Тянь Чжуанчжуан: путь китайского кинорежиссёра

Chinese filmmaker

Tian Zhuangzhuang (; born April 1952 in Beijing) is a Chinese film director, producer and actor. Tian was born to an influential actor and actress in China. Following a short stint in the military, Tian began his artistic career first as an amateur photographer and then as an assistant cinematographer at the Beijing Agricultural Film Studio. In 1978, he was accepted to the Beijing Film Academy, from which he graduated in 1982, together with classmates Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. The class of 1982 collectively would soon gain fame as the so called Fifth Generation film movement, with Tian Zhuangzhuang as one of the movement's key figures. Tian's early career was marked both with avant garde documentary infused films (On the Hunting Ground (1985), The Horse Thief (1986)) to more commercial fare (Li Lianying: The Imperial Eunuch (1991)). In 1991, Tian began work on a quiet epic about one of modern China's darkest moments. This film, The Blue Kite (1993), would eventually result in Tian's nearly decade long exile from the film industry, an exile he returned from with Springtime in a Small Town (2001). Throughout the 2000s, Tian Zhuangzhuang returned to the fore of Chinese cinema, directing films like the biopic The Go Master (2006) and the historical action film The Warrior and the Wolf (2009). Since his banning after the release of The Blue Kite, Tian has also emerged as a mentor for some of China's newest film talents, and he has helped produce several important films for these new generations of directors.

Tian Zhuangzhuang was born on April 23, 1952, in Beijing. He was the son of Tian Fang, a famous actor in the 1930s who became head of the Beijing Film Studio after 1949, and Yu Lan, an actress who later ran the Beijing Children's Film Studio. Given his parents' busy jobs as studio chiefs, Tian was raised primarily by his grandmother, though his parents' positions also allowed him to live a relatively comfortable childhood. But because of the Tians' prominence, Tian Zhuangzhuang suffered heavily during the Cultural Revolution, and both his parents were persecuted. There he met a war photographer, who introduced him to the camera. Working as a photographer for five years, Tian eventually decided to switch to cinematography and found a job as an assistant cinematographer at the Beijing Agricultural Film Studio. However, he was forced to apply to the directing department rather than the cinematography department due to his age. Years later, Our Corner would continue to be screened by professors at the BFA, introducing Tian to new generations of actors and filmmakers. Upon his graduation in 1982, Tian was assigned to the Beijing Film Studio, though his early career was spent making films for other studios. These included works for television, as well as the children's film Red Elephant (1982, co directed with Zhang Jianya and Xie Xiaojing). — neither film succeeded domestically, and both were considered commercial flops. On the Hunting Ground, for example, sold a meager four prints. In 1998 Tian was honoured with a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund, an international culture and development organisation based in Amsterdam.

Many of Tian's earlier works had drawn criticism from the Chinese government. For example, television producers refused to screen his short film Our Corner, and his first major film, September (1984), suffered censor interference with several major scenes left on the cutting room floor. But Tian would not face serious consequences as a result of his work until his masterpiece, The Blue Kite (1993), a film about the adverse effects of Communist rule from the Hundred Flowers Movement, through the Great Leap Forward, and especially the Cultural Revolution. The film's quiet criticism of Communist policies in the 1950s and 1960s quickly made it a pariah in the Beijing Film Studio, who refused to submit the film for central approval to be sent abroad for post production. The Blue Kite reportedly had to be smuggled out of the country by Tian's friends, where it would proceed to screen at foreign film festivals (including the 1993 Cannes Film Festival) without approval. Due to the controversy, Tian resigned from his position in the Beijing Film Studio in March 1994. The ban would last officially until 1996, though Tian would not make another film for several more years. In the interim, he focused on producing, and helped shepherd some of China's new generation of directors with their projects, including his former art director Huo Jianqi (1995's The Winner) and the Sixth Generation mainstays, Lu Xuechang (1996's The Making of Steel in which Tian also acted) and Wang Xiaoshuai (1998's So Close to Paradise, a film that would see its own share of controversy). Tian's role as mentor for new filmmakers has continued into the 21st century and has seen Tian taking young talent such as Ma Liwen and Ning Hao under his wing.

After a hiatus from directing of some nine years where Tian mainly focused on producing other directors' works, he returned with a critically acclaimed remake of Fei Mu's masterpiece, Spring in a Small Town (1948), entitled Springtime in a Small Town. As Tian's first film after his ban for The Blue Kite, Springtime was a small, intimate chamber piece with only five roles. To some critics, it reflected Tian's attempt to "play it safe," though the film's lack of political message did not dull its critical reception. In 2004, Tian returned to his favorite subject of China's ethnic minorities with Delamu, a HD filmed documentary about peoples in Yunnan and Tibet. Delamu was followed by The Go Master (2006), a biopic of the legendary Chinese Go player, Go Seigen. The latest work by Tian is a historical epic, The Warrior and the Wolf, filmed in China's remote Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The film was originally to star Tang Wei of Lust, Caution, but Tang was replaced by actress Maggie Q after the former was banned by Chinese authorities.