- First of all.
I used to think that I was
the Mick Jagger of cinematography.
(audience laughing)
But everybody knows
I'm the Keith Richards of cinematography.
- At film festivals a lot of people come up
to me and ask, what is it like
to work with Christopher Doyle?
And I say, if you're not careful he'll change your life.
I was 19 when I first saw, "In the Mood for Love"
and I was living abroad at the time.
And it really opened my eyes because I didn't know
that Hong Kong could be so beautiful.
So "In the Mood for Love" actually inspired me
to go home.
To live the kind of romance that you only see in films
and perhaps to make my own.
Chris, I directed my first film with you
and every day that I spend with you I wonder,
how is it that one person can see
so much beauty in a lifetime?
We're here tonight not just to celebrate the films
that you have made, but also to celebrate who you are.
Your chi, your playfulness, your integrity
and the humility with which you regard your own genius.
Thank you, Du Kefeng for sharing the way
you see the world with us.
And thank you all for coming tonight
to honor the greatest cinematographer in the world.
- Most of us fuck up in, you know,
in our mundane day to day, you know, process.
But in a film, yeah, it's true love.
There's no question.
And we share it.
And for Leslie, I'm gonna cry now.
For Maggie, for anyone who I engaged with.
I think it's the most pure form.
It's the only gift I could give you.
That's what it's all about for me.
Ultimately it's maybe.
Maybe we can love each other, maybe.
It's not easy, you know, in real life.
But maybe, maybe that the film, or a moment
can touch you so that actually
you know what it's really all about.
♪ Take the photograph already ♪
♪ I'm about to fade♪
♪ Into the world of never be again ♪
♪ And if the mood should strike us ♪
♪ We can always play the game ♪
♪ Of who will be the first to love again ♪
♪ You and I will never die ♪
♪ We'll just keep on living between the lines ♪
♪ With all the lies and all the ties that bind ♪
♪ But I miss you more than I'm about to show♪
- I think I've read every pornographic novel I could find
by the time I was 12.
You know, I think that really informed my...
D.H. Lawrence is my favorite novelist.
And D.H. Lawrence actually lived for a short period
of his life in Australia.
So there was kind of a connection.
There was kind of a sympathy with these.
And these were, you know, D.H. Lawrence
was banned, "Sons and Lovers" was banned in Australia
until 1970 or something like that.
So I mean, and these were banned books that we were reading
and there was such a sense of complicity, of rebellion.
And of course, I grew up in a certain period
of history where that was a trend in Western culture.
You know, I grew up in a, I was born in the '50s
and I grew up in the '60s.
So, there was this sense of,
there must be something better out there.
And I think literature always gave, you know,
I read all of D.H. Lawrence when I was a kid.
You know, I was reading Burrows and all this kind of stuff.
So, the anarchic spirit, I think is probably basic
to my attitude to what I do now, also.
Since you come from a suburban environment,
I mean I never saw a Chinese person, for example.
I never even saw an aboriginal person.
I was so, at that period, we were so secluded.
And literature was the only escape to me.
In fact, I stole, once I tried to.
I used to steal books from a bookstore in Glebe
which imported, illegally imported un-copyrighted
American books.
It was called City Light.
They put a lot of City Light's books
which is a San Francisco publisher
who published Ginsburg, and Ferlinghetti and these.
So these are a huge impact on me.
Especially when I was drunk and I,
one day I stole 35 books and the book seller said,
you know, Chris, one or two is okay
but 35 is a bit too much.
(chuckling)
So I walked out like I was... I looked like I was pregnant.
(chuckling)
So, I think books have always been,
literature and words have always been more relevant
to me than images.
So it's strange that, I think in the word,
in the work that we do now, I think it actually
is this, what I call a way with words.
It's a way of working with words to give them
a new resonance.
And that's a great pleasure to me.
I think that my so called art, my cinematography,
the way in which I approach a text
is very much with a great passion for what
is intended as opposed to what's written.
That the implications of words are actually
resonate more in my image making than an idea.
It's the words themselves that kind of, blump,
they take you somewhere.
And you look for the idea in the words
as opposed to the prosaic, or the mundane,
or the specified, or the and she turns left
and now she goes into the car.
No, it's not about that.
It's about, she wants to leave home.
- Tonight, I'd like to show you one
of the world's great cameras.
A magnificent new Retina Reflex by Kodak.
- Now in our family we would like,
we had like a, what's the word?
Almost antagonism, or rejection of the image.
I don't know why, it was very strange.
I remember that we'd buy a roll of film
which is like 24, or 36 frames.
But the batteries would rust in the camera
before we finished the roll of film.
I mean, we were very averse to taking images.
It's a strange thing.
There's almost, there are very few images
from our childhood.
You know, I'd rather read a book than see a film.
In fact, the only time I see films is on a plane.
(chuckling)
I mean, I don't think I've been in the cinema
except for some bullshit, you know, red carpet ceremony.
I don't think I've been in a cinema.
And I usually don't last more than 20 minutes
in the film anyway, even my own.
I love literature.
I love books, as I just said.
But the people who are teaching literature
in universities, they didn't love books.
They love their paycheck, you know.
And it was extremely distraught
and distressing to me.
That was number one, so I left.
But if I left at university then, at my age,
I was 18, then I would be made to be drafted
to go to the Vietnam War.
Or what they call the American War in Vietnam.
And so that wasn't a good prospect.
And then, I think it was a general malaise
and dissatisfaction with this very restrictive
and still, I think Australia in it's way
is very provincial.
I think there are many.
I think Australia is wonderful.
It's given me so much in terms of possibilities.
The sea has given me so much in terms
of how I see the world.
My wonderful, you know, the spaces in which I grew up
have given me so much.
So why are people so provincial?
That's what I still don't understand.
And I still, and I find it difficult to address.
Even maybe I am also a little bit provincial.
So I needed to get out.
So I took a ship.
