“Audiences are not changing. Films are not changing. And it’s a waste”: Legendary Filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang and His Collaborator, Actor Lee Kang-Sheng, Discuss Three Decades of Transformational Cinema

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When you consider the concept of auteurism, you likely think of maximalist filmmaking — filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Wes Anderson, and Christopher Nolan, whose styles are clearly defined and extremely visible. However, there is another subset of auteurs that you may not recognize. If Hitchcock, Anderson, and Nolan are the “authors” of cinema, this other group are the poets, taking the conventions of cinematic language and turning them on their head to create something distinctive and original.

One of the pioneers in that latter category of auteurs is Tsai Ming-liang, a Malaysian-Taiwanese filmmaker known for making such films as Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Rebels of the Neon God, and Vive L’amour. As part of a retrospective tour on his career, Tsai and his frequent collaborator, actor Lee Kang-Sheng, presented some of their films at the Austin Film Society in Austin, Texas, and we got the opportunity to speak with the duo through an interpreter as part of this celebration. (Note that this interview has been edited for clarity.)

Tsai Ming-Liang and Lee Kang-Sheng Discuss Their Prolific Collaborations

If you’ve ever seen a film by Tsai Ming-liang, you likely know that his work is characterized by long, lingering takes that have minimal dialogue. Yet, they are full of expression and emotion, with actors conveying so much meaning through their mannerisms and Tsai constructing such beautiful, profound imagery. He explained to us the challenges and rewards of using such a visual method of communicating emotion:

“[I] like to watch silent movies,” says director Tsai. “The nature of film is images. Audiences have been influenced by other filmmakers that make dialogue and captions. Gradually, the image’s visual impact is getting less and less. So [I] like to use film, to use the image as the visual. The main actors in [my] movies are usually pretty lonely, so they don’t have a lot of people to talk to. [I] like real feelings — the feelings are so real.”

“So the actors and actresses, their performances are so real,” he continues. “They don’t just talk to themselves. So [my] movies are meant to express the daily life of everybody so the audience can feel very close to their life. So they’re boundaryless between countries — that’s the art of cinema, of film.”

A still from Tsai Ming-Liang’s new film, Back Home.

In addition to the aforementioned acclaimed dramas, Tsai is also a prolific documentarian, having made several nonfiction films, including his newest film, Back Home, which will be premiering at the Venice Film Festival. We asked him how he approaches these modes of filmmaking differently:

“In the very beginning of my films, [I] liked to play with some stories,” Tsai explains. “Then, after twenty years, [I] got tired of it, making those movies, because most movies we watch in the theaters are with stories or just documentaries. There’s no new approach for the film being developed. So when [I’m] making films, [I’m] always looking for new ways to make the film.”

“[I] think the current film industry is like a trap,” he continues. “Filmmakers are trapped inside, not making what they really want. The people are more making commercial projects instead of art. And audiences make it so normal. Audiences are not changing. Films are not changing. And it’s a waste. Especially when theaters are getting so good with their audiovisual systems, we should have a better way of making films to get audiences receiving them more.”

“[I] want to make movies with feeling so in the theater people can accept it,” Tsai adds. “So [I] took a camera and went to Laos by myself with a photographer and [I] filmed all the things that [I] saw, the world that [I’d] seen and made a 60-minute movie and sent it to Venice. And they decided to show it. So I think movies are not always industrial; maybe they can be hand-crafted. Young filmmakers should feel like they have their own way to make good movies. Don’t be decided by business people.”

Yet, despite its lack of conventional narrative, Tsai’s work has been connecting with audiences and critics for over three decades. With a relationship that many have described as that of an artist and his muse, Tsai has worked with actor Lee Kang-sheng on all of his feature dramas. So, he understands firsthand why these films continue to resonate with viewers around the world.

“I think director Tsai’s movies are very relational — of relations between people, about loneliness and loveless situations,” says Mr. Lee. “So this loneliness, these kinds of conditions, are transcendent human conditions, so these emotions are timeless in this sense. So that’s why these films transcend boundaries in terms of borders as well. No matter if it’s Asia, Europe, or the Americas, we experience these same kinds of emotions.”

“My films are very personalized for humanity,” director Tsai adds. “The human usually won’t disappear; they’re always there. We’re always repeating the same issues over and over again. I like to make real movies — not just for entertainment or for consumers, but because of art. These works have been exacted by every generation. Like Fellini’s movies or Truffaut’s movies or Antonioni’s movies. Any time you watch them, you know what they’re trying to express to the audience. The image is so powerful in these films. So I’m so happy that I can make movies like this.”

We know we speak for the film community as a whole when we say that we are happy that director Tsai can make movies like this too.

The series “Time Passes: Thirty-Five Years With Tsai Ming-Liang” continues at AFS Cinema in Austin, Texas, through August 24. Tsai’s newest film, Back Home, will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September.
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