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【中文标题】中国的导演，从背叛到归顺
【原文标题】Chinese Director’s Path From Rebel to Insider
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】EDWARD WONG
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/1 ... ted=1&ref=china
北京上访村附近的集会，这个村子现在已经被拆除。数年来，赵亮一直在记录着上访者的努力。
在很多观众看来，赵亮导演的纪录片《上访》是一部无畏的艺术作品。这部作品拍摄过程历经12年，记录了当局怎样钳制并粗暴对待上访者。这些人遵循着上一代人留下的传统，到北京来为当地官员的错误行为寻求解决方案。
拍摄过程中，赵先生发现公安局的人盯上了他。影片完成之后，在2009年5月嘎纳电影节上首映，但随即被中国禁止。当地官员试图在他的老家寻找他，他于是关闭手机，到西藏去躲了三个星期。
从那时开始，赵先生改变了与政府之间的关系。去年年底，赵完成了反应中国人对HIV和艾滋病病人歧视问题的影片《在一起》，这部影片是受卫生部的委托而拍摄的。3月份在香港举办的一次电影节上，赵先生与文化部的官员共同进餐，之后走上红地毯。4月在北京，他在国家电视台转播的一个庆典仪式上，接受了政府的颁奖。
赵先生从一个被政府“通缉”的电影人到被政府推崇的导演的进化过程，让我们看到在中国专制制度下，试图表达自我的导演们所面临的艰难选择。与赵先生一样，很多人试图在他们独立的视角、安全的生活和获得认可三者之间寻求一个平衡。
40岁的赵先生身材消瘦，留着平头，看起来更像一个士兵而不是一个导演。他在位于北京郊区的一个复式结构的家中说：“你如果在中国工作，这里有一个灰色地带，你需要极为小心。”
中国共产党把电影视为左右民众观点的最强大的手段，因此数十年来把它作为一个宣传工具。最近，这个国家又发现电影产业在塑造中国的海外形象方面极为重要。
政府对这个产业的控制程度越来越微妙，导演拍摄的未授权影片如果过分挑战政府，可能会被暂时停止工作，或者被骚扰。但通常情况下，官员们依赖的是导演对影片与广大观众见面的欲望。中国并不禁止拍摄独立电影，但是它控制影片的发行，所以如果制作人想让影片与观众见面，就必须把自己交给难以琢磨的监察制度。政府的支持不但可以帮助导演进入回报丰厚的国内市场，还可以在国外发行，所以监察制度严密把守着导演的金钱和名望。
随着中国变得更加富强，导演们揭露不受欢迎事实的动力逐渐消失了。那些深具反叛意识的艺术家，比如导演张艺谋，在与他们曾经不屑一顾的政府体制进行合作之后，享受到了极为慷慨的待遇。
提交审查的《在一起》没有涉及政府长期掩盖中国HIV和艾滋病的事实，赵先生还依照官员的指示做了一些裁减。一位中国电影专家在香港看过《在一起》之后说，赵先生已经“站到另一边去了”。
影片在中国的影院中上映，还在官方支持下，进入了几个名声甚高的国际电影节。赵先生和其他很多选择这条路的人一样，用比较实际的态度看待与体制合作的决定。
他说：“我认为一部作品必须要有观众，作品的意义就在于被其他人认可，它必须能影响别人。”
dGenerate负责在美国发行赵先生5部独立纪录片之一《罪与罚》，其创始人Karin Chien说，赵先生拍摄《在一起》的决定让她颇为吃惊。但是她又说，这样的举动类似于美国导演们有时候会在独立制片与工作室拍摄之间转换的行为。“在任何一个产业中都会有人在体制内外寻求一些变化，并试图通过这样的变化来得到一些方面的改善。”
然而，赵先生的妥协行为却破坏了他在中国的一些亲密的友情。其中包括曾经支持过他的艾未未，这位国际知名的艺术家在今年的一次扩大化打击自由知识分子的行动中，被拘禁了将近三个月。艾先生在去年年底公开攻击赵先生，说他屈从政府的要求，抵制澳大利亚电影节。
