Interview: Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze)

[This was originally published for the Sundance Film Festival. Zeitgeist films releases the docu today.]

IONCINEMA.com is proud to feature the rookie and veteran filmmakers showcased and nurtured at the 2008 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. This is part of collection of emailer interviews conducted prior to the festival – we would like to thank the filmmakers for their time and the hardworking publicists for making this possible.]

Yung Chang

The scenic shots of the river and its shores are as haunting and evocative as anything Werner Herzog has done. How did your working relationship to director of photography, Wang Shi Quing come about before production and how did the two of you set about establishing the aesthetic of the film?
The film took about 4 years to put together from inception to completion. I was introduced to Wang through my producers at EyeSteelFilm who worked with him on a doc they made called Chairman George. He’s a graduate of the Beijing Film Academy. Wang came on board for a development shoot in 2005 in Chongqing. We immediately clicked. We both share a love for Taiwanese cinema like Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang and Chinese filmmakers like Jia Zhang-Ke and Li Yang…so with this common ground, it was very clear the type of pacing and aesthetic I was going for. I introduced Wang to films by Herzog and Altman and we watched Apocalypse Now and Bicycle Thief. He showed me a short film he made called SARS in Beijing which was absolutely incredible with a gutsy, instinctual shooting style.  I had a motto: CINEMA NOT DOCUMENTARY. In the end, he shot about 70% of the film. I shot about 30%. Wang’s patience and technique taught me a lot during the course of production. Initially I was very hesitant o pick up the camera and shoot alone but when Wang wasn’t available I had no choice but to channel his skill. I filmed scenes like Yu father on the cliff and the old Christian lady. I also I ended up shooting the entire climax of the movie – the final moving and flooding scene – but you don’t notice it. To this day, I affectionately call Wang, “Teacher Wang”. We plan to work together again in the near future.

There are some very telling and raw emotional scenes, breakdowns of sorts, as with the shopkeeper and the Yu family sending Yu Shui off to work.  Were you surprised at their openness and willingness to be so exposed? How was trust between you and the subjects established?
Trust was established through 2 key essentials: TIME and PATIENCE. I spent a lot of time with the Yu family and Yu Shui. I found Yu Shui through the cruise ships’ recruitment trips when they travel to river towns in search of new employees. Yu Shui was one of the interviewees. They hired her in the winter but she wasn’t scheduled to begin training until the summer so I had a whole chunk of time to build trust and friendship. It’s important not to treat your characters like subjects. They become your friends and family. I am still in touch with Yu Shui and the Yu family to this day.

The scene when Yu Shui leaves for work was an emotionally wrenching day. You can see the camera shaking when Mrs. Yu tells her husband that they have no choice but to send Yu Shui to work. We were all in tears. As a filmmaker, you are emotionally invested in the lives of the people you choose to film. If you cannot be emotionally open but rather try to distance yourself from your subject, then you will lose that trust. It can be difficult and I was constantly questioning my role as a filmmaker, but I realized, that in the pursuit of dramatic storytelling, you must be sensitive and invested into the lives of the participants.

Yu Shui and Chen Bo Yu respectively emerge as the main characters of the film.  Did you have a sense of this immediately or could there have been others?  Did you always imagine such focussing on any individuals so tightly?
I always knew that Yu Shui and her family were going to be central in telling the story of the human impact of the Three Gorges Dam. I found Chen Bo Yu through the recruitment process. His character was important because I wanted to have that contrast between the two: city vs. countryside, little emperor vs. peasant girl. I had no idea what the outcome would be between Yu Shui and Chen Bo Yu which proved to be quite a surprise. But I also filmed with a few other subjects. I had plenty of time – I spent eight months living and filming in China. For example, Campbell “Soup” He, the river guide, figured much more prominently in rough cuts of the film. He used to be a coolie to pay his tuition when he was an English student. He was a self-described “country bumpkin”. His father is still a farmer in the countryside. In the end, his story just didn’t measure up to the main characters. I also followed a factory worker fighting for compensation and a group of villagers protesting land development. Up The Yangtze would have been a sprawling 10 hour epic if we didn’t cut these scenes. I’m sure they will find their way into the DVD Special Edition.

The tourists, mostly Westerners, it seems, can come off as condescending and the notion of a“Farewell Cruise” is somewhat cynically bizarre as you contrast between the ship and the localswho struggle on the shores.  How did you and the crew fit in relationship to the sightseers?
I first went on the cruise in 2002 with my parents and grandfather. We were greeted by a marching band playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. At that point, I knew I had to make a film about the Farewell Cruise. It felt like the LOVE BOAT meets APOCALYPSE NOW – a perfect microcosm to explore modern China. Being a Canadian of Chinese descent, I was able to see both the Western and Eastern perspectives.  In many ways, the film compliments my own duality in dealing with how I perceive China and how the West perceives China and vice versa. I don’t think a non-Chinese would be able to make this type of film. Being Chinese allowed me to disappear and be accepted into the environment. On the boat and amongst tourists, I was able to see the irony and humor of the surreal journey. When Wang and I were shooting the scene where the new employees learn about Western etiquette and not to compare Canada and the United States, I had a smile on my face the entire time but Wang was very diligent and took it very seriously. There was another scene, that didn’t make it into the film, where tourists were asking a relocated migrant if she liked her new home through an interpreter. The migrant was answering very emphatically that she hated her new home and that she would much rather live in her ancestral home. But the interpreter translated to the Western tourists that the migrant was VERY HAPPY with her new house. I think only someone like myself would be able to capture those contrasts. 

