39 quotes found
"It goes back to when I was a teenager in China, being in a place where there are lies everywhere. You felt like you were never going to be able to get out. A lot of info I received when I was younger was not true, and I became very rebellious toward my family and my background. I went to England suddenly and relearned my history. Studying political science in a liberal arts college was a way for me to figure out what is real. Arm yourself with information, and then challenge that too."
"I love movies that don’t necessarily tell me how I should feel or how I should think but give me this canvas that I can go away and have a conversation with myself and people around me."
"I have gone through ups and downs in my relatively short career. And one thing I’ve learned is a bit of a cliché, but everything does happen for a reason."
"The one thing that I learned really early on is that you’ve got to surround yourself with the right people. Because you can’t change how people think — you can’t control how they’re going to think, how they’re going to behave. But what you can do is make sure the people that are around you not only protect you but want to be with you because of who you are as an individual. I’ve been lucky in my whole career so far. Every single film we’ve made, I’m surrounded by people like that."
"Someone I really respect and have been working with recently said to me, “You have to know that you have power. Know that you don’t have to fight so hard that you’re just on survival mode all the time. People around you are there to help you and they will be there when you fail. It’s okay to ask for help.”"
"I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I don’t think I can pinpoint why my upbringing or experiences have made me that way, but I have always been an outsider myself; it doesn’t matter where I went. I’m attracted to people who are on the periphery of society. I’ve been like this since high school. I liked mangas growing up and the ones I was drawn to were not about mainstream characters."
"Sometimes life drives you to a place… the road allows you to rediscover yourself."
"I don’t make films so that people can agree with me more. I make them to portray a character, a people or a way of life that people don’t know but that anyone can get to know. Then they can experience those things through their own conditioning and walk away with their own opinions and we can have a conversation about it. That’s the power of cinema. But if you stop me on the street to talk about politics, I’ll argue with you all day."
"But just by pointing the camera at something, you’re already making a statement of some kind. It’s inevitable, because you’re adding a perspective to it. I find that sometimes when I go into a community that’s not my own, or a community that has a lot of issues attached to it, I have to resist wanting to say something about how I think they could be better, or how I think the government has wronged them. A lot of times, they tell me what they think I want to hear because they’ve been interviewed many times by journalists. And usually, there’s something that these people who are interviewing them want them to say, because people go in with an agenda. I hear them saying things to me almost like they’re programmed to do it. You have to wait for that to be finished, and then you can ask, “What football team do you support?” or, “Tell me about your high school sweetheart.”"
"Making films is about communicating, and I am terrified that I will end up making films for people who already agree with me, which just keeps enforcing our own ideas. I’d rather have one person who disagrees with my politics watch my film, and then somehow see themselves in it without putting up a shield, than a whole room of people who already agree with me give me a standing ovation."
"I’m not the kind of filmmaker who just makes films. I have to be in love with my subject matter and want to learn more about it. Someone once said to me that passion doesn’t sustain, but curiosity does. I have to be excited by little things I discover along the way."
"But the truth is, you can never really be happy, because happiness is not an ultimate thing. Happiness is when your expectations are met with reality. If your expectation is constantly fed by the capitalist economy for its own survival, that you always need more, then you can never be as satisfied as the medieval farmer was satisfied with his piece of bread."
"I've been thinking a lot lately of how I keep going when things get hard. I think it goes back to something I learned when I was a kid. When I was growing up in China, my Dad and I used to play this game. We would memorise classic Chinese poems and texts, and we would recite them together and try to finish each other's sentences."
"There's one that I remember so dearly, it's called the Three Character Classics. The first phrase goes... 'People at birth are inherently good.' Those six letters had such a great impact on me when I was a kid, and I still truly believe them today."
"Even though sometimes it might seem like the opposite is true, I have always found goodness in the people I met, everywhere I went in the world. So this is for anyone who had the faith, and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves, and to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult is to do that. And this is for you. You inspire me to keep going."
"You could watch her script adapt to the personalities and stories that came from those conversations. You could see her listening to these individuals telling their stories, and then collaborating with them to fold their own narratives into the script. Chloé really allows people to choose how they want to represent themselves. The safety of fiction filmmaking, in my opinion, actually pulls out a level of honesty and authenticity that I think would be impossible if this was a documentary purporting to truth."
"Sometimes people feel like they are not important enough to be in a movie. Once they meet Chloé, they open up. She makes people feel special. Chloé truly wants to hear their story and she wants them to tell it."
"This year, a female ethnic Chinese director got the awards, but even keywords related to her cannot be seen on social media. This is extremely lame."
"People at birth, are inherently good. Their natures are similar, it’s the sensitive characters in their names that make them different. Congratulations to director Chloé Zhao!"
"Instead of celebrating Chloé Zhao's wins at the Oscar and making the Chinese public feeling proud, Beijing is busy censoring her -- all for a criticism she made in 2013. For as long as I've been writing about Chinese censorship and propaganda, I still can't wrap my mind around it."
"Films directed by Chloé Zhao"
"Fiction film is really different from documentary in this aspect. It is less objective, because the director expresses a subjective point of view with the movie. I would like the movie to look like a documentary, look real."
"Using “realistic style” does not mean that we have to change and make a documentary film. It remains fiction. When I make movies, it is subjective, my own interpretation of the novel, my way of organizing the movie scenes. The director’s reflection is not objective, because we are expressing our own point of view, and from the angle of what interests us."
"It is true that I was a cinematographer, so for me, the narration of the spectacular is powerful and important. I always pay special attention to the expression of the pictures. It has always been my style."