赵先生说，他和艾先生不一样，他并不直接反对党，尽管他影片中的主题包括了生活在中国边缘地带的那些受压迫的农民和吸毒的摇滚乐手。
他说：“中国不需要再经历一次彻底颠覆社会的革命，那样的代价太高了。实际上，党内两派是存在冲突的。”他指的是自由派和强硬派之间的摩擦，“作为一个社会知识分子，我们不得不与党内一派合作，打压另一派。”
赵先生与政府之间的合作还破坏了与朱日坤之间的关系，他是北京郊外宋庄独立纪录片电影节的组织者，今年春天的电影节被取消，主要原因是来自政府的压力。朱先生与赵先生曾经关系密切，朱先生曾经负责《上访》的后期制作。但是今年三月，这两人在网络上就监察问题发生了激烈的争吵。
朱先生在一次采访中说，《在一起》涉及了“一个非常重要的主题”。但他坚持认为“一部影片只要与官员或政府扯上关系，就绝没有好结果，所以他是不可救药的。”
棱角
赵先生最早在家乡丹东——与朝鲜接壤的一个寒冷的小城市——做电视台的摄影记者，他对自己的工作感到失望，于是借获得一年奖学金的机会进入了著名的北京电影学院。张艺谋和陈凯歌都曾在这里学习。
在摄影方面，赵先生广泛接触了外国导演的作品，那些节奏缓慢、条理性强的叙事风格极大地影响了他。他最推崇的是俄罗斯导演安德烈塔可夫斯基。
他说：“俄罗斯人和他们的文化非常尊重知识，尊重艺术。你可以感觉到文化的知识性相当强，他们有一种骨气，他们真正在为人民考虑。这样的文化和这样的知识分子，这就是希望。而中国，就目前情况来看，你几乎见不到这些东西。”
1996年，赵先生带着摄像机进入了北京周边一个临时搭建的小村庄，那里叫做上访村。来自全国各地心怀委屈和苦衷的人在这里暂住，试图向中央信访办公室讲述他们的故事。这是一个像西西弗斯推大石般徒劳的使命，同时也充满了危险：中国的体制鼓励警察绑架、惩罚这些上访者。赵先生拍摄了500个小时的脚本，有时候甚至使用隐藏摄像机在信访办公室内部拍摄。
《上访》的主线故事是带有感情色彩地缓缓讲述一位妇女和她女儿所遭受的不公。在另一条故事线中，两名上访者在躲避警察抓捕时，跑进一条火车道，被呼啸而来的火车撞死。其他上访者收拾他们和尸体残骸，呼吁共产党^#&(@下#$@!%台。
赵先生说：“我清楚地记得，我的一位中学老师曾经对我说，我是一块棱角分明、锯齿参差的石头。当我逐渐长大之后，会变成一快圆圆的鹅卵石。然而在拍摄电影的这几年，我觉得自己的棱角越来越尖锐了。”
赵先生说他从未考虑把自己的影片送交广电总局（SARFT）审批，它是电影市场的控制者和监察者（去年它共批准了526部影片）。
赵先生拍摄了很多影片，他的照片和视频作品参加过一些展览。在芬兰的一次展览上，他遇到了同时前来参展的艾未未。艾先生的父亲，著名诗人艾青去世之后，赵先生和他的朋友坐在灵车中驶过天安门广场。2000年初的时候赵先生很不得志，艾先生借给他750美元。赵先生在拍摄《上访》时，感觉到有一些官员在跟踪他。于是他打电话给艾先生：“未未，如果有一天我消失了，你一定要来找我。”
《上访》最终得到了欧洲投资者的资金支持，2009年赵先生在巴黎完成了一部两小时的剪辑版。5月份，影片在嘎纳上映。公众认为这是一部“不忍卒视的人类痛苦记录”。
赵亮在北京。他拍摄过几部独立影片，现在是政府认可的电影制作人。这样的转变让他失去了一些朋友。“你如果在中国工作，这里有一个灰色地带，你需要极为小心。”
来自政府新闻机构的中国记者在报道嘎纳电影节时纷纷回避这部电影。赵先生说：“影片上映前，有几位记者与我约定做参访，但后来都没有赴约。”中国当局终于采取了行动，警方开始寻找赵先生。他的朋友们警告他躲起来，于是他跑到西藏去。与此同时，监察人员封锁了一个艺术作品社交网站“豆瓣”上有关《上访》的信息。
赵先生说：“我感觉到一些紧张的气氛，我当时很害怕。”
