By Wu Jiang
Translated by Chen Shulin
Recently, it has been said that both Director Zhang Yimou’s new film‘The Love of Hawthorn Tree’and Director Wang Quan An’s film‘White Deer Plain’under preparation have the difficult problem in th leading actress casting process. Both films have the same objective——to find a‘pure’girl as protagonist. However, it became such a big problem that stumped Zhang Yimou. In fact, besides Zhang Yimou and Wang Quan An, other domestic directors have also met such problem. Li Fangfang, director of the youth film‘The After-80s’and Zhang Jizhong, director of‘Lu Ding Ji’both said that they could not find‘pure’girl in the Mainland. Although more and more students graduate from Central Academy of Drama, Beijing Film Academy, and Shanghai Drama Academy every year, these starlets have open manner and casual attitude in their life.‘Purity’became the big problem for directors‘serching for her thousands of times in the public’. Chineses Version >>
Of course there can not be pure girls everywhere. However, the entertainment circle shouldn’t be a place where it’s hard to find girls. After all, there are plenty of girls longing for this circle, among whom directors can pick out the best. However, when‘purity’becomes a big problem for directors‘serching for her thousands of times in the public’, and pure girls can not be found even in the entertainment circle, are there really no‘pure girls’in China?
We can’t simply assert whether purity is really extinct. But what is certain is that‘purity’is at least out of date, and especially in the entertainment circle, it has not kept with the times. In reality, if a girl wants to stand out from all the beauties and be chosen by the director, and be popular in the entertainment circle, she had to spare no effort to catch the eyes. To play‘purity’at this time is neither up-to-date, nor applicable.
Of course, it’s somewhat hasty to simply consider that pure actress is hard to find because the starlets have‘open manner and casual attitude’in life, or even to talk about the hidden rules such as‘Art Shool Girls’seeking for being kept as mistresses. First of all, the actresses’open manner and casual attitude in life and the phenomenon of‘Art School Girls’being kept as mistresses, these‘dirty water’can not be totally splashed to actresses and simply attributed to the matter of actresses’quality. Undeniably, some actresses do try to use their beautiful appearance as a short cut to success. However, if the entertainment circle itself was clean enough, if these male directors had their own‘moral bottom lines’, the actresses’open and casual life style should be of no use at all.
In fact, in the entertainment circle, compared with the male’s strong position, actresses, especially these art school girls are weak and insignificant. It is not an exaggeration to call these ordinary actresses and art school girls the weak. From this perspective, how is the culture of the entertainment circle and whether purity is survivable in this circle are decided obviously by the atmosphere of this circle and even the quality of directors, instead of these vulnerable actresses. In reality, girls who want to enter the entertainment circle should have more or less preparation for the hidden rules of this circle.
To sum up, rather than complaining about being difficult to find pure actresses, it’s more meaningful to think about whether‘purity’is survivable in the environment of the entertainment circle itself. If it’s a place full of quick success and hidden rules, it’s obviously inappropriate to require actresses to be pure ones in that complicated world.