Interview with Shuang Xuetao： A Writer’s Odyssey is a rare China film.

Special feature of 1905 film network "Can novels change reality?" filmLei Jiayin, A Writer’s OdysseyThis key line is also the author of the novel.I once asked questions about myself.

Because of the novel, Shuangxuetao has changed her life now, making a name for herself in the literary world and being popular in the film circle. 2021 will be an extremely rich year for him, and two films adapted from novels, A Writer’s Odyssey and, will be released one after another.

In 2011, Shuang Xuetao won the first prize of the first Chinese World Film Novel Award with his novel debut "Winged Ghost", and also sold the first film and television copyright, which eased the life dilemma he faced when he changed his job to write novels. In 2015, he moved from Shenyang to Beijing, where he lived as a professional novelist and made friends with many filmmakers because of the opportunity of novel adaptation.

　

The first filmmaker to meet Shuang Xuetao is Zhang Ji who wants to change from a photographer to a director. He wants to shoot Moses on the Plain. The second one is the director. He wants to shoot A Writer’s Odyssey. Since its launch in 2016, four years later, the film A Writer’s Odyssey will finally be released on the first day of the New Year.

Facing the first film adaptation of a novel to meet the audience, I asked Shuang Xuetao how he felt about the film. He described it as shocking and moving. It was a rare China film.In this interview, we don’t talk about novels and literature, we talk about A Writer’s Odyssey and we talk about movies. This is also the first time that the writer Shuang Xuetao has publicly said so much to the film.

01

novelist

The short story A Writer’s Odyssey, Shuang Xuetao wrote for two weeks. A Writer’s Odyssey, the screenplay, was changed by four writers for two years.A Writer’s Odyssey’s creation stems from an angry mood of Shuangxuetao. At that time, shortly after he resigned from the bank, he devoted himself to writing. The novel was rejected all the time and was rejected by many people. He said, "It was suppressed at that time, just hoping to encourage himself."

　

At the same time, director Lu Yang was preparing a film, which was equally difficult. They were also fathers at that time, and they had more consideration and feelings about parent-child relationship.

A Writer’s Odyssey is a drama in which reality and novel alternate. Every word about creation, art, fatherly love, and the belief of never giving up vaguely projects Shuang Xuetao’s personal situation. Lu Yang also saw himself in the novel, and the strong creative impulse and energy were connected with each other, so he decided to adapt the novel into a movie.

　

"We talked once, and then decided to do it. We have a tacit understanding, and he knows what I am going to say. " Shuang Xuetao said that Lu Yang is the right person to shoot this novel, and he also likes Embroidered Spring Knife. "There is a kind of boyishness, the story is very tasteful and the dialogue is beautifully written." The two cooperated and hit it off.

　

When writing novels, Shuang Xuetao has no expectations and imagination of film. There are not many words, about 60 pages, nine chapters, each chapter is basically a scene, and making a movie is bound to expand the story, rewrite or enrich the content of the characters. He didn’t actually participate in the scriptwriting work, only had intensive discussions with the scriptwriting team in the early stage of script preparation.

　

In Shuang Xuetao’s view, movies are the product of teamwork, novels inspire movies, and movies are a new starting point based on novels. Therefore, film creation does not have to follow novels completely. "I always discuss it from the standpoint of movies and see how it can become a more exciting movie. It doesn’t matter what the novel is changed into, what is left in the novel or not, and what is adapted, because it is two completely different media. "

　

Shuang Xuetao finally read the finalized script, and made no suggestions for revision. He described this satisfaction as "unexpected". The core of the film is closely connected with literature, and it retains the core characters, plot and expression of the original work. "Comic fan" Lu Yang also blends in his personal color, and exerts comic-style blood style in some role design and action scenes.

　

"Tu Ling is a sharp woman, and I quite like this change, which makes this film have a subtle chemical reaction in temperament." In the novel, the role of male lawyer is changed to the role of Tu Ling in the movie. On the surface, he works for the villain Mu Li, but there is still a warm and kind background in his heart, which needs to be awakened urgently. This role continues the image characteristics of many female characters in Shuang Xuetao’s novels, and is maverick, tenacious and tender.

Lei Jiayin plays Ning Guan, a father who only wants to find his daughter, and a killer who wants to assassinate the novelist. "His performance made me feel very distressed. His pain, his demands and his pursuit made me very worried. He provided an emotional force for the film." The only time Shuangxuetao visited the film studio, chatted with Lei Jiayin and watched him act, he felt that "Jiayin’s performance was right."