《上访》只能在私下上映，这让他很沮丧。今年3月，当《上访》在香港百老汇电影中心上映时，他对观众说：“我希望中国观众能看到这部电影，更好地了解他们的生存环境。”
赵先生把《上访》交给法国制作人，让其在各类电影节中巡回展映。2009年7月，他回到曼谷，他的泰国妻子和两个孩子住在那里。这时他接到了一个朋友——著名导演贾樟柯——的电话。贾先生说广电总局的官员要求他们两人退出墨尔本国际电影节，以表示对一部有关热比娅的纪录片的抵制。这位维吾尔族女商人被中国认为是新疆动乱的始作俑者。
两人最终决定退出。赵先生说：“你是个不起眼的小人物，陷在这样的困境中很让人害怕，这可是国际事件。是的，在当时我主要想为自己考虑。”
他认为，底限是“你还要在这个国家中工作”。
不久后，赵先生回到中国，他吃惊地发现官方新闻机构把他们两人当作英雄一般宣传。赵先生和《上访》的名字都被明确提及。这是他与政府关系的转折点，但并不是他真正想要的东西。“我感觉到被人利用了。”
官方的机会
去年10月，在北京一个展览的开幕式上，艾未未质问赵先生，要求他澄清抵制墨尔本电影节的决定。艾先生拍下双方谈话过程，并上传到网络。赵先生看起来对来自朋友的攻击感到痛苦。
艾先生说：“后来你个人获得过，这种跟国家有关的资助吗？我听说有。”
赵先生：“当然没有啊，艾未未。”
（译者注：双方对话视频链接如下：）
http://youtu.be/eEkX2VonJnM
然而，在墨尔本电影节争论发生之前的2009年初，机会就已经到来了，赵先生将参加一个政府扶持的项目。著名电影人顾长卫联系他，提出了一个建议：他是否愿意在《最爱》的背景故事上拍摄一部纪录片？这是顾先生指导的一部有关村民感染艾滋病的电影，改编自阎连科一本被禁的小说。尽管如此，卫生部同意资助这部影片，它希望这部纪录片可以作为一个服务公众的宣传资料。
多年来，中国政府一直拒绝承认艾滋病感染的范围，并且掩盖血库被艾滋病病毒污染的丑闻，这个话题依然具有政治敏感性。但在近几年，卫生部官员迫切希望让公众了解，他们在采取行动与疾病斗争，顾先生的电影和赵先生的纪录片迎合了他们的需求。在这种背景下，这个项目在通常极为保守的广电总局里得到了批准。
赵先生说：“我犹豫了一下，最终还是答应下来。”
如果一切顺利，赵先生最终会制作出一部与广大中国观众见面的纪录片。卫生部给予了慷慨资助：77000美元，相当于影片一半的预算。
《在一起》通过了严格的审查程序。最初版本向三个部门的官员放映：首先是卫生部，然后是中央宣传部，最后是广电总局。
赵先生说：“卫生部观看影片之后，向其它两个部门发了一封信，意思是说他们支持这部影片。宣传部只关心影片的主旋律，只要没有反革命内容就会同意。卫生部在信中说这部影片的目的是为公众服务，广电总局因此也不会很严格。”
官员们提出了一些修改意见，其中包括一个他采访一名妓女的场景——影片不能表明她的性工作者身份。他说：“我觉得这样的修改让影片失去了一些光彩。”
《在一起》有一些赵先生标志性的拍摄技巧，比如与生活在社会边缘的艾滋病人的采访。但也有一些与赵先生严格美学主义相脱节的内容，比如采访电影明星和悲伤的配乐。而且，影片没有涉及政府如何掩盖艾滋病的爆发，这其实是造成病情蔓延的主要原因。
卫生部发言人毛群安说：“影片超出了我们的期望。我们部长看完之后说，部里所有的人都应该去看一看。”
2010年12月，影片在北京的一些艺术剧场试映，柏林国际电影节也同意放映这部影片。新华社和CCTV的记者纷纷报道相关信息。赵先生提到了他在嘎纳的经历：“《上访》展映时，一个中国记者都没有，这部影片却吸引了这么多中外记者。”
影片巡展时，曾发生过令人尴尬的一幕。3月份的香港电影节上，一位观众在影片结束后向卫生部官员王新伦提了一个尖锐的问题——中国政府是否曾经压制报道艾滋病病例？王女士说，中国政府一直“积极、有计划地”发布相关报道。赵先生当时有些不自在。
