Wong Kar-wai: Interviews

Michel Ciment and Hubert Niogret /1997

Michel Ciment and Hubert Niogret: A double originality marks the film [Happy Together] from the beginning: a Hong Kong director decides to make a film in Buenos Aires with the tango as a musical leitmotiv, and he begins a homosexual relationship in the most direct manner, without any “aesthetization” or bad taste.

Wong Kar-wai: Before making the film, I thought that since the story was taking place in Buenos Aires, it would also be a film about this city. Upon arriving, I realized that this was not the case. And neither is it a gay film. I wanted to tell a love story between two men. After Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, many people copied these two films in Asia. A few days ago, in the office of a Korean distributor, I discovered a trailer of a film, it seems, is a hit in its country of origin. Yet everything, the music, the camera movement, the montage are all taken from my two films. They nicknamed the director the “Korean Wong Kar-wai!” That was a warning for me: I had to go forward. I then told my chief cinematographer that this time we should do something different. This was another reason I made Happy Together because after Fallen Angels, everyone asked me if I was going to make a film on Hong Kong 1997, which is to say, the return of my city to China. Since I didn’t know anything about it, I thought that the best way to avoid answering the question was to go make a movie abroad. I am a fan of Manuel Puig’s novels, and one of them is called The Buenos Aires Affair. I liked the title, and [it] gave me the idea to go film in this city that was somewhat the antithesis of Hong Kong. Then little by little, as I was making Happy Together, I distanced myself a little from the initial project, and, finally, it was as if I had re-created Hong Kong in Buenos Aires.

MC&HN: The film owes nothing to Manuel Puig.

WKW: No, it isn’t an adaptation of any of his novels, but I did want to pay homage to my favorite novelist. Then I became aware that the title, The Buenos Aires Affair, would be on the wrong track because it would focus too much on the importance of the city, so I preferred calling it Happy Together.

MC&HN: Yet the film offers a very original perspective on Buenos Aires, which is far from the touristic stereotypes and close to a certain reality.

WKW: This may be true for you, but I think that Argentinian viewers would criticize me for not showing their city enough. But that wasn’t my goal: I wanted to depict the world in which these two young men belong, and, in some way, they are reduced to the room they inhabit. The person who scouted for locations with me was often surprised by my choice of locations, but I was guided by the smells, the lights of the places I visited. I made the film in the La Boca neighborhood, which is one of the most dangerous in Buenos Aires. Everyone was a little afraid, including the actors. I don’t know why, but I thought that these places evoked Kowloon, this Hong Kong district that I identify with so easily. The hotel where we made the movie was very cheap: a room costs five dollars a night. And the place was full of suspicious people, including gangsters who were hanging out nearby. Some who were clearly dangerous demanded that we give them money. But I know these types, and I was glad to be filming there. This neighborhood brought me closer to my world because other parts of Buenos Aires seemed very unfamiliar. The ambience was completely foreign to me, and, clearly, the city is more of a European city than a South American one. It’s somewhat the opposite of Hong Kong as I show it in the film. I also wanted to film at a faster speed because Buenos Aires has a rhythm that’s too slow for me!

MC&HN: You are not the first heterosexual filmmaker to approach the topic of homosexuality. But like Stephen Frears, you avoid both sentimentalism and explicit provocation that we often find in gay films. In the end, you film the homosexual couple in the way that you would film a heterosexual couple.

WKW: That’s the reason I open the film with a lovemaking sequence. I approach it directly, very explicitly, to show that this is a part of their lives, like sharing a meal or washing clothes. Romanticism did not interest me. I like the idea of a viewer arriving late and, having missed this first sequence, he could think that this is a story about two brothers. During filming, I would often ask Christopher Doyle, my chief cinematographer, and William Chang, my editor: “Is my film gay?” But once the film was done, I understood that it was simply a love story.

MC&HN: What importance do you give to improvisation in a film like Happy Together?

WKW: It’s a rather funny story. Before leaving for Buenos Aires, I had a two-page synopsis, and I was convinced that this was the first time that I had felt so sure about my story. Before beginning a film, Lai Yiu-fai (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) was leaving for Buenos Aires because his father had been killed there without any apparent reason. Then he realized that he was looking for someone he [the father] loved in Buenos Aires. At the end, he realized that this person was a man, Ho Powing (Leslie Cheung). I was sure I had a dramatic story. But I then realized that this synopsis had too many different stories: the search, Tony’s problems in Hong Kong, his father’s life, his relationship with his male lover from ten years ago. This seemed very complicated to me, especially since I only had one month of filming because Leslie had to return to Hong Kong for a concert. On top of this, we were in the middle of a worker’s strike, and we were having problems with production. Time was flying by, and I decided to write the simplest narrative, a road movie, once again with the new encounter of these two men from Hong Kong, who meet in Buenos Aires without knowing why.

