Since going abroad in the 1990s, Chen Danyan is obsessed with walking in the world.
Every trip will bring you a treasured book. She took " Hazard Dictionary " to Serbia, the hometown of Milorad Pavic, . She walked all the way to read " Ulysses " in Ireland. She read poems and novels of Zhuangyou writers in Italy. She said: "The novel depicts the real world, and the world of the mind. This is a place where novel books are superior to geographical books. Therefore, when the body moves geographically, the five senses are exploring, and the mind is opening."
"The grand tour" specifically refers to an Renaissance cultural travel route in Italy by European writers and artists since the 16th century. The total length is about 200 kilometers. For four hundred years, cultural masters such as Montaigne , Byron , Shelley , Goethe , Wilde , Stendhal , Nietzsche, Thomas Mann and other cultural masters have all taken this travel route and left important creations. In 2015, Chen Danyan retakes this route and starts his first Italian tour with a suitcase full of 26 literary works. The birth of those 26 books is related to Italy, and they are also books that Chen Danyan has read since childhood.
Originally, she planned to write the story of her following those Italian storm writers and the geographical reading of her reading history. She even thought of the name of the first chapter - it was called "Whistle". And this book will be the last of her "geographic reading trilogy" (the first two are the geographical reading notes "Ulysses" and the geographical reading notes "Dream Catching Land" of "Hazar Dictionary"). In 2019, she wrote an outline and just waited to go to Italy again to supplement the final geographical details, but unexpectedly, the epidemic was coming.
"I have always been happy to discover Italy, but now I have been tightly grasped by the memorial tenderness." Without the "last supplement" in the plan, Chen Danyan compiled the outline into a book in such tenderness. In her deep thoughts, she also put the contents of "The Day of Imagination" and "Dream Catching" into the book and named it "Farewell". "Farewell" collects the "geographic reading trilogy" she never forgets, and has also become a rare look back in her life.
Recently, "Farewell" was published by Pu Rui Culture and Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House . On November 5, film director Zhou Hongbo and poet and scholar Hu Sang visited the Duoyun Academy Drama Store, and had a conversation about Chen Danyan’s thirty years of “geographic reading” around the new book “Farewell” and the film “Whistle”.
From left to right: Hu Sang, Zhou Hongbo, Puzhao. Photography: Niki
's understanding of the world is the name
"Whistle" established through literature. Later, it was used by Chen Danyan in a short film and became one of the cross-genre movies "Four Seasons Cafe". While filming "Whistle", Chen Danyan specially filmed a God's perspective at the intersection of Tongren Road, Beijing West Road. After the lens is raised, the thick zebra crossing at the T-junction will form a huge U-shaped shape in the lens.
Zhou Hongbo is the artistic director of "Whistle". He revealed that from a director's perspective, the U-shaped picture structure is relatively simple, but Chen Danyan is very persistent in this. "She hopes to ask a question through U: Will there be a U-shaped turn in this world? This is a very important concept in the film."
similar persistence is everywhere. "She also particularly emphasizes her relationship with books, the logic between photos and photos. There are all kinds of things on her desk, and we often put them around. She was very unhappy when she saw it and said that you just put them in this way for the beauty of the picture, that would not work." Zhou Hongbo said, "You will find that she looks at the world from the perspective of a very writer. Her understanding of the world was established through literature. This is also what we finally present in the film."
In Zhou Hongbo's view, the film "Whistle" is not like a movie that is often defined. To understand the meaning of every sentence, every scene, and every prop in the film, it cannot be simply an intuitive understanding, but also requires interpretation of other paths."This method is indeed a bit out of place for the genre of the movie that has only been watched once but cannot turn back to the book, but when Chen Danyan puts this film in her "Farewell", it is completely different. The film and her writing have achieved a second life at the same time, which is very special."
"Farewell" directory
What is touching is that from the chapter title "Whistle" to the movie "Whistle", the world has changed rapidly. "In this film, she used a lot of metaphor and puns to tell this story about the whistle and the world. At first she told us about her Italian travel writing, and she still had a lot of longing and hope. When she got this book today, the title was called "Farewell". She really can no longer travel around the world as she pleases. However, I think she is also a very gentle and firm whistle. Although she was disappointed, she still had a persistence in her inner world."
on the map album printed by Antwerp , marking the route of a great traveler from the UK to Italy.
In "Farewell", Chen Danyan wrote this paragraph: "Let the world be a U-Turn is my reaction to the change of the world. Pretend that there is a sign of turning around here, and then the world turns back and goes back to 2014. At that time, Turkey did not fight, Trump did not come to power, Syria little boy did not drown on the beach of Greek . Maybe go a little further and go back to the early spring of 1999, when Belgrade has not been bombed by NATO . People like to travel all over the world, go to those places that cannot be visited in the Cold War era, and see the legendary mountains and rivers.... ...I am actually a cowardly ostrich with two long legs, always struggling to rush down and hide it in the soil. However, the war will stop everything. In the bombing, no matter how loud the whistle is, you can't hear it. Don't say that the whistle is still 'gent'."
Chen Danyan
's desire for the world, love for literature and life
Hu Sang read Chen Danyan's books in his early years "The Bund: Images and Legends", " Shanghai's Wind and Flowers ", " Shanghai's Golden Branches and Jade Leaves ", and he found that Chen Danyan not only has a delicate feeling about Shanghai's urban space, geography, people, and culture, but also has a profound perception of history, especially the turning points of history.
"She often told me that you should go out for a walk and must go to see the Balkans. Later I slowly understood that she hoped that we would go out and become a cosmopolitan."
In Hu Sang's view, Chen Danyan's travel is not just about sightseeing, but also her historical view and world view are hidden behind it. "In the film, she said that what a travel writer does is a lonely work. In a sense, this loneliness also carries a desire, a gentle and firm desire. Especially after experiencing some things, we will find that this desire is really too precious."
Chen Danyan groped in the St. Federer Monastery for the afternoon of the ancient organ
Chen Danyan painted the first shelf on the monastery, and it was not completed. He liked Chen Danyan's line in the film "Whistle" very much - "The travel writer is like the dove in the story. I don't know if what we can bring back is a flood or an olive branch." "Now young people in colleges seem to be increasingly accepting that the world is 'can't go out' and 'can only contact the Internet', and 'not going out' and 'not understanding' are becoming more and more normal. I think this book "Farewell" is not a farewell, but a journey that will be restarted. Our understanding and belief in the world will be activated by Teacher Chen again and again."
Some people are also curious about why the abstract experience of reading should be transformed into the real space? "Geographical reading is to tell us that literature is not noble, metaphysical, or purely poetic, or romantic, it is also real. Human beings have loved, hated, lived, traveled in this real geographical space, and were also imprisoned." Hu Sang said, "Teacher Chen wrote with passion, which is her love for literature and her love for life.This book "Farewell" is actually based on love. She is full of desire and love for the world. ”
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