5月份，政府在电视和网络上强大的宣传攻势之后，《在一起》在北京和上海的剧院上映。像大部分纪录片一样，票房收入不值一提。但是赵先生说：“我拍电影的目的就是想让人们来看，所以我现在很高兴。”
赵先生说，他已经准备好拍摄下一部纪录片，这次他将回归原来的拍摄手法。影片的内容是与艺术家和知识分子共同穿越中国。这部影片的投资来自国外，不是中国政府。
附1：《上访》中部分镜头
附2，艾未未对赵亮的采访——《打招呼》
艾：你们这个退出这个澳大利亚影展到底是怎么回事？
赵：呵呵……被迫的……
艾：啊？被迫退出？被退出？不是，你们作为独立的参展人怎么会两个人……就你和贾樟柯两个人怎么会同时退出呢？
赵：当时我不在国内，都不知道这种情况。
艾：你不知道？是没退出还是不知道？
赵：呃……我当时是在国外，知道的这个事。参加电影节我其实都不知道，都是制片方做的事情。
艾：但你的作品退出你会不知道吗？
赵：作品退出我知道。
艾：就是你为什么会退出呢？
赵：呃……有人打招呼。
艾：谁给你打招呼？
赵：……
艾：说吧，作为一个纪录片的……
赵：是贾樟柯给我打的电话……
艾：贾樟柯跟你说什么？具体的。
赵：他说有……这个……这个……领导……管电影的……上边的人，说是……商量能不能把这个片子退出。当时我不知道具体的情况是怎么回事……
艾：他是什么态度？
赵：就是……我问他……因为我当时在泰国，我不知道情况，所以就问他，具体的情况。我说你怎么做，他说那我们就退吧。我说那好吧，你退我也退吧。
艾：所以你当时不在现场，而且是由于贾樟柯希望你退？
赵：他也没说希望我退，当时我就问他，因为我不知道怎么处理这种事情，也没有处理过。所以他问我，说……呃……说现在就这么个状况，然后有可能升级到一个……政治事件。最好是，我们还是少沾惹这个事吧。我说那你什么态度，他说，那我就退。我说那你要退我也退吧。
艾：他说到过他会获得什么好处吗？
赵：没有没有……
艾：他后来获得什么好处了么？
赵：那我哪儿知道？他……
艾：你知道他是在为世博拍纪录片吗？
赵：呃……海上传奇？那个我知道。
艾：当时知道吗？
赵：当时……呃……不知道，因为……我们好久没有联系。
艾：后来你个人获得过，这种跟国家有关的资助吗？我听说有。
赵：当然没有啊，艾未未。
艾：没有你就说没有，我是听说有啊。
赵：怎么会有呢……
艾：贾樟柯获得啦。
赵：那我……我没有获得……
艾：所以人家有这一异议是完全可能的，对吧？所以我希望你能自己说出来，因为在《新京报》上的报道是你们两个人退出，而且贾樟柯对这个事情是有过一个表态的。
赵：但后来据了解他也没有……他说……他也没有这样明确的态度，但是好像媒体这样说……
艾：不会的，不会的。如果他没有他会澄清的，他至少没澄清吧？
赵：……具体我不知道……
艾：他有没有澄清吧？你可以这样说。
赵：那我也没有看到，我……我不太清楚。
艾：谢谢。
原文：
Rallying near the site of the Petitioners’ Village, now demolished. Zhao Liang spent years documenting petitioners’ efforts.
BEIJING — The documentary film “Petition” by Zhao Liang is considered by many of its viewers to be a fearless work of art. Shot over 12 years, it shows how the authorities muzzle and brutalize Chinese who, following an age-old tradition, travel to Beijing seeking redress for wrongdoing by local officials.
