- The film explores two very interesting aspects of Chinese women’s lives laotong and nu shu. Nu shu seems rather subversive as it’s a language created by women, for women. Were these practised until recently?
They were not practiced until very recently and also according to Lisa See the laotong & the nu shu were found in one area in China during the Taiping rebellion period.
But the nu shu thing is quite well known in the specific area in Hunan; now there is a lot more research done to it and the academics have found that there is quite a bit of that going on.
I think the idea of laotong may have different names, but that was a ritual and a practice that was probably in a lot of different parts of China in that period also.
One thing that was interesting about the nu shu in doing my research with the people that are closely involved with it, is that it didn’t come out of the Chinese written language itself because it didn’t look anything like it.
It came out of designs and patterns that the women were working for their art work and design pieces that they were doing and so they were kind of visually and image oriented and quite feminine in style, and that’s why men didn’t understand it; it wasn’t based on any sort of written language.
I found that in China a lot of young kids were saying ‘Oh, we have this ourselves’ because the Chinese texts are in simplified Chinese and again, when they are close to each other, they create their own language and that’s fascinating. In a way nu shu comes out of an organic need between people, especially with the phone these days.
- There is a very distinct palette for each era. Perhaps you would tell us something about the design for the historical and contemporary parts of the film. Presumably the nineteenth century part was created in a studio, it’s very beautiful.
Well, because we knew we had to create the historical period in studios and sets, they were shot almost like proscenium pieces, very simply almost like stage sets. We shot them without moving the camera around a lot.
It was lit very renaissance like with very warm lights so it had a unique, specific look to it. Then the contemporary part was shot with a lot more movement and dolly shots and it’s all very glassy and very cool which is representative of Shanghai today.
If you look around all the new buildings are very glass and very blue and cold looking. When you put those two together they become quite a contrast. There’s also actually a third element in in it which gets a little more complicated, there is a period where the two modern girls are growing up in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s.
It’s more hand held and it has a technicolour look to it, so there’s actually three periods with three different looks.
Your two actresses, Gianna Jun and Bingbing Li may be new names to us in the UK but what sort of fame do they enjoy in Asia and why did you cast them for their dual roles?
They are really big actresses, one from China and one from Korea. Bingbing Li had just won the Golden Horse Best Actress award which is the equivalent to the Academy awards in the US for a spy drama, ‘The Message’.
She is a terrific actress and has done lots of dramatic roles and some Kung Fu roles too. Gianna is a big name actress from Korea and her best known film was a romantic comedy which in the US was called ‘Sassy Girl’.
She played a young girl who was very frustrated with everything and she kept hitting her boyfriend. It was very funny, you should go see it if you haven’t seen it. Korean woman are pretty tough on their men! (Laughs) No bound feet!
- Hugh Jackman has a good-humoured cameo role as Arthur, a nightclub singer and boyfriend to one of the girls. How did he come on board?
As we were researching the script, especially the last part when we were prepping the film more, I realised that Shanghai is very international; everyone is there - the Germans, the French, the Australians, the English doing different kinds of businesses.
One of the characters that Ron Bass created was this Australian nightclub owner, so I asked Wendi Murdoch, ‘Who can we get for this’ and she said, ‘I’m really good friends with Hugh Jackman, I’ll ask him’ and he basically said if it was a cameo for a week or ten days he’d be happy to do it.
He had never been to China so he came and he was completely a joy to work with. He didn’t bring a big crew of people as his entourage; he came pretty much by himself. Tom Ford designed his clothes. One of the great moments was that I was really delayed in on the set-up of one scene in the night club that his character owns and I had to go up to his room to apologise to him.
He was sitting there in his Tom Ford suit, perfectly dressed, so I told him he should take a rest and he said, ‘No, I don’t want to wrinkle my clothes, I just want to sit here getting into my character’.
So anyway he was just a joy to work with and I had seen him on Broadway and I’d loved his song and dance routine so we also came up with this idea that he should sing a Chinese song which he learned very quickly. He has a great ear and pronounced the Chinese quite well.
- You mention Wendi Murdoch and of course the film was produced by her company ironically named ‘Big Feet Productions’. What was her level of involvement with the production? Was she very hands on?
Well there are two producers, Florence Sloan and Wendi Murdoch. Florence used to be a lawyer, trained in London, and she handled the day to day business stuff. Wendi was crucial in a lot of the financing stuff and solving problems, so to speak.
If there was a problem she would come in and solve it for us, like for example there were some cast issues at the last minute and she just flew to several places in the middle of the night and called people and made sure I got what I wanted.
And she was also quite involved creatively with the script development and looking at dailies and getting feedback. Both of them were quite involved with the film in different ways, so it was a good partnership.
- I heard Wendi even allowed some of her personal belongings to be borrowed for the film, is that right?
