For a wild creator, her ambitions may have only just begun to manifest.
This week, Zhao Ting, who was nominated for Best Director at the 78th Golden Globe Awards for "Nowhere", announced that she will participate in the vampire-themed sci-fi western "Dracula" developed by Universal Pictures as a director, screenwriter and producer. ". Not long ago, she just finished filming the Marvel movie "The Eternals".
This is reminiscent of a description of her by New York University professor Gail Segal when "The Knight" was released in 2018, "a bit like a dark horse, with a warm heart but a very cold eye."
For a wild creator, her ambitions may have only just begun to manifest.
Before entering the film industry, Zhao Ting majored in political science at Mount Holyoke College in a small town in Massachusetts . This is a women's liberal arts college founded in 1837 by the pioneer of women's education, Mary Lyon . She described the school as "inspiring, where I don't have to raise my voice to get attention."
But she slowly began to sense that her enthusiasm for a career in politics or law was waning.
" I'm constantly not on the right side of history . I'll sympathize with a soldier in an enemy camp, a soldier who was drafted. He has a mother, he's scarred, and he has hope and dreams...I want to follow their stories."
After graduating, she realized her boundless quest for storytelling, especially telling others the untold stories she found in the world around her.
This is not the first time Zhao Ting has "run away". In her own words, she has always been an "outsider" and is often attracted to "outsiders".
Zhao Ting was born in Beijing in 1983. She has expressed to people that she feels she is being "bound by an ancient culture" - expected to be a certain kind of person. "I want to go to a place with Michael Jackson , and many people think so." She grew up watching American movies "Ghosts", "Nuns Are Crazy" and "Terminator" on TV.
She began to yearn for the West, even farther than the West, the "West".
At the age of 15, Zhao Ting, who barely spoke English, was sent to boarding school in England, and soon she began to have fantasies about New York. Three years later, she moved to New York. She bought a skateboard to go to high school and worked as a bartender at a local bar. While studying film at NYU, she decided to set off again because of a photo of the South Dakota landscape in National Geographic .
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota , she made her first film, "Songs My Brother Taught Me."
Coincidentally, Zhao Ting's favorite director Terrence Malick's virgin "Badlands" ( Badlands ) was also filmed in South Dakota. Years later, Malick reviewed Zhao Ting's "Nowhere to Be" sample.
Despite the media rife with Native American stereotypes and foreign directors often notorious for their romantic fantasies of the American West, Zhao Ting maintains a sense of sobriety about the "wanderers" and "eccentrics" on the city fringes of curiosity. Besides, she enjoys being reminded by the real experience that there are other ways of life in this world.
"I want to put aside all the identities I've accumulated and go to a place where no one knows me so I can figure out who I am...I don't get caught up in an identity and let an identity shape my being. "
She has been on an Aboriginal reservation for quite some time. She believes that “the media portrays culture very differently from reality, people are still full of energy and vitality, and I am attracted by their strength and generosity, humor and spirituality. It is more complicated than distinguishing between right and wrong.”
Zhao Ting's interest in the "exile" theme may have been earlier. In 2018, she revealed in an interview with Vogue that she fell in love with Wong Kar-wai's "Happy Birthday" in her early years, and said it was a movie that changed her life.
Film critic John Powers , who co-authored The Big Red Book with Wong Kar-wai, described Zhao Ting as "a cheerful person who likes to spend her spare time hiking and camping. She is easygoing and wears a fake blue Color sweater, ripped jeans, moccasins, and often holding an oversized household water bottle.”
Zhao Ting and Bowers made an appointment to visit the Autry Museum of the American West opposite Griffith Park . This is a Los Angeles museum dedicated to exploring the history of the American West.
Admiring the beautifully decorated shotgun handle, she discussed the weight of the deerskin coat with Powers.
After the success of "Knight" in 2018, Zhao Ting paid off her student loans and joined the Directors Guild of America, receiving medical insurance for the first time. She and her boyfriend, photographer Joshua James Richards , who worked on three of her films , brought two cattle dogs adopted from the Western Reserve from Denver . Moved to Ojai . There, she also kept three chickens.
Ojai is a small town with a population of only about 8,000 100 kilometers north of Los Angeles in the United States. Its Indian meaning is "Moon Valley". This town has been featured in countless western movies.
Zhao Ting told The Hollywood Reporter , "I've spent a lot of time in South Dakota, and actually, I think it would be better to be quiet because the industry is very noisy. So if I could go back to David Lin I'd feel very at ease living in a strange street, like the one in Blue Velvet ."
This casual and natural "wildness" has made Zhao Ting very popular in the independent film industry. In 2020, she wore loose braids and a Hogwarts long-sleeved T-shirt for an online Q&A session at the Toronto Film Festival . "I haven't been to a hair salon in five years," she said.
Frances McDormand , who shares Zhao Ting's temperament , said they both like to wear comfortable overalls. She suggested she wear her own clothes for the print shoot, along with a dog-print wool coat she bought at an RV show in Arizona.
To this "wild" partner, Zhao Ting said half-jokingly, "I just like that she can pronounce my surname, which is so rare, her pronunciation is perfect."
After "Nowhere" won the Golden Lion Award in one fell swoop, the country began to report the story of "Wild Child", and they said that she was a true American.
Today, her parents, whom she calls her "best friend," and her much-loved 98-year-old grandmother still live in Beijing, keeping in touch via WeChat.
As the only child, Zhao Ting said that unlike many Chinese of her generation, she was not spoiled by them. She was grateful, but she also felt that they had high expectations for another thing. She started asking friends over and over whether they should refer to Richards as "boyfriend", "partner" or "partner" and she said, One less false hope for my parents to think they'll get their grandkids soon!
On the other hand, Zhao Ting admitted, "I'm afraid of wasting other people's time and money. This is a very Chinese thing, and I don't like to owe others things."
A minute later, she corrected her statement. "Maybe I need to find a balance and live a little real life, but I've been trapped in the fear of disappointing for so long."
After she finished speaking, she smiled and felt that she sounded like a good daughter in a Chinese family.
Written/Editor: Roslie Liu
REFERENCE
1. How Chloé Zhao Reinvented the Western, Vogue, by John Powers, Mar 22, 2018
2. Director Chloe Zhao Arrives With Early Oscar Contender 'Nomadland' and Next Year's 'Eternals': "It's a Bit Surreal" , The Hollywood Reporter, by Rebecca Keegan, Sep. 2020
3. Early Oscar Favorite Chloé Zhao on Nomadland and a Career on the Rise , Vanityfair by Sandi Tan, Nov. 2020
4. Chloé Zhao and Alfonso Cuarón on the Quiet Compassion of Making a Movie, Interview magazine, by Alfonso Cuaron , Dec. 2020
View more about Nomadland reviews