In the middle of the shooting, Mr. Zhao came to believe security agents were stalking him. The film was finished, and made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009, but was immediately banned in China. Officers asked about Mr. Zhao in his hometown. He turned off his cellphone and fled to Tibet for three weeks.
Since then, Mr. Zhao has transformed his relationship with the government. Late last year, Mr. Zhao completed “Together,” a film about discrimination against Chinese with H.I.V. and AIDS that was commissioned by the Ministry of Health. In March, Mr. Zhao dined in Hong Kong with ministry officials before walking the red carpet at a film festival. And in Beijing the next month, he accepted an award in a ceremony broadcast on state TV.
Mr. Zhao’s evolution from a filmmaker hounded by the government to one whom it celebrates offers a window into hard choices that face directors as they try to carve out space for self-expression in China’s authoritarian system. Like Mr. Zhao, many seek to balance their independent visions with their desires to live securely and win recognition.
“When you’re working in China, there’s a gray area that you have to navigate well,” Mr. Zhao, 40, a slim man with a crew cut that is more soldier than auteur, said at his loft home in a Beijing arts district.
The Chinese Communist Party has always viewed film as perhaps the most powerful medium for swaying the opinions of the masses, and used it for decades as a propaganda tool. More recently, the state has identified the film industry as critical for shaping China’s image abroad.
Its levers of control within the industry have grown subtler. Directors who produce unauthorized films that overtly challenge the government can face temporary work bans or more serious harassment. But more often, officials rely on the acquiescence of directors who seek to reach a broad audience. China does not forbid independent filmmaking, but it does control distribution, so filmmakers who want their work to be widely seen end up submitting themselves to a capricious censorship process. Access to a lucrative domestic market is at stake, and government support can help international sales, so censors have become gatekeepers to money and fame.
The drive among prominent directors to expose uncomfortable truths appears to have diminished as the country has grown wealthier. Once-rebellious artists, like the director Zhang Yimou, have been showered with largess after agreeing to work within the system they once disdained.
“Together,” which was submitted to censors, avoids mentioning the government’s long cover-up of H.I.V. and AIDS in China. And Mr. Zhao was asked by officials to make a number of cuts. One Chinese film expert, after watching “Together” in Hong Kong, said Mr. Zhao had “gone to the other side.”
The movie has been shown in Chinese theaters and at a few prestigious international festivals, with official support. Mr. Zhao, like many artists who have chosen this path, sees his decision to work within the system in practical terms.
“I think that a work has to have an audience,” he said. “The meaning of a piece of work has to be acknowledged by other people. It has to influence other people.”
Karin Chien, founder of dGenerate Films, the American distributor of Mr. Zhao’s “Crime and Punishment,” one of his five independent documentaries, said Mr. Zhao’s decision to make “Together” surprised her. But she said the move was similar to the way American directors sometimes jumped between independent and studio productions. “In any industry, there’s an appeal for someone who wants to effect change to work within the system and see if that creates more change,” she said.
Yet Mr. Zhao’s compromises have damaged some of his closest friendships in China. Among those he once counted on for support is Ai Weiwei, the internationally known artist detained for nearly three months this year during a broad crackdown on liberal intellectuals. Mr. Ai publicly attacked Mr. Zhao late last year for acquiescing to the government’s demand that Mr. Zhao boycott an Australian film festival.
Mr. Zhao said that unlike Mr. Ai, he did not directly oppose the party, though his subjects, from oppressed peasants to drug-addicted rock musicians, live on China’s margins.
“China no longer needs a revolution, the kind of total revolution that completely disrupts society,” he said. “The costs are too high.”
“Actually, in the party, there is conflict between two camps,” Mr. Zhao added, referring to friction between liberals and hard-liners. “As social intellectuals, we have to cooperate with one faction within the party to defeat the other faction.”
His partnership with the state has also strained his relationship with Zhu Rikun, a programmer at the independent Songzhuang documentary festival outside Beijing, which organizers canceled this spring largely because of government pressure. Mr. Zhu and Mr. Zhao were once close — Mr. Zhu did post-production work on “Petition” — but the two got into a heated online argument in March over the censorship issue.
In an interview, Mr. Zhu said “Together” addressed “a very important subject,” but insisted that “a film that has anything to do with an official or with the government cannot have a good result, so it’s absolutely hopeless.”
