“The “stinky old man” suddenly became the director of the “Heavenly Film
It was totally unexpected for me to be ordered to make an “internal film” for Chairman Mao Zedong, who was seriously ill, in 1976.
At that Time, I was in a state of “idleness”, and in early May 1976, according to the instructions from Beijing, an “internal film” crew was set up in Shanghai. Hong Lin, the director of the Shanghai Science and Education Film Factory, who had been reinstated, and the leaders of the “Workers’ Propaganda Team for Mao Zedong Thought” who had been assigned to me, suddenly announced that I had been appointed as the head and director of the Shanghai “Inner Film” crew.
This appointment was totally unexpected and surprised my colleagues. During the Cultural Revolution, I was branded as a “cadre in the black line of literature and art” and a “big poisonous herb author”, had my Home raided, and spent three years in the “May 7 Cadre School”. I spent three years in the “5-7 cadre school” and then went to “deep digging” – digging bomb shelters and making cinder blocks. How could such a “stinky old man” go to shoot an “internal film”?
At that time, the so-called “internal film”, that is, the film is extremely confidential. Everyone who entered the film crew had to go through a strict “Political Vetting” process. When I accepted the appointment, I rightly raised my doubts. After explanation, I realized that this “internal film” was a “direct assignment from the central government” and had to be completed within a time limit. These “inner films” were not secret films about atomic bombs, missiles, and artificial satellites, but rather entertaining films for the “head of the central government” – codenamed The “inner films” were not classified films about atomic bombs, missiles, or artificial satellites, but were entertainment films for the “head of the central government” – code-named “Wenji Inner Films.
At that time, the requirements for the “inner film” were high quality, fast speed, and time-bound completion. After the assignment was given, the film had to be completed within half a month to a week – an unimaginable speed at that time.
It was later learned that these “inner films” were exclusively for the viewing of Mao Zedong, who was seriously ill, and that “inner films of the collection” were set up in Beijing and Shanghai. Since the films were “through films” exclusively for Mao Zedong’s viewing, the filming conditions were very good.
In Shanghai, three film crews were set up for the “documentary film” group, which was a “three-legged tripod”. The crew of the Shanghai Science and Education Film Studio, which I was in charge of, had a crew of more than 50 people to shoot “The Taming of the Beast” and “Music for Peking Opera Singing”. The other two film crews from the Shanghai Film Studio were filming the “old” Peking opera – the “talent and beauty” scenes. This was simply incomprehensible at the time.
The two crews filming the “old” Beijing opera were headed by two veteran directors, Zhang Tianci and Cen Fan. I couldn’t help but work harder with such veteran directors, and it was a filming assignment from the Central Government. In those days, I worked day and night with full dedication.
Later, I learned that I was suddenly hired as a “stinky old man” because I was nominated by Hong Lin, the factory manager. The work propaganda team assigned to me did not know me, but Hong Lin thought highly of me.
Hong Lin, a small, thin man, well-mannered, always speak slowly. Even in the three volcanic days, he still wears long-sleeved white shirts, collar and cuff buttons are tightly buttoned, neat and tidy, but does not sweat. His original name was Zeng Zeng, a native of Jing County, Anhui Province, born in 1917, is an old cadre from Yan’an.
Before the Cultural Revolution, Hong Lin had been transferred to the Shanghai Film Bureau as deputy director, and after the Cultural Revolution began, the rebels “seized” him back to the factory to criticize him. He was the founder of the factory, so he was severely beaten as the “grand master” and once took sleeping pills to commit suicide. Although Hong Lin was imprisoned in the “cattle shed” for many years, he quietly observed all kinds of people in the factory there.
Since Hong Lin had no historical problems, he was finally “integrated” into the leadership team at the end of the Cultural Revolution, and people laughed and said that the “red factory manager” (factory manager Hong) was rehabilitated. –because in the movies made during the Cultural Revolution, the “capitalist” factory manager was always named “White Factory Manager “.
I only had a working relationship with Hong Lin. It is said that he had seen my works carefully, so he knew my creative ability quite well. In 1976, Hong Lin decided to hire me, a young director of 36 years old, even though there were many older directors with more seniority and experience than me in the factory.
Hong Lin thought that in order to ensure the completion of the “documentary film” directly from the central government on schedule, he had to choose a director who was “quick” and strong. I have always had a reputation among my peers as a “fast worker”, not only in writing scripts, but also in shooting films.
I understood that to be appointed as the director of the “inner film” in the factory meant that I was already a “robber” in the eyes of the factory management, which was a resonance of “strong director”. In the studio, it was customary to call the most outstanding director a “bandit” – a “strong director”.
