I overestimated the amount of work I had to accomplish – for once – so I finished my efforts to translate this
one damned interview. Here’sParts 1-3(00:00 to 12:00) again.
Before I start, I figured out what it was that Jiang Wen said that
insulted the CCP! This term, 航母, kept popping up, and I was so confused because it
literally means aircraft carrier. I
thought for a long time that it was some kind of slang for a big cooperation or
even the government, like ‘big brother.’ But it turns out that it really is about aircraft carriers. Kind
of, anyway.
Context: China currently has the second/third biggest military force
(they kind of tie with Russia) in the world, and a big part of why it’s lagging
behind America hugely is because China doesn’t have enough aircraft carriers. (The
difference a single aircraft carrier makes in military might is massive,
because it is a literal moving port that’s
crewed by the upward of 5000 people. If you have an aircraft carrier, you can
wage war anywhere there is a large body of water. Which is kind of everywhere.)
When I say that China doesn’t have enough aircraft carriers, I mean that
they didn’t have any until very recently – around 2011, when they launched the Liaoning.
The CCP made lots of statements full of nationalistic fervour about how it is
better than even America’s.
Jiang Wen said, and I quote directly from news articles, “中国航母比美国多一倍啥都好聊光IP有个屁用.”
“What’s the fucking use of China having an aircraft carrier twice the
quality of America’s if we don’t have some IPs to brag about it with?”
Further context: the reason why there’s a Chinese side of the Internet
is because China doesn’t actually have much of the Internet – it has something
more like an Intranet, nationwide,
because their Internet is exceedingly restricted. (To the point that some
terms, like Tiananmen 天安门, are censored, and
there’s a new thing that literally tracks people’s activities online and give
them social points that allows for greater priorities to necessities like
education and health. (Correct me if I’m wrong about any of these points. I get my news on China from translated sources.)) Mainlanders are also very infamous for their methods of
doublespeak, especially people in positions of power and influence.
Further, further context: Jiang Wen once got into massive trouble in 2001 for his movie Devils on the Doorstep, because it was a movie set during the
Sino-Japanese wars and humanised the Japanese. When I say massive trouble, I
mean that there was talk about him being banned entirely from the industry. In
fact, I’m pretty sure that he was banned from directing and writing films for
seven years afterwards. Check the dates on the filmography of his Wikipedia
article; it matches up.
Basically, I misinterpreted: he didn’t accidentally-on-purpose insult
the CCP. He did it on purpose.
This man’s balls are fucking huge and I love him. The number of fucks he simply does not give is amazing.
Anyway. On with the rest of the interview!
Parts:
4. On his critics (and also on geniuses) 5. Limitations of the film medium (and more about
geniuses) 6. Jiang Wen is a Rude Old Man 7. Acting in the future, and his new film
Again this is so great and interesting, thank you for doing this!! He’s just….. he really takes “not giving a shit” to an entirely new level. He insulted the CCP’s aircraft carrier. It’s hilarious, everything the interviewer tries to ask him about he’s like “why would I do that! what’s the point!! waste of time” god he’s such a grumpy old man I love him. Also:
Everyone has the right to sleep. But if you’re watching something with this much action (Gone with the Bullets is playing) and you can still fall asleep, how sleep-deprived are you?
salted for extra flavour
my dad is an old-timey 60-something year old hong kong-chinese guy who’s really political and really into culture, he even worked in hong kong’s film industry for a while before he retired to be a teacher – like i could count on him to get in-depth about big-wave films back in the 70′s and 60′s; so i was talking to him today, and this interview came to mind so i mentioned it to him. and the first thing he mentioned about jiang wen is: “oh yeah, he’s a bit of a renegade.” (he meant that very positively; my dad is very anti-mainland/CCP)
we went on this tangent about jiang wen basically, and he goes on to say how jiang wen is really clever with his films, that almost every single one of them has some kind of anti-CCP message/value written in subtext. my dad talked about how his films would resonate within a lot of chinese people (and the box office numbers of the films themselves are evident of that), because however subtextual his criticisms are, they are able to “echo” the sentiments of the people. i brought up Let The Bullets Fly (it being such a critically-acclaimed film that broke so many box office records in China alone) and my dad’s reaction was instantaneous and very excited: “of course! that one is incredibly politically charged! but this man knows how to evade CCP censors; he’s unapologetic and relentless and extraordinarily clever.”
anyway i just wanted to share this – it made me think of what op said about mainlanders being quite infamous with their use of doublespeak. i brought up the aircraft-carrier-insult to my dad and he also said: “you can’t insult the CCP without being crushed or directly censored, so you learn to talk shit about them without actually directly attacking them. but even so it takes massive gumption, balls, and razor-sharp wit. and jiang wen is able to elevate his filmmaking to continuously and consistently be colouring outside the lines like that.”
(conclusion: jiang wen has massive gumption, balls, and razor-sharp wit. also he’s clearly worth waxing poetics about.)
i felt this extra worth knowing, living in hong kong where it’s a pretty politically turbulent time with anti-mainland/CCP sentiments strung up high. i mean, i read op’s post a while back (a very good post btw) and was pleasantly surprised with this extra knowledge of how absolutely no-fucks-given jiang wen is about the government, sort of confirming a hunch of mine when looking at his older movies. and hearing about him from an old-timey chinese perspective is always very interesting for me. jiang wen got called a renegade now if that ain’t the biggest deal
A Force Sensitive Phasesixer 