The tireless, talented and slightly subversive Feng Xiaogang accepted the China Film Directors Guild’s director of the year award on April 12, and he had some pointed things to say in his acceptance speech.
Pointed things that you will not hear, because they were censored.
Pointed as in the word “censorship.”
Brendan O’Kane noted this in a tweet two days ago, but here’s Tea Leaf Nation to offer some more context, oh so ironic:
“In the past 20 years, every China director faced a great torment,” said director Feng Xiaogang, who was called China’s Spielberg by Newsweek, “and that torment is [beep].”
The censored word, as anyone reading Feng’s lips can surmise, is “censorship.”
Censors censoring censorship. SARFT, everyone.
Feng continued (as translated by TLN):
A lot of times when you receive the order [from the censors], it’s so ridiculous that you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, especially when you know something is good and you are forced to change it into something bad. Are Hollywood directors tormented the same way? … To get approval, I have to cut my films in a way that makes them bad. How did we all persist through it all? I think there is only one reason — that this bunch of fools like us love filmmaking — are entranced by filmmaking — too much.
Netizens have been offering their support across social media, where this speech has gone viral, because no one likes censorship.
For more on Feng Xiaogang, here’s the aforementioned Newsweek profile on him in 2010.
China’s Spielberg Calls Out Censors During Awards Ceremony (Tea Leaf Nation)
“Are Hollywood directors tormented the same way?”
I know how Orson Welles would have replied.
China’s Spielberg? I can’t think of one Spielberg movie that raises the same political and social questions that Feng’s films have. ET, maybe?
Lol, another air ball from Mr. Alpart.
Spielberg makes films about American society by and large, and sometimes Europe, so why would they “raise the same political and social questions that Feng’s films have”?
In any case, you apparently missed Spielberg’s last film. You know, the one about democratic politics, slavery, the US Constitution and the Civil War. Get out much?
You are comparing apple pie to jiaozi, I’m afraid, but keep trying!
Dude, will you leave me the fuck alone?
Lol, now you are trying to “harmonize” me.
Yep, definitely gone native.
“Schindler’s List” comes to mind…
Good for him to bite the hand that feeds him. More people should have his kind of backbone.