There was a thing called Work Away.
So they give you like one US dollar a month
but you can, you work on the ship
and then you travel with the ship.
And then you get off when you want to
because basically its, you know they're getting free labor
and you're getting a free trip.
But I loved it so much that I stayed
for three or four years.
I just loved the sea, I loved what I called the big sea.
Which is, you know, the open sea
with all it's tornadoes and hurricanes
and typhoons and waves bigger than, you know.
Waves that can actually topple the ship.
You wake up and you're looking out at water
instead of sky out of your window.
And all the encounters with death and danger
and the insignificance of oneself.
I think those really informed.
I think those three or four years of my life
totally informed what I do now.
And I think, again, I go back again all the time.
I think that when I talk to film people,
people who study film, I never studied film.
I talked to people and they don't have a life.
They just have a knowledge of film.
And unfortunately, many of them have studied my films.
(chuckling)
I don't study my films, you know.
Because I don't know what I did.
And I don't wanna know and I don't wanna repeat it.
So why would you?
So it's quite astonishing to me
because if you don't have anything to say
who's gonna listen?
If you don't have anything to say
because you don't have a life,
because you've just studied film,
because you're just repeating what you've learned,
because you're just copying other things,
because you're just making another
brick in the wall, basically.
You know, who gives a shit?
So, I think to me I was very fortunate
that I actually chose to have a vicarious, crazy,
a little bit, what's the word?
Random life.
But I wouldn't be making the films that I do
if I hadn't done that.
If I had gone to film school
or if I'd have, you know, if I'd stayed
in Australia or whatever I wouldn't be making
or we wouldn't be talking now.
Again, I traveled for a long time
and I was tired of not speaking.
I got to a point where I was in India for three years
and I got to a point where basically
I couldn't speak English anymore.
But I'm Australian so that's okay.
(chuckling)
And it was like really, ah, yes, no.
I mean, because we were using so many... what's word?
I guess you call them pigeon versions of other languages.
Of Hindi and we were speaking with French people
and then we were speaking with German people
and then we were speaking some indigenous language.
So I got to a bit, again, perhaps
because of my love of reading that I realized
that I had to go back to language.
And what are the great languages of the world?
Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, basically.
And so I knew nothing about China
so I decided to learn Chinese.
And at that time it was impossible
to do that in China because China was just coming out
of the cultural revolution.
So anybody who was not Chinese was regarded as a spy.
So, the only place to learn Chinese
at the time was actually in Hong Kong.
At the Chinese University in Hong Kong.
But it was mostly for diplomats.
So it was very expensive.
So after six, I think four months, I just ran out of money.
So then at that time, Taiwan was cheaper.
So I went to Taiwan.
Again, trying to stay within a Chinese environment
so the language skills would sort of evolve.
I'd just hang out with people, usually musicians, actually.
A lot more musicians than anything else.
And one of them was an ethnomusicologist
which means studying traditional music.
Actually studying Hakka folk songs
from a long line of Hakka folk musicians
and he wanted to make a film about his work
in order to get a scholarship to go to Japan.
So he gave me a camera which was an eight millimeter camera.
I'd never held one before.
And we traveled all the Hakka,
there are like six or seven, I guess about eight settlements
in different parts of Taiwan.
Eight settlements of Hakka
which are very indigenous minority group,
but have very, very strong traditions.
Especially musical traditions.
So the idea was to record them
and celebrate their culture and make a film from it.
I had never used a camera before.
I didn't know what a camera does.
I didn't know that what a camera sees
is not exactly what I see.
And I still don't know, and I'm still working on that.
So, I think that was the greatest challenge
and it still always is.
That the camera would see things
like the colors of the patty fields
or the beauty, the blueness of the sky
and how white the clouds were against
this deep blue background, especially in the afternoon.
And how the texture of mud bricks
that the houses were built on, and the thatch
on their roofs, all these details, wow.
Which I didn't see before.
But then, we were shooting a lot of interiors
and it's almost like we are now, here, you know?
That I can see you but actually
the camera can't see you because there's not enough light.
So it was an astonishing thing
that the camera saw these astonishing exteriors
but it didn't see a single thing
that we were there to film.
Which was the people in their rooms singing songs.
(chuckling)
So, I mean the film was useless, actually
because all of the things that mattered
were not on film because we didn't know what we were doing.
And we had no idea about syncing the sound to the film.
Because we were using film.
It wasn't a digital form at that time.
So all these things like,
it was a total catastrophe
and yet the biggest was the work, push towards,
to what I'm doing now.
And it still is.
That everything can go wrong unless you find
this give and take between what you're trying
to do and how you can do it.
And then Edward Yang and Sylvia Chang asked me
to make a feature film.
I'd never made a feature film.
I'd never held a big camera.
I'd never, I didn't know how it worked.
And I certainly had never done any lighting before.
And we made a film called "That Day on the Beach."
(splashing waves)
I had no experience.
I was just a kid, I was a foreigner.
And then these people asked me to make
what ultimately became a kind of a
one of the most important films of that period
because it was a woman, a quote unquote woman's film.
Because it was a little bit poetic.
Because it was a little bit, the narrative
was not linear, etc, etc.
So, it wasn't just a mainstream conventional film.
And we made it and against great opposition
from everything that existed at the time.
The whole of China's motion picture company went on strike
because they were asking this foreigner
with no experience to make this film.
Finally we found a compromise.
We made the film and then I got best cinematography award.
Ah, oh shit.
I don't know what the hell I'm doing
and I get, the first film I ever made I'm supposedly
the greatest cinematographer of the year.
Yeah, go figure.
So I have great distrust for prizes ever since then
because it's obvious somethings gone wrong.
- Well, I first met Chris way, way back
before he was Chris Doyle.
He was just Chris.
He was an interpreter on a film that I was making
in Taiwan, in Taipei, Taiwan back in 1979.
They said we're gonna give you this guy
that speaks perfect mandarin
and he speaks perfect Australian and that was Chris.
