April 25, 2017 (XXXIV:12) Wong Kar-Wei—IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (FA YEUNG NIN WA) 2000, (98 min.) The online version of this handout—http://csac.buffalo.edu/goldenrodhandouts.html —contains working URLs & color images. Directed by Wong Kar-wai Written by Wong Kar-wai Produced by Ye-cheng Chan, William Chang, Gilles Ciment, Jacky Yee Wah Pang, Wai Wong Music Michael Galasso, Shigeru Umebayashi Cinematography Christopher Doyle, Pung-Leung Kwan, Ping Bin Lee (as Mark Lee Ping-bin) Film Editing, Production & Costume Design William Chang Cast Maggie Cheung…Su Li-zhen - Mrs. Chan Tony Leung Chiu-Wai…Chow Mo-wan Ping Lam Siu…Ah Ping Tung Cho 'Joe' Cheung…Man living in Mr. Koo's apartment Rebecca Pan…Mrs. Suen Kelly Lai Chen…Mr. Ho (as Lai Chen) Man-Lei Chan…Mr. Koo Szu-Ying Chien…Amah (as Tsi-Ang Chin) Roy Cheung…Mr. Chan (voice) graphic design but never used it. In 1980 he joined a screenwriter’s Paulyn Sun…Mrs. Chow (voice) program, first becoming a television production assistant, then working as a scriptwriter for television and later for films. His debut WONG KAR-WAI (b. July 17, 1958 in Shanghai, China) belongs to As Tears Go By (1988) played around with the tried-and-tested triad the mid-1980s Second New Wave of Hong Kong filmmakers who movie, sticking to the genre in its bare bones but with poetry continued to develop the innovative aesthetic initiated by the pumping through its blood. After this, Wong became more and original New Wave. The Second Wave, which includes directors more experimental, finding his feet once he started a fruitful such as Eddie Fong, Stanley Kwan and Clara Law, is often seen as a collaboration with cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Together continuation of the first as many of these directors worked as they consolidated Wong’s famous style turning his films into assistants to First Wave directors such as Tsui Hark, Ann Hui and stunning, neon-drenched reveries using a step-printing process, Patrick Tam (with whom Wong worked and collaborated). Few which allowed them to slow certain sequences down, to dazzling other directors can convey the pain and suffering of love quite as effect. Wong’s next film Days of Being Wild (1990) won five Hong seductively as Wong; his films are breathtaking symphonies Kong Film Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. His composed of those unspoken emotions and hidden desires that we following effort, Ashes of Time (1994), varied greatly in genre, conceal deep inside of ourselves. They’re stories of doomed successfully subverting the conventions of the period martial-arts romances that unravel languidly featuring loners, dreamers and the drama. During a break in the post-production of Ashes of Time, heartbroken. Wong made Chungking Express (1994), which later became a cult Wong left Shanghai with his mother at the age of 5, when hit. In 1997, Happy Together premiered at the Cannes Film they emigrated to Hong Kong, leaving behind his father, his brother Festival where it garnered a Best Director Award for Wong. In and his sister. He did not speak Cantonese, the local dialect of Hong 2000, Wong’s In The Mood For Love was also awarded Cannes Kong, until he was 13. He graduated college with a degree in accolades, including Best Actor for Tony Leung Chiu-wai and the Wong Kar-Wei—IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE—2 Technical Prize. Wong then turned to science fiction for his quasi- Daggers (2004), Futarikko (1996) and both Kar-wai films, In the sequel to tonight’s film with 2046 in 2004. Wong consistently Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004). employs a signature ‘parallelling’ and ‘intersecting’ rhetoric in which his characters arbitrarily cross paths. In both Days of Being CHRISTOPHER DOYLE (b. May 2, 1952 in Sydney, New South Wild and In the Mood for Love, Wong recreates a ‘60s Hong Kong Wales, Australia) is nothing if not outspoken. For a lensman with that is both nostalgic and contemporary, evoking both tradition and such a lyrical approach to his craft, his interviews are extremely modernity. Tonight’s film is set in 1962, 13 years after Mao and the direct. Growing up in Australia, he left and sailed around the world Communist party’s rise to for three years before finally power in Mainland China, touching down in Taiwan. In while Hong Kong remained a addition to Mandarin and French, he British Colony. However, speaks Cantonese fluently, and is during the 1960s there was taking lessons in Spanish, Japanese considerable unrest mirroring and Thai. His Chinese is at a higher the wider social and political level than his English. Has said: “I situations around the world. left Australia when I was 18 and I've The sense of history and been a foreigner for 36 years. I think nostalgia that pervades In the that's very important to the way