So, during those days when Mao was seriously ill, I became a “busy man”, writing and directing the film myself. I was also the team leader, responsible for the day-to-day work of the film crew of more than 50 people.
From May 1976, when I received the assignment, to September 9, when Mao Zedong died, I completed nine films in just four months.
Memories of the participants of the “Documentary Film”
Since I became the director of the film, my “top boss” was Qi Wenshao, the deputy director of Shanghai Film Studio. His name was taken from the allusion to “Confucius in Qi Wen Shao”. He was an old generation filmmaker, a Writer and director. At that time, I called him “Old Qi”. Qi Wenshao was a kind old man who often came to the set without saying a word. He had a lot of experience working on set and would give me a lot of valuable guidance.
When I encountered problems in my work, he would promptly report them to the next level of leadership – the other old Qi, namely Qi Ying. Qi Ying is the vice president of Shanghai Opera House and a famous Peking Opera actor. His wife is Zhang Meijuan, who is known as “the first female wudan in Chinese Peking Opera”, and his sister is Qi Shufang, who played “Little Changbao” in the Peking Opera “Taking the Mountain with Wisdom”.
Since the filming of the “inner film” was kept in extreme secrecy, I only read a reminiscent article by Qi Ying in the second issue of the magazine “Yanhuang Chunqiu” in 1992: “The Secret Filming of Traditional Plays during the Cultural Revolution”. Qi Ying recalls.
In the late autumn of 1975, the weather was particularly cold and gloomy. One morning, Comrade Meng Bo, then head of the Shanghai Cultural Bureau, suddenly came to my house and said to me mysteriously, “Old Qi, we both have to go to Beijing right away for something.” His unexplained words made me fall into the clouds, and I was at a loss. At that time, I had just been declared liberated, and although it was said that Lu Hanwen, Hu Guanshui and other comrades were in charge of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe (now the Shanghai Peking Opera), I had my heart in my mouth, and I was careful everywhere, asking for instructions on everything, for fear of being criticized by the side again.
Out of caution, I asked, “What is the matter?” Meng Bo said without showing his face, “We’ll know when we get to Beijing.” He kept it a secret. I wanted to get to the bottom of it: “If you don’t tell me clearly, I won’t go!” He was in a hurry: “Blind, you’re so dead-eyed, I’ll tell you, it’s about the traditional opera.” As soon as I heard that it was a traditional play, my head exploded like an explosion.
In the past eight or nine years, for the traditional drama of emperors and generals, talented people, I have suffered a lot more? Now is the time, eight model plays only afraid of big tree special tree is not enough to engage in traditional plays, is not the black line back to the tide, the restoration of retrogression? This is a joke with political Life ah! I hastily shook my head and said, “I can’t go to this thing, beat me to death.”
Meng Bo saw me so top true, so towards me came together, said softly: “Do not worry, this is the highest central leadership to see, there will be no problem.” He especially stressed the “top leaders”, so I felt a little sense of security, so I nodded. When Meng Bo saw that I agreed, he explained the next day to go to Beijing, left the plane ticket and said goodbye ……
When I boarded the plane, Meng Bo and I were next to each other, and when the plane lifted off, he looked around and whispered into my ear, “Chairman Mao wants to see it, because you are familiar with Beijing opera, so it’s you.” It was then that it dawned on me. In the political situation at that time, only his old man could make such a decision ……
The President instructed to make recordings, videos and movies of traditional plays. This decision makes Jiang Qing and others feel difficult, top not to do, the President can not account there; do, is equivalent to their own slap, negate the doings of the past ten years. Therefore, Jiang Qing asked Yu Huiyong several times to discuss countermeasures, and the result was to cover up their emptiness under the banner of “research for the comrades in charge of the Central Committee” and “to leave valuable information for the future literary revolution, and to push forward new ideas”, and to narrow the scope and target as much as possible. The film is a very important part of the story.
When I was shooting the film “Singing Music”, my superiors appointed Mr. Lian Bo, a professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, as the film’s music consultant. Lien Bo always welcomed people with a smile and was very polite. He was very careful and patient in explaining to me the characteristics of “singing music” and various knowledge of Peking Opera singing.
Later, Liu Huizhu wrote about Mr. Lianbo’s recollections of the “inner pieces of the collection” in his article “The Analysis of the “Lyrics and Songs of Mao Zedong’s Late Collection” and the Academic Significance of Rescuing this Historical Document” (in the issue No. 2 of 2004 of “Yan Huang Zi Sun” and the July 2004 issue of “Shanghai Theatre”).
