R*******e
发帖数: 25533 | 1 还是老崔。还是没来得及看。
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/world/asia/echoes-of-tiananme
Cui Jian, a musician whose songs embodied the spirit of hope and protest
among young people in China in 1989, rehearsed at Beijing Workers Gymnasium
before performing a 3D rock concert. The concert has has been made into a
film, called "Transcendence."
By JONATHAN LANDRETH
Published: May 17, 2012
BEIJING — On May 9, 1986, a classical trumpeter turned rock guitarist
belted out “Nothing to My Name” at Beijing Workers Gymnasium, unaware that
his raw lyrics beseeching a girl for respect despite his poverty would
become an unofficial anthem of the democracy movement on Tiananmen Square
three years later.
Last week in Beijing, exactly 26 years later, Cui Jian, generally acclaimed
as the father of Chinese rock ’n’ roll, showed up at a screening of a new
3-D rock concert movie for an audience of fans now predominantly in their
40s.
The film, “Transcendence,” captured Mr. Cui and his band in a concert at
Workers Gymnasium in 2010, this time backed by an orchestra and facing a
transformed country that was soon to become the world’s second-largest
economy and home to 600 million Internet users caught in a social media
explosion.
As Mr. Cui sang “Nothing to My Name” onscreen, the audience clapped and
sang along. Grainy 1980s footage showed fleets of bicyclists moving through
Beijing. Many in the audience wore red bandannas above their 3-D glasses, in
homage to “A Piece of Red Cloth,” another favorite of the era by Mr. Cui.
At the first bars, they passed a giant red banner hand to hand overhead.
Both songs, which Mr. Cui, wearing a red blindfold, performed for the
students occupying Tiananmen in May 1989, became the soundtrack for those
whose lives were forever changed by the military suppression of the protests
that June 4.
The film’s producers, Bai Qiang, 43, who was in the square in 1989, and
Michael Peyser of the United States, hope to release “Transcendence” in
theaters next month. They face formidable obstacles. Theater operators tend
to favor the Hollywood blockbusters currently dominating the Chinese box
office. And in June the government typically discourages any discussion of
the violent 1989 crackdown, which ended with the deaths of untold numbers of
civilians.
Interrupting the screening, Mr. Bai and a China Central Television
commentator invited the audience to reflect on Mr. Cui’s music.
Cheng Lin, a popular singer, recalled her early friendship with Mr. Cui. “
We had nothing, but we had a sense of ourselves,” she said. “Cui Jian’s
lyrics shook the whole country.”
Through most of the 1990s, Mr. Cui, whose lyrics were seen as challenging
authority, was blocked from large-scale public performances. He and his band
persisted, however, playing in hotels and restaurants.
In 1993, Mr. Cui and the filmmaker Zhang Yuan co-produced “Beijing Bastards
,” with Mr. Cui playing himself, an underground rock musician whose
applications for public performance permits are repeatedly rejected. The
film was never released in China. Occasionally in those days, however, Mr.
Cui snubbed the unwritten ban. In 1997, he gave a concert at the French
Embassy, and Chinese fans climbed the gate, willing to risk arrest to see
their hero play live.
Over the past decade, though, as the Chinese music industry expanded to
large modern venues, promoters approached Mr. Cui to headline concerts where
tickets could run as high as 1,800 renminbi, or nearly $300, each. He was
allowed to play many but not all of his songs.
Meanwhile, China’s younger rock scene leapfrogged into the Internet era
with punk bands like Subs or Hedgehog. Mr. Cui, the onetime spokesman for
disaffected youth, was seen increasingly as a figure from an earlier time.
Some critics accused Mr. Cui of selling out to the government-run culture
system, with appearances on state television, in a effort to reach a broader
audience. But, Mr. Bai said, “a taboo around him persists.” Mr. Cui taped
a performance for the CCTV Internet Spring Festival Gala this year, but the
segment was never shown.
“He’s suffered so much for his art, but it’s made him who he is,” Ms.
Cheng said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of in this man. There’s simply
nothing more important than to be able to express yourself through music.”
The CNN correspondent Jaime A. FlorCruz, who reported for Time magazine in
China in the 1980s, remembered Mr. Cui emerging on the scene just after the
British singer George Michael and his band became the first Western pop act
to tour China, in 1985.
“I remember how tense it was when Wham! played Beijing. Everybody was stony
-faced, including some cadres, who were trying to figure out what was going
on. Then there were all the police,” Mr. FlorCruz said after the screening.
“Then came Cui. He was the man who broke all the rules, broke the mold of
Chinese rock.”
