China Film Journal

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I am not quite sure how to feel about this: Nikita Mikhalkov of Russia and Chen Kaige of China (who is a US citizen, I believe) have won the the Kurosawa Award for lifetime achievement at the Tokyo Film Festival. The award was worth 100,000 USD, which the two directors split.

My ambivalence stems from my opinion that Chen Kaige has become kind of a hack of late, though he has, on the whole, made many more decent films than shitty ones, and has even made a couple of near brilliant or at least close to seminal films in the last thirty odd years.

Of course, this is a pretty good omen for Chen, who has a highly anticipated upcoming film, the Mei Lanfang biopic. They’ve already released the official MV/theme song for the movie, sung by the film’s two co-stars, Leon Lai and Zhang Ziyi.

Earlier this year, we prefaced our interview of a rising star in film with the provocative title, The World is Not Enough: Has Jia Zhangke Permanently Left the Art House?

I should hope not. From my view Stateside it seems that Jia Zhangke (贾樟柯) has just arrived. After all, I had been waiting since 2006 for the U.S. release of Still Life (Sanxia Haoren: literally, “The Good People of Three Gorges”). So I waited. And waited. And wouldn’t you know, I waited.

Still Life made its American premiere in January 2008 at New York’s IFC Center. It reached the West Coast in April, at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and a month later, showed for a week at one of the Lumiere Theatres in the Bay Area. In other words, an art house. So is Jia leaving the art house, just as he has entered it?

I think two different meanings of that phrase at play. One is subjective, about the film itself: serious, often experimental and avant-garde, produced independently, with a singular vision (i.e. that of an auteur). One is objective, the circumstances in which the film and by extension, the filmmaker, is received: where it plays and what audience.

The term “art house” or “art film” turns out to be a uniquely American one, due to the monopoly of commercially-oriented Hollywood films in American theaters (and abroad), leaving acknowledged serious films domestic and international limited to certain theaters. They could be specialty film centers such as the IFC in New York or Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, or repertory theaters that show classics for a day and new releases for a week, two on popular demand. In the suburbs, they could be the occasional chain-operated theater set aside for niche movies, or the single screen reserved at the 30-plex theater.

An independent film with strong prospects may open at several dozen screens. For example, a Jane Austen adaptation starring Emma Thompson (and a not-so-famous Kate Winslet). Sense and Sensibility opened at 70 screens in 1995. That sounds like a lot, but with nearly 300 million people and 400 metropolitan areas, it clearly did not show within driving distance of many Americans. In contrast, The Dark Knight opened at over 4000 screens in the US. The art film’s initial unqualified success did allow it to expand to several hundred screens, thus “leaving the art house”.

A more recent example is the phenomenon known as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Buoyed by the art house successes of Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm, Ang Lee’s film was able to open at . . . 16 screens!! Two reasons come to mind. Foreign language films have smaller potential audiences, and so they started smaller. Also, they opened smaller at the start of December to build up to Christmas season.

Well Christmas came and went, and a month later it was playing at close to 200 screens, so it was bumped to 700 screens for another three weeks. But wait, it wasn’t going away. In fact those 700 screens were packed. So well after the holiday season, Crouching Tiger played at 1200 screens, then 1700…until it reached an unheard-of 2000 screens for a foreign language film. The punctuated equilbrium of this theatrical progression is fascinating to chart. It appears the powers that be expected such a film only needed 173 screens when it opened those screens, and when it exceeded all expectations, took some time before it made non-art screens available to the wire-fu epic. Put another way, it was the Obama of the cinema world.

At its theatrical peak, in February 2008, Still Life played at two screens. The World, his previous international success, hit three screens in the US. Of course, none of these record film festival screenings, which are lovely feathers in the cap but do little for accessibility. Seattle on May 23 and Austin on October 12? No thanks. Given the 4000+ screens available in the US, it seems even the proliferation of international films can find their, um, niche in a physical art house. Perhaps Netflix and soon the Internet will render inconsequential the movie bottleneck in the theaters. But the reviews, the buzz, the “event-ness” of a film today accompany generally just its theatrical release.