One person plays two roles. He is a frustrated novelist in the real world and a vengeful teenager in a different world of novels. Shuang Xuetao said: "Dong Zijian has made a lot of efforts. For example, when there is a football scene, he calls me to ask me how to play football. He will speculate on the life details and inner world of many novelists. At the same time, he is also in two worlds, with two completely different situations and personalities. The characters are difficult to shape and his performance is great. "

"A Writer’s Odyssey is a rare film in China", and Shuang Xuetao praised Lu Yang as a courageous person. "I really realized such a novel with difficulty in adaptation. I don’t know what it will bring to the whole film industry, but I can feel that movies can do many things."

　

He was shocked by the movie scene created by special effects technology, which was completely beyond his imagination, and was also moved by the film’s profound interpretation of the love between father and daughter: its exterior is a huge industrial system, and its core has a literary power, a warm idealism, and a most essential human emotion, which produces a very interesting tension between the outside and the inside.

　

"What kind of novel can be adapted into what kind of film? It seems that there is a stereotyped idea before, but this film may show a sign that everything has no certain rules. Even a literary novel can become such a film. The key depends on what path we take to get involved in it and de-film it." The movie A Writer’s Odyssey made Shuang Xuetao start thinking about more possibilities of literary adaptation.

　

02

film/movie worker

Shuangxuetao’s identity is changeable. I majored in law and worked as a bank clerk. After I resigned, I turned to writing novels. The novels became popular and I began to participate in film projects. I asked him if he would simply try to be a screenwriter next.

　

"The script is not a finished product, it can’t be published, and it has to be adapted through movies, but when the novel is finished, it comes from me. The independence and integrity of scripts and literary and artistic creation are very different. " Shuang Xuetao said that he wouldn’t be a screenwriter, and even if his favorite director wanted to write a script, he would refuse, because the script couldn’t provide him with excitement like a novel.

　

He still hopes to have a sustained and effective connection with the film. In July last year, Shuang Xuetao served as the judge of the film venture capital project of Shanghai International Film Festival. The chairman of the jury who participated in the project was the director, and they had a closer cooperative relationship. Yinan Diao also served as the producer of both the film version and the drama version of Moses on the Plain.

Tiexi District and Yanfen Street written by Shuang Xuetao are characterized by a decaying factory culture, mysterious women, or a nostalgic smell, or an unsolved crime, marching with an ambiguous direction and ending … A unique regional image composed of a short sentence in the northeast, which is easily reminiscent of a film directed by Yinan Diao.

Just like the Yinan Diao movies viewed by Shuang Xuetao, it blurs the rough concepts of distinguishing film categories such as art movies, genre movies and commercial movies. "Old Diao walked out of his own way and inspired many young directors."

In the three film and television projects officially announced at present, co-directors Lu Yang and Zhang Ji are all young directors. Shuang Xuetao said that he hopes to find more such directors or new directors to cooperate with, which is also an important reason for his participation in venture capital. By cultivating some small and medium-sized films, the ecology of China films will be more sound.

　

"Do that kind of film that can’t be completely film festival oriented or completely commercial oriented. Is it possible that it is a certain kind of drama, with humanistic care, audio-visual literacy and a good story? This is what I am more interested in. "

　

Shuang Xuetao is a movie fan. In his list of favorite directors, movie master is included. Shuang Xuetao also has a set of self-awareness about film creation. He thinks that films are both art and products. Like his favorite directors, their films have both personal artistic expression and audience’s thoughts.

　

"You can’t just express yourself, and you can’t just make everyone’ cool’. For example, Hitchcock’s movies express their own hidden feelings and capture the audience. Such movies are the movies we need now. " This is the ideal goal that Shuangxuetao wants to pursue and collide with co-directors through his own novels.

In Lu Yang’s eyes, he is about the same age as Shuang Xuetao, and after a common age and similar growth experience, his perspective and method of looking at things are very close. Shuangxuetao is like a "muse", which makes their young directors find their own literary source.

　

The generation alternation of China’s films is also accompanied by the generation alternation of China’s literature. The rise of the fifth generation directors can not be separated from the support of literary masters such as,,, and so on. In recent years, the novels that the film circle likes to adapt have now taken a fancy to the double snow.

Why is it favored by filmmakers? Shuang Xuetao thinks that his novels not only provide a story for movies, but also provide a way to look at the world. "Sometimes you don’t even need a complete story, as long as it is inspiring to one person. You can do it with this starting point."

When a young novelist gradually becomes famous and meets a group of young directors who need literary support, it may be the starting point of a new film era, which indicates the coming of a new film wave.

　

Shuttling between novels and movies, Shuang Xuetao will eventually return to the track of literary creation. "My main business is to write what I think is meaningful. If it happens to be able to produce some subsequent transformations with other media and become another language, this connection is also meaningful for us writers."

　

Shuang Xuetao is writing her next novel. "It’s not that long, and writing short will have a staged sense of accomplishment." What topics to write, what new types to try, and when it will be completed. "Not necessarily, I am not very planned every time."