07.08.2012
- By Wang Xiaoshuai
- Dialogue is not requited - its a film action (Action contained within the city)
- The trailer is saying that this film is about movement and rhythm
- A frantic kind of film, constant motion/ movement
- Is a adaptation of Bicycle thieve
Think about Bike identity - depend on who owns the bike and how to use the bike
- Central character - needs the bike to surve
- For the teenager
China film associates makes it cleared that anyone who makes films that protrayed its city in a gritty or grunge way, its going to banned. This film was made knowing this.
It's important to know that the film is 'imaginary' - it's an artifest
"The city is an imagined environment" James Donald
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322804576302901606181530.html
- Hengdian World Studio (China-wood) - biggest studio in the world
- Established in mid 1990s
- Easier to shoot her than on the street - shooting permits are difficult to obtain
- shooting at this studio creates a particular (pleasant and historical) aesthetic
- Everything can be controlled in the studio as oppose to shooting on the street
- However, its about the historical setting of Beijing not the new
What about the other 'China'?
- Impossible to make a gritty film at Hengdian
- Filmmakers forced to the streets
- Filmmakers forced to not use permits
- This creates an aesthetic (fast, quick, frenetic)
- Instead of shooting the film in the main street, they choice to shoot at the "Back- ally China"
Beijing Bicycle represents the 'real' city
- Authenticity is the key to the film's marketing
- Not sets - actual places
- A film about the city 0 the city (not actors) drives the plot
City Shooting
- The film is made amongst the city and city people
- Beijing - wants and all
- Warts become part of the city's diversity
- Diversity caused Wang tremendous censorship issues
- Beijing Bicycle (2001)/ Beijing Olympics (2008)
- Documentary - 40
Tapes into preexisting myths and traditions
- Space
- Bicycles
- Food
- Smog
- City survival
- Take us underneath the surface of 'everyday' Beijing
- Bicycles are a regular - and necessary - part of surviving
- Bicycle - necessary to live - not yuppie bike culture
Class Division
- Takes us beyond luxury living - luxury is observed from afar
- Hotel sequence - ignorant to how the 'other's live
- Look at this film as a social rebellian film that rebell against contemporary Chinese
How do you make a film about a city?
- Tourist - the film is watched through the tourists gaze
- Guei is a country boy
- Much of the film is observing
- Chunking Express - fly-by tourists and locals
- Infernal Affairs - everyone has to 'pretend'
- This makes them easily translatable - films about tourists
City films are action films
- Characters are constantly moving -running, ridding chasing,
- Urban real - films are connected through movement
- Montages of the city
- The stories are the city