And he was this Australian guy
who had jumped ship, literally, and landed in Taipei.
I gathered, running away from himself.
Running away from who he was.
Running away from his Australian-ness.
Running away from his family, looking for adventure
and he had this dream that he was gonna be a cinematographer
which seemed pretty far fetched, I must admit.
But I stayed on for about six weeks in Taipei
and grew closer to this mad bastard, Chris Doyle.
Who still talked about how he was gonna shoot movies.
Didn't seem possible.
We kept in contact every year or so.
I'd get a postcard and eventually the postcards came
not from Taipei, but from Hong Kong.
And then I read in the Screen International
that this guy called Chris Doyle was now
the preeminent cinematographer
of the Hong Kong cinema industry.
And I thought, is that the same shit kicker
that I met back in Taipei?
- So, it's because I had done a number of films
with a person called William Chang, Chang Suk-Ping
who is an art director.
The greatest art director I've ever worked with, by the way.
He's not just an art director, he's a production designer,
he's a costume, I mean, you know,
"Mood for Love" couldn't exist without William's costumes.
And so I'd done already like six
or seven films, I think, with William.
And so he was, he's Shanghai-nese also
like Wong Kar-Wai is, and he suggested that we collaborate.
So it was actually basically through William
that we came to work together.
Because I'd already done films with William.
And so we knew each other's, whatever it is.
The give and take that our collaboration needed, you know.
And the qualities of what he could do
as opposed to what I was trying to do.
So, that's it.
So basically William introduced us
or suggested that we work together.
Which is a very unusual thing.
You know, Wong Kar-Wai never called me.
It's just, William says come on over
we're gonna make the next film together.
- And the way that your, Christopher Doyle,
who is your insane and brilliant cinematographer
of many of your films, said your process was,
he compared it to a fat man's feet.
And he said, it gets you where you need to go
but you don't really see the feet until the end of the day.
- Wong Kar-Wai has given me the most important line attitude
working energy I've ever, of anybody.
Because we'll be working 20 hours, 30 hour days.
We'll be working in 40 degrees Celsius heat
and he will say to me, Chris is that all you can do?
Is that all you can do?
Sometimes you say fuck you, yes.
I'm exhausted, I wanna go home,
and I'm really hungry, that's all I can do.
Because this, but maybe that's all you can do.
Or, you think about it and you say, hm,
maybe I can do better.
Maybe I'm not focused enough.
Maybe, if I step back a little bit
or we approach the scene at hand, the work at hand
in a different way, maybe I can do better.
So, is that all you can do?
Is the prime question every single minute
of every single day of every film I make.
Because he's right.
You have to ask yourself, is that all you can do?
And sometimes it is all you can do.
And sometimes you know you can do better.
Or you know you have to try in a different way.
Or you know you have to approach what you're doing
from a different angle, etc, etc.
So that's the greatest gift that Wong Kar Wai has given me.
But most of our films took five years to make.
Now I make five films a year.
I think at my age I'd rather make five films a year
than making one film every five years.
♪ La, la ♪
Some of these places.
So, I basically kind of just moved
to Hong Kong in a certain way.
And finally found a kind of apartment.
And we're talking about the film, we're preparing
the film and then they've just built
this escalator which is the longest escalator,
outside escalator, in the world.
Which is like, I don't know, how long is it?
Four kilometers, something?
It goes from the commercial district,
the financial district by the sea all
the way up into where most
of these rich buggers live, you know.
And it's astonishingly a very practical idea
because the roads just wind, wind, wind
because it's a mountain.
So it's very interesting.
And I thought it was a metaphor for Hong Kong.
And this was what "Chungking Express" is about.
It's about the different aspects of life in Kowloon
which is part of the mainland.
And life on the island, which is Hong Kong island.
So I thought this thing, this line going through
the middle of the town was kind a beautiful metaphor
for engagement, or for a separation
of a more traditional part of the town with
a more so-called Western part of the town, etc, etc.
And I suggested this to Wong Kar-Wai.
And he says, yeah that's really good.
And I said, well, you know that's where I live.
Biggest mistake of my life
because then that's where we shot.
That means I didn't have anywhere to live.
(chuckling)
'Cause basically my own apartment was the set.
So I think that was kind of, you know,
I won't do that again, I don't think.
- All the times that we've been through together
it's like we've been some most crazy
and our most difficult, and we work like nights
and days on film.
And I'll just give you an example.
I still remember the last day of shooting
of "Ashes of Time."
And because we worked there for a long time
and the local crew just wanted to have a farewell party.
And then Chris gets drunk that night, really drunk.
And by two o'clock in the morning my line producer
called me up and said, big problems.
Chris is lying in the bathtub.
So, I go to his room and he's very drunk.
So I drag him and get him in the car.
And by the time when we get to the set
it's already four something.
And so he said, well, I can do it, I can do it.
But you see, because we have to rehearse
and he's camera one, which is a key camera,
and then he just fall asleep on that.
(audience laughing)
So I ask, I said Chris, are you okay?
And he said, well, I can manage.
Because he's very tough, you know.
Chris has a very good spirit.
I appreciate him for this.
And he said, I can do it.
But I know he cannot do it.
So I just put him in the B camera.
And then we set fire and then we shot that scene.
And then during this shot and after this, he wake up.
And he feel very, very bad about it.
He said, well I'm totally sorry and I know
what shot do you want.
So I'm going to do it.
I'm going to take the camera.
So he take off his clothes in front of everybody,
put some water, and then bring the camera,
running to the set with fire.
And then he take one shot which is a very,
he know what, because the theme of the film
is about an ache, so he just take that shot
and he come back to me and said, well I'm sorry,
but this is what I wanted to.
And I still keep that picture
because everybody take pictures of him.
Naked Chris with a camera.
But that's a very memorable morning
and also it tells you a lot about
the person that, what Chris is, about my partner.
