Director Wayne Wang

We just have a taste for you today of a larger interview that is going to come to you sometime during the following week. This piece is with director Wayne Wang on behalf of his beautiful film Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which concerns a young Chinese woman named Yilan and her relationship with her father, who has come to visit her in America for the first time upon hearing that she has gotten divorced. The film is a masterpiece, incredibly subtle and moving, and for half an hour he and I discuss the film and those in it, including the two Mormons, the blonde forensic scientist, and, of course, Yilan and her father. We discuss teenagers and teenage tastes. We discuss Obama. Have fun.

Hi!
So you’re still in high school?

Yeah.
Okay, good! [laughter] You know, in Princess of Nebraska [the companion film to Thousand Years], the leading lady was in high school when we filmed her. The producer and I had to go to the principal to get permission. Anyway, the principal made us promise that she would still study hard and get good grades and graduate.

Yeah, well, I’m sure it made filming more difficult too because of the restricted number of hours [during which minors in entertainment are allowed to work].
Well, they released her for two weeks, at least, from school. Which was great.

So here you are in New York to promote—a different movie. To promote A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. You like New York?
I love New York. I actually live here part of the time; I have an apartment here which I actually got years ago when we were doing some other films here. And I’ve worked here a lot too. I shot two or three films here. So I love New York. But it’s changing! [laughs]

I’m not sure I can offer much input on that. I’m too young to have experienced the change!
Yeah? What part of town do you live in?

I live in Brooklyn.
Yeah? Well, Brooklyn is changing too. Even when you were younger.

Oh, yeah!
Yeah. Anyway.

So where do you live the other part of the time? Don’t you live on the West Coast?
I live in San Francisco, where my mother and mother-in-laws are. And they’re getting pretty old, so this last year we had to do a lot to sort of take care of them.

Well, San Francisco’s a beautiful city.
Yes. I like it there too, so I’m very lucky! [laughs]

So your movie A Thousand Years of Good Prayers was based on a short story of the same name. How did you find that short story?
Well, I’m very good friends with the editor for Francis Ford Coppola’s magazine All-Story. His name is Michael Ray, and he reads almost everything and almost everything comes across his path. And he told me that this young—well, [the author in question, Yiyun Li] is not young any more. She’s thirty and she’s got two kids—

Well, that’s young to everybody but me! [laughter]
Well, okay! It’s young to me, too. And you’re really young! No, she lives in the Bay Area, she finished this collection of short stories that’s about to be published, and she teaches at Mills. And [Michael Ray] said I should read Thousand Years. And I really liked it. It resonated in so many ways for me. And then I talked to her about writing the screenplay for the movie. Well, I worked with her. I sort of talked her through what worked for me, what didn’t work, what were the different elements we needed. Yeah.

Well, the movie that’s come out of it is this really delicate piece and it deals a lot with both the father-daughter relationship and also language barriers. And I read that you were drawn to the story because you saw yourself in the father-daughter dynamic?
Yeah. I was more the daughter in this case. [laughs] I came up to America on my own, and even though I went back to visit a few times, my father didn’t come over to me until maybe ten or twelve years later. And by that time I’d become pretty American—learned a new language, a new culture. And it was very difficult dealing with my father, especially over dinners, and he asked a lot of probing questions about things, and I just didn’t really want to answer sometimes. And I know he was also kind of looking through my things in the house when I was gone during the day. And there were a lot of conflicts growing up. So those are the kinds of things that all really kind of made me like the story and really get inside that story.

Yeah. I mean, I’m not familiar with the original short story; are there story elements that you added?
There we some things we changed. We didn’t have a whole lot added. For example, the lover was Romanian instead of Russian, and we made his role a little less also. We made him Russian because in Spokane, where we were filming, there were actually more Russians. And the Chinese and the Russians were very connected with each other. So I thought it would be a better metaphor, in a way, about their past together. And the ending with the Iranian woman was changed. In the book it ended more between him and the Iranian woman, but I didn’t want to end with that. I wanted to end with the father and the daughter. So those are the kinds of changes and things that we did.