MC&HN: It’s a road movie, possibly, but in a room!

WKW: And even in a kitchen! Still, by radically changing the story, I was left without a script to speak of. At the beginning, I had a few pages, but I did write some scenes the night before filming, and even on the set, just before filming.

MC&HN: During the three months that you were scouting for locations in the city, what did you learn?

WKW: At first, I tried to understand Buenos Aires and its inhabitants. But quickly, I realized that I didn’t have time to open myself to the outside world and that instead I needed to focus because I have the tendency to get distracted by a thousand pervading details. If I see an ashtray, I want to shoot it. This would have been dangerous for me to spread myself out like that, and I wanted to turn all of my attention to the scenes we needed to film. Moreover, I’m the scriptwriter, the director, and the producer, and having brought over a team of thirty people from Hong Kong with me, it was an expensive undertaking. These are people I have worked with for years, and they realized that I was having problems with the production and the story. If I had filmed it in Hong Kong, it would have been different because at the end of the day, everyone goes back home, and this way one can relax. But here we were all lodged in the same place, and, in the morning, we looked at each other, said nothing, but knew that you’re worried. It’s as if every day, we found each other in a room with multiple screens under constant surveillance, and this creates a certain tension! Every time there was a Chinese holiday, the desire to go back to Hong Kong returned, especially since our stay—which was supposed to last two months—was extended to four months because of all the hassle.

MC&HN: Was the theme of the Iguazu Falls planned from the very beginning of the story as you were restructuring your project?

WKW: I must tell you that our main problem was finding lodging for the two protagonists. With my art director, William Chang (who is also my editor), we were lucky because we quickly found where they would be living. So, he and his collaborators got to work on transforming the apartment, finding the wallpaper, et cetera. They discovered the San Elmo flea markets, which is an Italian neighborhood in Buenos Aires, and a lamp with a lampshade that had an imprint of the Fall. In fact, they bought similar lamps, and one was in my room. Looking at the imprint, I saw two guys looking at a waterfall. This seemed a beautiful story to include in my film: the idea of a man who wants to share his happiness with another man by going to look at a waterfall. This gave them a common goal and helped us to structure the narrative.

MC&HN: Your way of filming with rapid movements of the camera, as if in a state of emergency, makes your relationship to Christopher Doyle particularly important.

WKW: This assumes an intimate collaboration, of course, especially in this particular case when, because of Leslie Cheung’s other commitments, in ten days we had to film all the scenes he is in. We even worked three days straight, basically with no interruption, and everyone got a little crazy. But I always thought the style of filming came from the way of filming, and, in this case, it could not have been faster. Normally, I choreograph the actors’ movements and tell them where to move. Then I tell Christopher how the camera is going to move, and he works on setting up the lights. Of course, we had no problems communicating with each other because together we’ve made five of the six films I directed. We don’t talk about lighting or about the setting or the angle because starting with our first collaboration I was very clear about my instructions, and he knows what I want. For example, we don’t see eye to eye on close-ups. He wants them less close together, while my taste veers more toward the close-up. He knows this and gives me what I want. So our working relationship is very good, and when he moves the camera, I don’t even have to look at the video screen because in following his movement I know what his take will be like. In general, on the set, we talk about anything and everything, but very rarely about photography. I prefer to ask him, for instance, what the meaning of the Tropic of Capricorn is because for me the story of these two young men begins when they pass the line of the Tropics.

MC&HN: Before beginning to film, did you have a particular relationship with tango music and with Astor Piazzolla’s work?

WKW: Not at all. In fact, my first contact with Piazzola was at the Amsterdam airport where I bought his CDs on my way to Argentina! For me, it’s more than tango. It’s rhythm and passion. The music gave my film its rhythm, as well as giving rhythm to the city in which we filmed. Music is a part of sound, and the sounds of Buenos Aires are dominated by music, on one hand, yet the city is also about the sounds of radio and television, like the broadcasts of soccer games that you can hear wherever you are.