He really, like he's crazy about making film
and he's a very passionate person.
- "Happy Together" is about two boys
and they start with boom-boom
and then they finish without boom-boom.
It's a long time in Argentina where you realize
that basically, we left Hong Kong to make
"Happy Together" in Argentina
because that's the furthest you can get from Hong Kong.
And at that time people were starting
to imitate our work, or referencing our work
or whatever you call it.
So, you know it was kind of a little bit
of claustrophobic, so that what are we gonna do?
So the best thing is just to break out totally.
So, to go somewhere that you don't know much about,
which is an alien space to you,
which is unfamiliar, and then you'll see it, again,
in a special way.
Which we did.
We went all over.
We went from the furthest north, Iguazu
on the border with Brazil.
Right to the south which is 1,000 kilometers
from the Antarctic.
So we went everywhere in Brazil.
But probably 40 to 60% of the film takes place
in a room that looks like it's somewhere in Hong Kong.
(chuckling)
So I guess what happened is, you know,
home is where the heart is kind of thing.
I think that we went so far away
from what we thought we were to actually discover,
this is really how we are.
I think that's the great, that was the great journey
of "Happy Together."
We learnt.
Yeah, I guess we learnt to be who we are.
- I still remember when we shot "Happy Together"
in Argentina.
We shot one day in a place called Ushuaia
which is the southest part of America.
And because after that would be Antarctica, right?
And because it's so far away from Buenos Aires
and we shot and shot until we realized with Chris,
I said, do we have enough film stock?
No, we ran out of film stock.
But we still have one scene.
Then what we are supposed to do?
Then we sit down and then Chris come up with an idea.
So we go to all those photo shops to buy film rolls.
It is like film rolls, but the film rolls has normally
they have 36 frames or 24 frames.
So, we just wrote it make this whole scene
in like still shots.
So each shot lasts one second.
And this is the way to do it.
And we had fun because I think at that point
we all feel, this is accomplished.
♪ Found what I'm looking for ♪
♪ I have kissed honey lips♪
- A waterfall is a metaphor for loneliness
or for something that's irretrievable,
or something that's passing through your life
and you never, you can't control it.
So Tony's character is, he doesn't know what to do.
They're out of love, or somethings going wrong.
So he walks towards the waterfall.
And then what happened is we're using camera
but there's so much water in the air,
there's so much molecules of water
because once the water hits the river floor
it explodes in particles of water.
So the whole space is full of water in the air.
So we're pushing towards Tony and the lens
is fogging up with water.
It's becoming blurred.
The water is actually on the lens of the camera.
And we did everything, we tried to, you know.
And then I realized, this is the most beautiful metaphor.
The closer we get to him, the closer we get to Tony,
the more accumulation of water makes
the image more and more blurred.
Which is exactly what's going on in his head.
So this wasn't my idea.
It was actually what most people would call
a mistake that we couldn't cure
but we accepted it as the perfect expression
of the idea for the film.
And I think that's a beautiful thing
to be open to that.
And that's what I've learned from Wong Kar-Wai, I guess.
And the second thing is we wanted to, again,
we wanted the metaphor of the falls being like
a hole that you fall into.
And we did, we only had enough fuel
to make two trips, two tours.
And so the first tour we couldn't,
I couldn't get, we're traveling at like a kilometer
and a half above the waterfall
otherwise you get sucked in.
Secondly, you have to travel to a certain velocity
which was about, I don't know, 60 kilometers
or something like that, by land speed.
So, then I'm holding unto the camera like.
(humming)
And we couldn't get the shot.
So I have this really, really good idea of,
why don't we tilt the helicopter?
Which meant, basically, I'm looking down.
At a kilometer and a half above I'm looking down
at my imminent death, you know.
(chuckling)
(light music)
"Mood for Love" is interesting because
it's a film about music, actually.
It's about the rhythms of life, about the, you know.
So, we would, it was,
I know other people have done it before
but I'd never done it personally,
where basically we were playing music
on set all the time.
To inform the relationship,
the dance between the actors and the camera.
Which I always think is the most important thing.
I think, to me, it's always a dance
because I love to move, I love theater, I love dance.
I've been involved in a lot of dance works.
So I think to me that there is this give
and take between the camera and the person
in front of the camera that is,
it is energizing.
It gives, it informs the ideas.
It gives you a different engagement
than a more static or more formal composition would give.
So we used, yeah we used, especially
when Maggie is walking to the (speaking in foreign language)
which is the noodle stall where she, you know.
So there's many scenes where she comes and goes
and this is where they encounter each other,
they cross each other.
I think those scenes and the scene where they're
against the wall with the shadows
and all that kind of stuff.
I think that those, we were playing the music,
it wasn't the music that we ended up using
but it was a music to give a rhythm to the engagement.
The point of the music was to suggest
to Maggie, to the actors, especially to Maggie
to suggest a way to compose herself
or a rhythm to her steps, etc, etc.
I think those are the most beautiful
and actually quite difficult because sometimes I wasn't,
I didn't quite get it, you know.
And so Wong Kar-Wai would say,
is that all you can do, Chris?
I actually believed that we would just
be making one film.
So, the styles are kind of a...
a kind of a wake up call.
So we'd made "Chungking Express"
with very long, shallow depths of feel
and the idea was because we wanted
to isolate the characters within
this astonishing background which is called Hong Kong.
So you're trying to give them,
trying to place them in a space
and yet remove them in a way that they become
the subject of the story.
Plus, since we have a certain amount of,
a certain budget but not enough.
I mean, there's stuff you don't wanna see.
So a long lens separates the actors from the background
and blurs things that you are extraneous to,
to what you want to communicate.
But with "Fallen Angels" we had this super wide,
I mean basically the camera at that time
they didn't have remote focus.
The camera focus puller had to basically stand behind me
because we're seeing about 230 degrees.
Basically we're seeing behind ourselves.
