Life in Picture
By now, nearly everyone in China has an opinion on Zhang Yimou, the director whose latest film The Flowers of War has been under the international spotlight. Talented, clever, arrogant, ambitious, so many adjectives have been used to describe this high-profile, yet very private man. Zhang Yimou's Assignment, a new book by Fang Xi in collaboration with Zhang, offers fans and haters alike an objective and intimate glimpse of the inner life of the film giant.
While this book is the only one authorized by the director, Zhang himself won't call it a biography. In his mind, a biography is like a monument to someone's life, used to show the world a fixed image of a particular figure, or to share long-held stories that follow the path of one's entire life. But Zhang wanted this book to exist for neither of these reasons.
As he explains in the preface, his main motivation for the book was to preserve some faded photographs he took decades ago, because they captured his most precious memories. He said these images map out the events that changed his life completely.
According to Fang, Zhang Yimou's Assignment is different from a real biography as it doesn't start from his birth.
"It does not narrate how he grew up, went to school, got married and succeeded in his career," Fang told the Global Times in an e-mail. "I regard this book as something of a photographic memoir."
Days of his life
The "memoir" starts with the very first photo he took as an amateur photographer, going on to when he was admitted into the Beijing Film Academy by special permission from the Ministry of Culture, which led him to pursue a career as a movie director.
The photographs are like breadcrumbs for the reader to follow on the path of Zhang's development as a visual artist.
But the book still has the qualities of a typical biography, with previously unheard stories from the life and career of the director. Through Zhang's photos and Fang's words, the reader can trace the origins of Zhang's most striking characteristics: determination, modesty, and diligence.
Within the pages of Fang's book, we are transported back to 1974, when the young artist was working in a textile factory in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province. Zhang scrimped and saved for three years (he even donated blood to add to his piggy bank) for the money to buy his first Seagull camera.
The journey also takes the reader through the dark days of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), where the young man lived in fear as the son of a so-called anti-revolutionary and the nephew of a Kuomintang soldier in Taiwan.
We learn that this diligent boy taught himself to take pictures by studying and transcribing borrowed photography books. In three years, he had copied hundreds of thousands of words by hand. These stories show us a Zhang Yimou that seems so real, so close.
Finding distance
Despite the intimate portrait provided by the author, Fang said she didn't have a personal connection with Zhang before writing the book. However, she saw this as an advantage because it allowed her to write more objectively.
Throughout the writing process, she kept a "proper distance" from her subject to accurately observe, record and comment on him.
Further, in order to make the information more reliable, Fang tried to correct the possible memory mistakes in Zhang's narration by seeking materials from other resources.
"I referred to many articles and descriptions from his schoolmates and coworkers, selecting the statements that best resembled the truth," said Fang. "And Zhang approved of this method."
Getting to know Zhang
Over the course of their collaboration, however, Fang discovered that Zhang has some rather distinctive characteristics. For example, she said he is extremely tenacious and focuses very deeply on the task at hand.
"When we began to work on the book, he was completely absorbed by it, refusing to answer his phone even when our meetings went on for hours," Fang told the Global Times.
"And he pays such close attention to your interests, trying hard to address your concerns," said Fang.
She also added that Zhang is not very good at making contact with strangers and spends very little time with friends. "He is not good in social situation and he speaks frankly and honestly. There are few people who can really understand him," she explained.
"I didn't have any preconceived notions about him before this project, and the way most people imagine him is quite different from what he is really like," she said.
Fang added that the point of the book was not to clear the air, but to provide people with a closer look at his life.
"Conclusions should be drawn by readers, not dictated by the author, otherwise this piece of nonfiction would be a farce," Fang explained.