There is another world, one that falls somewhere between the visibility of repertory theaters and the singularity of film festivals. That’s the art museum world. At some point art museums decided to show international films as part of its regular exhibitions. Perhaps it’s an extension of their experimental film and video showings, or as a long awaited acknowledgment of narrative film as art with a capital “A”. While each film shows for a day or two, the program (often focusing on one filmmaker) may last weeks, giving the curious time and opportunity to taste some of the oeuvre.

The San Francisco Bay Area is fortunate to have several such venues for film. This month, SF Museum of Modern Art is showing the film series Rediscovering the Fourth Generation as part of its exhibit on Chinese contemporary art. Films include Wu Tian Ming’s River Without Buoys, Xie Fei’s Black Snow, and Huang Shuqin’s Woman Demon Human.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts tends to focus on experimental and documentary type films. Next month it premieres Fengming: A Chinese Memoir by Wang Bing, which showed at last year’s Cannes. Here’s the Variety review. He Fengming survived “anti-rightist” persecutions for decades and lived to tell her three-hour tale.

Across the Bay, the Berkeley Art Museum’s Pacific Film Archive functions more like a stand-alone film center. Though nominally tied with the art museum’s contemporary Chinese art exhibit, the PFA had an extraordinary program this month. Unknown Pleasures: The Films of Jia Zhangke allowed Bay Area audiences to see for the first time “the quartet of beautifully constructed, profoundly astute examinations of a changing China”, as the Village Voice called Pickpocket (Xiao Wu), Platform, Unknown Pleasures, and The World.

That series has ended but is followed up this weekend with a four-day, five-film seriesI Love Beijing: The Films of Ning Ying , capped by a “master class” from Ning Ying (宁瀛) herself. But wait, there’s more! November features Mahjong: New Independent Chinese Cinema, a sample of 21st century visions from Beijing, Sanxia, and Anyang to an art house, I mean art museum, near you.

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We just read an article in Xinhua about a “made to order film vignette and profile series” called “Boy Meets China” is going to “introduce some of the country’s most colorful, influential, and potentially influential people: sports figures, superstars in the music, movie, and fashion scenes, young entrepeneurs and artists whose works sell for millions in the Western world.

The “boy” who is hosting the show is 22 year old New Yorker Eames Yates, Jr. The point behind this show, which is supposed to air on the new international channel, is to remedy the information asymmetries between China and the US, because not enough US people really understand what the “new China” is like. So Yates goes out and interviews a bunch of famous people, such as Jet Li, and had this to say about the experience.

“Mr Li was genuinely happy and fun. After I got over my initial fear that he was going to deliver a fatal blow if I said the wrong thing, I loosened up and we really connected in a way that should occur much more often between East and West.”

Well, need we go on? The whole thing sounds hopelessly cliched — or is that just the soporific effect of Xinhua-nese language? I don’t know. All I know is that the Olympics is not just about a platform for athletes — no, it’s going to end up being a platform for a whole host of wankers to host their wankathons on TV, engaging in a type of spiritual pollution that the commies, had they any sense, should get riled up about.

We haven’t found any clips online yet, but we’ll post some them as soon as we do.

Those of you who are are film buffs, coffee, or cute foreign exchange student connoisseurs in Beijing probably have heard of the cafe “Sculpting in Time” (雕刻时光). The place is practically a Beijing institution; it was started ten years ago by a Taiwanese guy named Zhuang Songli who used to be a film student at the Beijing Film Academy. He started this store, named after a film by Andrei Tarkovsky, and it was devoted to stuff relating to film, in addition to being a cafe. The whole thing really took off these last years, and they started a couple more stores in Beijing. Now they are doing all kinds of business, coffee catering, coffee shop business training, etc.