So I think that was another way
of celebrating our Hong Kong.
- They have put Hong Kong on the world map
and their works are irreplaceable.
(light music)
- How could you not want to be Leslie?
Even Leslie wanted to be Leslie.
I think that's the integrity,
that's the gift, that's the pleasure,
that's the honor that he actually gave us to share.
He assumed that responsibility which is to be a star.
I think that's the great thing about Leslie.
And that's why he had to leave us.
He's gonna be there forever.
He's there, if you go to the Mandarin Hotel
he will be there.
Of course, that's where he left us.
I think Leslie is the bravest person I've ever known.
I'm guess he's true to what he wanted us
to know him as.
Of course he was a bit,
as some of us are a little bit, you know, gregarious.
A little bit self contained.
A little bit.
But ultimately I think he knew that he
was giving us something more than,
much more than he was himself.
But actually in giving us so much
he became more than he was himself.
And he became more for us.
And more for me, personally.
As a friend, as a collaborator.
As this vortex between this world and the next.
(upbeat music)
- Well, I can tell you from the first moment
I saw him to the last moment I saw him,
he's always been a mad bastard.
And I'm using the word bastard
in the Australian context, which is a term
of great endearment.
And an outsider.
Because once upon a time the whole country
was bastards, essentially.
So, you know, when you said, me old bastard
that meant you really loved someone.
But Chris has always been a mad bastard.
Always been disruptive.
Always been challenging.
Always, you know, it's not like he developed an act.
I think he came out of the womb like that.
- He is very strange, you know.
But I would say he's an artist.
- I think he's absolutely insane.
He's insane, absolutely out of his mind
but only for things that he believe in it
and for things he wanna be crazy about.
- Sometimes he's crazy.
Sometimes he's loud, but who doesn't get
that kind of moment from time to time?
When you have a bit of drink.
- Okay!
(funky music)
- The world's most original cinematographer
makes his long awaited debut as director.
Christopher Doyle's "Away With Words."
(funky music)
- Hey, scene one finished!
I think my Chinese name gave me so much.
My Chinese name, my teacher, my first teacher
at the Hong Kong University,
Chinese University of Hong Kong, sorry.
She gave me the name, Du Kefeng.
Du Kefeng means, Du comes from Doyle, kind of,
but it's also the name of the most famous poet.
Kind of the T.S. Eliot of the Tang Dynasty 1,000 years ago.
Du Fu.
So, it's a very honorable name, surname.
And then Kefeng means like the wind.
It comes from another poem
which means a person of quality
should be like the wind.
And I think that's what I have to aspire to that.
I'll never get there.
I'll never be a person of quality.
(chuckling)
But I'm definitely like the wind.
I'm definitely like the wind and I think,
so this is the astonishing thing.
And that give and take between
the person who's born in Australia
and this person who happens to make Chinese films
is a fantastic, liberating space.
That, it's exactly what art has to be about
which is this give and take between
being very subjective.
So Du Kefeng is very subjective.
He's part of Chinese culture.
He makes films with Chinese friends.
Everything, he speaks Chinese 99% of his day.
But he was born in Australia.
Christopher Doyle was born in Australia,
but it's the same person.
So you have this subjective engagement
and participation in this culture,
in this experience, in this city,
in this way of living, in the stories that need to be told.
And yet,
I can see it from a distance.
Because I was born in Australia.
Because I have certain perceptions
or quote unquote values, or certain habits
which are not Chinese.
So I think this is an astonishing,
I think that's what it's all about.
That's why we're talking now.
That's because in one experience
you have all that you need to be an artist.
- We like him a great deal.
Because, well, his personality.
And then the way he looks at things.
The way he looks, Hong Kong through his eyes
is more Hong Kong than most Hong Kong people.
- Given what he had to work with in Hong Kong
he was very original.
I think he found ways to work
in the spaces and take advantage
of the spaces that a lot of people just kind
of looked at very prosaically and went,
okay that's dark, that's light.
Put this here, put the light here, roll.
You know, time, roll, okay, moving on.
- Maybe there's some sort of a fantasy there.
A fantastical way of looking at Hong Kong
which is very different from the perspective
of a local person.
Because when you're in a city
and for a very long period of time,
especially if you grew up here you would
somehow take the visuals around you for granted.
And I think the way he filmed the city
just gives the city more layers to,
just more layers, more complex.
Make it more interesting.
I think his contributions has gone beyond
just the cinema scene.
I think, as a Hong Kong person, I grew up here
and I think his work has helped me
see Hong Kong differently.
I have to say, when I was a teenager
when he made "Chungking Express" and "Ashes of Time"
I think it really changed my way of looking at Hong Kong.
(rock music)
- Well I do learn about how the energy should flow
or how we should see things.
- I think we make our films here in Hong Kong
because this space, this city, these people
have given us so much.
I think that my responsibility is actually
to return some of the favor.
And "Infernal Affairs" to me is a genre film.
And yet, it is a celebration of this city.
People in space, I mean to me, is the most dynamic
the most interesting dynamic of any,
of how we live, of how we talk, of how we film.
The limitations, for example, the most famous shot
which we did was on the roof with the panels
of what seems like a mirror.
Which is actually just glass reflecting light.
Was an exercise in limitations.
Basically, there was no where to put the camera.
So it's basically one camera in one position
trying to achieve different shots.
And I think that, to me, is one of the great privileges
of working, for example, in a space you know well.
(dramatic music)
"Hero" is a color film.
That's it.
It's a film about color.
It's a celebration of color.
What happened is, and again, as I think I've mentioned
and reiterated a number of times
is the location pushes you in a certain direction.
So we had four or five stories.
And we had a number of colors.
But we didn't know which color went with which story.
So that the locations themselves took us
in a certain direction.
So, you're in the desert and it's kind of grayish-white
or I kind of like ochre.
It's like these walls here.
And so that's the white series.
And then we go to another part
where there's beautiful lakes.
