the age of 7, she played a role in the movie “Harbin Night”.
Wang Haowei participated in the student amateur drama troupe when he was in school at the Girls Affiliated High School of Beijing Normal University (now the Experimental Middle School). In 1958, he took the college entrance examination and was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy.
In 1962, Wang Haowei was assigned to Beijing Film Studio. At this time, there were 4 creative groups in Beijing Film Studio, which were respectively in charge of Shuihua, Cui Wei, Ling Zifeng, and Cheng Yin. Wang Haowei was assigned to the third creative group in charge of Ling Zifeng. She started as a scene recorder, gradually accumulated her own creative experience, and also humbly asked and learned from senior artists.
In 1975, she co-directed her first film “Haixia” with Qian Jiang and Chen Huaiai; the following year, she co-directed the film “Pearl on the Sea” with Lin Yang. Over the past few decades, Wang Haowei has directed 15 feature films, 2 co-directed films, and 5 TV series.
“Life and Death” and her husband co-directed to grow old together
Since graduating from university, Wang Haowei’s works have included a photographer’s name – Li Chensheng, who is also her husband. “He is in all my creations, but there are others besides me in his creations.” Li Chensheng is the same age as Wang Haowei. In addition to being a photographer, he sometimes also serves as a screenwriter and director.
“Li Chensheng is a theater fan, so he dragged me to the theater.” Under the influence of her husband, in 2001, the two co-directed the Huangmei Opera film “Life and Death”, and in 2014, they continued to cooperate and filmed the Peking Opera film “Zhuangyuan Media”.
Wang Haowei has always had a regret in his heart, and that is the script “Lotus in the Fire”. The script began to be created in 1995. It was adapted from 7 short stories by writer Sun Li, including “Lotus Lake” and “Luhuadang”.
Wang Haowei is very happy to win the Golden Rooster Award this time, but she has repeatedly emphasized that the success of a movie is by no means the credit of a director, “A movie is the crystallization of a collective creation, the result of the joint efforts of many people. This This honor is an affirmation of our previous creative collective, and I dare not plunder the beauty of everyone.”
For a long time, Wang Haowei has always followed the creative method of realism. She firmly believes that life is the source of art. A creator “must always pay attention to the changes of the times, and cannot be divorced from the times. He must love his motherland and people.” Wang Haowei said: “The main task of artistic creation is to describe people.” She Most of the characters in the movie are ordinary people. She has to work hard to touch people’s hearts and dig deeper.
Two years ago, Wang Haowei and Li Chensheng moved to a nursing home in the suburbs of Beijing. Now she is busy reading and writing memoirs every day. She humbly told reporters that in terms of film creation, she has “always been a student who has not graduated, and is always learning”. (Reporter Wang Jinyue)