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What makes Cinema?
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With over a hundred years of
films being made in a wide variety of genres,
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Cinema is not an easy thing to define. I think
what makes Cinema to me, I think ultimately it's
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something that for some reason stays with you
so that a few years later you could watch it
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again or 10 years later you watch it again and
it's different. This is how Martin Scorsese,
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the director of the 1997 film Kundun defines Cinema.
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I'm very honoured to be here with my
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hero and especially he's very gracious to join us
here. Whether it's Wong Kar-wai’s debut As Tears
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Go By which was inspired by Mean Streets, or the
Grandmaster’s fight choreography and in fact when
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we are doing all choreography sequence I always
look at your sequence at Raging Bull with my DP
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because I think that's the one of the best
action scenes made in the history of Cinema.
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Wong like many other filmmakers is indebted
to the enduring Brilliance of Marty's work.
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Wow. Marty ! Kundun, I liked it.
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Given Scorsese’s
influence on Wong and his filmography it
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is unsurprising that he shares similar beliefs
when it comes to cinema. I think an interesting
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film is something that you can have an
aftertaste it's sometimes when you look at the
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film you might not get it at the first time but
somehow it lingers and I like the ideas of like
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the film that we made have an aftertaste
for the audience. Out of the many films I have
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seen the aftertaste left by Wong Kar-wai's films
is among the most potent. Wong's world is the
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one I have personally revisited more than any
other having seen most of his films several
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times and I have always been curious as to
why this is. Why exactly am I and I'm sure
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many others continually drawn back to the world
of Wong Kar-wai?
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You know I was born in Shanghai
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I, my family and I we came to Hong Kong when I
was five. When we came to this city to Hong Kong
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we don't have any relatives here and we don't
speak any any Cantonese, because at at that time
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my my Elder brothers and sisters they stay in
China and because of cultural revolutions they
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are not able to join us in Hong Kong. So basically
it's it's Mom and my my dad and me and
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then then my mom and my my dad works at nights
so and my mom is a like a big movie fan. In
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those days my mom's actually is like wait
for me because we only have like half day school
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so we I go to school in the morning and she will
wait for me at the end of, like
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around 1:00 and then we would just get something
to eat and go into watching movies. We were like
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living in a area which there's a lot of like
Cinemas showing at that time there's like local
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Productions, Mandarin films, European films and
of course like Hollywood pictures and Mom's
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like she's a big fan of like Cowboy
films. So we almost spent every days in cinemas there.
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I think that's that's become a very a major like
memories of about of myself of my childhoods and
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and and at the end of the day it's so I want
to make films and I want to make films just
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like an audience I just want to recollect like the
feelings when I sit in in a Cinemas watching this
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amazing image. The 60’s settings of Days of Being
Wild, In The Mood for Love and 2046 all originate
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from Wong's experiences as a child growing up in
Hong Kong, and even his contemporary films such as
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Chungking Express and Fallen Angels reflect his
memories and what is close to him. I want to make
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a films about where I live and where I grow
up and and what is very close to me because
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Tsim Sha Tsui is very close to me I know the streets by heart.
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There are some very unique aspects to
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Wong Kar-wai’s filmmaking method compared to other
directors. The most well known is the fact that
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he doesn't shoot his films with a complete script.
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I always finish the script when the film is done.
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That is very smart.
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There are a few reasons he
works this way namely that he hates to write. First
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of all I hate writings I hate writing so that's
why I always like write in I don't like like
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to sit down because that's the most lonely moment
right in the in the creative process because you
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are dealing with a piece of papers and you are
all by yourself but I have to write so I just
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make it the last minute. And during the
shooting of his films the story and characters
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are constantly evolving. I don't think films can be
made just like one by one according to the script
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otherwise we just read make a novels why don't
we just shoot the movie. I think that in the
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process there will be a lot of Sparks or there
will be accidents or there will be situations
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you have to make certain adjustment and and to
make it smooth. Over the course of his career
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Wong Kar-wai has been fortunate enough to work with
some of Hong Kong's greatest ever actors and
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actresses such as Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung
and the late Leslie Cheung who will forever be missed.
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Beyond Hong Kong's
borders he's also worked with Taiwanese
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Legend Brigitte Lin, Japan's pineapple
loving Takeshi Kaneshiro, as well as Chinese
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icons such as Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and
the dreamy pop Mega star Faye Wong.