Okay, so the blue is here.
But we didn't sort of say, we'll impose
the story on a place.
The place said, oh, well this part
of the story should go here.
So I think that's the great pleasure
of the process of film making is that the locations
take you somewhere further than the words have suggested.
But the words applied in a certain way
can be applied, can resonate more,
depending on your astute choices
of what you're doing and where you're doing it.
If you're true to that and you actually believe in that
and you actually, it works for the idea,
then the audience will go with it.
And I think that's the great learning of "Hero" to me.
You know, even a blue library with blue books
you actually accept.
Because it's true to the intent of the story.
- It was a memorable experience, you know.
Because we were shooting in China a long time ago.
This a long time ago.
And the reason I remember that is every time
I go to the set I have to smuggle a bottle
of Chivas Regal.
(crashing)
- Phil Noyce like's to blow things up.
(chuckling)
- And it was very interesting.
The same year we did two films together with Phil.
We did "Rabbit-Proof Fence" and we did "The Quiet American."
It was a wonderful year
because they're so completely different films.
And yet, and then you have the pleasure
of working with Michael Caine.
And I think to us this,
I honor Phil for his integrity
that on "Rabbit-Proof Fence" that I think 60, 70%
of our crew were aboriginals.
And the same in Vietnam.
When we did "The Quiet American" at least, 60, 70%
of our crew were local people.
And I think that's extremely important.
That one is, we're not invading,
we're not colonizing, we're not telling you
how to tell your story.
Especially two white guys telling an aboriginal story.
A story of shame and courage and all
the stuff that, the historical relevance
of "Rabbit-Proof Fence."
And I think the same thing with the way
in which we approached, and I try to do that
in any film I do, also, is that the locals
know better than you do.
You have an idea that maybe they didn't have
but the point is to share it.
(ominous music)
I was born in Australia.
I've only made one film in Australia
but I think it's the film I'm most proud of
because unexpectedly, it has relevance.
That it really has, it's what most films
could never do, which is to change the world.
It changed, it informed people in a certain way
and I'm very proud of that.
It's not because, not me alone.
How often does a film actually change
a government's policies?
And I know it wasn't just "Rabbit-Proof Fence"
it was other, it wasn't just a film,
it wasn't just a story, it was the predicament.
It was the changing in perception within
the community itself.
But I know that this film actually had
an impact that few films ever had
and I'm very proud of that.
- The Aborigines Act of 1905 will under take
to ensure that the guardianship results
in the betterment of the child's up bringing.
It's the law, Maude.
Those kids have gotta go tot school.
- Action!
- Don't forget your rations.
Hurry up.
(growling)
(Car runs over wire)
(groaning)
(yelling)
(dramatic music)
(speaking in indigenous language)
- I've come for the three girls, Maude!
- No!
- We're taking them off black fellas camp
- No, they’re my kids !
- It's the law, Maude.
You've got no say in it.
(screaming)
You listen, you move one inch
and I will lock your mother up!
(wailing)
- Neville's their legal guardian.
(wailing)
- Mom, mom!
- No!
- Gracie!
- Give me back my kids.
- You sit up and you stay up!
I've got the papers, Maude.
- Don't take 'em, don't take 'em!
- You've got no say in it.
Come on.
(wailing)
Get in.
(crying)
The three of yous, don't move.
(sobbing)
There's nothing you can do, old girl .
(speaking in indigenous language)
Nothing you can do.
- Leave 'em!
(sobbing)
(dramatic music)
(sobbing)
- All I know is that when we shot it
everyone was crying.
Even, I've never seen a gaffer cry before, in my life.
It is traumatic.
Even the white government is making gestures
but it's not enough.
We know, it'll never be enough.
It'll never be enough.
- Well, like I always say,
there's three people in cinema.
It's the person in front of the camera
giving this incredible energy and chi, you know.
The Chinese word chi, energy expressed
to connect with an audience.
And then we have the privilege of being that medium
which is, so there's three people.
It's the person in front of the camera,
the audience, and me.
And I'm always the closest person to the actor.
So, what an actor needs,
because why would you be an actor unless
you wanted to be loved?
The only reason to be an actor
is that you need love.
All the other stuff is process.
So, they need love.
So, and they need it all the time.
But basically for the actor it's this wonderful
give and take which is, you look into
each other's eyes and you know I care.
And I know you're going to give me something
because you trust me.
And my favorite moment ever, ever
and I wanna make a whole film,
is the moment when the actor
comes up to the camera and checks their hair and makeup.
That's the most beautiful.
That's the most beautiful moment
in cinema for me, ever.
That is this astonishing complicity.
(ringing phone)
(dramatic music)
(honking cars)
(speaking in foreign language)
(crowd murmuring)
(ringing phone)
(tense music)
(speaking in foreign language)
- The first time that I worked
with Chris is actually in the movie
that I directed but he wasn't a DP,
he was an actor in my film.
We got this role that was perfect for him.
You know, a foreigner in Hong Kong
and very much, the character is very much like Chris.
- I have a great privilege of working
with some of the greatest actors in the world
but we rarely socialize.
We rarely spend a little time together.
Perhaps Christmas with Leslie or an occasional drink
with some other friend.
So I was surprised one day when Maggie Cheung
calls me and she says, Chris I just read
a script and there's a perfect role for you.
I mean, a role for me?
I'm a cinematographer, I'm not an actor.
She says, no, no, no, no.
It's totally you.
It's about a drunken gweilo, expatriate,
who's Thai girlfriend has AIDS
and he's an English teacher in Hong Kong
The next day Peter Chan, the director, calls me
and he says Maggie's spoken to you, right?
And I said, yeah.
But you know, I'm not a great actor.
I'm not sure how it will work out.
He says, don't worry there's a love scene with Maggie.
- It never happened.
It was never in the script to start with.
It's just his wishful thinking.
(chuckling)
You know, he imagined things.