The purpose of filming the plays was for Mao’s enjoyment. This work involved a large number of people, no less than a hundred. The work (the works were filmed one after another) was completed and handed over to Yu Huiyong, the then Minister of Culture, for review and approval, and then to Jiang Qing for review, and finally presented to Chairman Mao Zedong for appreciation. This work continued until Mao Zedong’s death and then ended.
Dealing with disobedient “actors”
I directed several “Taming of the Beast” films in the “Anthology Inside Film” group. Taming the Beast” is an interesting film, it features monkeys, bears, pandas and dogs. There are many interesting stories about making movies for these disobedient “actors”.
In the film “Taming the Beast”, the monkeys wear brightly colored tank tops and trunks, and the bears wear beautiful nylon sarongs with straps. After the animals put on these chic clothes, they looked much better. Especially the bears, which were black and ugly, wore colorful clothes, which were much richer in color. But it was not easy to make clothes for the monkeys and bears, and there were no tailors to make clothes for the animals.
We ran several clothing stores, but could not find such a tailor. Later, we remembered: in the art film, those kittens, puppies puppets, not also wear a variety of costumes? So, it went to the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio for assistance, they enthusiastically agreed.
However, the puppet is dead, you can use a ruler to accurately measure the size, but the dog bear once you see a stranger come over to measure its waist, immediately whimpering, pouncing on the teeth and claws, the tailor comrades startled. The good thing is that the tailor who made the clothes is old and experienced, and with his eyes, he roughly estimated the waist of the bear and made the clothes that fit.
Usually, we make movies for people. Before filming, we asked the actors to do the same actions over and over again and rehearsed them until they met the requirements, then we started filming. For the animals to make a movie, at first to take a set of human shooting, rehearsing over and over again. However, animals are disobedient “actors”, two rehearsals began to get impatient, and then row on the temper.
Besides, animals usually have been in the stage performance, accustomed to play a program on the performance of another program, forming a conditioned reflex, while the film but repeatedly shoot one of the programs, they are confused, increasingly unhappy.
One night, we filmed a monkey named “Li Li” doing a show called “Around the Red Light”. Normally, during the stage performance, Lili always rides his bicycle around a red light very easily. However, during the filming, due to repeated rehearsals, Li Li always knocked over the red light every time he went around it, and after many times of filming, he was unsuccessful. At this point, the trainer gave Li Li a pulse and found that his heart was beating at 180 beats per minute, so he couldn’t shoot any more.
After learning a lesson, the next night, we did all the preparations, not once rehearsed, let Li Li ride a tricycle around the red light, the result is Li Li performed very well, a red light did not fall, we shot a successful.
Another time, we filmed a black bear named “Zali” performing a “torch stomp” program. In order to make the torch clearer, we added a lot of gasoline to the torch. When we were shooting, Zali saw such a big fire and ran away in fear. Shot several times did not succeed.
Later, with the help of animal trainers, came up with a clever way to deal with this disobedient “actor”: after pouring enough gasoline on the torch, first do not light the fire, to Zali stomp. Zali very easily stirring. At that moment, we suddenly used the ignition stick to light up the torch is rotating. Although Zali was surprised, but did not dare to shake off the burning torch, afraid to get badly burned their own body hair, so try to use four feet to quickly turn the torch, trying to turn it out, but the torch is turning more and more vigorous. We fired up the camera and captured this wonderful shot.
Young talents who filmed “Music of Peking Opera Singing
I also directed a number of “Beijing opera singing music” films in the “Anthology” group. The so-called “Peking Opera Singing Music” is an imitation of Peking Opera singing with musical instruments, making the instruments play human voices. This is a very careful creation, to learn to look like, to have a rhythm, to reflect the different genres and styles of Beijing opera singing.
Filming “Music of Peking Opera Singing” is completely different from filming “Taming the Beast”. Taming of the Beast” is a film full of motion, while “Music of Peking Opera Singing” is a film with very little action. There is something difficult about motion, and there is something difficult about stillness.
The most unforgettable part was the filming of the stage documentary for Min Huifen, who was later known as the “Queen of Erhu”. Among a series of filming assignments from the Central Government, there were two episodes of Min Huifen’s program, namely “Chai Sang Kou” and “Wen Zhaoguan”, which were sung with the erhu. Min Huifen was notified and came to me with the erhu in the small auditorium of the CPPCC on Taixing Road in Shanghai. At that time, for the sake of “secrecy”, the film was not shot in the studio of the film studio, but in the empty auditorium of the CPPCC in Shanghai as a temporary studio. I led more than 50 people to shoot there day and night. It was there that Min Huifen and I first met.