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With such a plethora of talent wanting to work
with him Wong Kar-wai has been able to approach casting
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for his films in a different way. Because I think
most of the films today's is you have the script
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first and then you cast someone to play that
characters but in a way the best way to work
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with an actors or actress is to customise the the
the role for him because you can borrow something
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from that person's and in a way then the
experience or the performance will be unique
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In the book titled the cinema of Wong Kar-wai written by
John Powers and Kar-wai when talking about his debut
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film As Tears Go By Wong said; there are two people
whose walking I really enjoy. One is Faye Wong the
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other is Maggie. Keep walking I'd say the way she
walked around and did little things said
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more than her lines did from then I threw away
the pages I'd written I made the lines shorter
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and customized the role for her I didn't need
her to be someone else in turn she became the
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perfect actor for the role. I don't think the film
would have been the same if it wasn't us Kar-wai would
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have still made the same film but the characters
would have been different because the characters
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in the end were inspired by us although I
wouldn't say I'm exactly this woman or she
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I am like her but there are elements about her that
from his observations of me it became that so
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definitely I do feel you know there's my blood
and soul in the film. All of Wong's films with the
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exception of Chungking Express, which was shot very
quickly have taken a long time to create. So if a
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film is like a woman then to make it simple, is you’re
attracted by this film you are attracted by this woman and
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you have to wait for her. Productions can last
for many years causing great stress and tension
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on set but ultimately this is all a part of Kar-wai's
unique and personal creative process. It took me a
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long time to really forgive him for being like
that you know if you will because at first I
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really found that why do you have to make films
like that why why can't you get it all prepared
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and then we start shooting instead of having 30
40 people on set every day waiting for you to be
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inspired but then after a while I realized there's
nothing I can do about it that's his style and to
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love him as a director or as a friend you just
have to accept that's the way he is and in the
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end I think that's the magic of his films you know
that's where it all comes from because that's him
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his character and it creates the kind of sexiness
or the spontaneous feeling in his films because of his ways.
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In our in our films with the people
we work with they're not actors they're they're
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they're participants they're people who dare to
go into this space. To realize his vision Wong
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has relied on some very important collaborators
over the years with the most well-known being the
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incredibly flamboyant cinematographer Christopher
Doyle. I know many many many people who make films
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who only feel alive when they are engaging in
that process I mean a lot of people like Wong Kar-wai
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They don't want to finish the film because that's when
they're most alive so it just goes on and on and
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on because the pleasure of engaging in visual
ideas and pleasure of of making things images
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is is what it's about is what Cinema is about
and that's what I do. Where do we even begin with
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the cinematography of Christopher Doyle? Perhaps
the incredible steadicam shot or the beautiful
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imagery of the Filipino jungle as seen in Days of
Being Wild. Or maybe the incredible handheld work
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or unusual use of Dutch angles as seen in Chungking
Express. Or perhaps the highly stylized Fallen
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Angels with its use of an extreme wide angle lens
showing the distance between the characters. It was
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about space we use a wide angle because these
people are so close together but so distant you
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know you know and the camera should be close
to them therefore you feel very close to them
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but you know that they're really separated by a
great distance of you know incomprehensibility
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you know they can't talk to each other. And
how about Happy Together’s depiction of Buenos
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Aires and the unforgettable shot of Iguazu Falls.
And finally you have his most disciplined works
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the much more formal In The Mood for Love and its sequel
2046, which abandons his earlier handheld camera
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work in favor of tripods and dollies.
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All of this is without mention of Chris's use of light
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and color which has produced some of the finest
and most memorable images ever put to film. Wong Kar-wai has
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always asked me Chris is that all you can do? and
that's not an insult it's it's it's trying to push
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me to another level. The world of Wong Kar-wai would
be incomplete without the genius of Christopher
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Doyle. His work really speaks for itself both in
its quality and its variety making him without a
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doubt one of the best to ever do it. Our films are
feng shui which means you know the give and take between a
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space and a person it's I think it's a dance
between people and space the words are just
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you know they're the notes they're the base they're
the Riff. While Christopher Doyle is Wong's most
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well-known associate the single most important
collaborator in Wong's career has always been
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his production designer, William Chang. I've been
working with William my production designer and
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who responsible for not only the set but the look
the costumes The Styling everything. William has
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served as Wong's production designer on every
single one of his films films over the course
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of his career. In fact it was actually William who
first introduced Chris to Wong for Days of Being
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Wild. I've done so many films with William I
think probably I'd say 60 70% of the films I've
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done in in Asia are with William as as production
designer because he is the best and I guess I
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don't know we we had some kind of a call and he
says you know why don't you come and work with
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Wong Kar-wai? I say who?
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When working without a script it
is the space and the characters that inform the
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film and William plays an instrumental
role in the look and feel of both.
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But I think
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William Chang helped a great deal to form our characters
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he transformed our looks.
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when the hair was done and the make-up and dress were put on,
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Something different happened inside us.
