Production
The film was inspired by and loosely based on a novella titled Survival by You Fengwei. However, the final screenplay was largely original, with only few similarities to You's novella. Director Jiang Wen and director of photography Gu Changwei made the unique choice of shooting the film in black and white in order to capture the details of the historical era depicted in the film. There were initial worries about the sales and distribution prospects for a black-and-white film, but the production eventually went ahead.
The Japanese cast members in the film, two of whom came to know Jiang while on exchange in the Central Academy of Drama in the 1980s, initially expressed concerns with the Japanese war crimes depicted in the film. Jiang spent two weeks discussing the issue with them, and showed them documentaries about the war, including some made by Japanese filmmakers. According to Jiang, the Japanese cast members eventually came to trust him. Jiang also used many non-professional actors and actresses in the film, some of whom were also members of the crew. Jiang himself also played the leading role in the film, which he admitted was a tiring experience. He said he also came to distrust what most of the crew members said about his acting, especially when they were tired and wanting to finish for the day.
An executive director from Beijing Zhongbo Times Film Planning, one of the three investors in the film, said in an interview that the total expenditure on the film approached US$3.9 million, way above the original budget, which he did not specify. Later, however, a general manager from the same company told a reporter that the initial budget was US$2 million, but the final expenditure exceeded this number by over 30 percent.
Read more about this topic: Devils On The Doorstep
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)