MC&HN: What is surprising in your purchase of Piazzolla’s CD is that you stumbled upon a well-known melody of his arranged by Kip Hanrahan.

WKW: I believe a great deal in chance. In fact, my films are made up of the addition of small parts. At the end, I discover the whole. It seems to me to be a very Chinese way of thinking. One day, I was filming in La Boca, and I didn’t know why I was doing such or such a shot. It was purely accidental. It’s when we were editing that I realized that it was going to play a very important role. In other words, it’s like a puzzle whose order I wouldn’t know, but whose pieces would assemble themselves little by little. In my view, every film has its own bit of luck. For example, when we were filming Days of Being Wild, one sequence was supposed to occur during a sunny day, but it was raining nonstop. We, therefore, changed the script, but when we were about to film, the sun came out again. That time, luck was not on the side of the film. For the waterfall scene in Happy Together, we were very worried because rain had been pouring for a week, and we had very little time. But on the day of filming, the sun returned, and we took advantage of the abundant waterfalls that made for a spectacular background. There, on the other hand, we were lucky!

MC&HN: Do you film using a lot of film [negative] compared to what you will keep during the editing?

WKW: I work in segments, which I number without really knowing ahead of time the connections between them, nor do I know their order in the narrative. At the point of editing, I try a number of combinations. For Happy Together, we used Avid, a system of virtual editing. But I originally did my first editing on the Steenbeck,1 and it lasted three hours because I like to work at the table. But the advantage of Avid was that it helped to tighten the film. It was, therefore, more of a process of elimination than of addition. I was still in the process of discarding what didn’t seem necessary two weeks before the Cannes Film Festival because it seemed to me that this story didn’t merit a long film. Obviously, by working this way, I use a lot of film. But there’s another reason for this. We don’t do any retakes, and I use my camera in a very mobile way to capture moments of truth, a little like in a documentary. For Happy Together, I was always in need of negatives, and we had to ask for help. I was able to get from Kodak a type of film that is usually not used in fictional films. It’s a very old model with very little in stock. At the end of filming, the film had not arrived, and I asked Christopher Doyle to bring his camera to photograph the scene, image by image. This didn’t bother me because in the end time stopped, and we were able to make the film with fixed images. But I also decided to shorten this scene as well. Like you see, all methods are good in the making of a film!

MC&HN: What was the contribution of Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung in the making of a film in which improvisation plays an important part?

WKW: I never ask my actors to play a character other than who they are. I borrow a great deal from their personality. During the first days, we work slowly since we have to find the right path. Little by little, when they feel confident, I let them improvise especially during the sex scenes! Tony and Leslie know each other well, in fact for a long time, so it’s fun to watch them improvise in this way in front of the camera. Tony would ask me questions about his affair with Chang [Chen], the other man. In fact, I presented the situation to them; then they improvised while the camera filmed. They didn’t stop, and it was really funny to see them participate in the movement of the scene without me saying, “Cut!,” at any moment. They were waiting for me to stop them, but they had to keep going!

MC&HN: You have made four films with Tony Leung and three films with Leslie Cheung. How do you define their personality since you’ve admitted to borrowing some of their traits to construct their characters?

WKW: For me, Leslie Cheung’s behavior in the film is very close to the Leslie I know in real life. He was, therefore, very at ease with his role. Tony, on the other hand, is very different. He is not so sure of himself and doesn’t take the risk of doing crazy things in front of the camera. He is a very subtle and focused actor. This is why I wanted to make a change in him—to destabilize him—because I wanted to pull from him different accents. At first, he thought that my idea of making him Leslie’s lover a joke. The first day of filming, he had to perform in the love scene. He was so shocked that he refused right away, and, at any rate, he wanted to keep his underwear on. During the next three days, he was so shaken that he sat in a corner doing nothing by himself; he was completely speechless. He wondered how he could explain it all to his mother. He was very tense last night [at Cannes] during the screening of the film in the large room of the palace because it was the first time he was seeing it, and he was dreading the film’s release in Hong Kong in a month’s time. I told him that I would bring his mother, but he refused. It would be him or no one! Leslie’s reaction was very different. He said to me, “You want to tell a love story between two men, and I’m going to see just how far you will go.” From this standpoint, I believe he helped Tony a great deal, and he kept telling him that it was only a film! Leslie can give the impression of being more fragile, but, in fact, he is someone with great determination. His status as a star singer and his acting profession are equally important for him, and he considers them one and the same.

MC&HN: How did you choose Chang Chen?