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The timeless 60’s style of In the Mood for Love
including Maggie Cheung's beautiful collection of
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Cheongsam’s is all down to William Chang and
he's also responsible for Brigitte Lin’s blonde
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wig and red shades in Chungking Express. But
William's contributions are not just limited
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to production design and after their first
few films together he became the editor of
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Kar-wai’s films. Chungking Express, Fallen Angels
Happy Together, In The Mood For Love and 2046
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were all edited by William. The original cut of
Fallen Angels only included the storyline of the
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Killer and the Agent and when editing the film
William noticed that the story was too cold
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and inhuman. He pointed this out to Kar-wai which
prompted him to shoot the footage with Takeshi
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and his father. Can you imagine how different
the film would look without this storyline?
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It's the Beating Heart of the entire film and
features arguably the most touching moment of
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Wong's entire filmography, as well as a personal
favorite character the man forced to eat ice cream.
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Wong has called William “The guardian angel of
my films” and at this point they know each other
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so well that they never ever talk about what
needs to be done. It's a relationship beyond
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words and when combined with the visual talents
of Christopher Doyle they are able to create an
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aesthetic that is truly special.
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Unity is more important than Aesthetics because a film is
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for filmmakers a film is about form and
substance form is related to Aesthetics and
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Aesthetics has to be serving the content. One
of Wong Kar-wai’s most renowned visual techniques is his
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use of Step printing where he shoots a shot in 12
frames per second and then doubles it creating a
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blurred effect. So sometimes people think well this
is your style but I always want to explain to to
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to students especially I said well it it's not
not only an aesthetic decision sometimes it
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is a practical solutions to solve your problems.
Wong uses step printing for some very practical
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reasons. Firstly when he works on the streets of
Hong Kong the blurry effect allows him to cover
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certain things up. Another reason is that shooting
at a lower frame rate of 12 is more economical
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requiring less light and conserving film stock. In
the case of Chungking Express Wong did not have the
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time to rehearse with extras due to him having
no permits to shoot so he used step printing to
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simplify the process. Chungking Express's use of
Step printing also works narratively showing
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how the characters of cop 663 and Faye process
time differently compared to the people passing by.
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sometimes the limitations become an Inspirations
and it is something that not become an excuse
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for you to do to be lazy it has to make you work
harder. I mentioned earlier Fallen Angels use of
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the wide angle lens to indicate distance but this
was never the original intention, it was instead
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for practical reasons that the lens was first
used. That's after the fact I mean the real fact
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is it was a small space and we had to get close
right? and then you start going that direction and
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you say hey it's working this is interesting. Even
more crazily the very green and unique look of Days
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of Being Wild was actually due to a mistake. Also
because I made some mistakes in the printing he
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Put three filters in front of the lenses so it's
always have problems in Focus. We may have made
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a mistake but we stuck with it. I think it's very
important to recognize that the aesthetic of Wong
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Kar-wai is not always intentional. There is so much
Serendipity involved in the making of Wong's films
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but it is Wong's total belief that things will
work out that brings everything together. I would
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say that making films beautiful for the beauty’s sake
it's I would say that's a waste of time and money
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but I I always think a film will look beautiful when it's right.
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People said well how come your
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music works so well with your pictures because
the film actually spawn with them. To pair with
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Wong's indelible visual aesthetic is some of the
best curated music I've ever come across in film.
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Who could ever forget Faye Wong playing California
Dreaming over and over providing an undertone for
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her character and setting the Ethereal tone of
that portion of Chungking Express. Or how about 1818
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which plays on the Jukebox in Fallen Angels
where the Killer tells the Agent to forget him. Or
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how about the devastating Tango Apasionado that cuts so deep during Happy Together. And
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then there is In The Mood for Love's famous Yumeji’s
theme which actually originated in the Japanese
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film Yumeji directed by Seijun Suzuki. I like the idea of
using themes from other movies in movies yeah
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I I never have problem with that because it's
it's it brings with not only the music but also
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the history of it exactly. Paired with Yumeji’s theme are the wonderful Latin artists that
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surrounded Wong Kar-wai for much of his childhood in the
60s such as Xavier Cugat and Nat King Cole. Speaking
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of that, the most pervasive influence on you
was your mother? It's true. True. Yes. Because my mom
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has very good taste about music and Nat King Cole is
is her favorite when we were very young we always
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go to like restaurants to have a quick lunch
because this is her her her habit and and in those
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days in those restaurants especially serving like
Western food they have music and and because
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there's a lot of Philippines populations in
Hong Kong so the Spanish music actually is very
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popular so in a way I want to recapture that that
period so I I use several a very popular like
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a Spanish song in the film. I think my very
favorite soundtrack from any of Wong Kar-wai's films
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though may well be that of 2046. The inclusion of
Xavier Cugat connects the film not only to In The
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Mood For Love but also back to Days of Being Wild.
