“Only China Can Produce This”: An Interview With Zhang Yimou (2)
Here is Part II of CDT’s translation of segments of a long interview with Zhang Yimou, the General Director of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony, from Southern Weekend. Read Part I of the CDT translation here.
Southern Weekend: After seeing the Opening Ceremony, foreigners are admiring, at least from the language in their comments, and cannot imagine that someone can have such tremendous resources, and can produce such a grand product. Do they have such questions or misunderstandings when they interview you?
Zhang Yimou: None of them said this to me. They only felt — actually, I felt that we had two things added together, one plus one, that made such an impact. The first one is a human performance. I often joke with them and say that our human performance is number two in the world. Number one is North Korea. Their performances can be so uniform! This kind of uniformity brings beauty. We Chinese can do it too. After hard training and strict discipline, Chinese achieved that as well. Like the moveble type cubes, they follow orders. Actors listen to the orders, and can do it like computers. Foreigners admire this. This is the Chinese spirit. We can make our human performance reach such a level, through hard and smart work. This many foreigners cannot achieve.
I have conducted operas in the West. It was so troublesome. They only work four and a half days each week. Everyday there are two coffee breaks. There cannot be any discomfort, because of human rights. This can really worry me to death. Wow, one week, I thought I should have rehearsed it very smoothly already, but they could not even stand in straight lines yet. You could not criticize them either. They all belong to some organizations. ….they have all kind of institutions, unions. We do not have that. We can work very hard, can withstand lots of bitterness. We can achieve in one week what they can achieve in one month. Therefore our actors can give such a high quality performance. I think other than North Korea, no other country can achieve this in the world.
The second is our ideas and use of technology. The technology used very fresh ideas and really outstanding concepts. It is very hard to have both. They may have the technology and ideas, but they cannot have the same level of human performance. North Korea can have the same level of human performance, but their ideas are really backward, very sixties. So if you think about it, I feel that only China can have both. I am not kidding.
These foreigners who really understand, they saw our quality of performance, and they really believe that they cannot produce it. Even if his ideas and technology can make it, but his human performance cannot produce it to this level.
POSTED COMMENTS: 10 Responses
[...] Zhang Yimou, the General Director of the Opening Ceremony, gave a long interview with Southern Weekend. China Digital Times was kind enough to provide a translation. [...]
Firstly, It is sad that you (Zhang) only think that by having huge groups of people doing exactly the SAME thing it is beauty. It was an amazing opening, but frankly, if uniformity is beauty, and you dare hold North Korea as a world example, you have no clue about the art.
Second. It has always amazed me how countries which restrict freedom of expression, wheather it be in religion or political ideas, people are so great at ‘ALL doing the same thing at the same time! Perhaps it is that limited ideology which held back China, with it’s 5000 years of history, as being the first country to land on the Moon.
@Reay
I take you meant well, but there are something need to be thought about further
1. Zhang Yimou didn’t ONLY “think of … huge group of people doing exactly the same thing.” There were many parts of the show that were just opposite of that (the painting comes to mind.) The movable type had elements of uniformity as well as individuality, and the last gesture when they revealed themselves is a warm expression of humanity.
2. The precision of the performers should have speek of hard work and dedication. But here commentators only see conformity and menace, such predisposition tells more about the commentator than the artists.
3. Though Zhang Yimou still view himself a farmer and a factory worker that he used to be, he is undoubtedly a great artist with a well recognized body of works. He painted with camera in his films, he painted with humanity for the Olympics Opening Ceremony.
4. Through most of the 5000 year of the history in question, there was no guaranteed free speech anywhere in the world. And the current “ideology” is but 60 years old in China, where in the last 30 years, they were abandoned in every sense but name.
……
i’m a Chinese.and i don’t like this uniformity.they treat us with this,like that we are “computers”(as zhang yimou said),but Chinese are also human being!omg
this uniformity show that we Chinese is strong,it’s a warning to the west country that:don’t get the communist party mad.
[...] performance. I think other than North Korea, no other country can achieve this in the world. …. part 1 / part 2 … between utopias and these quite other sites, these heterotopias, there might be a [...]
[...] by Zhang Yimou (see Southern Weekend interview of Zhang Yimou at China Digital Times: part 1, part 2), but less impressed by the [...]
Quote:
“There cannot be any discomfort, because of human rights. This can really worry me to death.”
Well, in China people are actually *put* to death because of lack of human rights. I would rather have Zhang Yimou worry to death for people not behaving as he wants them to…
Yesterday I watched “The Curse of the Golden Flower”. And yes, it was a great show - just like the Olympic opening ceremony, with countless faceless ants being at the service of the emperor, slaughtering and being slaughtered…
In fact, it was a disgusting inhumane movie showcasing abuse of power, deceit, recklessness and complete lack of humanity.
Yes, Zhang Yimou may be an unrivalled choreographer but his message is utterly hollow to say the least.
Quite aptly he was looking at North Korea as a comparison. If he had been honest, he should have referred to the Nazi Olympics because they would have been the proper reference. But that is not the kind of comparison that the CCP wants to be made - however true…
wow!!! so many bitter remarks. actually, zhang yimou is right. many foreigners, specially westerners, aren’t disciplined. just face it. you guys will never put a show as classy as the one china gave.
and who are you guys to say those things about zhang yimou. please remember, he IS zhang yimou. one of the world’s best great directors. you guys don’t even have a fraction of the stature he has achieved. you’re just very bitter because you’re country will never match what china and zhang yimou has achieved.
“because you’re country will never match what china and zhang yimou has achieved”
The spelling mistake says it all…
In contrast to most contemporary Han Chinese “I am not my country” but a human being who was born in a country and has lived in different countries during his lifetime.
It is a shame that the CCP has brainwashed Han Chinese so firmly into identification with the nation and its symbols - thus manipulating and using them for its own purposes. In name it is a communist government but in its methods it is really fascist.
And we’ve seen this before: My comparison with the Nazi Olympics was spot-on…