A Stone With Sharp Edges
Frustrated with his work as a television cameraman in his hometown, Dandong, on the frigid border with North Korea, Mr. Zhao’s way out was a one-year fellowship to the venerable Beijing Film Academy, where directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige had trained.
At screenings, Mr. Zhao became exposed to the works of foreign directors whose slow, methodical styles greatly influenced him. His favorite was Andrei Tarkovsky, the Soviet director.
“The Russians, that culture, they really respect knowledge, they respect art,” he said. “You can feel that the intellectuals of that culture are tough. They have backbone. They really are thinking of their people. ”
“A culture like that, with that kind of intellectual, there’s hope,” he added. “China, the way China is, you hardly see people like that.”
In 1996, Mr. Zhao began taking his camera to a shantytown in Beijing called the Petitioners’ Village, where people with grievances from all over the country camp out while trying to plead their case at the central petition office. It is a Sisyphean mission, and a dangerous one: the system encourages security officers to abduct and punish the petitioners. Mr. Zhao shot 500 hours of footage, sometimes using hidden cameras inside the petition office.
The central story line of “Petition” follows the emotional toll that injustice takes on a woman and her daughter. In another story line, two petitioners are killed when they accidentally run into the path of an oncoming train while fleeing security officers. Fellow petitioners collect their body parts and call for the ouster of the Communist Party.
“I remember quite clearly one of my middle-school teachers telling me that I was a stone with sharp, jagged edges, but that I would turn into a smooth river stone as I grew older,” Mr. Zhao said. “During the years while I was making this film, I felt like I was getting sharper and sharper instead.”
Mr. Zhao said he never considered registering the film with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, also known as Sarft, the main regulator and censor of films. (Last year, 526 films it had approved were made.)
All the while, Mr. Zhao took on various cameraman jobs and put on exhibitions of his photography and art videos. He met Ai Weiwei when they both exhibited at a show in Finland. After the death of Ai Qing, Mr. Ai’s father and a famous poet, Mr. Zhao sat in the hearse with his friend as it drove past Tiananmen Square. In the early 2000s, when Mr. Zhao was at a low point, Mr. Ai lent him $750. Mr. Zhao called Mr. Ai when he believed officers were following him during the filming of “Petition”: “Weiwei, if one day I disappear, you have to come find me,” he said.
“Petition” eventually got financing from European investors, and Mr. Zhao finished a two-hour edit in 2009 in Paris. It was screened at Cannes in May. Variety called it “an unblinking record of human suffering.”
Zhao Liang in Beijing. He has made several independent documentaries and now a state-sanctioned one, a move that has cost him some friends. "When you're working in China, there's a gray area that you have to navigate well."
Chinese journalists reporting on Cannes for state news organizations shunned the film. “There were reporters who booked interviews with me before the screening, but they all ran away afterwards,” Mr. Zhao said. The Chinese authorities swung into action: police officers began looking for Mr. Zhao, and friends warned him to lie low, prompting the trip to Tibet. Meanwhile, censors blocked any mention of “Petition” on Douban, an arts social networking site.
“I heard some rumblings,” Mr. Zhao said. “I was really pretty nervous.”
Screenings of “Petition” had to take place in secret, which frustrated him. “I want Chinese to see the film and have a better understanding of the environment in which they live,” he told an audience this March when “Petition” was screened at the Kubrick Café in Hong Kong.
Mr. Zhao left it to the film’s French producer to keep “Petition” on the festival circuit. Then, in July 2009, while in Bangkok, where his wife, who is Thai, and their two children live, he got a call from a friend, the well-known director Jia Zhangke. Mr. Jia said film bureau officials were demanding that the two of them withdraw their films from the Melbourne International Film Festival to boycott a documentary on Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighur businesswoman whom China blames for unrest in the Xinjiang region.
The two directors decided to pull out. “You’re a small figure, it’s scary, and you get stuck in a mess like this, in an international incident,” Mr. Zhao said. “Yeah, at the time I was pretty much, ‘Let’s think of me first.’ ”
The bottom line, as he put it, was this: “You still need to work in this country.”