I had the impression that the erhu was a man’s “specialty”. The erhu players I knew well, Liu Tianhua and Blind Bing, were all men. When 31-year-old Min Huifen appeared before my eyes, I was surprised that a woman could be an erhu player.
I asked her to play a piece called “The Second Spring Reflects the Moon” and was immediately overwhelmed by the sound of the instrument cascading from her fingers. We got to talking about the erhu and it was a great conversation. When I was young, I liked to play “The Sickness”, “The Good Night”, “The Brightness”, “The Moon in the Second Spring” and “Birds Talking in the Empty Mountains” on the erhu, so I had a common language with Min Huifen and we hit it off right away. After playing “Reflecting the Moon in the Second Spring”, she played “Chanting in Sickness” at my request, and the sound of the instrument was like a sob, which deeply moved me.
Then, our conversation came to the point. At that time, I also accepted the task of filming three other Peking Opera musical films, namely, “The Empty City” sung by Tang Liangxing with a pipa simulating Yu Shuyan and Tan Fuying, “The Return of Wen Ji to Han” sung by Xiang Sihua with a guzheng simulating Cheng Yanqiu, and “The Dragon and the Phoenix” sung by Han Fengtian with a beard simulating Xin Yanqiu and Yan Jupeng. At that time, I did not know that because Mao Zedong liked these Peking opera cantatas, the central authorities instructed the folk musicians to rehearse Peking opera cantata music.
After listening to Min Huifen’s performance of “Chai Sang Kou” and “Wen Zhao Guan”, my immediate impression was that Min Huifen’s use of the erhu to simulate Peking Opera singing was most successful. Min Huifen said that this is because the erhu is closer to the human voice than the pipa, guzheng, or ringing beard. The pipa and guzheng are plucked instruments with a discontinuous sound. The ringing hu, though a variation of the erhu, is too high-pitched.
Min Huifen told me that the famous Peking Opera singer Yang Baosen has a strong singing voice, and she uses the rough tone of the erhu to express it. Min Huifen also told about the singing characteristics of the famous Peking Opera singer Yan Jupeng. When she spoke a line, she played a line with the erhu. She provided me with the score of “Chai Sang Kou” and “Wen Zhao Guan”. When Min Huifen explained to me what to play, she also wrote the singing words in my director’s notebook.
It was a very hot day in Shanghai in July, when the auditorium of the Shanghai CPPCC had no central air conditioning, and Min Huifen was often drenched in sweat, but she still took great pains to play with us repeatedly. Until the official shooting, she changed into her performance costume – a light blue dress, fixed her makeup, and posed for the performance.
After completing the film, Min Huifen was happy to say, “The director knows erhu, so the film was able to show the characteristics of erhu playing very well, and I am very satisfied.” I had no idea that my childhood love for the erhu would come in handy in my work as a film director.
At the time, the choice of performers to play the Peking Opera cantatas was quite discerning, and the best talent was chosen among the young actors. Min Huifen became the “Queen of Erhu” in China, while Xiang Sihua became the “First Chinese Guzheng” and the “Master of Zither Music”. At that time 36 years old, Xiang Sihua sang “Wen Ji Returning to Han” by simulating Cheng Yanqiu on the guzheng, which was deep and sad, and the song ended with a lingering sound.
In 2007, I was invited to Australia to give a lecture. In Sydney, I visited the musician Mr. Yang Ming. He knew that I knew Xiang Sihua, so he took out the guzheng score written by Xiang Sihua from his study. The last piece in the guzheng score is “Wen Ji Returns to Han”. Mr. Yang Ming told me that he had great respect for Xiang Sihua. He used the guzheng score written by Xiang Sihua as a teaching material to teach his students the guzheng. From Mr. Yang Ming’s conversation, we can also see the status of Xiang Sihua as a master in guzheng playing.
“The production of the documentary film was stopped
On September 9, 1976, I was filming when I received a notice to listen to an important broadcast and stop filming. There was a mournful music on the radio, Chairman Mao Zedong had died!
“The filming of the documentary was then abruptly stopped.
After the death of Mao Zedong, I was ordered to write a summary of the filming, in addition to finishing up the inner film that had already been shot. After I finished writing the summary and took the National Day off, the exciting news came from Beijing: The Gang of Four was crushed!
In the same boat, issue 6, 2016
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