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Acclaimed cinematographer Christopher Doyle has had a crazy life so far.

It's thunderous weather at Straits Quay in Penang, and Christopher Doyle decides to have his next interview indoors. I tell him that we only have about 20 to 30 minutes.

"What the hell can we talk about?" I say.

"I'll talk really fast," Doyle replies. And sure enough, the famed cinematographer keeps to his promise, delivering answers and opinions in rapid-fire succession, sometimes not even finishing his sentences, but always on point.

And of course, there is the ever-present glass of beer in front of him. Some years ago, renowned journalist Dennis Lim wrote an article on Doyle in The Village Voice with the headline "The legend of the Drunken Master." Well, it's not quite accurate, because Doyle remains very much sober throughout all his interviews, even though the beer never stops coming. It seems more like he has OD-ed on coffee, as one notices that his thoughts sometimes overtake his speech as he frantically searches for the right words.

He arrived in Penang at midnight, and held a masterclass in the morning at the Penang Performing Arts Centre under the Tropfest Roughcut banner, part of the ongoing George Town Festival. And after 18 hours, he will be hopping on a flight back to Hong Kong.

Famed for his work with Wong Kar-wai on films such as Chungking Express, Days Of Being Wild and In The Mood For Love, Doyle set up his unique voice in those early films, before going on to various projects from Zhang Yimou's epic Hero to Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence and M. Night Shyamalan's Lady In The Water. He got his first break in film in 1983 with the late Edward Yang's That Day, On The Beach.

But before that, he was a sailor, and had even dug for oil in India and worked in an Israeli kibbutz. One (in)famous story has it that he was a quack medicine man in Thailand.

"Yeah, it's true," Doyle confirms it, straight-faced. "We used to travel around in a station wagon, and I would dress up as a doctor, and I would say (in Thai) 'It's good for your back.' A guy would introduce me as a Western doctor, and I would sell all this bull***t.

"And then I thought, f*** this. I didn't speak a second language. So I went to Hong Kong to learn Chinese. At that time, it was impossible to go into China. I went to a very good school, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and my teacher gave me the name Du Ke Feng."

And with that he went on to commit to celluloid some of the most endearing, powerful, memorable and unique images in cinema history.

From the kinetic, time-bending style of Chungking Express and Ashes Of Time, to the searing images of Argentina in the gay romance Happy Together and the nostalgic memories of Days Of Being Wild. And then there's the masterpiece, In The Mood For Love, in which shadows and light inform a world of languid longing.

He won his first award for his first work on That Day, On The Beach ... and lost the trophy after leaving it in a taxi.

"Which was good," says Doyle. "It was a good sign. That was my first film and I didn't know what I was doing. I remember for my next films, I was really nervous, because I was trying too hard. It was actually counter-productive, because I was not seeing the bigger picture. I was just seeing my own concerns. Once you get to a level of experience, and you feel you know what you're doing, then you can see the bigger picture."

But the Christopher Doyle/Du Ke Feng duality is endlessly fascinating. Here's a guy born in Sydney, Australia who ended up as one of Asian cinema's most iconic figures.

"It's me," he says of Du Ke Feng (which means "Like the wind"). "The name is so Chinese ... It has a very poetic sort of ... you know, it's not like my Japanese name, Kuristofa Doyo. You know it's not a Japanese person, right? But with my Chinese name, you wouldn't imagine that the person is not Chinese."

He feels the name has a lot of obligations with it, as well as resonance and aspirations. "I think it's made me a better filmmaker," says Doyle. "Because I want to be Du Ke Feng. But I'm not there yet. Because I was born like ... this (points to himself and laughs). I'm stuck with this."

He thinks he was born in a wonderful country and had a wonderful childhood and family. That means he has the best of both worlds.

"I have an optimistic attitude towards life, which comes from being born in Australia," he says. "And I have Du Ke Feng, who aspires to more."

But having spent more than 30 years in Asia now, is he still an outsider looking in? Does it still give him a unique perpective on all things Asian?

"As any artist does, you choose to be removed," says Doyle. "Even Jean Cocteau or Hunter S. Thompson. I think we all do in our different ways. You protect that distance, because that is where the perception comes from. That is where you cut through the bull***t. I think I guard that distance quite ferociously, mainly because it helps one not to take oneself too seriously. That's very important. If I really believed what everyone says about me, I'd be a w**ker.

"If I believed all that, I certainly wouldn't tell my mother!" he breaks into raucous laughter.

Doyle says he loves working with young people. He finds great satisfaction in seeing them grow as artists.

"I'm glad people still regard me as a Hong Kong filmmaker, and young people in their 20s come to me to help them make Hong Kong films. And I'm very proud of that. They want to have their own voice. And since they're kids, they're going to have a different voice than Wong Kar-wai or Jackie Chan.

"I'm proud that because it's me, it helps with the money. They use my name ... please, go ahead, what am I going to do with it? (Laughs, turns to the other tables in the restaurant.) Hallooo, do you know who I am? Would you like to buy me a beer? Who gives a f***? (Breaks into more raucous laughter.)"

And despite his now-infamous rant about Life Of Pi's Oscar for Best Cinematography, he is actually optimistic about digital filmmaking. During his masterclass, he explained that he thought Life Of Pi should have been given a technical award for the entire special effects team, and not for the cinematographer.

"I think film will come back, but it will come back in a different way," says Doyle. "For example, like in photography, people are still using cameras from 100 years ago because they want a certain quality. It will become a very specialised thing ... The thing about digital filmmaking is, you see what you get. And then you can change it later. That's a dangreous precedent, because it means that what really matters is often determined by a machine as opposed to the choices of the artist."

He believes that this means the "money people" have more control and it could render someone like him useless. "Filmmaking by committee," as he calls it.

"But I'm not afraid of that," he says. "Because the other way to go is to simplify things and work from within to subvert all this ... to simplify things to a point where we regain control. And because the young kids have so much digital experience, they're going to see the world in a different way than people who come from a more traditional film background. That's what's going to happen.

"The Impressionists saw the world differently than the Pre-Raphaelites. And then the Cubists responded to that. Everything's a response to what came before it. I'm actually quite positive about digital (filmmaking). There are textures that we don't know about yet. And the kids are going to teach us. In other words, it's a different visual experience. So was Impressionism. So was pop. So was conceptual art.

"There is a space of give-and-take where we can enchance each other's work."

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Rabu, 10 Julai 2013

The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

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