I worked only with a Chinese crew. That was very important in capturing such an intimate and emotional human drama. Sometimes it was a challenge to communicate my point-of-view.  My crew and I had constant debates about what I was making and if it was an anti-China film and why was I so intent on filming peasants? Shouldn’t I show the world positive aspects of China? Many Chinese also regard peasants as uneducated and backwater, the equivalent to “rednecks”.  I later found out that Wang himself was from a very poor family. I could only assure my crew that by exploring both the story of the peasants and the story of the cruise boat would we be able to see a reflection of contemporary China.

Where was ‘camp’ for yourself and the crew during production?
Our base camp was located at the port in Chongqing, gateway to the Yangtze, and largest municipality in the world with a population of 30 million people.

There must be concern on some levels, that any outsider filming in and around the building/flooding of the dam is showing the project in a positive light. Did you run into anytrouble with authorities whilst filming?
We were very careful not to have any run-ins with authorities. But the media has a lot of power in China. We would turn-up in villages with our camera and people would run-up to us thinking we were from the local TV station, desperate to tell us of their problems with local officials, etc. Mostly, though, I followed the approach of many Chinese filmmakers which is to simply shoot under-the-radar. There is a great tradition of documentary film-making in China by master filmmakers and I just did what they do. I would never endanger my crew but used their judgement to assess the safety of a situation. If they were willing to use hidden cameras and shoot riots, then so was I. I think it’s also a testament to the growing confidence of the people in voicing their discontent in the face of authorities. There was a reported 70000 riots and protests in 2004. I can only assume, as we get closer to the Beijing Olympics, that the number has increased.

You’ve spent some time studying the Meisner technique. Does your training here ever prove useful when shooting non-fiction?
The fundamentals of the Meisner technique is very useful for directing non-fiction, especially with communicating to your subjects. The key to Meisner is to LISTEN. Through listening you can understand the emotional state of your subject and his/her body language. Studying the Meisner technique was personally important for my development as a filmmaker and artist. It teaches you to be emotionally open and to react to your gut instinct – to never ‘think’ too much – but to listen and answer.

You mention your Chinese roots and especially your Grandfather who used to regale you with stories of China and ‘The River’. What has been your families’ and even the Chinese communities’ response to the film?
I think the film resonates with people who have experienced displacement through human impact. My family immigrated to Canada because of war and politics. Now people are being displaced because of man-made changes on the environment. The film has been seen by filmmakers and producers in China. The general impression from Mainland Chinese is that Up The Yangtze has given them an opportunity to step-back and see the impact of their country’s progress. In Chinese films, because of censorship, there is a tendency to be too subtle or careful when commenting on the country’s rapid change. On the flip side, Western films about China or developing countries are sometimes very severe and patronizing. Up The Yangtze doesn’t try to be heavy-handed or emotionally murky. It was every intention to make a human drama with real people and I think that is what resonates with Chinese audiences. To second or third generations living in North America, the film is shocking. They relate to my grandfather’s nostalgia and when they are confronted with images of poverty and wealth (the neon lit city-scape) it is unbelievable. A recent immigrant from Dalian came up to me after a screening and could only express herself through tears. It was so emotional for her to see her country reflected on the big screen.

Has this film generated any sort of charity for those it depicts suffering? Specifically the Yu family?
Since completing the film, I went back to China in August to show Up The Yangtze to the Yu family. Yu Shui later wrote me an email explaining that she was now able to see her destiny. She decided to leave the boat and finish high school. EyeSteelFilm helped to pay for her tuition. I’ve since begun a fund through a great site called GiveMeaning (http://www.givemeaning.com/project/yufam) to help the Yu family for the next 5 years to cover medical/health, food and supplies as well as to pay for the children’s school education. Most importantly, I found out that Mr. Yu desperately requires an eye operation or he will not be able to find employment. We’ve managed to raise a bit of money through the site. Audiences can leave a movie feeling moved to action and this fund is a great way for people to channel the hardship chronicled in the film into something positive.

Post-Sundance…are you looking to go the non-fiction or fiction route?
I’m interested in both fiction and non-fiction. I’m currently developing a documentary/fiction hybrid film about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Up the Yangtze will be released in Canada on February 8th and gets an April release via Zeitgeist FIlms.