Nat King Cole makes his return with the Christmas
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Song and then there is Casta Diva, Adagio by Secret
Garden and 2046’s Polonaise, which are all haunting yet
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so beautiful. Because I think making films
most of the times you it's something very key
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is about the Rhythm and I think the music on the
set a rhythm yeah it's give a sense of the Rhythm
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especially with for the camera for the blocking
and for the movement of the actors I think that
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works very well. The music dictates the Rhythm
both on and off screen and in turn creates the
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dance between the camera movement and cast. This
Dance is most evident in In the Mood for Love
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where the choreography had to be in sync with
the camera movement but is present in most of
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Wong's films. You see changes through the unchanged or vice versa. Because a piece of music doesn't change
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by repeating it you can show how the characters
do change. We see examples of this in Chungking
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Express with Faye and California Dreaming and
Brigitte Lin with Things In Life. Overall Wong
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skillfully uses music in a variety of ways such
as to establish the Rhythm and tone, as well as
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using it to push his plots forward, capture an
error or community and provide an undertone
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to his characters and their behavior. I really
believe that all art aspires to music I really
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believe that and unfortunately like all I can
do is sort of tap my foot occasionally you know
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but I think all art does aspire to music and that
means that the abstraction of music is communicative.
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With clocks, expiration dates and step printing
it is very clear that Wong is conscious of time.
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I'm very aware of time because it's gone and it
won't come back. While everyone is aware of time
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it was particularly accentuated for the people of
Hong Kong around the time of the Handover back to
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China. The worlds of Chungking Express and Fallen
Angels which address contemporary Hong Kong are
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built on great uncertainty as Hong Kong headed
towards its expiration date. Despite being set on
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the complete opposite side of the world Happy
Together also addresses Hong Kong opening with
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British passports and being released during the
year of the Handover. The film poses the question
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can China and Hong Kong be happy together? Some
people make films to provide answer but the way
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I make films is more like posing questions.
Similarly Wong’s 60’s films are also connected to Hong
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Kong and time. You realize this cities change
so fast and and the thing is at certain point that
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you really want to preserve something you just
want it to stop to preserve something and and this
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is also one of the reasons we want to make like
In The Mood for Love and 2046 because there's
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certain things that I think we should preserve
it before it's gone because the cities is changing
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so fast. When watching Wong's films today it's not
just the city of Hong Kong that has changed but
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everyone's entire way of life. Long gone are the days
of videotapes, fax machines, corded phones, pagers and
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Jukeboxes. All of it lost to time. Mood obviously
is very much of the Wong Kar-wai
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sort of what do you call it I guess I don't
like to say Nostalgia but it is Nostalgia
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for something which he knows so much about
which is 60’s growing up in 60’s Hong
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Kong. As more time passes The Nostalgia that
Wong's films invoke only continues to increase
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there is something so intimate about the eras
that Wong captured and while a lot of things no
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longer exist in our modern world part of the
history of them is preserved in Wong's films.
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I think longing, loving this they are very active
human like life experience and in fact this
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passions and obsessions the objects of it could
be a man could be a woman it can be about life
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and it can be about Cinema it can apply to a lot
of things but so happen we use a romantic love
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story as the genre of the film. Loneliness, love and
longing are some of the major themes explored
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in Wong's filmography. Whether it's through the
breakdown of a relationship or the passing of
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a loved one, Wong's characters find themselves
alone experiencing both loneliness and Solitude.
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and I think that loneliness is one of the most
beautiful experiences in life. It is through loss
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that the characters finally value what they had
before. We see this with Tony Leung's character Chow
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in 2046 he don't really appreciate the things
that that's around him he only appreciate them
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afterwards when they are gone he can't react to
them in real life. Loss permeates Wong's entire
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filmography and you can't help but wonder whether
this originates from a very personal place. Did she
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get to see you successful as a filmmaker? No she
passed away before I become the director and it is
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one of my biggest regrets I bet it is yes to have
her see a movie you made after all those hours of
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sitting there in the theater because she's the
one who introduced me to to Cinemas and also
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music. She's a very good singer. She's a good singer?
Yes. Whenever I hear Wong speak about his mother my
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heart breaks for him you can tell just how much
he adored her. And somehow I discovered there’s a
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Spanish version sung by the Nat King Cole so I use
that in the film as a memory of my mom. The aftertaste
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Wong Kar-wai’s films create is due to a variety of
different reasons but ultimately at their core
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they are deeply personal I think that the process
is is is is to make it as personal as possible
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I think that's the real thing and because they
are so personal they will always resonate with
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audiences. The world of Wong Kar-wai is perennial and he
will always be one of my favorite directors of all
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time. Thank you for everything Wong and I cannot
wait to see what you have planned next now that
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Blossoms Shanghai is done. People asked do you need a vacations? To make a film for me is, the
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actual process of production is vacation to me and I and I enjoy the process very much.