One interesting thing that was mentioned in the article (in Chinese) is that the once hipster word-of-mouth cafe has become a brand, and is therefore going to be replicated and expanded to other places. The plans so far are to up the number of cafes to ten in Beijing and aim for three in Xi’an. For all you living in Shanghai (like me!) and Guangzhou, well, don’t get happy yet. They are looking into it, but nothing definite yet.

Here’s the Chinese article from Sohu:

当独立电影已成往事，当雕刻时光渐渐成长为一个公司、

一个品牌，老板庄菘冽还会带给文艺青年们那个充满人文气息的雕刻时光吗？

推开深绿色的木门，铃铛声响起，拾阶而上，一样的灯影，一样的桌椅，一样的咖啡，一样的熙攘人群。
不看招牌，丝毫不会意识到我们正在走进的这家北京五道口的咖啡馆叫“桥”，这一切太熟悉了，除了它的名字，它以前的名字是“雕刻时?光”。

但是，不要现在就开始惆怅。如今这个一度在北京的文艺青年当中享有很高地位的四字招牌和它标志性的深绿色一起，已经出现在金融街、北航、外经贸大学和丽都饭店，甚至即将出现在西安、上海、扬州、南京等地。

在以发展加盟店的方式出现在每个人步行所及的地方的同时，这家当年以放映独立电影而出名的私人咖啡馆还开办了自己的咖啡培训学院，书也被标上价格放在架上供来客购买。当独立电影已成往事，当雕刻时光渐渐成长为一个公司、一个品牌，老板庄菘冽还会带给文艺青年们那个充满人文气息的雕刻时光?吗？

10年前，当雕刻时光咖啡馆刚刚出现在北大东门边的胡同里，店里静静放映着安德烈?塔可夫斯基的电影，只有少数文艺青年光顾的时候，老板庄菘冽似乎也未像现在这样感到难过。

“从加盟商那里收回雕刻时光五道口店的品牌经营权，在一墙之隔外重开一家的决定像是一次壮士断腕，这次经验让我们今后会更加小心翼翼。”在庄菘冽对《第一财经周刊》说这句话的时候，雕刻时光在北京地区之外的第一家店已经在西安开张。五道口店是雕刻时光第一个加盟店，也是生意最好的一家店，但由于加盟商与总部之间越来越严重的摩擦，最后只能以分家收场。

庄菘冽来自台湾，在北京电影学院导演系毕业后凭着兴趣和太太开了雕刻时光，投资20多万元的咖啡馆在度过了最初的清淡后渐渐有起色，然后开分店，4年后成立了艺丰雕刻时光咖啡有限责任公?司。

2004年，为了更好地发展公司和分散投资风险，庄菘冽决定开放雕刻时光的加盟，采取委托管理型特许加盟的方式，由雕刻时光总部来负责加盟店全部的整体规划和经营管理。

雕刻时光现在在北京有7家门店，大部分属于直营，但每家店背后由不同的股东构成，一般会有三个投资人，由总公司来负责运营。在庄菘冽对雕刻时光未来几年的规划里，他希望投资的方式保持多样性，而对纯正的加盟方式还一直未能下定决心。

在当年的北京大学东门，盒子与雕刻时光相邻不远，那时，咖啡和电影是它们共同的主题。经历2000年左右的拆迁，盒子咖啡馆搬到了清华大学东门，而雕刻时光来到了北京理工大学的南门。

今天，盒子咖啡馆的老板已经换人，但这里依旧每周两次放映世界各地的艺术电影、地下电影，依旧吸引学生来这静静看书，依旧有好的咖啡和好的音乐，而它也似乎拒绝开一家分店。

盒子的经理冯晓龙对《第一财经周刊》说：“也许以后会有盒子酒吧，卖自己酿的红酒，也许会 >>有盒子画廊，在旁摆上咖啡桌，但是盒子咖啡馆不会特别希望复制，因为这本身就会很难，风格会难以延续，外来资本的加入也可能会产生经营上的风险和摩擦。”他现在管理着这家咖啡馆，每天下午到晚上几乎都在店里，几天前，他刚刚拒绝了一笔想投资盒子开连锁店的资金。