Mr. Zhao was surprised to find, when returning home shortly afterward, that official news organizations had made the two filmmakers into heroes in articles and newscasts. Mr. Zhao and “Petition” were actually mentioned by name. It was an upturn in Mr. Zhao’s relationship with the government, but not one he entirely welcomed. “I sort of felt like I had been used,” he said.
An Official Opportunity
Last October, at an art exhibition opening in Beijing, Ai Weiwei challenged Mr. Zhao to defend his decision to boycott Melbourne. Mr. Ai recorded the encounter on video and posted it online. Mr. Zhao looked anguished at being ambushed by his friend.
“So did you receive any financing afterwards from the state?” Mr. Ai asked. “I heard you did.”
“Of course I didn’t, Ai Weiwei,” Mr. Zhao said.
An opportunity had come along earlier in 2009, however, before the controversy over the Melbourne film festival, for Mr. Zhao to work on a project supported by the state. Gu Changwei, a renowned filmmaker whom Mr. Zhao knew, contacted him with a proposal: Would he want to shoot a documentary on the set of “Love for Life,” a feature film directed by Mr. Gu about villagers afflicted by H.I.V. and AIDS? The story was from a banned book by Yan Lianke. Yet, the Health Ministry had agreed to support the movie, and it wanted a documentary that could be shown as a public service announcement.
For years, the Chinese government denied the scale of H.I.V. infection and covered up a scandal involving H.I.V.-infected blood banks, and the topic is still considered politically delicate. But in recent years, Health Ministry officials have been eager to show they are taking action to combat the disease, and the idea of Mr. Gu’s film and Mr. Zhao’s documentary appealed to them. With that backing, the project got a green light from the normally conservative film bureau.
“I hesitated for a while, but eventually agreed to do it,” Mr. Zhao said.
If everything went well, then Mr. Zhao would finally make a film that would be widely seen in China. The Health Ministry was ready to throw in significant support: a department put up $77,000, half the budget.
“Together” went through rigorous vetting. Early versions were screened for officials from three agencies: first the Health Ministry, then the Central Propaganda Department, and finally the film bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
“The Health Ministry looked at it and issued a letter to the other two, which means that the ministry backs this film,” Mr. Zhao said. “The propaganda department only cares about the general tone of the film and has no problem with it as long as it is not counterrevolutionary. The film bureau would not be so strict once the Health Ministry said to them in the letter that they had made this film for public service.”
Officials requested a few changes, Mr. Zhao said. One involved a scene where he interviewed a prostitute — the film could not say she was a sex worker. “I think that cut makes the film less effective,” he said.
“Together” has some of Mr. Zhao’s trademark touches, notably interviews with H.I.V.-positive Chinese living on the margins. But there are also moments far from Mr. Zhao’s rigorous aesthetic — interviews with celebrity actors, for example, and the use of maudlin music. The film also fails to address how the government’s attempts to conceal outbreaks of H.I.V./AIDS contributed to the spread of the disease.
“The movie exceeded our original expectations,” said Mao Qun’an, a Health Ministry spokesman. “Our health minister, after he saw the movie, said everyone in the ministry has to watch it.”
In Beijing, the film began a trial run at an art house theater in December 2010. The Berlin International Film Festival agreed to screen it. There, Xinhua and CCTV reporters covered the film. “No Chinese reporters were at the screening of ‘Petition,’ not one,” Mr. Zhao said of his experience at Cannes, “while this film attracted a lot of both Chinese and Western reporters.”
There have been awkward moments on the festival circuit. At the Hong Kong International Film Festival in March, a Health Ministry official, Wang Xinlun, was asked a tough question by a viewer after the screening — had the Chinese government suppressed reporting of cases of H.I.V./AIDS? Ms. Wang said the Chinese government had been “very aggressive and methodical” in issuing reports. Mr. Zhao looked uncomfortable as she answered.
In May, after a big marketing campaign by the government on television and the Internet, “Together” opened in theaters in Beijing and Shanghai. Like most documentaries, it did not make much money. But Mr. Zhao said, “I make movies for people to watch, so I’m very happy that it was seen.”
Mr. Zhao said he was already planning for his next documentary to be a return to his old way of filmmaking. This movie would focus on a road trip through China with artists and intellectuals. It would be financed by foreign investors, he said, and not by the state.
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发表于 2011-8-18 16:00
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