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Christopher Hampton: Plans for a Screenplay Based on Chinese CultureChristopher Hampton, Oscar-winning British screen writer and film director, has conquered global audience with his unique depiction of humanity and emotions, and fascinated Chinese movie-goers with classics including Total Eclipse, Dangerous Liaisons and The Atonement. He is now coming to the Shanghai International Film Festival to vote on this year\'s top award.
During the interview with Daily News, the world-class screen writer tells us his adoration of Chinese director Zhang Yimou. And in his eyes, Chinese filmmaker is good at story-telling, and good stories will often require originality and cultural backgrounds.
Daily News: As a jury of this year\'s Shanghai International Film Festival, what are your standards of awarding actors and actresses? Are you more attracted to good plots and stories?
Hampton: We need to see the best films. We need films that are fresh, original, and truly reflect cultural backgrounds. We also need films that can gap different cultures. So films made from different cultural and ethnical backgrounds will be more appealing. Different people have different ways of making a film. So when a good film appears, everyone will recognize it. Even if you can\'t tell what kind of a film is a good film, you will know when it appears.
Daily News: As a successful screen writer, what do you think is most important when telling a story?
Hampton: Different films have different purposes, so we don\'t have a fixed formula. Some people will teach others to write a story by formula, but that won\'t work. Everything should have its own pattern and style, so there aren\'t any standards. We can only use our intuitions. In fact, I don\'t know what I\'m looking for, and I can know what I\'m looking for when I have found it.
Daily News: One of your films, Total Eclipse, is very popular in China. What do you think of this early film?
Hampton: It\'s very good! But actually, I don\'t quite like its ending. Something can be better. I adapted the story into a screenplay at the age of 21, but the film isn\'t something that I had expected.
Daily News: Your other films like Dangerous Liaisons and The Atonement always focus on complicated emotions.
Hampton: Right, I would very much like to explore psychological issues like emotions and gender relations, like the relations between people and other cultures, like cultural imports and exports, as well as male-female relations. I would always like to think about what writers and artists think, and why they think in that way.
Daily News: Will the development of technologies affect the way screen writers work? Will you consider making 3D films?
Hampton: No. I\'m interested in topics of humanity and emotions, not the 3D technology. But I don\'t reject using the 3D technology to express human emotions. I enjoy new technologies that make filmmaking more convenient and cheaper.
Daily News: Do you think the difference between the way you tell your story and the current way of story-telling is caused by technological developments?
Hampton: It shouldn\'t be. Technologies are good things, but they are not crucial.
Daily News: Many of your films are about humanity. So how do you choose them and how do you express yourself in them?
Hampton: Well, I don\'t know. It all depends on the intuition. Probably when you\'re making something or even before having something done, you\'ll never know what you want to express.
Daily News: What do you think are the current pros & cons of the Chinese film industry?
Hampton: The good thing is that the Chinese film industry has rich resources and strong government support. Film is like a huge machine, run mainly by the director, but everyone has their own role in it. It is the director\'s job to find the best partners to run the machine. For other roles, like costume, cinematography, art design, lighting, they all have to do their jobs. Although it\'s complicated, it\'s still meaningful. The bad thing I think is that filmmakers are still limited to some extent.
Daily News: There is a view that the biggest problem of China\'s film industry is that Chinese directors or screen writers don\'t know how to tell stories. What\'s your view on it?
Hampton: China has very good directors, like Zhang Yimou. I personally adore him very much, and even think of him as one of China\'s best directors.
Of course, China has many other good directors. As we know, China has a very long film history, and the new-generation audience is growing bigger and bigger. The more film genres audience can have access to, the bigger the audience will be, and you will have more space to make films that are unique. What I mean is that the western films or Hollywood blockbusters are no longer appealing as they used to be.
Daily News: But some are saying that compared with before, Zhang Yimou is already different currently.
Hampton: Yes, that\'s true. The movies he\'s made now are very different from his small productions before. But when I watched his Hero in Paris for the first time, I thought it was fantastic from whichever aspect.
Daily News: What kind of Zhang Yimou\'s films do you like best?
Hampton: What my favorites are Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad, and The Road Home, but I know they are not necessarily the local favorites. The same thing has happened to Akira Kurosawa, as his films were not popular with the Japanese audience in the 1990s.
Daily News: Do you have plans for a screenplay based on Chinese culture? Do you have some Chinese actors or actresses that you hope to cooperate with?
Hampton: Of cause I\'d like to, as China has such a long history. For the actors & actresses, I like Gong Li & Zhang Ziyi. Through films made by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, I learn about their oriental charms. I would also like to work with Zhang Jingchu, who is also a jury this time.