"I think being popular is a tool instead of a purpose. One has to use a tool to express what he wants to express. Movies from the West, sometimes, are using this as a purpose, for a high market value. Their movies are made to be trendy, so that they could attract a great number of people. And in turn, they will make money that way. This is a universal feature in the industry. But for me I do not feel that it is enough if you just want to make something so that it will be popular. I have to express what I want to say. I probably would refuse to make such a film. To cast a movie, I have to find myself, to express what I want to say. Being popular, for me, is a process to make more and more people accept your ideas. For the movies I make, I try my best to make them popular, to make the audience accept it naturally. This is important. But I do not mean the other extreme, to only express what you want to say and neglect the public. This could end up as something just cherished by the artist. I think we are part of the mass, not higher than other people. I do not think possessing the quality of being popular is something lose face over. It is a style. It would work for the movies if and only if I am able to express what I want to say, and use popularity as a tool."
"Each person has his or her own point of view. However, if a jury likes a movie, this does not always mean that it is a good movie. It only reflects the view of the jury members. On the other hand, China is a developing country. The juries probably are curious about something they have never seen, something authentic, something that is hard to find in their society. The different living condition of each country defines how we see them and how they see us."
"As I said, a work should be unique in idea. I think many Hollywood movies reflect a simple world outlook. Instead of putting emphasis on the breakthrough of the content, the symbolic aspect, they stress other entertainment elements to attract an audience, such as sensational approach and a high technological skill. They carry a high price tag, and sometimes are very well done, with love scenes and action. But in terms of artistic value, the symbolic meaning of the movies, some of them, not all, are kept plain. They may just draw lines of moral value, such as struggles between good and evil, something we are educated about once and for all in high school. I think movies should have more than just these, they should touch more varieties of the society, different aspects of life, and reflect people. They are more for development, more to explore. Of course this is only my personal view, each person may have their own view."
"Even an adaptation of a good literary work must first become a film; it can't be a copy of literature. An adaptation doesn't have to be like the original work, and it should be filmic. The first thing I do is simplify its events-simplify and popularize them. Film goes by only once, and its form of viewing is compelling. There's no time to go back, or turn back and reflect. You have no choice but to go along with the screen. Sometimes in literary language one or two sentences are very refined and charming. You can repeatedly try to figure them out, and once you've reached the last chapter, you could even rummage back to reflect on earlier points in the book. A film goes by only once, and not many ordinary people will see it two or three times. The rest of the viewing space is black and silent-the only thing with light and sound is the screen. The audience has no choice but to move along with the film's time, and because of this, films shouldn't be too complicated."
"If a nation wants to develop toward the future, if it wants to be powerful and prosperous or influential, it simply has to have a vitality and burning passion toward life. No matter how much you suffer and no matter how tragic your fate, you need courage to live. This courage can't be worn away; otherwise, humanity would have no way of moving forward or developing toward the future. I think that several thousand years of humanity have also relied upon this kind of courage-an unceasing desire and vitality toward controlling one's own destiny. Every person hopes that his or her life will get better and better; this idea underlies everything. This is a critique of the modern mentality of Chinese people. Even though a country may be poor-its people poverty-stricken with all kinds of problems and much suffering-if people want to live, they should live to their hearts content, and they should have spiritual passion."
"Good films have had influence on us. To say that they haven't is to talk nonsense. No one lives in a vacuum. I believe that the world's great masters, geniuses, and super-genius have always been the products of their times, that they've been influenced by the overall creative atmosphere of their times. Regardless of whether they want to be like other people or not, they've all been influenced."
"I believe a great film has to be, first of all, artistic. It has to be beautifully done. Nowadays there are just so many films and TV shows out there that it's like fast food. And there's no strong artistic element to it. And secondly, a great film has to be deep. It has to be impactful. And tell an amazing story."
"We need to strike a balance between the visuals and the story itself. And for me, I believe the story is the most important thing. And then secondly it's the artistic style. Because if we don't have a great story, it's all about the visual and the appearance and then it'll be too superficial and too shallow."
"The problem is that Hollywood is competition for Chinese art films. So I thought I should make a film with box office promise, that refers to Chinese culture, but also contains an art element."
"Chinese moviegoers appreciate a good balance, so we should try to achieve a perfect combination of content and visual impact; those would be the best works. Having said that, visual movies can have an extraordinarily strong impact, so I believe that visuals deserve a lot of attention as well."
"It's hard to tell where inspiration comes from. Very often, it comes when you least expect it. Perhaps you get a tiny detail or specific image in your mind and you find that image beautiful. Or sometimes, inspiration comes from another person, something that another person says or does moves you. You find yourself touched and the feelings give you an idea you can use and develop. And sometimes the ideas come from watching other people's works or movies because I really love to go to movies myself."
"I would say I tend to adopt a more affirmative approach to women because many of my works are dealing with the theme of anti-feudalism. So I have used a lot of historical themes in my works, you know the Chinese culture and the Chinese tradition. The man and the father are dominant in both society and family, and a lot of pressure is put on the female, and I wanted to reflect that."
"I have always hoped that Asian movies can enjoy better development and can enjoy a better position in relation to the rest of the world. I'm sure this is the hope and goal of all movie directors in Asia."
"I think my experience represents a wealth of assets for my life and my work. During the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, I was 16 to 26 years old. I experienced a lot of chaotic situations, and saw a lot of tragic things around me. So that deep understating of human life, of human society really benefits me today - in the way it affects my work, my thinking or even how I deal with my problems. You know, when I'm looking at different types of movies, I tend to think more about human life, about the human spirit, about the human heart. That's from my past experience that's still very deeply rooted in me."
"I have seen a lot of films, but no Western filmmaker has ever had a great impact or influence on me. We always feel there is a great gap between Chinese films and Western films. Western films are far more advanced, but we don’t feel any shock about this gap. It seems natural."