I Mood for Love is a signature work because as a foreigner you see of Wong’s style and things differently. But I started reminiscent of filmmakers making Chinese-language films so I such as Alain Resnais, Jean- regard myself as a Chinese Luc Godard and Krzysztof filmmaker. I just happen to be white. Kieslowski. With history and Or pink, actually.” Doyle didn’t start nostalgia, however, come making films until he was 34, citing change and the notion of that life experience was more ‘before’ and ‘after’. The important than film school. “Wasted protagonists are caught in a constantly evolving space where time youth was probably the most valuable asset for what I’m doing can stand still or be momentarily captured, but will eventually now. You see the world, you end up in jail three or four times, you succumb to expiration. The inevitability of change brings with it an accumulate experience. And it gives you something to say. If you evocation of melancholy. Known for eschewing detailed scripts, he don't have anything to say then you shouldn't be making films. It’s has said he wants his actors to respond on instinct rather than nothing to do with what lens you’re using…. And then we made scripts, and in doing so captivates the soul. Often transfixed by the this film That Day on the Beach (1983) that won all these awards smallest details – smoke swirling towards the ceiling or a reflection and I didn't know what I was doing. I fluked it.” He often employs shimmering in a puddle – and he prefers his drama to be extremely bright, vivid colors experimenting with slow motion, understated. Wong’s multi-narrative, non-linear storylines delight in motion blur, as well as rhythmic and arbitrary camera movement. jumping around restlessly. Abstract, abrupt and ambiguous endings His from-the-hip approach is perhaps most evident in Gus Van with the characters left with ambivalent feelings at the end, leaving Sant’s remake Psycho (1998) which he apparently shot without ever the outcome “post-ending” to the viewer's choice and interpretation having seen the original. Doyle has made 8 films with Kar-wai Wong was the President of the Jury at the 2006 Cannes Film Wong. Most recently he worked with the equally outspoken Chilean Festival, which makes him the only Chinese person to preside over director Alejandro Jodorowsky on Endless Poetry in 2016. the jury. He is currently working on the Gucci murder moviewith Margot Robbie rumored to be the lead. PUNG-LEUNG KWAN (b. dates unknown) started his career as an arts and culture photographer. He made his cinematic debut in 1997 MICHAEL GALASSO (b. April 5, 1949 in Hammond, Louisiana—d. in Stanley Kwan’s Hold You Tight. The cinematographer then September 9, 2009, age 60, in Paris, France) was an American worked on Ann Hui’s films July Rhapsody (2002) and The composer, violinist and music director. In addition to tonight’s film, Postmodern Life of My Aunt (2006), as well as Wong Kar-wai’s Galasso wrote music for Babak Payami's Secret Ballot (2001) as 2004 film 2046. He also shared a Golden Horse (China’s Academy well as Turkish directors Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s Waiting for the Clouds Award) nomination for Best Cinematography in with Christopher (2003) and Derviş Zaim's Mud (2003). Galasso also worked on Doyle for 2046 (2004). sound art installations including the Giorgio Armani Retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2000 (the first sound MARK PING BIN LEE (b. 1954 in Taiwan) is known for his work on installation in the New York Guggenheim's history) and the In the Mood for Love (2000), The Assassin (2015) and New York, I Guggenheim Bilbao in 2001. He won the César Award for Best Love You (2008). Recognized for his use of natural lighting utilizing Music Written for a Film in 2009 for the film Séraphine, directed real film and graceful camera movement, Lee received the Grand by Martin Provost. Technical Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 for tonight’s film. The film also earned him an AFI award and The New York SHIGERU UMEBAYASHI (b. February 19, 1951 in Kitakyushu, Film Critics Circle award for Best Cinematography. In 2009, Japan) was once the leader of the Japanese new wave rock band EX Taiwanese director Chiang Hsiu-chiung and Kwan Pun Leung made in the 1980s. When the band broke up in 1985, he shifted direction a documentary about Mark Lee entitled Let The Wind Carry Me. In to composing and scoring films. He has more than 40 Japanese and reviewing the film, the Taipei Times reported: “‘When Hou Hsiao- Chinese films to his credit and is most known for House of Flying hsien was making Flowers of Shanghai (1998), the only instruction he gave cinematographer Lee was ‘to make the images look kind of Wong Kar-Wei IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE—3 oily.’ Wong Kar-wai was no better.