There were clothes, there were shoes, there was jewellery...all kinds of things! (Laughs) They gave us a lot of people that they knew that were into film so it was very personal in that sense.
I mean it’s a big budget film on one level and on another level it was quite a personal film for all of us.
- How long had it been since you filmed in China and what changes did you observe in the film industry there?
The last time I was there, well, some of ‘The Joy Luck Club’ was shot in China and also in Shanghai and that was the early ‘90’s and you know a lot has changed. First of all, for example in the early ‘90’s the extras were paid very, very little.
Often times I remember that the extras would eat lunch, because at least they got fed, and they had their costumes and it was period scenes that we were shooting, and they would just disappear and not wait to be paid at the end of the day because the payment was so minor. So we lost half of our extras by after lunch...
-and their costumes...?
... and their costumes! (Laughs) These days it’s better. First of all they are better organised and they are paid so that it is worthwhile for them to stay around at least. But there are other issues, you know, there is so much labour there it kind of duplicates itself.
For example, there was a lot of rain while we were shooting the period stuff and I would sit in my video village and would have to run to the set to talk to the actors, and every time I walked out into the rain there would be six or seven umbrellas trying to shield me from the rain, but I got more wet because of that.
I needed just one person with an umbrella but there’d be six umbrellas fighting each other. So there’s a lot of that going on these days. Labour is cheap and you have to organise that labour and sometimes use less of it too. It’s changed but other issues are still there, there are different sets of problems.
- What was the reaction to the film in China?
I understand it went quite well. It did more than average at the box office, it opened very wide so that’s a very commercial film, which is pretty amazing. It’s the first time that they’ve seen a film such as this, which is produced more internationally, and is less of a soap opera than their audience is usually used to.
And I’m sure the time sequences jumping back and forth are a little difficult for them, but they still enjoyed the film.
- This wasn’t a big budget film by any means but there is definitely an epic feel to it with the sweep of the stories over different eras. What helped you achieve the impressive look and tone?
You know, I just came from teaching a film class in Berlin and I kept telling the students you’ve got to pick your battles and also find a spot that really lets something break out so that it can look big.
So especially in the period stuff it was hard, because you see modern buildings or wires everywhere, but we found enough shots to really open it up. It’s also the way we shot and designed it, the production designer is very good, it’s beautifully done so even though it seems like a smaller film in budget and scale, we made it look very epic.
That was very important for all of us. And in the modern day stuff, there are just these really big Shanghai shots that gave that feeling, because that is more accessible. You can find these landscapes and buildings and glass buildings that are so monumental and amazing these days so we captured some of that and you really see the contrast between the two periods.
- I really enjoyed the music in the film and it stayed with me afterwards as well. It’s haunting and beautiful. Can you tell me about your choices? I daresay there was some traditional music and then of course you had the British composer Rachel Portman on board too.
I love Rachel Portman; I’ve worked with her a lot. I worked with her on ‘The Joy Luck Club’ and this time again. I did specifically say that I really didn’t want a fusion Chinese sort of score because there is so much of it done by now.
‘The Joy Luck Club’ had more of that feel and this one we went for just a classic score. I wanted it almost somewhat operatic, especially for the period stuff. The modern day stuff was very, very simple but the period stuff was, like I said, something very theatre-like and operatic and we did a classic score with that and with very, very minimal Chinese instruments, more as accents than anything else.
All the music was recorded. All the musicians were from London, we did it completely from London in a church recording studio. It’s a beautiful space and I remember on some of the days the sun would be coming in through the window and it was just a beautiful space to record music.
There was one cellist, Caroline Dale, who was solo on the scene where after the butcher beats up Snow Flower and Lily cleans up blood from Snow Flower’s face and she did a beautiful solo on her cello. There is great music in it.
- There is an extra treat at the end. I thought the end credit sequence was most original.
There is a Shanghai artist who has started doing some animation work, he stated out as a painter and sculptor but now he is getting into animation and I saw something that he did and it was a history of Shanghai animation in black and white, or maybe the history of more than Shanghai, if I remember correctly.
I asked him to do a history of Shanghai for us actually and he did it in this black and white Chinese brush painting style, it’s very imaginative. It’s one of the really beautiful pieces.
I wanted to use it as a front credit originally where it could be more featured but there wasn’t the time to let it be there so I put it at the end. It’s almost like an art piece on its own at the end.
- Have you plans to return and shoot in China again?
I’m not sure. I’m developing some things in China but I did option the story of Charlie Chan, a book about the real story to Charlie Chan, it came out about a year ago and got very good notices.
I don’t know if you remember the series, it was about a Chinese detective who was usually played by a Caucasian with his eyes taped. The character is based on a real detective in the Honolulu police department, so it’s a story about that and I am hoping I can convince Jack Nicholson to do this part, do the actor who plays Charlie Chan because he is actually a big fan and did some imitations for me that were hilarious.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is out now.