冯晓龙认为，开什么样的咖啡馆跟个性有关。这种想法庄菘冽完全同意，“要看创业者本身对什么样的生活方式感兴趣，我喜欢团队，不喜欢一个人操持一切，而盒子那样的店更适合老板亲自经营，有一种特别亲切的气质。”

北京一位不愿透露姓名的咖啡馆老板认为雕刻时光的风格不适合大规模的扩张，“一茶一坐”的风格更适合复制：“风格复制了就会变糙，适应不了北京以外的地方环境，比如南方那些城市可能就不喜欢雕光这样的格调，比如南方人不喜欢木质桌椅，更喜欢上岛咖啡的大沙发，所以连星巴克也只是在二线城市小心翼翼地扩张。”

“我喜欢来这里，介绍朋友一起来，感觉这是个属于自己的很私人的地方，店越开越多的时候，就不是那种感觉了，”小羿在大学时代经常光顾雕刻时光魏公村店，如今在巨人学校做老师的她工作之余还是会跑过来叫上一杯咖啡，“现在看来雕刻时光营造情调有自己的一套，外国人还是很喜欢的，吸引留学生比较多。”

雕刻时光来自于苏联导演安德烈?塔可夫斯基所写的电影自传书名，但关于雕刻时光与电影的记忆却似乎有些遥远了。因为场地限制和版权纠纷，雕刻时光现在只有周年庆的时候偶尔会有一些放映电影的活动。庄菘冽说他很羡慕盒子可以一直放电影，而他在最新开张的西安店，决定延续当年的做法??已经做了一个大型的电影屏幕。

电影的主题并不是在10年岁月中惟一被改变的。在雕刻时光魏公村店，墙上的商业广告慢慢多起来，《周末画报》、《万象》等刊物开始在店内销售，新地产等赞助的书报架被摆放在店内。“我并不排斥商业化，但雕刻时光不会没有选择地成为一个广告的载体，故事的主题不能被影响。”庄的话也多少显示出周遭正在考验雕刻时光对商业化入侵的抵御能力。

“人的成长过程中是需要接受变化的，我跟湖南的太太结婚，接受了很多改变。但是在雕刻时光，咖啡永远是主轴，坚持做人文的咖啡馆，不是星巴克那样商务型的，也不是上岛那样更像饭馆的咖啡馆。”

但是，因为房价问题，雕刻时光在北京虽然大有可为，却很难达到真正好的盈利，外面的市场也许是个机会。雕刻时光的背后投资商有十几个人，两岸三地都有，年利润20％左右，还不算太好。魏公村店每天营业额普通日就是七八千元，部分餐食的价位再提高一些，利润可能会更好。

现在庄菘冽开始看向北京以外的市场，最近走访了上海、南京、扬州几个城市，虽然还没有下什么决定，但他知道雕刻时光未来会在更多的地方找寻机会。在他计划中，北京将再开3家店达到一共10家的数量，而在西安也争取开到3家分店。

随着一步步扩张，雕刻时光同时也在寻找更多的生意机会。最近，庄菘冽多了一个雕刻时光咖啡学院院长的头衔，他将公司内部的培训系统向外推广，用他的话来说是“染指了教育业”。现在，咖啡学院开设了专业班、周末班、白领班、兴趣班等针对各个层次人群的课程。

雕刻时光另一块业务是流动咖啡馆，为公司活动、生日party、朋友聚会、婚礼等筹办咖啡主题宴会。据了解，雕刻时光与万科房产在多年前就已开始合作，万科每次有新楼盘，售楼处几乎都会邀请雕刻时光在现场提供咖啡和餐饮。

庄菘冽最新的设想是要发展装修设计的业务部门，随着店铺的增多，这一部分交由自己来做会更快和更易磨合。“围绕咖啡馆更加多元化的发展是有可能性的，只要有利于这棵大树都有机会。”他说。