When you talked to him half of the time
it was like under the influence
and he imagined things.
- No.
- Sorry.
- So, basically from then on we became friends.
We became closer friends.
And then I started a movie in Hong Kong
and I asked him to be part of it.
Well actually not one, but two.
And then it lead to the third one years later.
To this day I still think it is the best part of Chris.
Is he would just go and shoot a lot
of stuff and some of those stuff,
some of his ideas, although crazy become real gems.
He's someone that seems crazy
and wild in his art.
But at the same time, deep down,
I think it comes from somewhere.
I mean, I think he has, he's a philosopher.
You know, he really is a philosopher.
That is so important to art and to film making.
- Well you know, Gus Van Sant, M. Night Shyamalan,
Phillip Noyce, we all thought that Chris was the answer.
We all thought that he was going to resurrect us.
We all thought that his, he would be our second coming.
And to a certain extent, he was.
I mean I think, M. Night, you know,
bounced back from that film that he did with Chris.
I think Gus Van Sant, all of us in a way
working with Chris was part of our artistic renaissance.
- Self defense.
- I fell down on my skateboard.
- I tell the truth and things only get worse.
Well, is that really true?
- People defend themselves all the time.
- Nevermind that.
- What if it wasn't even your fault?
- I had to tell someone.
- What if it was something that couldn't be undone?
- Maybe that was the thing.
- It's okay, Oshie. - Get a lawyer first.
- You're not gonna get in trouble, it's okay.
- And call the police.
That's what sports people did.
- Think of what it'd do to my little brother.
- You should calm down, Alex.
- I had to think clearly.
- Didn't it? - What would my dad do?
But none of these issues mattered to my body.
- My brain could have debates all night long.
- Will you get a lawyer?
- My body didn't care.
My body wanted only one thing.
To get the hell out of there.
- He was trying to kill us.
He had a lead bat.
- I remember him on Gus' film, you know?
He'd come back every night and just recount
the horrors of working within
the conventional Hollywood system of lighting,
of grips, the way people, crews work.
It was all foreign to him.
And I think, and rather than try and bend himself,
he disappeared.
He wasn't gonna change.
There's no changing Chris.
Chris is Chris, the world can go on without him.
Or it can, Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood,
Pinewood, they can all change
to fit into Chris' world but he's not gonna change.
And good luck to him.
- I'm just a little bit to late for Hollywood, you know.
I mean, if it was me and Jack Nicholson
in the '60s, you know.
I think we know what we're doing.
You see what I'm saying.
And the interesting thing is that all these people
who went through all the drugs
and the fun, and all that kind of,
now they've become so politically correct, you know.
Because the lawyers have taken over.
And I don't think you can make
a film with lawyers, you know.
No matter what, when they give me my Oscar
I'm going to speak Chinese, I don't give a shit.
I mean, fuck you, you know.
It's Chinese people who brought me here
and it's Chinese people I'm gonna thank.
(light music)
Item number one.
I am extremely honored that younger people
actually ask me to work with them.
Because most of us old fogies are set in our ideas.
That we have a certain perspective on life
and we think we know what it's all about.
Mm-hm, then you become a fossil.
Then you decay, then you become embedded in rock.
But young people have a different experience,
especially younger women.
And I think this is the great honor
of my experience that younger filmmakers
dare to reach out to me.
I'm so honored.
- Faster and faster.
Faster and faster.
Faster and faster!
And then throw 'em away!
(chuckling)
- He's so harsh on me.
You know, when I was working with him
for 10 years on, I don't think he ever said thank you.
He ever said, oh that's very nice.
Nothing, he never even commented on anything I did.
And it was always not good enough,
not good enough, not good enough.
It was never good enough.
Thank god I didn't really kind of be offended.
I just kind of get on with it and make it better.
Or some time I would storm off
and say fuck off, you know.
I have that moments with him all the time.
But then I would know, behind my back,
he was just say how talented I was.
I mean he wouldn't be still working with me for 10 years
if he think I was shit, right?
So it's kind of like really bad parenting, somehow.
- Well as I interview, Chris
is either a godsend or a nightmare to journalists.
Depending on what you're looking for.
Because you never get normal answers from him.
His response are always off the charts.
He doesn't care that he's saying
the craziest things on the record
because he never mentioned whether
he's on the record or off the record.
He just say whatever's on his mind.
- So, a lot of my films have this green.
I love greenish kind of light
and ochre, you know, warm tones.
And.
I've made many films with those kind of
aura, image.
And then I go to the doctor
and he says, yeah of course
because you've got these cataracts.
(chuckling)
Everything looks this way.
I said, what should I do?
He said, well if you don't do something with those
you're gonna go blind.
I thought okay, so then I says,
so the doctor says, I've done this before.
I've done a lot of photographers.
You'll be okay, except everything will be
like one stop brighter and more blue.
I said, no I don't want that.
Can we do something about that?
But he did, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to live with that.
So I think,
my films before I had my eyes changed
and my films now must be, I don't know,
they are definitely very different.
But the most important moment was, you know.
I'm a filmmaker, I mean, I use my eyes.
It's my job, it's my canvas, it's my paintbrush,
it's my piano, it's the way I express myself.
And so what happens if something goes wrong?
So, I'm gonna have my operation on Monday.
So on Friday night I turned off all the lights
and I closed my eyes, I put some bandages
on my eyes and I started to practice.
♪ I just called to say I love you♪
You know, I was trying to work out
how Stevie Wonder got through life, you know.
And then I was really, after two days
I was getting pretty good.
I could open the fridge and I could actually tell
the difference between an Asahi beer and a Heineken.
I was getting really good at it, right?
So I was really, really ready for the worst.
And I was really ready for the worst.
I thought, well if I'm gonna go blind, I you know,
I'll learn the piano, I'll be okay.
Or I could be a masseuse somewhere in Shanxi,
somewhere in some Chinese massage parlor.
I go to the doctor and I says,
and the doctor says, how are you?