WKW: I had seen him in A Brighter Summer Day (1991) by Edward Yang, while he was still a child [actor]. Last year, when I saw him in Mahjong (1996) by Edward Yang at the Berlin Film Festival, I realized that it was the same actor, and he had changed very much. I think he’s a remarkable actor. Up until then he had only done films with Edward Yang, whose methods are very different from mine. They have a kind of teacher-apprentice relationship, and Edward spends a lot of time discussing his role with him and practicing, which is not my way of doing things. This disturbed him a lot at the beginning, especially since I had asked my assistant to take Chang Chen to a gym and to have him take boxing lessons. I found him too fragile, too tender, too slow, and I wanted him to be more active, stronger, with better coordination of his physical movements. Even at the end of the film, I think he still had not understood it all, after believing that he was going to act in an action film!

MC&HN: With Fallen Angels, you went all the way with a kind of formalism. Isn’t Happy Together a kind of return to a cinema in which the characters have more consistency?

WKW: For me, Fallen Angels was treated like a comic book in which the four protagonists were one-dimensional. The only character, in the strongest sense of the word, was the father of one of the young people [note: the mute played by Takeshi Kaneshiro]. In this way, the film reflected the enormous influence of comics on Hong Kong cinema. The viewing public is led to contrast real characters with heroes from comics. The experience with Happy Together is very different, of course. At the beginning of filming, I told Christopher Doyle and William Chang that it would be a simple and straightforward film about normal people who speak in slang. Why they came to Buenos Aires remains a mystery. I remember one of my friends, a member of the crew, had arrived in Buenos Aires a week before the rest of us. He told me that he wanted to go to the Canadian Embassy to try to get a passport because the quotas in Buenos Aires were more flexible than in Hong Kong and that it would cost only a few thousand American dollars. Basically, it’s possibly one of the reasons why Leslie and Tony left Hong Kong for Argentina!

MC&HN: You like non-realistic cinematographic tricks, like an accelerated frame rate.

WKW: It’s undoubtedly because of my impatience and that I wanted to do a film as fast as possible in order to return to Hong Kong! But seriously, I believe that it’s like the Chinese expression which states that “time goes by like a fast current of water.” In fact, in this film and in life, there is no progression. There is a routine aspect to their lives, while on the outside, the world is in constant movement. That’s the contrast.

MC&HN: Did you always want this mixture of color with black and white?

WKW: I like its texture. I also wanted to separate the film in three parts. The past, for the viewers, is often associated with black and white. The second part is when the two men decide to start to live together again. And the third part is when Leslie leaves Tony. The story then becomes more intimate. They no longer see each other; they no longer speak to other people and only speak to themselves. I often remember the first sentence in Godard’s Little Soldier: “For me, the time of action has passed. I’ve aged. The time for reflection has just begun.” And this is somewhat what happens in the third part of Happy Together. Another reason why I filmed the first part in black and white (in fact, it was made in color but treated in black and white) is that it occurs during the summer in Argentina, which is very cold. The black and white seemed to restore this ambience.

MC&HN: It’s rare for the editor and the set designer [William Chang] to be the same person in a film.

WKW: He wouldn’t hesitate to cut a frame if it seems necessary to him, even if the décor had taken a lot of effort and time! In fact, William Chang is very rigorous with the film, himself, and me. We have been working together since my first film, and he understands my work well. But it is also his work. I don’t give him orders, and he can be brutal in his decisions. His judgement is very good, and he knows my rhythm—so much so that the result is very close to what I think and what I feel. With him, the set designer and the editor are one. He thinks about dramaturgy. We don’t talk about colors or texture, but he always asks questions on the way in which I’m going to begin a sequence, and depending on my answer, he is going to think about the costume and the settings. I think he himself could be a very good filmmaker because he knows cinema thoroughly.

MC&HN: Do you think the group you’ve formed with your collaborators for so many years is of a particular kind?

WKW: I often think of us as a jazz ensemble. Christopher and William are in high demand in Hong Kong, but when I put them together, I’m a little bit like a team leader. I suggest we have jam sessions on a new project. So we discuss the film intensively among the three of us. Christopher will ask me what kind of music I’m going to use because that will inspire his movements of the camera and his style of photography. Tango was not his kind of music, but he had to admit that Piazzolla is amazing!

NOTE

1. Steenbeck is an editing suite that only deals with analogue film. Editing on this system requires manual cutting.