So you shot in Spokane—was the original story purposely set in…?
It was set in Iowa, which is… the reason, when I spoke to Yiyun about it, was that she wanted it in a very sort of nondescript middle American town. And Spokane is very much like that too, and there happened to be a production company that could help me make the movie really cheap there! [laughter]

Of course, there’s the subplot of the father’s language barrier and his struggling to improve his English while in America. So how did you approach that?
Well, that was a lot from the actor [Henry O], who’s very anal with that stuff. Because he knew English really well and Chinese really well, he was constantly trying to figure out, “If I spoke Chinese and English, what would I do wrong?” So he was making that work, and he’d constantly send me pages of these things. So that’s basically how we worked at it a lot. And I used to teach English as a second language, so I knew enough about what kinds of things the Chinese tend to make mistakes on and stuff like that. But the other part that I find really interesting is when he speaks in Mandarin and she speaks in Farsi, and I consciously didn’t subtitle it, because I want the audience to be in the same position as they are as characters and understand each other through the body language and the music of the language, rather than in specifics.

Right, because each one can only understand the other so much, whereas between the father and the daughter there are subtitles because they can both understand everything because they’re speaking the same language.
Right, but on a more universal level there’s certain things that people can also understand quite a bit.

Right.
Where are you from originally? You look—

Brooklyn. [laughs]
Brooklyn, but your parents are from…?

Uh… my parents were raised in the U.S., but heritage-wise, my dad is Eastern European Jewish and my mom’s half-Irish and half-European mutt.
Okay. [laughs] Yeah, you’re complete Europe. Everything.

I’ve been told often that I look Russian, and I’m actually not at all. But nobody guesses I’m a quarter Irish.
Yeah. That’s a tough one. It’s not obvious that you’re Rus—I mean, Irish. [laughter]

Wow, I completely forgot what I was going to ask. Oh! Here’s something that caught my attention: when the father is going around the complex and visiting the neighbors, he meets a blonde woman lying by the pool in a bikini, and she looks very young and happy-go-lucky and so-on but it turns out she’s a—
Forensic scientist, yeah. Well, part of the thing about shooting in Spokane was that there are very few actors in Spokane and they couldn’t afford to bring in good actors from L.A. or New York. So I asked a casting person to just bring in real people that are interesting. The Mormons are real Mormons, the two guys. And the woman was somebody that came in and said, “Oh, I just finished a forensic science major and I couldn’t get a job because there’s not enough dead bodies in this town.” [laughter] And she just gabbled on just like [her character in the film does] at the pool.

So you just wrote it in?
I just wrote it in. So, yeah, a lot of that’s just a reflection of a certain aspect of that town. It’s not that eccentric, so to speak, but it’s very much that town.

And the way you’re describing it, taking different residents of Spokane—that calls to mind the way that Gus Van Sant casts his movies largely from Portland.
Right. I love his films. I love the ones in which he works that way, in Portland, Oregon, and it reminds me of Fargo, where they shot it and used a lot of real people. I think it’s a really interesting way to work.

Do you cast this way often, or was this sort of a new thing?
This was kind of a new thing. And I was forced into it, like I said, because I couldn’t afford to bring in good actors, and I went, “This is going to be really bad, so could we look for some interesting people?” [laughs] So, you know, it happened by accident. I was forced into it, yeah.

Well, it worked!
Yeah, it really did! In the script, you know, Yiyun really wrote in a lot of very interesting, eccentric Middle American people, so that was the inspiration.

So, for example, were you looking specifically for Mormons, or were you looking for random people and the Mormons came up?
Well, some were random. The Mormons were very specific, because there was a very long scene written, and I had actors read them and it just didn’t feel right. You know, the Mormons are so committed in a very—I don’t know how to say it—a very innocent way, almost, and it comes across in how they are, and no actor could duplicate that, really. So I thought that the two guys [that we cast] were great. They read the script, they believed in it, they made some changes for their own purposes and they just did it. They got a standing ovation from the crew afterwards. And they drank a lot of ice water too. They were like, “Do we have to drink this again?” when, yes, it was another take, so they did have to drink it again. Anyway!