The investor and philanthropist Charles Xue Manzi, who sponsored the
screening, said of “Nothing to My Name,” “I’d never heard a song so pure
and direct. We were taken by Cui Jian’s sound because he’s a pure artist.
He could be a superstar, but he’s always refused to commercialize his art.
”
David Wang, 21, a singer who has performed with Mr. Cui, leaped up, grabbed
the microphone and improvised a staccato rap exhorting other members of the
audience to “rise up” to defend the spirit of Mr. Cui’s music.
Only after the testimonials had subsided and about half the screening
audience had left did Mr. Cui, now 50, stroll into the theater wearing a
black baseball cap and a rumpled black blazer.
In his gravelly voice, he said that while he was excited about the new film,
he hoped to make another one someday, one that might tell his whole story,
including interviews and songs that he said were excluded from “
Transcendence” by the censors.
“We did not insist because we had to negotiate in order to keep the rest of
the information on the screen,” he said.
Although “Transcendence” shows young Chinese in 1980s Beijing buying beer,
dancing and attending Mr. Cui’s concerts, there are no explicit references
to the events of 1989.
Asked why early plans to include interviews with Mr. Cui in the film were
scrapped, Mr. Bai said simply that including them proved “too complicated.
” He would not elaborate.
In a prescreening chat, Mr. Bai said he hoped bringing Mr. Cui’s music to a
broader audience might rekindle a spirit that could perhaps begin to tackle
some of the frustrations of life in modern China. He cited rampant
pollution and gridlock traffic but stopped short of mentioning corruption or
the fact that the Chinese government has never given a full account of the
events of May and June 1989.
“Many of us are much better off than we were, but we’re not necessarily
happier,” he said. “People my age will want to see this film to remind
them of a time when we felt we could make a difference.”
After the screening, Mr. Cui said that he had been urged to play at one of
Beijing’s outdoor music festivals this summer, much as he did in Central
Park in New York in 1999, but that he worried about his ability to engage a
younger audience — one that has had little exposure to the ferment that
surrounded his early career — without drawing too much unwanted official
attention.
“Young people aren’t so familiar with us,” Mr. Cui said. “Music,
especially rock, relates to people’s feelings, so people can relate to it
no matter how old they are. Rock is about people breaking through barriers.
Young people need this, and I hope that our music can give them that kind of
courage and that kind of feeling.”
“I hope that the space that we artists have for creative freedom will
expand,” Mr. Cui said. “That’s the only way we can be useful and fulfill
our responsibility. Some see my behavior as destabilizing, like an element
of social unrest, like I’m being critical of limits or being antisocial.
There’s that kind of attitude, but it’s a backward one. I hope that sooner
rather than later things will open up.” | r****r
发帖数: 6957 | 2 so长，看得好累
Gymnasium
【在 R*******e 的大作中提到】
: 还是老崔。还是没来得及看。
: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/world/asia/echoes-of-tiananme
: Cui Jian, a musician whose songs embodied the spirit of hope and protest
: among young people in China in 1989, rehearsed at Beijing Workers Gymnasium
: before performing a 3D rock concert. The concert has has been made into a
: film, called "Transcendence."
: By JONATHAN LANDRETH
: Published: May 17, 2012
: BEIJING — On May 9, 1986, a classical trumpeter turned rock guitarist
: belted out “Nothing to My Name” at Beijing Workers Gymnasium, unaware that
| R*******e
发帖数: 25533 | 3
估计大家都木时间看，鹿鹿你看了给大家传达下精神吧
【在 r****r 的大作中提到】
: so长，看得好累
:
: Gymnasium
| r****r
发帖数: 6957 | 4 木啥新鲜观点
不过知道了一无所有英文名是Nothing to My Name，很有收获，赫赫
【在 R*******e 的大作中提到】
:
: 估计大家都木时间看，鹿鹿你看了给大家传达下精神吧
| R*******e
发帖数: 25533 | 5
衰神走干净了没？
【在 r****r 的大作中提到】
: 木啥新鲜观点
: 不过知道了一无所有英文名是Nothing to My Name，很有收获，赫赫
| r****r
发帖数: 6957 | 6 敲敲木头---好像走了
为啥今天这破网这么慢
【在 R*******e 的大作中提到】
:
: 衰神走干净了没？
| R*******e
发帖数: 25533 | 7
我这里一天好好的啊，莫非鹿鹿你也有了帮主当年的气场了？
【在 r****r 的大作中提到】
: 敲敲木头---好像走了
: 为啥今天这破网这么慢
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