WKW autuer

• Wong is known for writing on the set and changing the script either the night before the shoot or even at the shoot.

  He writes as his inspiration strikes.
• 'I am writing all the time. It means that the film is not an organic form. its not fixed.' Wong Kar Wai
• For Wong, being on set opens up possibilities for him that a pre-written script would not let him see.
• What does location influence in Wongs' films?

  Locations influence creative angles, colour palettes or story ideas
• Wong admits he assumed and wanted to be as systematic and organized as Alfred Hitchcock.
• What can his constant changing of the script cause?

  Going over scheldule

  Going over the budget

  Time moving erratically

  Narrative skips and jumps
• Interlinked Characters

  Whilst most directors begin with a storyline and then establish the characters as the story progresses, Wong takes the characters as a starting point and then develops the story based on what the characters would do.
• Wong considers the characters as more important than the story
• What does Wong believe about his characters?

  Since they are coming from him, they cannot have different personality and thus cannot be entirely seperated.

  Perhaps, this is why we feel his characters have common traits and are interlinked.
• What are some primal elements of his aesthetic?

  Artistic style and setting

  Unconventional shots

  Canted angles

  Lighting
• Who are Wongs cinematographers?

  Andrew Lau and Christopher Doyle
• Christopher Doyle became Wongs cinematographer for a majority of his movies, he understood the 'sense of loss' and 'things falling apart' that Wong sought to convey.
• What themes does WKW explore?

  Lonliness (Michelle)

  Unrequited love (Blondie, Zhiwu + Charlie, Michelle + Chi Ming)

  Invasion of personal space (Zhiwu)

  Uncertainty

  Conflict

  Escape from reality

  Hong Kong's socio-political enviroment
• The transciency of relationships

  All the characters in WKW films eventually come to accept the fact that all relationships will eventually end

  'she will reach her destination' and 'i know i'm getting off soon'

  End scene is a good example of this: like the cig smoke 'relationships form like the puff of smoke, but then quickly lose their cohesion and the particles of smoke quickly drift apart.'

  Additionally, the shot of the skyscrapers can be interpretated as the transient nature of Hong Kong.
• Bathos provided by bus scene after the drama of the first hit sequence
• WKW subverts traditional models of meaning and effect through his use of humour: bus sequence, introduction to Ho: pig sequence and ice cream sequence
• Step Printing is the duplication of every other film frame, stretching the running time of the sequence and creating a slowmotion effect.
• Wong's films narrate Hong Kongs reality, whilst Hong Kong's reality disallows a linear articulation.
• Wongs vision is influenced by the city, but the city itself is constructed by his vision.
• Fallen Angels is a series of out of sequence events of the charaters whose lives intersect and overlap at different moments: peicing together a spiraled puzzle that essentially confronts the subject of 'identity' in its shifting, erratic and unstable nature.
• Wong uses black and white shots contrasted with the use of violently neon shots of a nocturnal Hong Kong.

  Indicative of a relationship to a region whose identity is fragmented.
• 'Chinese cinema was made for their own community, it was for propoganda. Hong Kong made films to entertain, and they know how to communicare with international audiences.'
• 'my films are never about what HK is like, or anything approaching a realistic portrait, but what i think about HK and what i want it to be.' WKW.
• His unconventional use of slow motion, closeups an musical refrains distinguishes him from a more traditional style of filmmaking.
• Deleuzian coneption of the image of time
• Wong has a particular interest in the transience of love