Yeah. I mean, the scene with the two Mormons is a very interesting scene especially because when you have people coming door-to-door you usually say “No, thank you.” And the father opens the door and he invites them in.
Yeah, he’s equally naïve, too.

Yeah, he’s naïve, but it also invites the audience to see that from a different perspective. And it’s not the largest part of the movie, but it’s an interesting side effect of telling the father’s story.
Absolutely. And it also, in a way, expresses his loneliness and his isolation and the connection that he finds with these two guys who are from another planet, so to speak—but he connected with them by saying, “Oh yuck, young communists.” Which I find so fascinating.

Well, you’ve got the way that he approaches new people that he hasn’t met before and then you contrast it with the relationship that he has with his daughter. And even though he still isn’t a shouter or a loud person, his relationships with new people are still very different.
Right, because somehow he was still able to communicate with them. I mean, he’s kind of a talker, and he kind of likes to make things up a little bit. But with the daughter it gets so serious and intense—on both of their parts. I think she brings it out of him, so that it always becomes this very tense sort of silence.

Right. And there’s even a part of the movie where they’re discussing happiness as measured by how much somebody talks, and he says, “If you’re happy, you’re going to want to talk to people,” and she says, “You were silent once. Does that mean you were unhappy too?”
No, those are great lines. Those are great lines. Exactly from the book. I love those lines. You know, that same conversation happened at different times at dinners with my parents. You know, I just have nothing to say sometimes, and they would say, “Is something upsetting you? Are you unhappy? If you’re not unhappy why aren’t you talking?” It’s exactly those kinds of conversations.

And even though Yilan is insisting you don’t have to talk to be happy, at the same time, the silence between them versus when she’s on the phone with one of the friends—is it the Russian who calls her?
It’s the Russian.

Right, it’s the Russian, and she’s talking, and even her dad talks more with strangers, so it’s kind of like being around each other makes them tense enough as to—they feel less happy around each other.
That kind of feeds on itself that way. And I think the history of what he went through and how it affected her mother and her always kind of is the subconscious thing behind it. Yeah.

And it’s interesting because he himself says, “I wasn’t a good father.” He admits this to the Iranian woman.
I think he feels bad about it. I think he’s admitting that he’s been irresponsible. And at the same time I find it interesting that as much as she has problems with her father, she’s also reliving her father’s life in a way. She’s having an affair with a married man, and replaying that history, you know? She’s so full of contradictions that I like her a lot! [laughs] Her bed is half filled with books, which says a lot about someone’s life, and I like the fact that she is so controlling in a way and yet has not control over her life. When the Russian lover calls, she’s so happy. You know, she’s so waiting for those calls. But she has no control over that. Anyway! But do you think high school students would enjoy the film like you do? [laughs]

Well, I think some of them would! I think it depends. I mean, some of them would rather watch Hannah Montana! [laughter] Not knocking Hannah Montana, of course, because I watch it sometimes.
Right, I do too! I do too. I have to sort of understand that world, so… [laughter]

Well, you know, Disney Channel has its merits! But there are plenty of high school students that would love a film like this.
Right. Especially in a city like this, where people all have kind of an immigrant background anyway. And the relationship between yourself and your parents—I’m sure there’s certain similarities.

I feel like high school students are often underestimated, though, in terms of taste. And even those who do have lowbrow taste have appreciation for finer things as well.
But I have to say that’s more the two coasts. If you go to the heartlands of America… uh. My heart sinks. You know, I won’t go there. You know? [laughter]

Well, I think in any city you’re going to be exposed to more culture than if you’re in a little town in the middle of nowhere. Like, Chicago’s in the middle of the country, but—
Well, Chicago’s pretty sophisticated.

Well, that’s what I’m saying. It’s in the middle of the country, but a high schooler there is going to be more culturally educated than a high schooler in the middle of… the closer you are to those sorts of things, the more you absorb them, I think. But then those who don’t have that exposure drag down others’ opinions of all of us. So… [laughs]
So are you enthusiastic and hopeful about Obama?

I… yes!
Good!