And I said, I'm very nervous.
And he says, I'm more nervous than you are.
I said, hold on, you're the doctor.
You're supposed to be in charge, you know.
Hey, give me a little bit of reassurance.
He says, no, no, no.
Because today I change the look of Chinese cinema.
What a beautiful thing to say.
And it's true.
There's more blue in our films now.
(choral singing)
- So I think it's an honor and privilege to share ideas
that I don't have with people who have often
incongruous or challenging, or very personal,
or you know.
The young people I work with see the world,
of course, differently than I do.
So the challenge to share that is,
I think it's a gift.
I'm not sure I do it as well as I could sometimes
because you're still stuck in your ways a little bit.
But I think to now I've done like 10 or 12 films
with first time directors.
Most of whom are women.
And so, I feel honored to have this.
To have so little of what I know
or experience informs what they wish to share.
That's it, it's invigorating.
And I know,
I know that because I have a little bit
of experience it helps rather than intimidates.
And that's the important thing.
Because I'm sure that, you know,
as long as I'm not just a pissy old fart, you know,
maybe we can do something special together.
(speaking in foreign language)
- I was tricked by Chris and Jenny.
They're so evil.
We went out one night to a gay bar and drink.
And then all of a sudden Chris said to me,
I've got this part for you.
And I said, what is it?
You play a monk.
And I did not get any money, by the way.
Oh, I did have a lacy pocket, like a red pocket.
You know, one of those.
With the minimal kind of gratitude, yes.
- Various people involved, for example
in Australian films and they don't even,
the films commissions don't even consider
a proposal that hasn't been proposed
for at least five to seven years.
Now, if you're a 20 year old person
just out of film school and you propose
your first film that you're gonna make when you're 27.
Then you make your next one when you're 33,
then you make you're next one when you're 40.
So you're only gonna make five films in your whole life.
I've made more than 100 films.
Just get off your fucking arse, you know.
Just get up and do it, don't.
A phone can make a film.
We've actually just made a film with a phone.
I mean, come on.
You know, don't wait for a government
or a bloody, you know
(spitting)
official to tell you how to live your life
or how to make your films.
Just go out and do them.
And you have to.
I mean, I've made, and I started when I was 32.
So if I was an Australian filmmaker using
the system I would have only made three films so far.
(splashing water)
(whimpering)
(speaking in foreign language)
(rushing water)
(humming)
- You all know about Chris' conventional personality.
But then he's admired the world over
so you see a lot of major filmmakers
offering him opportunities to do something
very different from what he's done.
For example, he's work with Gus Van Sant,
he's worked with Jim Jarmusch.
Even the cult legend Jodorowsky.
You know, those kind of people all go to him
because they see something unique in him.
(whimpering)
- Cut!
- Okay, director's ready.
- Well, he has a very distinctive style
and I feel that he has a very special passion
for the city, or for the place,
or for the story that he's shooting.
So, that makes his images unique.
And still loved by all the cinephiles around the world.
- The future?
Back to the future, is that what you said?
I'm so jealous of people who say
they're gonna retire.
I'm gonna retire when I fall down on set
and then the medics can't resuscitate me.
(chuckling)
Come on, it's not a film.
It's not a so-called career.
It's a life.
- For most of my films I've shot them myself.
Very simply, often.
You know, often static camera.
I love a static camera.
However this time, the main cinematographer
is the great Christopher Doyle.
Chris Doyle who is one
of the great image makers in the world.
One of the great image makers of our times.
Certainly, I would argue, the greatest colorist
in the whole of cinema.
And he's also a great city filmmaker.
So many of his films are about cities.
Hong Kong and other cities.
And he gives these cities a kind of dream life
and that is so relevant to I am Belfast.
We're trying to capture the dream life of this city.
So, I sort of feel, I've been filming,
shooting this film for quite a long time.
Over a year and it's sort of observational,
documentary style.
But it's almost like I've tried to bake the cake
but Chris is providing this amazing icing on the cake.
You know, not all the film will be shot by him
but some of the real flavor,
some of the, I think a lot of the form
and some of the poetics of the film
will come from Chris Doyle's intervention.
- People in our profession, there's nothing,
you don't need to say anything about that person.
You know, just look at his work.
That's good about our profession.
You know, his work speaks for everything.
- For lack of a better phrase,
he's Hong Kong's Roger Deakins.
- But I do believe in one thing.
That his power to create, to make
a beautiful film is still there.
- It's commitment.
It's really about
if you wanna be a good pie maker, just make pies.
If you wanna be a good husband,
don't fuck around with other women.
You know, if you wanna be an artist just focus
on what you do.
Even if it's just making stamps, or whatever.
I think, and this is a great pleasure
that this journey has given me
is that actually every minute of every day
is actually enhancing what people think is my job.
But it's not, it's just another expression of who I am.
And it's become so integral.
So therefore, if we work with Jenny
or other young filmmakers, or somebody comes in.
It's just part of the process.
It's not a job.
It's not an opportunity to make a film.
It's just, this is part of my life
and it's extraordinarily wonderful.
- Apart from the fact that he's a genius,
he also happened to be in Hong Kong at the right time.
And I think those, I mean, art is made up
of stuff like that where the right people
they are at the right place at the right time.
- I want to be like Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Alejandro said to me, he says Chris,
we were preparing a film when he was 83.
And Alejandro said to me, he says Chris you know,
we have a problem with money
but I absolutely wanna do my next film with you.
I said, Alejandro, you've only made five films
in your whole life.
You know, so the last film you made was 20 years ago.
You're 83 years old now.
You know, that means when you're 103 years old
and I'm 80 something, we're gonna make a film together.
Let's do it.
That's the attitude.
Really, he said to me when he was 83 years old,
we're gonna make a film together.
He only makes a film every 20 years.
That means when he's 103 we're gonna make
his next film together.
Ha, that's the way to live.
(light music)