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Clarke shared his thinkings about documentries.Pic by CFP
“It’s my great honor to have been invited. I love Shanghai. So without much thought, I decided to come.” Malcolm Clarke excitedly described his feelings in receiving the invitation, and the excitement on his face removed nervousness in the reporter. Especially at the mention of his encounter with Chen Kaige, this Oscar winner immediately became filled with admiration. Well, he was humorous, but after exchanging several words with the reporter about documentaries, Clarke impressed the reporter with his expertise.
Lack of documentaries from the Chinese perspective
Clarke told the reporter he and China were bound together. At present, he was making a documentary titled The Kind Angel about the Sino-US relations. He said he would shoot a Chinese film with a crew of Chinese people, including the actors.
Obviously, Clarke is getting more closely related to China. As a matter of fact, the theme of China has been a favorite of the documentary market worldwide. According to Clarke, the continuous favor is attributed to the attractiveness of this theme to some degree.
Clarke said documentaries played a significant role in helping the world learn about China. But he also pointed out that there was a lack of documentaries made from the perspective of Chinese people. He noticed that even many Chinese people have a hunger for the Chinese culture. “Showing the audience their country’s culture is of great importance, and this is what documentaries of other countries in the world are doing,” Clarke said.
Aside from these, Clarke also expressed his wish on Chinese documentaries. He wished that more and more Chinese documentaries could go abroad in the future, so as to enable a larger foreign audience to take a look at China from the Chinese perspective.
Documentaries should always be human-based
Clarke told the reporter that the shooting methods and techniques for making documentaries had been mature, and many excellent works emerged. “Chinese documentary workers are great. Each documentary looks perfect, and the music and rhythm are also good.” Clarke added, “But sometimes, the audience may want to see more.”
According to him, the only thing that Chinese documentary makers need to do now is to slow down, take a look at the world with feelings, discover some good figures and themes, and discuss issues about human nature and mind on a deeper level. Only in this way can they elevate Chinese documentaries to a higher level.
Moreover, he further pointed out that the scenes in Chinese documentaries tended to be overly sentimental. As he said, documentaries shouldn’t overly emphasize or highlight emotions; instead, the audience should be allowed to understand the feelings and values in the stories. Show through scenes without too much explanation.
In addition, he gave an insightful comment that the bad stories were the biggest barrier that stopped Chinese documentaries from going abroad. “As long as Chinese documentaries become human-based and Chinese documentary makers’ souls and feelings are instilled, I believe in the near future Chinese documentaries will be accepted by the Chinese audience and that in other parts of the world.” Clarke said.
Documentaries’ future: using both
Internet and cinema release
Clarke was quite optimistic about the future of documentaries. According to him, whether through Internet or cinema release, it’ll be good for documentaries.
He especially predicted that the development of Internet would bring prosperity to documentaries. He believed the Internet era ushered in a new platform for the common people, through which an increasing number of people could take part in the making of documentaries and films.
Well, he also showed his concern about documentaries released in cinemas. “Documentaries targeting the cinema audience must have a right theme.” The theme selected of documentary films must fulfill three important conditions: universality, wide influence and a large audience. So the theme selection is very important. “Making documentary films is very hard. You must get a complicated, interesting and eye-catching theme.”
“Whatever, in a word, a documentary must have a right theme, and it must show the theme clearly with the documentary makers’ feelings while it can’t be overly sentimental, and then it can be a success.” He repeated this several times.