I used to be a Hillary supporter, but then I switched, because I disapproved of the way she was running her campaign. Wait, wait, I’m the interviewer here! I should be asking the questions!
All right, all right! That’s what I’m—I hate to be answering questions always. I have to ask questions sometimes. But okay!

Well, let me turn the tables on you. What do you think about Obama?
I like him. I think he’s a breath of fresh air. I think he has to take some clearer stances about issues. That’s where he needs to go now, and I really would look forward to that.

I think, because he’s such a strong public speaker, it’s easy to forget what his stances actually are. But he’s getting a lot of younger people into politics, which is great!
No, I hope all the young people will go out and vote. It’s really important. And, if anything else, that’s the most important thing for America right now. And I hope they all go see A Thousand Years of Good Prayers! [laughter]

You're allowed to say that; it's your interview! Well, though, I think Obama has engaged young people more thoroughly than any candidate before other than—and I wouldn’t even know this, but maybe JFK.
Um… yeah, but not as much.

And even though MTV is still going strong and all of that, I think teenagers are becoming more aware of the other cultural stuff out there. But maybe that’s just me, because I’m biased.
I think there’s a certain percentage of young people that are like you, and then there’s other ones that either don’t care or are maybe very religious or whatever.

Okay. So, anything else?
There is another film called Princess of Nebraska—

Oh, right, I knew there was something I forgot to ask you!
It’s the sister film to this, and we’re going to figure out a way to release both of them at the same time on different platforms.

Right. It is based on another short story written by the same author?
Same author, short story, from the same book. It’s very different. It’s about a young girl who’s nineteen and she’s four months pregnant and she’s trying to deal with that. It’s about twenty-four hours in her life, dealing with that.

Was that also filmed in Spokane?
No, it was filmed in San Francisco. She actually goes to school in Nebraska; that’s why she calls herself the “princess of Nebraska”. But she doesn’t want to get an abortion in the middle of nowhere, she says, and she’s always wanted to see San Francisco, so she goes there. So that’s the story. And it’s really like a mirror to A Thousand Years, because in A Thousand Years you’ve got Yilan, who in a way is running from her own past and her own history and her own culture. And here you’ve got a younger woman who doesn’t really have a past and an identity. She actually identifies with Paris Hilton a lot.

[laughs] Oh god.
She says, “I like her; I think she says what she wants; she does what she wants.” That’s an exact quote from the movie.

Oh boy. [laughter]
But she learns! Through the movie. Yeah.

If Paris Hilton is your idol, and that’s caught onscreen, I should hope that you learn! [laughter] And so that’s a companion film to this one.
Yeah. It’ll be released on some kind of parallel platform. I don’t quite know yet. Maybe on the internet, for free even, or maybe it might be in a movie theater downtown or something.

Are there still movie theaters that do double features, or is that pretty much gone?
That’s pretty much gone. I wanted that. In France they’re going to do that with these two films and I really liked that; here, apparently, economically it’s not feasible. The last time Quentin Tarantino did it, it was a big disaster.

Grindhouse. Was it really? I never heard how it went. I was rooting for it!
If it had gone well, then that might have made a comeback. But they weren’t very good films to begin with!

Well, I’d been planning on seeing Grindhouse but I see movies so rarely that I ended up not seeing it, and now I should have been there helping it!
Yep! [laughter]

Well… cinema’s changin’.
Yeah, it is.

A lot of the smaller cinemas are just… [a slitting motion across the throat]
Well, I was just talking with someone about how independent cinema in America is pretty depressing. You know, some of the really interesting stuff doesn’t really get shown, or when it gets shown it just gets shoved aside. I think there needs to be a new venue of some kind, which I think is coming. I think that cameras are so accessible now for young people to do things, and it needs to go on the internet, now, because it’s distributed in the different way. To get a film out in theatres is too expensive.

Yeah, that’s the thing. There’s still independent film but it’s got to be shot for $5 because it’s got to be shown in the internet or else nobody’s going to see it.
But that’s happening right now. And that’s one of the things we’re trying to do for Princess of Nebraska.

Go see the film if you can find it playing near you; it's well worth a trip. Meanwhile, look it up on IMDb.